He formed a theory of certain relations in the language of the Indian tribes, and conceived the idea of writing a book on the points of similarity and divergence.  Books were, to a great extent, closed to him; but as of old, when he began his career as a blacksmith by making his bellows, so he now fell back on his own resources.  This brave Indian philosopher of ours was not the man to be stopped by obstacles.  He procured some articles for the Indian trade he had learned in his boyhood, and putting these and his provisions and camping equipage in an ox-cart, he took a Cherokee boy with him as driver and companion, and started out 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 proper medical attendance finished the work.  He sleeps, not far from the Rio Grande, the greatest of his race.

At one time Congress contemplated having his remains removed and a monument erected over them; it was postponed, however.

The Legislature of the Little Cherokee Nation every year includes in its general appropriations a pension of three hundred dollars to his widow—­the only literary pension paid in the United States.