, as sure as guns!"

He was so excited he couldn't hold still; but I wasn't. I says:

"Well, then, where's the Great Sahara? In England or in Scotland?"

"'Tain't in either; it's in Africa."

Jim's eyes bugged out, and he begun to stare down with no end of
interest, because that was where his originals come from; but I didn't
more than half believe it. I couldn't, you know; it seemed too awful far
away for us to have traveled.

But Tom was full of his discovery, as he called it, and said the lions
and the sand meant the Great Desert, sure. He said he could 'a' found
out, before we sighted land, that we was crowding the land somewheres,
if he had thought of one thing; and when we asked him what, he said:

"These clocks. They're chronometers. You always read about them in sea
voyages. One of them is keeping Grinnage time, and the other is keeping
St. Louis time, like my watch. When we left St. Louis it was four in the
afternoon by my watch and this clock, and it was ten at night by this
Grinnage clock. Well, at this time of the year the sun sets at about
seven o'clock. Now I noticed the time yesterday evening when the sun
went down, and it was half-past five o'clock by the Grinnage clock, and
half past 11 A.M. by my watch and the other clock. You see, the sun rose
and set by my watch in St. Louis, and the Grinnage clock was six hours
fast; but we've come so far east that it comes within less than half an
hour of setting by the Grinnage clock now, and I'm away out--more than
four hours and a half out. You see, that meant that we was closing up
on the longitude of Ireland, and would strike it before long if we
was p'inted right--which we wasn't. No, sir, we've been
a-wandering--wandering 'way down south of east, and it's my opinion
we are in Africa. Look at this map. You see how the shoulder of Africa
sticks out to the west. Think how fast we've traveled; if we had gone
straight east we would be long past England by this time. You watch for
noon, all of you, and we'll stand up, and when we can't cast a shadow
we'll find that this Grinnage clock is coming mighty close to marking
twelve. Yes, sir, I think we're in Africa; and it's just bully."

Jim was gazing down with the glass. He shook his head and says:

"Mars Tom, I reckon dey's a mistake som'er's, hain't seen no niggers
yit."

"That's nothing; they don't live in the desert. What is that, 'way off
yonder? Gimme a glass."

He took a long look, and said it was l