among the wild Indians of the plain and mountain, on a
philological crusade such as the world never saw.

One of the most remarkable features of his experience was the
uniform peace and kindness with which his brethren of the prairie
received him. They furnished him means, too, to prosecute his
inquiries in each tribe or clan. That they should be more sullen
and reticent to white men is not wonderful when we reflect that
they have a suspicion that all these pretended inquirers in
science or religion have a lurking eye to real estate. Several
journeys were made. The task was so vast it might have discouraged
him. He started on his longest and his last journey. There was
among the Cherokees a tradition that part of their nation was
somewhere in New Mexico, separated from them before the advent of
the whites. Se-quo-yah knew this, and expected in his rambles to
meet them. He had camped on the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; he
had threaded the valleys of New Mexico; looked at the adobe
villages of the Pueblos, and among the race, neither Indian nor
Spaniard, with swarthy face and unkempt hair. He had occasion to
moralize over those who had voluntarily become the slaves of
others even meaner than themselves, who spoke a jargon neither
Indian nor Spanish. Catholics in name, who ate red pepper pies,
gambled like the fashionable frequenters of Baden, and swore like
troopers.

It was late in the year 1842 that the wanderer, sick of a fever,
worn and weary, halted his ox-cart near San Fernandino, in
Northern Mexico. Fate had willed that his work should die with
him. But little of his labor was saved, and that not enough to aid
any one to develop his idea. Bad nursing, exposure, and lack of