AN INTERRUPTED LECTURE. 221 



and if it had been the boiler of a locomotive it could not have 

 created a greater sensation. The waiters gathered round it, and 

 gazed on it helplessly. At last one of them took it away. In about 

 ten minutes he came back, put it on the table, and vanished. When 

 I took it up it was empty. The man's intellect had failed to solve 

 the problem. At last it was again taken away and returned this 

 time filled with hot water ! Fully half an hour was consumed before 

 I got the tea. 



To add to their perplexity, I had also bought (for ten cents) a 

 basket tea-strainer, as slop-basins are here unknown. The intricacy 

 of this complex piece of mechanism was too much even for the 

 head waiter. However, he is a Frenchman, and cannot be expected 

 to understand tea. No one here does. I have only met one American 

 as yet who can make tea, and she doesn't know how to pour it out. 



Again there was a week's interval, and then another 

 lecture at the Cooper Institute ; and then a further 

 week's interval, and a fourth lecture, which hrought the 

 series to an, end. On the 15th " Ant Life " was given 

 at Worcester, and was followed by " The Whale " on the 

 17th, "The Hoof of the Horse" on the 22nd, and 

 " Pond Life " on the 2nd of February. These lectures, 

 like all the rest, were most successful, but had to be 

 given in a room above a " dime museum," where a 

 number of Kaffirs were performing ; and in consequence 

 they were a good deal interrupted by shrieks and yells 

 from below. My father of course embraced the op- 

 portunity of paying the savages a visit, and found them 

 very interesting. This is what he has to say about 

 them : 



One of them was the best assegai thrower I have ever seen. 

 He sent six assegais in succession into a circle scarcely more than 

 three inches in diameter. The manager of the museum announced 

 'This gentleman will now illustrate the use of the assegai, the 



