228 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
made fun. The unpaved streets were too wide to be 
improved from the tax receipts of an only moderately 
well-to-do population. The City Directory was a thin 
pamphlet. There was a slave pen, and here and there 
rows of houses (some still standing) with low attics where 
the slaves were locked in, after a certain hour in the 
evening. 
The abundant trees of the present had not been 
planted, though there were a few elms on “The Avenue.” 
The summer sun heated the rough brick sidewalks to 
the baking point, and this warmth was given off liberally 
until midnight or later. Folks gathered in chairs on the 
sidewalks in the evenings; or visited between the groups 
seated on the verandahs of better-class houses. 
The less frequented streets afforded an abundant 
crop of grass, which was utilized by wandering domestic 
animals. 
It was all primitive, village-like, and yet not without 
charm. The suburb of Georgetown to the west across 
Rock Creek—older than Washington and more aristo- 
cratic, with narrow and closely built up streets and old- 
fashioned mansions with lawns and gardens—was con- 
nected with the capital city by a line of rumbling 
omnibuses. 
The Smithsonian building was on the Mall in south- 
west Washington, known as the “Island,” because sepa- 
rated by the shallow and odoriferous James Creek canal 
from the main part of the town. The Mall had been laid 
out by A. J. Downing, with fine taste, and was full of 
shrubbery, grass and trees, but was little cared for, so 
that in it birds and small beasts found haven. 
The building was on the south side, facing north; not 
then quite completed. It was approached by paths and 
