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The diary continues with Lewis Humphreys's next expedition, entitled 'Our Jorney (sic) to Montana', which carries on into the next diary. In March 1866 he took a steamboat for Fort Benton, paying $140 for cabin passage. This diary is written in a more lyrical style and there are vivid descriptions of the scenery and the "picturesque scenes cut out of the mountainside" he sees as the boat makes its way down the Missouri River. He mentions seeing men digging for coal, meeting other boats navigating the same river, getting stuck on sand bars; he recounts the loss of a passenger who fell overboard; describes an Indian cemetery and the many groups of Indians they pass, with a social comment on the laziness of the Bucks, leaving the Squaws to do the work and the children "playing in the dirt and mud like so many turtles". He makes clear his distain at the unfair behaviour of the captain and the clerk towards their passengers and their bad conduct. There are comments on the villages they call at, the condition of the soil and pasture in places and the bare hills, and historical anecdotes on the various Forts along the way. The diary ends on 29th June but the journey itself ended on 1st July when 'Mrs Helena', as the passengers fondly named the boat, reached Fort Benton. Lewis didn't make it as far as Montana, travelling instead by stage to Helena and Virginia City where he mined for gold and in September 1869 he went to Lawrence, KS where he sent his gold to the US Mint and earned $6000.
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