THE CHEROKEE NATION 235 
tion being wrought among his people by the use of 
whiskey, did that which might have done honor to 
any civiHzed leader. Calling a council, he told the 
people that the only way to save their nation was 
to abandon the use of whiskey which he himself 
would do from that day, whereupon almost the 
whole tribe joined him, and although some fell from 
grace under temptation, there was a marked change 
for the better from that time. 
The easiest way to get into the Indian Country is 
from Whittier over the road that goes up the Ocono- 
lufty River to Cherokee, the principal Indian settle- 
ment, and where is a government school. Another 
and more picturesque though longer way, a distance, 
if one remembers rightly, of twenty-five miles, is to 
go from Waynesville through the Jonathan Creek 
Valley and over Soco Mountain by one of the most 
nearly impassable roads in the mountains. But by 
going this way one enters the Indian country from 
the primeval forest, which has a certain appropriate- 
ness. Jonathan Creek Valley, deep, and so narrow 
that the neighbors say the cobblers there have to 
sew their shoes lengthwise, lies close under the north 
end of the high Balsam Mountain, and is one of 
those quaint survivals of other days that makes one 
feel, upon entering it, as though a door had been shut 
on the modern world. The road follows up through 
the peaceful valley, past the picturesque houses with 
the cornfields showing above the roofs, and the gar- 
dens full of flowers, past the high-wheeled mills, and 
across the charming fords banked in laurel where 
