284 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



to give great pleasure to those who are received. At 

 the close of a long and strenuous day, however, " the 

 receiving line," as it was called, found it rather trying 

 and gradually melted away, but, entering into the spirit 

 of the thing, Ramsay kept his place to the last. Next 

 day there were more lectures, two in the morning and 

 two in the afternoon, one of the latter being Ramsay's. 

 After the lectures came a garden party, dinner, a cham- 

 ber concert and a supper party, given specially to the 

 inaugural lecturers. The last began about eleven, and 

 the speeches which followed it lasted till dawn. They 

 were all good and interesting, and no one noticed how 

 the time had flown. The third day was appointed for 

 the real inauguration. Ramsay had been present at 

 several of the gatherings in this country to commemorate 

 centuries of university history, but none were more 

 impressive than this, looking forward to a great future. 

 As yet there was no large hall, so the ceremony took 

 place in the open air, in the shadow of the finest part of 

 the buildings. The wide extent of the Campus, typical 

 of the spacious years to come, the beauty of the buildings 

 against the background of the tropical vegetation and 

 the cloudless southern sky, the simplicity of the pro- 

 ceedings and the earnestness of all who took part in 

 them, made it different from anything ever experienced 

 before. There was first a short religious service, in 

 which ministers of all denominations took part. Then 

 Dr. Van Dyke read his beautiful ode on Texas, " The 

 State of the Lone Star," then one of the oldest settlers 



