ly found among the North American Indians,
was very rare previous to the European conquest. Afterward, among the
commodities offered, were the broad silver pieces of the Spaniards, and
the old French and English silver coins. With the most mobile spirit
the Indian at once took them. He used them as he used his shell-beads,
for money and ornament. Native artificers were common in all the
tribes. The silver was beaten into rings, and broad ornamented silver
bands for the head. Handsome breast-plates were made of it; necklaces,
bells for the ankles, and rings for the toes.

It is not wonderful that Se-quo-yah's mechanical genius led him into
the highest branch of art known to his people, and that he became their
greatest silversmith. His articles of silverware excelled all similar
manufactures among his countrymen.

He next conceived the idea of becoming a blacksmith. He visited the
shops of white men from time to time. He never asked to be taught the
trade. He had eyes in his head, and hands; and when he bought the
necessary material and went to work, it is characteristic that his
first performance was to make his bellows and his tools; and those who
afterward saw them told me they were very well made.

Se-quo-yah was now in comparatively easy circumstances. Besides his
cattle, his store, and his farm, he was a blacksmith and a silversmith.
In spite of all that has been alleged about Indian stupidity and
barbarity, his countrymen were proud of him. He was in danger of
shipwrecking on that fatal sunken reef to American character,
popularity. Hospitality is the ornament, and has been the ruin, of the
aborigine. His home, his store, or his shop, became the resort of his
countrymen; there they smoked and talked, and learned to drink
together. Among the Cherokees those who have are expected to be liberal
to those who have not; and whatever weaknesses he might possess,
niggardliness or meanness was not among them.

After he had grown to man's estate he learned to draw. His sketches, at
first rude, at last acquired considerable merit. He had been taught no
rules of perspective; but while his perspective differed from that of a
European, he did not ignore it, like the Chinese. He had now a very
comfortable hewed-log residence, well furnished with such articles as
were common with the better class of white settlers at that time, many
of them, however, made by himself.

Before he reached his thirty-fifth year he became addicte