xxxi] WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 153 



work-shops, the gardens, the greenhouses, the tree-nursery, 

 etc., which latter interested me most. 



I spent the afternoon at the hotel writing letters, and in 

 the evening I went to tea with President Fairchild — a regular 

 country high tea ; cold meat, oranges, strawberries, cakes, 

 weak green tea, etc. We talked politics, and especially pro- 

 hibition. Kansas, like Iowa, is a prohibition State ; had been 

 so seven or eight years. It had had a most beneficial effect — 

 not one-twentieth of the noise, dirt, and bad language formerly 

 met with. I had noticed myself how quiet was the hotel and 

 the streets in the evenings. The feeling in favour of pro- 

 hibition was increasing. Spirits were sold by druggists, with 

 mineral waters, etc.; but it was in the open shop, and did not 

 lead to drunkenness. And even this had been recently re- 

 stricted. The President had never heard of the Gothenburg 

 system, but thought it good in principle. Afterwards I gave 

 my lecture on " Darwinism," which went off well, and gave 

 much satisfaction. 



The next day, after dinner, Mr. Popenhoe came in his 

 buggy to show me some good botanizing ground, chiefly on 

 rather dry, rocky slopes with loose stones. Here we found a 

 fine dwarf, large-flowered form of Baptisia australis, besides 

 others seen on Sunday, and a number of very interesting 

 dwarf plants not yet in flower, including species of ruellia, 

 houstonia, echinacea, aster, delphinium, and others, which 

 make these banks very gay about the end of the month. 

 We also saw a phrynosoma, one of the curious lizards com- 

 monly known as "horned toads." A Californian species 

 which had been sent me by my brother, when irritated 

 ejects a red, blood-like secretion from its eye. Professor 

 Popenhoe had been in the Rocky Mountains, and told 

 me that flowers were very abundant, and that some of 

 the little valley-bottoms were complete flower gardens. I 

 received a letter from Colonel Phillips, whom I met at 

 Washington, and who invited me to stay a week with him 

 at Salina, a new town he had himself founded, and where he 

 was a large landowner. 



Next day (May 1 1) I went on to Salina in the afternoon, 



