Unfortunately the winter turned out to be one of the severest. When
we arrived at Salt Lake City, my poor friend was seized with typhoid
fever, resulting from the fatigue we had undergone, the intense cold
to which we had been subjected, and the excitement of being on a
journey of 3500 miles across the North American Continent, when the
Pacific Railway had made little progress and the Indians were
reported not to be very friendly.

The story of the trip is told in Artemus Ward's lecture. I have
added to it, at the special request of the publisher, a few
explanatory notes, the purport of which is to render the reader
acquainted with the characteristics of the lecturer's delivery. For
the benefit of those who never had an opportunity of seeing Artemus
Ward nor of hearing him lecture, I may be pardoned for attempting to
describe the man himself.

In stature he was tall, in figure, slender. At any time during our
acquaintance his height must have been disproportionate to his
weight. Like his brother Cyrus, who died a few years before him;
Charles F. Browne, our "Artemus Ward," had the premonitory signs of
a short life strongly evident in his early manhood. There were the
lank form, the long pale fingers, the very white pearly teeth, the
thin, fine, soft hair, the undue brightness of the eyes, the
excitable and even irritable disposition, the capricious appetite,
and the alternately jubilant and despondent tone of mind which too
frequently indicate that "the abhorred fury with the shears" is
waiting too near at hand to "slit the thin-spun life." His hair was
very light-colored, and not naturally curly. He used to joke in his
lecture about what it cost him to keep it curled; he wore a very