While it rained in the meadows where they were camped, they could see the snow covering the higher plains above them; on those plains the snow was more than a foot deep, and yet the plants and shrubs seemed to thrive in the midst of the snow.
On the mountains the snow was several feet in depth.

The journalist says: "So that within twenty miles of our camp we observe the rigors of winter cold, the cool air of spring, and the oppressive heat of midsummer." They kept a shrewd lookout for the possibilities of future occupation of the land by white men; and, writing here of country and its character, the journalist says: "In short, this district affords many advantages to settlers, and if properly cultivated, would yield every object necessary for the comfort and subsistence of civilized man." But in their wildest dreams, Captains Lewis and Clark could not have foreseen that in that identical region thrifty settlements of white men should flourish and that the time would come when the scanty remnant of the Chopunnish, whom we now call Nez Perces, would be gathered on a reservation near their camping-place.

But both of these things have come to pass.
In describing the dress of the Chopunnish, or Nez Perces, the journal says that tippets, or collars, were worn by the men.

"That of Hohastillpilp," says the journal, "was formed of human scalps and adorned with the thumbs and fingers of several men slain by him in battle." And yet the journal immediately adds: "The Chopunnish are among the most amiable men we have seen.

Their character is placid and gentle, rarely moved to passion, yet not often enlivened by gayety." In short, the Indians were amiable savages; and it is a savage trait to love to destroy one's enemies.
Here is an entry in the journal of May 19 which will give the reader some notion of the privations and the pursuits of the party while shut up in camp for weary weeks in the early summer of 1806:-- "After a cold, rainy night, during a greater part of which we lay in the water, the weather became fair; we then sent some men to a village above us, on the opposite side, to purchase some roots.