The Innocents Abroad

The Innocents Abroad

INNOCENTS ABROAD

by Mark Twain

[From an 1869--1st Edition]

PREFACE

This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it would have about it that gravity, that profundity, and that impressive incomprehensibility which are so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attractive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a pic-nic, it has a purpose, which is to suggest to the reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries before him. I make small pretense of showing anyone how he ought to look at objects of interest beyond the sea--other books do that, and therefore, even if I were competent to do it, there is no need.

I offer no apologies for any departures from the usual style of

travel-writing that may be charged against me--for I think I have seen with impartial eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, whether wisely or not.

In this volume I have used portions of letters which I wrote for the Daily Alta California, of San Francisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived their rights and given me the necessary permission. I have also inserted portions of several letters written for the New York Tribune and the New York Herald.

THE AUTHOR. SAN FRANCISCO.

For months the great pleasure excursion to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the way of excursions--its like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry--boat with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the ship with shouts and laughter--or read novels and poetry in the shade of the smokestacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus over the side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep; and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ballroom that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent moon--dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with the “Big Dipper” they were so tired of;

and they were to see the ships of twenty navies--the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples--the great cities of half a world--they were to hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It was a brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise provoked comment everywhere and advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the program of the excursion without longing to make one of the party? I will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for this book, nothing could be better:

EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT,

THE CRIMEA, GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST.

BROOKLYN, February 1st, 1867

The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming season, and begs to submit to you the following programme:

A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of

accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will

be selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not

more than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good

reason to believe that this company can be easily made up in this

immediate vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances.

The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, including library and musical instruments.

An experienced physician will be on board.

Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will

be taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of

Azores, St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two

will be spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these

islands, and the voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or

four days.

A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful

subterraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries

being readily obtained.

From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France,

Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be

H*****, Esq. C. C. DUNCAN

P.S.--The very beautiful and substantial side-wheel steamship

“__Quaker City__” has been chartered for the occasion, and will leave

New York June 8th. Letters have been issued by the government

commending the party to courtesies abroad.

What was there lacking about that program to make it perfectly irresistible? Nothing that any finite mind could discover. Paris, England, Scotland, Switzerland, Italy--Garibaldi! The Grecian Archipelago! Vesuvius! Constantinople! Smyrna! The Holy Land! Egypt and “our friends the Bermudians”! People in Europe desiring to join the excursion--contagious sickness to be avoided--boating at the expense of the ship--physician on board--the circuit of the globe to be made if the passengers unanimously desired it--the company to be rigidly selected by a pitiless “Committee on Applications”--the vessel to be as rigidly selected by as pitiless a “Committee on Selecting Steamer.” Human nature could not withstand these bewildering temptations. I hurried to the treasurer's office and deposited my ten percent. I rejoiced to know that a few vacant staterooms were still left. I did avoid a critical personal examination into my character by that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the people of high standing I could think of in the community who would be least likely to know anything about me.

Shortly a supplementary program was issued which set forth that the

Plymouth Collection of Hymns would be used on board the ship. I then

paid the balance of my passage money.

I was provided with a receipt and duly and officially accepted as an

excursionist. There was happiness in that but it was tame compared to the novelty of being “select.”

This supplementary program also instructed the excursionists to provide themselves with light musical instruments for amusement in the ship, with saddles for Syrian travel, green spectacles and umbrellas, veils for Egypt, and substantial clothing to use in rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, it was suggested that although the ship's library would afford a fair amount of reading matter, it would still be well if some standard works of travel. A list was appended, which consisted chiefly of books relating to the Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the excursion and seemed to be its main feature.

Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was to have accompanied the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him to give up the idea. There were other passengers who could have been spared better and would have been spared more willingly. Lieutenant General Sherman was to have been of the party also, but the Indian war compelled his presence on the plains. A popular actress had entered her name on the ship's books, but something interfered and she couldn't go. The “Drummer Boy of the Potomac” deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity left!

However, we were to have a “battery of guns” from the Navy Department (as

per advertisement) to be used in answering royal salutes; and the

document furnished by the Secretary of the Navy, which was to make

“General Sherman and party” welcome guests in the courts and camps of the

old world, was still left to us, though both document and battery, I

think, were shorn of somewhat of their original august proportions.

However, had not we the seductive program still, with its Paris, its

Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jericho, and “our friends the

Bermudians?” What did we care?