Permit me now to quietly state that altho' I am here with my cap and bells I am also here with some serious descriptions of the Mormons--their manners--their customs--and while the pictures I shall present to your notice are by no means works of art--they are painted from photographs actually taken on the spot--and I am sure I need not inform any person present who was ever in the territory of Utah that they are as faithful as they could possibly be.  I went to California on the steamer "Ariel." This is the steamer "Ariel." Oblige me by calmly gazing on the steamer "Ariel"--and when you go to California be sure and go on some other steamer--because the Ariel isn't a very good one. When I reached the "Ariel"--at pier No. 4--New York--I found the passengers in a state of great confusion about their things--which were being thrown around by the ship's porters in a manner at once damaging and idiotic.--So great was the excitement--my fragile form was smashed this way--and jammed that way--till finally I was shoved into a stateroom which was occupied by two middle-aged females--who said, "Base man--leave us--O leave us!"--I left them--Oh--I left them! We reach Acapulco on the coast of Mexico in due time.  Nothing of special interest occurred at Acapulco--only some of the Mexican ladies are very beautiful.  They all have brilliant black hair--hair "black as starless night"--if I may quote from the "Family Herald".  It don't curl.--A Mexican lady's hair never curls--it is straight as an Indian's.  Some people's hair won't curl under any circumstances.--My hair won't curl under two shillings.* *(under two shillings)"  Artemus always wore his hair straight until his severe illness in Salt Lake City.  So much of it dropped off during his recovery that he became dissatisfied with the long meagre appearance his countenance presented when he surveyed it in the looking-glass.  After his lecture at the Salt Lake City Theatre he did not lecture again until we had crossed the Rocky Mountains and arrived at Denver City, the capital of Colorado.  On the afternoon he was to lecture there I met him coming out of an ironmonger's store with a small parcel in his hand.  "I want you, old fellow," he said; "I have been all around the city for them, and I've got them at last."  "Got what?" I asked.  "A pair of curling-tongs.  I am going to have my hair curled to lecture in to-night.  I mean to cross the plains in curls.  Come home with me and try to curl it for me.  I don't want to go to any idiot of a barber to be laughed at."  I played the part of friseur.  Subsequently he became his own "curlist," as he phrased it.  From that day forth Artemus was a curly-haired man. The Chinese form a large element in the population of San Francisco--and I went to the Chinese Theatre. A Chinese play often lasts two months.  Commencing at the hero's birth, it is cheerfully conducted from week to week till he is either killed or married.