After giving passage to Lewis' (Snake) River, near their northeastern extremity, they terminate in a high level plain between that river and the Kooskooskee.

The salmon not having yet called them to the rivers, the greater part of the Chopunnish are now dispersed in villages through this plain, for the purpose of collecting quamash and cows, which here grow in great abundance, the soil being extremely fertile, in many places covered with long-leaved pine, larch, and balsam-fir, which contribute to render it less thirsty than the open, unsheltered plains." By the word "cows," in this sentence, we must understand that the story-teller meant cowas, a root eaten by the Indians and white explorers in that distant region.

It is a knobbed, irregular root, and when cooked resembles the ginseng.

At this place the party met some of the Indians whom Captain Clark had treated for slight diseases, when they passed that way, the previous autumn.

They bad sounded the praises of the white men and their medicine, and others were now waiting to be treated in the same manner.