in all probability had never read a book on African travel. He knew
nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose
Africa for his subject. I believe that he carried out the joke so
far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a
few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the
lecture-room. It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall
in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly
phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very
thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number,
and the evening was unusually warm. Artemus came on the rostrum
with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with
throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while
lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding-
whip for the same purpose. He commenced his lecture thus, speaking
very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing
his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly
disregard their laughter:

"I have invited you to listen to a discourse upon Africa. Africa is
my subject. It is a very large subject. It has the Atlantic Ocean
on its left side, the Indian Ocean on its right, and more water than
you could measure out at its smaller end.

Africa produces blacks--ivory blacks--they get ivory. It also
produces deserts, and that is the reason it is so much deserted by
travellers. Africa is famed for its roses. It has the red rose,
the white rose, and the neg-rose. Apropos of negroes, let me tell
you a little story."

Then he at once diverged from the subject of Africa to retail to his