of Mr. William B.
Astor. This union, a very happy one, was not of long duration. After a
few years of married life, he was left a widower, with a daughter still
in infancy, who became the especial charge and darling of my sister
Louisa.

After an interval of some years, my brother married Miss Grimes of New
Orleans, a lady of uncommon beauty and talent. In the mean time we had
to mourn the death of our beloved father, whose sober judgment and
strong will had exercised a most salutary influence upon my brother's
sanguine temperament. He now became anxious to increase his income; and
this anxiety led him to embark in various speculations, which were not
always fortunate. He left the firm of Prime, 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 liberal reward
offered to any one who should discover his whereabouts. My brother and
his party were finally obliged to return to camp without him. This they
did very unwillingly, knowing that the chief's prolonged absence would
arouse the suspicions of his followers that he had met with
ill-treatment.

And so indeed it proved. Soon after their arrival at the settlement they
were told that the Indians were becoming much