From the spring onwards until the end of summer there is an endless succession of flowers. The first spring blossoms appear in April; great stretches are covered with Pentstemons, Cypripediums, and many others in May and June; then follow tall, herbaceous Phloxes, Lilies, and Asclepiads, but perhaps the most characteristic flora blossoms still later on, when every one "wants to be in Kansas when the Sunflowers bloom." Over these prairies used to travel the great wagons or "prairie schooners." The cowboy, who almost lives on horseback, watches over great herds of cattle and troops of half-wild horses. Yet his life is, or used to be, almost as free, comfortless, and uncivilized as that of the buffalo-hunting Indian who preceded him. One must not forget to mention the prairie-dog--able to utilize the abundant grass, and diving into a safe refuge underground when threatened by the wolves or other carnivorous creatures, which, of course, multiplied exceedingly, thanks to the jack-hare, antelopes, and bisons. The Pampas in South America is a similar grassland. On the east it stops at the woodlands along the great Plate River, but on the west it becomes gradually more dry and arid, until long before the Andes are reached it is too dry even to carry sheep, and can only be described as a half-desert. "It is a boundless sea of grasses fading into the distant horizon, which can only be distinguished when the sun is rising or setting." Yet amongst the grasses are hundreds of flowers, and, a fact which is very remarkable, many of them, such as Fennel, Artichoke, Milk Thistle, Burdock, Rye Grass, etc., are European plants which have dispossessed the natives over miles of country, exactly as the gaucho has driven away or exterminated the Indians who lived there. It is covered by tufts of grass betwixt which appears the rich alluvial earth, yet in good years it may become almost a perfect grass floor. "The colour changes greatly, for in spring when the old grass is burnt off, it is coal-black, which changes to a bright blue-green as soon as the young leaves appear; later on it becomes brownish green, which again changes when the silver-white flowers come out to the appearance of a rolling, waving sea of shining silver." Here would be the place to mention how an army encamped upon the Pampas finds itself next morning imprisoned and doomed to perish miserably in a forest of giant thistles which has sprung up during the night. There is no doubt that thistles and other weeds are very tall in both South and North America. Fennels are ten to twelve feet high, and even little Chenopodiums (such as in England may reach eighteen inches), become in South America seven to eight feet high, but the tallness of some of the stories is more remarkable even than that of the plants!