1 66 MY LIFE [Chap. 



under circumstances that rendered doubt impossible. Senator 

 Stanford has shown himself throughout his life a man of 

 exceptional ability and intellectual vigour, and would hardly 

 be imposed upon in such a matter. 



Mr. Stanford met me at the station, and drove me to 

 his house, about a mile and a half. It is a large, roomy 

 cottage, luxuriously furnished, with very wide verandahs 

 shaded by trees and awnings, carpeted and furnished so as to 

 form open-air rooms, very delightful in a Californian summer. 

 The grounds are spacious and fairly wooded with some old 

 pines and large eucalypti, as well as many beautiful shrubs. 

 For some distance round the house there are grass lawns, as 

 green and smooth as any I have ever seen, with beautiful 

 borders and flower-beds, the whole kept in the most perfect 

 order by Chinese gardeners, with water laid on everywhere to 

 keep up the perpetual verdure during the six or seven months 

 of continuous heat and drought. 



In the house, as in the garden, all the servants are China- 

 men and boys, and both Mr. and Mrs. Stanford spoke of 

 them in the highest terms. One of these boys had charge of 

 her private rooms, and as they continually moved backward 

 and forward between this house and their mansion at San 

 Francisco, going and coming without notice, on her return 

 she always found everything in the most perfect order, and 

 has never missed the smallest article, though jewellery 

 was often left on her dressing-table. Mr. Stanford declared 

 that the Chinese had been the making of California, 

 doing all kinds of domestic work, gardening, and shop- 

 keeping when every European was rushing after gold. He 

 had incurred much obloquy on account of his opposition 

 to the anti-immigration laws and through his employing 

 Chinese servants, but had now, to a large extent, lived it 

 down. 



After dinner we drove out to see some of the other 

 millionaires' residences. The most remarkable of these was 

 Mr. Flood's — a kind of fairy palace built entirely of wood, 

 highly decorated with towers and pinnacles, and painted pure 

 white throughout. There were also fine grounds and gardens, 



