On the 20th of January, Mr.Hunt took leave of these friendly Indians, and of the river on which they encamped, and continued westward.
At length, on the following day, the wayworn travellers lifted up their eyes and beheld before them the long-sought waters of the Columbia.

The sight was hailed with as much transport as if they had already reached the end of their pilgrimage; nor can we wonder at their joy.

Two hundred and forty miles had they marched, through wintry wastes and rugged mountains, since leaving Snake River; and six months of perilous wayfaring had they experienced since their departure from the Arickara village on the Missouri.

Their whole route by land and water from that point had been, according to their computation, seventeen hundred and fifty-one miles, in the course of which they had endured all kinds of hardships.

In fact, the necessity of avoiding the dangerous country of the Blackfeet had obliged them to make a bend to the south and traverse a great additional extent of unknown wilderness.
The place where they struck the Columbia was some distance below the junction of its two great branches, Lewis and Clarke rivers, and not far from the influx of the Wallah-Wallah.