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Ward and King, and was one of the first who went to California after its cession to the United States.
The Indians were then in near proximity to San Francisco, and Uncle Sam, as he came to be called, went much among them, and became so well versed in their diverse dialects as to be able to act as interpreter between tribes unacquainted with each other's forms of speech.
He once wrote out and sent me some tenses of an Indian verb which had impressed him with its resemblance to corresponding parts of the Greek language.
I showed this to Theodore Parker, who considered it remarkable, and at once caused my brother to be elected as a member of some learned association devoted to philological research.
An anecdote of his experience with the Indians may be briefly narrated here.
He had been passing some time at a mining camp in the neighborhood of an Indian settlement, and had entered into friendly relations with the principal chief of the tribe.
Thinking that a trip to San Francisco would greatly amuse this noble savage, he with some difficulty persuaded the elders of the tribe to allow their leader to accompany him to the city, where they had no sooner landed than the chief slipped out of sight and could not be found.
Several days passed without any news of him, although advertisements were soon posted and a
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