It is surprising to find such a general knowledge of the plants of their country as is met with among the Hopi. No doubt this wonder arises among those who live the artificial life of the cities. The Hopi is a true child of the desert and near to the desert's heart. His surroundings do not furnish clear streams, grassy meadows, and massy trees; there is much that is stern and barren at first glance, and there is a meagerness except in vast outlooks and brilliant coloring. Here Nature is stripped and all her outlines are revealed; the rocks, plains and mountains stand out boldly in the clear air. Still, in all this barrenness there is abundance of animal and vegetal life which has adapted itself to the semi-desert, and if one becomes for the time a Hopi, he may find in odd nooks and corners many things delightful both to the eyes and the understanding. There are few Hopi who do not know the herbs and simples, and some are familiar with the plants that grow, in the mountains and canyons, hundreds of miles from their villages. Even the children know many of the herbs, and more than once I have successfully asked them for their Indian names. This is not strange, because such things are a part of their education and in this way they are in advance of the majority of their civilized brothers. After a while the idea impresses one that the Hopi depend on the crops of Nature's sowing as much as on the products of their well-tilled fields. Many a time, as the legends tell, the people were kept from famine by the plants of the desert, which, good or bad seasons alike, thrust their gray-green shoots through the dry sands, a reminder of the basis of all flesh. Perhaps all the Hopi believe that the wild plants are most valuable for healing and religious purposes, for the plants they use in medicine would stock a primitive drug store. Bunches of dried herbs, roots, etc., hang from the ceiling beams of every house, reminding one of the mysterious bundles of "yarbs" in a negro cabin, and, as occasion requires, are made into teas and powders for all sorts of ills. Hopi doctors have a theory and practice of medicine, just as have their more learned white brethren. Without the remotest acquaintance with the schools dividing the opinions of our medicine-afflicted race, they unconsciously follow a number of the famous teachings. So, if a patient has a prickling sensation in the throat a tea made from the thistle will perform a cure, as "like cures like." The hairy seeds of the clematis will make the hair grow, and the fruit of a prolific creeping plant should be placed in the watermelon hills to insure many melons. The leaves of a plant named for the bat are placed on the head of a restless child to induce it to sleep in the daytime, because that is the time the slothful bat sleeps. It is not often that Hopi children require an application of bat-plant medicine, but even the best of children get fractious sometimes.