t I
shall describe hereafter, when I have seen more of them, for their
general features are the same; but there was a specimen of the fair sex
on board, to whom I must introduce you, as I may never see her like
again.

The main piece was the counterpart of a large steamer's funnel cut off
at about four feet two inches high, a most perfect cylinder, and of a
dark greyish hue: a sombre coloured riband supported a ditto coloured
apron. If asked where this was fastened, I suppose she would have
replied, "Round the waist, to be sure;" yet, if Lord Rosse's telescope
had been applied, no such break in the smooth surface of the cylinder
could have been descried. The arms hung down on either side like the
funnel of a cabin stove, exciting the greatest wonder and the liveliest
curiosity to know how the skin of the shoulder obtained the elasticity
requisite to exhibit such a phenomenon. On the top of the cylinder was
a beautifully polished ebony pedestal, about two inches high on one
side, tapering away to nothing at the other, so that whatever might be
placed thereon, would lie at an angle of forty-five degrees. This
pedestal did duty for a neck; and upon it was placed a thing which,
viewed as a whole, resembled a demijohn. The lower part was pillowed on
the cylinder, no gleam of light ever penetrating between the two. Upon
the upper surface, at a proper distance from the extremity, two lips
appeared, very like two pieces of raw beefsteak picked up off a dusty
road.

While wrapt in admiration of this interesting spot, the owner thereof
was seized with a desire to yawn, to obtain which luxury it was
requisite to throw back the demijohn into nearly a horizontal line, so
as to relieve the lower end from its pressure on the cylinder. The aid
of both hands was called in to assist in supporting her intellectual
depository. This feat accomplished, a roseate gulf was revealed, which
would have made the stout heart of Quintus Curtius quail ere he took the
awful plunge. Time or contest had removed the ivory obstructions in the
centre, but the shores on each side of the gulf were terrifically
iron-bound, and appeared equal to crushing the hardest granite; the
shinbone of an ox would have been to her like an oyster to ordinary
mortals. She revelled in this luxurious operation so long, that I began
to fear she was suffering from the antipodes to a lockjaw, and that she
was unable to close the chasm; but at last the demijohn rose slowly and