Artemus Ward.

[Charles Farrer Browne, who adopted this pseudonym, lived 1832-1867. He died of consumption, from which he was suffering severely when he delivered his "Lecture" in London. His chief works are his "Travels among the Mormons" and his "Life in London." He was the forerunner of the many American humourists who, since his day, have written in peculiar forms of orthography and syntax.]

TO CALIFORNIA AND BACK.

I.-ON THE STEAMER.

NEW YORK, Oct. 13, 1863.

THE steamer Ariel starts for California at noon.

Her decks are crowded with excited passengers, who instantly undertake to "look after" their trunks and things; and what with our smashing against each other, and the yells of the porters, and the wails over lost baggage, and the crash of boxes, and the roar of the boilers, we are for the time being about as unhappy a lot of maniacs as were ever thrown together.

I am one of them. I am rushing round with a glaring eye in search of a box.

Great jam, in which I find a sweet young lady with golden hair, clinging to me fondly, and saying, "Dear George, farewell!"— Discovers her mistake, and disappears.

I should like to be George some more.

"Base

Confusion so great that I seek refuge in a state room, which contains a single lady of forty-five summers, who says, man! leave me!" I leave her.

By-and-by we cool down, and become somewhat regulated.

Next day.

When the gong sounds for breakfast we are fairly out on the sea, which runs roughly, and the Ariel rocks wildly. Many of the passengers are sick, and a young naval officer establishes a reputation as a wit by carrying to one of the invalids a plate of raw salt pork, swimming in cheap molasses. I am not sick; so I roll round the deck in the most cheerful sea-dog manner.

The

The next day and the next pass by in a serene manner. waves are smooth now, and we can all eat and sleep. We might have enjoyed ourselves very well, I fancy, if the Ariel, whose capacity was about three hundred and fifty passengers, had not on this occasion carried nearly nine hundred, a hundred at least of whom were children of an unpleasant age. Captain Semmes

captured the Ariel once, and it is to be deeply regretted that that thrifty buccaneer hadn't made mince-meat of her, because she is a miserable tub at best, and hasn't much more right to be afloat than a second-hand coffin has. I do not know her proprietor, Mr. C. Vanderbilt. But I know of several excellent mill privileges in the State of Maine, and not one of them is so thoroughly Dam'd as he was all the way from New York to Aspinwall.

I had far rather say a pleasant thing than a harsh one; but it is due to the large number of respectable ladies and gentlemen who were on board the steamer Ariel with me that I state here that the accommodations on that steamer were very vile. If I did not so state, my conscience would sting me through life, and I should have horrid dreams, like Richard III. Esq.

The proprietor apparently thought we were undergoing transportation for life to some lonely island, and the very waiters who brought us meats that any warder of any penitentiary would blush to offer convicts, seemed to think it was a glaring error our not being in chains.

As a specimen of the liberal manner in which this steamer was managed, I will mention that the purser (a very pleasant person, by the way) was made to unite the positions of purser, baggage clerk, and doctor; and I one day had a lurking suspicion that he was among the waiters in the dining-cabin, disguised in a white jacket and slipshod pumps.

I have spoken my Piece about the Ariel, and I hope Mr. Vanderbilt will reform ere it is too late. Dr. Watts says the vilest sinner may return as long as the gas-meters work well, or words to that effect.

We were so densely crowded on board the Ariel, that I cannot conscientiously say we were altogether happy. And sea-voyages at

best are a little stupid. On the whole I should prefer a voyage on the Erie Canal, where there isn't any danger, and where you can carry picturesque scenery along with you-so to speak.

II. THE ISTHMUS.

ON the ninth day we reached Aspinwall in the Republic of Grenada. The President of New Grenada is a Central American named Mosquero. I was told that he derived quite a portion of his income by carrying passengers' valises and things from the steamer to the hotel in Aspinwall. It was an infamous falsehood. Fancy A. Lincoln carrying carpet bags and things! and indeed I should rather trust him with them than Mosquero, because the former gentleman, as I think some one has before observed, is "honest."

I entrust my bag to a speckled native, who confidentially gives me to understand that he is the only strictly honest person in Aspinwall. The rest, he says, are niggers-which the coloured people of the Isthmus regard as about as scathing a thing as they can say of one another.

I examined the New Grenadian flag, which waves from the chamber-window of a refreshment saloon. It is of simple design. You can make one.

Take half of a cotton shirt, that has been worn two months, and dip it in molasses of the Day and Martin brand. Then let the flies gambol over it for a few days, and you have it.

emblem of Sweet Liberty.

It is an

At the Howard House the man of sin rubbeth the hair of the horse to the bowels of the cat, and our girls are waving their lilywhite hoofs in the dazzling waltz.

We have a quadrille, in which an English person slips up and jams his massive brow against my stomach. He apologizes, and I say, "all right, my lord." I subsequently ascertain that he superintended the shipping of coals for the British steamers, and owned fighting cocks.

The ball stops suddenly.
Great excitement.

One of our passengers intoxicated and

riotous in the street. Openly and avowedly desires the entire Republic of New Grenada to come on."

In case they do come on, agrees to make it lively for them. Is quieted down at last, and marched off to prison by a squad of Grenadian troops. Is musical as he passes the hotel, and smiling sweetly upon the ladies and children on the balcony, expresses a distinct desire to be an Angel, and with the Angels stand. After which he leaps nimbly into the air, and imitates the war-cry of the red man.

The natives amass wealth by carrying valises, &c., then squander it for liquor. My native comes to me as I sit on the verandah of the Howard House smoking a cigar, and solicits the job of taking my things to the cars next morning. He is intoxicated, and has been fighting, to the palpable detriment of his wearing apparel; for he has only one pair of tattered pantaloons and a very small quantity of shirt left.

We go to bed. Eight of us are assigned to a small den upstairs, with only two lame apologies for beds.

Mosquitoes and even rats annoy us fearfully. One bold rat gnaws at the feet of a young Englishman in the party. This was more than the young Englishman could stand, and rising from his bed he asked us if New Grenada wasn't a Republic? We said it was. "I thought so," he said. "Of course I mean no disrespect to the United States of America in the remark, but I think I prefer a bloated monarchy!" He smiled sadly-then handing his purse and his mother's photograph to another English person, he whispered softly, "If I am eaten up, give them to Me mother— tell her I died like a true Briton, with no faith whatever in the success of a republican form of government!" And then he crept back to bed again.

We start at seven the next morning for Panama.

My native comes bright and early to transport my carpet sack to the railway station. His clothes have suffered still more during

the night, for he comes to me now dressed only in a small one boot.

rag and

At last we are off. "Adios, Americanos!" the natives cry; to which I pleasantly reply, "Adous! and long may it be before you have the chance to Do us again."

The cars are comfortable on the Panama railway, and the country through which we pass is very beautiful. But it will not do to trust it much, because it breeds fevers and other unpleasant disorders, at all seasons of the year. Like a girl we most all have known, the Isthmus is fair but false.

There are mud huts all along the route, and half-naked savages gaze patronisingly upon us from their door-ways. An elderly lady in spectacles appears to be much scandalised by the scant dress of these people, and wants to know why the Select men don't put a stop to it. From this, and a remark she incidentally makes about her son who has invented a washing machine which will wash, wring, and dry a shirt in ten minutes, I infer that she is from the hills of Old New England, like the Hutchinson family.

The Central American is lazy. The only exercise he ever takes is to occasionally produce a Revolution. When his feet begin to swell and there are premonitory symptoms of gout, he "revolushes" a spell, and then serenely returns to his cigarette and hammock under the palm trees.

These Central American Republics are queer concerns. I do not of course precisely know what a last year's calf's ideas of immortal glory may be, but probably they are about as lucid as those of a Central American in regard to a republican form of government.

And yet I am told they are a kindly people in the main. I never met but one of them-a Costa-Rican, on board the Ariel. He lay sick with fever, and I went to him and took his hot hand gently in mine. I shall never forget his look of gratitude. And the next day he borrowed five dollars of me, shedding tears as he put it in his pocket.

At Panama we lost several of our passengers, and among them three Peruvian ladies, who go to Lima, the city of volcanic eruptions and veiled black-eyed beauties.