intelligent people to crowd these halls each time a professor of transcendental geography held forth.
On inquiry, I ascertained that few of the audience were attracted by the interest of the subject, but almost all attended the lectures because it was considered the correct thing to do so, because others did so, because they met their friends and acquaintances there, with whom they could make arrangements for future pleasure parties, or interchange ideas concerning literature, art or politics, or indulge in gossip and sprightly conversation, or even carry on flirtations after the lecture was over.
Many of the professors themselves seemed to dismiss all thought of the matter from their minds as soon as the lecture was over, and would engage in conversation on other subjects, or in the diversions of society just like ordinary mortals; so that, except by the everlasting green collar, they were not to be distinguished from other people.
I never could ascertain what connexion this green shark's-skin adornment had with the subject of their teaching. They certainly had no reason to suppose that the inhabitants of the unknown country wore green collars. In fact, when they attempted to describe the dress worn in that country, no mention was made of a collar of any kind; on the contrary, the throat was said to be destitute of any covering whatsoever, and was always so depicted in the pictorial representations of the unknown people, and green was precisely the colour which was universally held to be peculiarly distasteful to the ruler of the unknown country; moreover sharks, which were the greatest terror of the Colymbians, were, in all the teachings of the professors, said to have no existence in the
