ese highly prized "Coras."

The women were as devoted to gambling as the men, and made flat trays
for this purpose. The dice were eight acorn shells, or half-walnut
shells, first daubed over inside with pitch, and then inlaid with little
shells which represented money.

I saw a tray and dice purchased most adroitly from an excited gambling
party, who were at the time too much intoxicated to know exactly what
they were doing. After it had been paid for the owner was implored to
sit down and gamble himself, hoping in this way to win more money and
get back the board. It was hard to withstand their forcible appeals, but
the man ran away, and was obliged to hide all night for fear of assault.
Squaws would sometimes bet pieces of flesh from their arms when their
money was gone, and many of them have been seen with rows of scars on
their arms for this reason. No basket can be finished by an Indian woman
until she has ceased to bear children. Then her work is done.

The Japanese are famous basket-makers, but they do not far excel the
best work found among these untutored workwomen.

Most curious of all is the fact that a _savant_ connected with the
Smithsonian Institute was amazed when examining a "buck," or man's
plaque, to find it almost exactly like one he had brought from northern
India--similar in weaving, size, and shading.

And a lady told me that she could make herself understood by those of a
certain tribe in Mexico by speaking to them in Sicilian. Which makes me
think of Joel Chandler Harris and his embarrassment, after publishing
his stories of "Uncle Remus," to receive letters from learned men at
home and abroad, inquiring how this legend that he had given was the
same as one in India, or Egypt, or Siam.

The art of basketry is rapidly deteriorating, and will soon be lost
unless Indian children in the reservation are taught something of the
old skill by their grandmothers, before the few now living depart for
that happy, unmolested hunting-ground they like to believe in, where I
do hope they will find a land all their own.

The Mexican drawn-work is seen everywhere for sale, and at moderate
prices--so moderate that any one is foolish to waste eyesight in
imitating it. Each stitch has a name, and is full of meaning to the
patient maker.

One can easily spend a good deal for curios, such as plaques, cups,
vases, napkin-rings, plates and toothpicks of orange wood, bark
pin-cushions, cat's-eye pins, etchings o