As the success of the Festival kept on increasing we resolved to give an extra performance, for which purpose an engagement was entered into with Mdme. Patti for the following Monday, when she appeared as "Margherita" in _Faust_. I afterwards visited Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Syracuse, and Albany, returning to New York for the usual spring season, and there performing _Fidelio_, _Huguenots_, _Lohengrin_, _Carmen_, _William Tell_, and _Faust_. In the meanwhile I had put in rehearsal Meyerbeer's _Africaine_, which was placed on the stage at considerable expense, all the costumes, scenery, dresses, and armour being entirely new, and the stage being occupied by some 400 persons. The gorgeous revival of _l'Africaine_ proved an extraordinary success. The audience fairly packed the large house nightly, the fine spectacle presented in the third and fourth acts causing great enthusiasm. Miss Hauk undertook the part of "Selika," and was particularly successful from a dramatic point of view, whilst Signor Galassi and Campanini found great opportunities for the display of their vocal abilities. The great ship scene of the third act created a perfect furore. So anxious was I that the acting of the Indians on boarding the ship should create a sensation, that I went to Union Square and from the various agencies engaged some 12 or 15 actors, who were then out of employment, and whose make-up with the tattoo marks and their realistic fighting made such an impression that on the conclusion of the scene the curtain had to be raised. The grand march, too, in the fourth act created a sensation, equally with the magnificent spectacle and the gorgeous palanquin in which "Selika" enters accompanied by "Nelusko." I had requested Bradwell to design for me a full-sized elephant with a palanquin on its back, in which people were seated, the interior of the elephant being occupied and kept firm by two stalwart policemen. The scenery was of the most gorgeous description, specially painted for me by Magnani, who surpassed even his previous efforts. _L'Africaine_ was repeated for five or six consecutive nights to crowded houses. On one occasion we had to perform _L'Africaine_ on consecutive nights in New York and Philadelphia, which entailed the removal of the whole of the scenery and dresses, likewise the transport of the whole of the supernumeraries, ballet, etc., numbering altogether 400 persons; and we had, moreover, to return the same evening after the performance to New York, in which city the work was to be repeated the following night. The supernumeraries, with their blackened faces, and the Indians with their tattoo marks, caused a great sensation at the railway station on the return journey, as there was no time to think of washing them. We only reached New York the next morning at six o'clock, when again the early morning public were startled by the arrival of these sable gentry under a blazing sun.