"Whenever these creatures desired to rest, they retired to certain localities, where millions of velvety couches grew like toadstools, on which they reclined, while the vegetation around, with its narcotic perfumes, lulled them quietly to sleep. "The duration of their day, which was a continual twilight of variegated designs, was according to my chronometer fifty hours long, and they divided it into two equal parts, twenty-five hours of which they slept in balmy dreamlands, while the other twenty-five they indulged in all kinds of recreations and no work at all! Ah! as the working hours of our laboring classes are decreasing day by day by the glorious medium of Unionism, I am happy to predict that we are on the right path of some day reaching that millennium of doing nothing, so that we shall at last have twelve hours of sleep, and twelve hours of recreation! "When I saw all these wonderful things, I confess, I forgot my mission sublime, and determined then and there to transport myself to that celestial sphere. Consequently I approached one of them and appealed for admission to that land of rest and perpetual bliss. Scarcely had I spoken, when I felt the atmosphere about me become suffocating; there was thunder and lightning and a sepulchral voice was heard to say: "'No earthly domination here.' "This dread injunction rendered me insensible and when consciousness returned I found myself at the foot of the Kinchinginga's, amidst the ruins of that wonderful telescope by nature made!" CHAPTER XIII SPENCER HAMILTON Thunderous applause of appreciation greeted Abou Shimshek, at the conclusion of his interesting recital, and bowing right and left his acknowledgements, with beaming countenance he retired to his seat An intermezzo of mellifluent music in the interim was followed by the celebrated "Dusky Quartette." This aggregation consisted of the following members: Madam Celeste D'oumbalooloo, a south African soprano of heavenly sweetness, and a beauty of "hippopotamic gracefulness;" Miss Guza Mulomba, the Kaffir prodigy, with a contralto voice of tremulous colorature; Signor Bombasto Reales, of Kabaloogan, a Filipino tenor of high pitch and clearness, and the basso, Signor Dido Abazuza, a Maori celebrity of thunderous profundity. Indeed, under the felicitous protection of British and American sovereignty, these colonies had made such rapid advancement toward civilization, that they had produced an abundance of men and women of extraordinary talent and capacity in art and music, so as to eclipse their confreres of Hungarian and Polish origin, in days gone by.