mT. 74.] TO J. D. HOOKER. 761 
I am well, — can hardly be said to need the holiday 
we have determined on. . . . We shall benefit much, 
I think probable, by getting off to meet the spring, 
avoiding February-April here, which are the only 
drawbacks to a climate of the best: for you know I 
do not at all dislike summer heat. 
We have not troubled ourselves much as to where 
we would go. But now it does seem that we will go 
to the southern part of California, if possible by the 
southern Arizona route, which is near the Mexican 
boundary, and must be best for winter, and to return 
by the route through the northern part of Arizona, 
which should be pleasant in the latter part of April. 
Oh, that you and Lady Hooker could be with us... . 
And we shall be lonely without you on our travels, 
and feel that “that great principle of the survival of 
the fittest’ has been woefully violated. .. . 
Crry or Mexico, Sunday, February 22, 1885. 
Your letter of January 20, forwarded from Cam- 
bridge, overtook us at San Antonio, Bexar. We 
left home February 3, in bitter cold, for St. Louis, 
where I had an interview with old Shaw, and heard 
him read his rearranged will, which is satisfactory, 
as it will allow his trustees, and the corporation of 
Washington University there, to turn his bequests to 
good account for botany ; will be an endowment quite 
large enough for the purpose. 
Thence, rail— two nights and a day —to Mobile, 
where it was warm and springlike, but no flowers out, 
barring an early violet. Thence to New Orleans, which 
has a great exposition and a crowd, and where, in a 
sudden change to cold, I caught a dreadful cold. It 
began with such a hoarseness that, going, Mrs. G. and 
