read it to them; then the father retired, and the daughter wrote; the Indians were wonderstruck, but entirely satisfied. See-quah-yah then proposed that the tribe should select several youths, from among their brightest young men, that he might communicate the mystery to them. This was at length agreed to, and several were elected for this purpose. The tribes watched the youths for several months with anxiety, and when they offered themselves for examination, the feelings of all were wrought up to the highest pitch. The youths were separated from their master, and from each other, and watched with the greatest care. The uninitiated directed what master and pupil should write to each other, and the tests were viewed in such a manner as not only to destroy their infidelity, but most firmly to fix their faith. The Indians on this, ordered a great feast, and made See-quah-yah conspicuous at it He became at once schoolmaster, professor, philosopher, and chief.
He did not stop here, but carried his discoveries to numbers. He, of course, knew nothing of Arabic digits, nor the power of Roman letters in the science. The Cherokees had mental numerals to one hundred, and had words for all numbers up to that; but they had no signs nor characters to assist them in enumerating or adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing. He reflected upon this, until he had created their elementary principles in his mind, but he was at first obliged to make words to express his meaning, and then signs to explain it. By this process he soon had a clear perception of numbers up to a million. His great difficulty was the threshold — to fix the powers of his signs according to their places. When this was overcome, his next step was in adding his different numbers, in order to put down the fraction of the decimal, and give the whole number to the next place; but when Mr. Knapp knew him he had overcome all these difficulties, and was quite a ready arithmetician in the fundamental rules.
This ingenious Indian was not only an admirable mechanic, but Mr. Knapp states, that he had also a great taste for paintings. He mixed his colours with skill. For his drawings he had no model but what nature furnished, and he often copied them with astonishing faithfulness. His resemblances of the human form, it is true, were coarse, but often spirited and correct; and he gave action and sometimes grace, to his representations of animals. He had never seen a camel-hair pencil, when he made use of the hair of wild animals for his brushes. "The government of the United States," continues Mr. Knapp, " had a fount of type cut for this alphabet; and a Newspaper, called the Cherokee Phanix, printed partly is the Cherokee language, and partly in the English, was established at New Echota, and characterised by decency and good sense. Many of the Cherokees were able to read both languages." The Paper is about nineteen inches long, and twelve inches wide, in five columns. No. 34 is dated October 22, 1828. See Home's Introduction to Bibliography, for a curious representation of a North American Indian Gazette.
Having assigned, as I hope, a rational origin of the invention of language, I proceed to shew, that mankind had industriously invented other means of communicating their ideas, than merely by their voice, and their writing; not only that they might with freedom converse at a distance, but also, to enable them to preserve and transmit to posterity, the most valuable deeds and useful discoveries, made in the world; and before treating upon books generally, we must carry our thoughts back to a period, far more remote than that at which the art of printing became applicable to the making of books. The early inhabitants of the earth would naturally desire to perpetuate their useful discoveries, as
