Why, I almost felt that my Josiah wuz a genii, and Miss Plank a geniess.  I wouldn’t a wondered a mite any minute if a carpet had dropped down for us to git onto, and we floated off into Bagdad.  I felt queer—­extremely.

But Bagdad nor no other Dad wuz ever so enchantin’ly lovely as the seen outspread before our eyes.  As surpassin’ly beautiful as the Exposition is from every side, hind side and fore side, and from top to bottom, it is, I do believe, most radiantly lovely from the water approach.

You needn’t be a mite afraid of gittin’ your idees too riz up about the onspeakable beauty of the seen.  No matter if they wuz riz up higher than you ever drempt of rizin’ ’em up, instead of fallin’, they will, so to speak, find themselves on the ground floor—­in the suller, as you may say—­so fur up beyend your highest imagination is the reality of that wonderful White City of the West—­

Magic city that has sprung up there amidst the blue waters and green forests like a dream of enchantment, a hymn of glory, with not one false, harsh note in it to mar the glory and perfectness of the song.

Now, I have had my idees riz up lots of times—­they have riz and fell so much that my muse has fairly lamed herself time and agin, and went round limpin’ for some time.

And Josiah had told me time and agin, as I would go on about the beauty I expected to see at the World’s Fair, “Samantha, you expect too much; you will get dissapinted; tain’t Heaven you are goin’ to; anybody would most expect, to hear you go on, that you expected to see the New Jerusalem—­you are goin’ to be dissapinted.”

Wall, sure enough I wuz, but the dissapintment wuz on the other side—­I hadn’t expected half nor a quarter nor a millionth part enough.  My muse instead of comin’ down from the heights that I spozed she wuz on a-cungerin’ up that seen—­to use metafor—­she had always, as you may say, sot down flat on the ground.

Why, I couldn’t do justice to it in words, nor Josiah couldn’t, nor Miss Plank couldn’t, not if we all on us had a dictionary in one hand and a English reader in the other, and had travelled down there that beautiful mornin’ with a brass band.

I wuz so wropped up in my bewildered and extatic admiration that my companions wuz entirely lost from sight, when Miss Plank sez—­

“Here we are, ready to land.”  And indeed I see on comin’ to myself that the hull 5000, and their relations on both sides, wuz on the move, and it wuz time for me to disembark myself, which I proceeded to do, a-follered by the forms of my Josiah and Miss Plank.  She stepped out quite briskly over her namesake, and so did Josiah.  They didn’t take in the full beauty and grandeur of the seen as I did—­no, indeed.

[Illustration:  I proceeded to disembark, a-follered by the forms of my Josiah and Miss Plank.]

They could think of vittles even at that time, for I heard Josiah say—­