MAR
I I 2005
ROUGHING IT
RIDING A BUCKING BRONCHO
ROUGHING
IT
MARK TWAIN
VOLUME I
HARPER 6? BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Books by
MARK TWAIN
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD
ROUGHING IT
THE GILDED AGE
A TRAMP ABROAD
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
PUDD'NHEAD WILSON
SKETCHES NEW AND OLD
THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE AT THE COURT OP
KING ARTHUR
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI
THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
THE $30,000 BEQUEST
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
TOM SAWYER ABROAD
WHAT IS MAN?
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER
ADAM'S DIARY
A DOG'S TALE
A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE STORY
•EDITORIAL WILD OATS
EVE'S DIARY
HOW TO TELL A STORY
IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD*
CAPT. STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN
A HORSE'S TALE
THE JUMPING FROG
THE £1,000,000 BANK-NOTE
TRAVELS AT HOME
TRAVELS IN HISTORY
MARK TWAIN'S LETTERS
MARK TWAIN'S SPEECHES
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[Established 1817]
Roughing It. Vol. I
Copyright, 1871, 1899, by The American Publishing Company
Copyright, 1899, by Samuel L.. Clemens
Copyright, 1913, by Clara Gabrilowitsch
Printed in the United States of America
D-M
ONULP
TO
CALVIN H. HIGBIE OF CALIFORNIA. AN HONEST
MAN. A GENIAL COMRADE. AND A STEADFAST
FRIEND. THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED BY THE
AUTHOR IN MEMORY OFTHE CURIOUSTIME WHEN
WE TWO WERE MILLIONAIRES FOR TEN DAYS
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
Prefatory . xvii
I. Bound Away for Nevada i
II. We Leave the "States" 4
III. The Jackass-rabbit — a Flash and a Vanish . . 10
IV. Queer Coach and Queerer People 19
V. The Gliding, Elusive Coyote 31
VI. Grand Moguls of the Stage Route 37
VII. When the Buffalo Climbed a Tree .... 43
VIII. "Here He Comes!" the Pony-rider 52
IX. "Don't, Gentlemen! I'm a Dead Man!" ... 57
X. Slade the Terrible 63
XI. The Killer's Pitiful Ending ........ 73
XII. Over the Great Divide 81
XIII. Salt Lake City — We Meet the King .... 93
XIV. Mormon Husbands. Generous Altruists ... 98
XV. A Hundred and Ten Tin Whistles 102
XVI. The Drowsy Mormon Bible no
XVII. Big Money and Big Prices 120
XVIII. The Deadly Alkali Desert 126
XIX. Lo! the Depraved Goshoots 131
XX. What Hank Said to Horace Greeley .... 136
XXI. A Washoe Zephyr at Play 144
XXII. The Air the Angels Breathe 155
XXIII. We Burn Our Possessions 161
XXIV. I Ride a Bucking Horse 168
XXV. Governing in Adversity 175
XXVI. Mountains Gorged with Wealth . . . . . . 183
vii
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XXVII. We Go for Our Share 189
XXVIII. I Find Fool Gold 194
XXIX. We Join a Beggars' Revel 201
XXX. The Carson in Flood 207
XXXI. Trailing Ourselves in Snow 213
XXXII. We Drift into Oblivion 224
XXXIII. Saved but Sullen 230
XXXTV. The Great Landslide Case 234
XXXV. Tunneling the Air 241
XXXVI. I Loathe Hard Labor 245
XXXVII. Shadowing Rich Dreams 252
XXXVIII. Wonders of Mono Lake 259
XXXIX. "Mph! Dam' Stove Heap Gone!" .... 264
XL. A "Blind Lead" — to Millions! 271
XLI. When Blind Led Bund 280
PREFATORY
THIS book is merely a personal narrative, and not
a pretentious history or a philosophical disserta-
tion. It is a record of several years of variegated vaga-
bondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting
reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with
metaphysics, or goad him with science. Still, there
is information in the volume ; information concerning
an interesting episode in the history of the Far
West, about which no books have been written by
persons who were on the ground in person, and saw
the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I
allude to the rise, growth, and culmination of the
silver-mining fever in Nevada — a curious episode, in
some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind,
that has occurred in the land ; and the only one, in-
deed, that is likely to occur in it.
Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal
of information in the book. I regret this very much,
but really it could not be helped: information ap-
pears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious
ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has
seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could
retain my facts ; but it cannot be. The more I calk
up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak
wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at
the hands of the reader, not justification.
The Author.
ROUGHING IT
PART I
CHAPTER I
MY brother had just been appointed Secretary
of Nevada Territory — an office of such
majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and
dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of
State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's ab-
sence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year
and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great
position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was
young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I
coveted his distinction and his financial splendor, but
particularly and especially the long, strange journey
he was going to make, and the curious new world
he was going to explore. He was going to travel!
I never had been away from home, and that word
"travel" had a seductive charm for me. Pretty
soon he would be hundreds and hundreds of miles
away on the great plains and deserts, and among
the mountains of the Far West, and would see
buffaloes and Indians, and prairie-dogs, and ante-
lopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and maybe
get hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine
time, and write home and tell us all about it, and
MARK TWAIN
be a hero. And he would see the gold-mines and
the silver-mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon
when his work was done, and pick up two or three
pailfuls of shining slugs and nuggets of gold and
silver on the hillside. And by and by he would
become very rich, and return home by sea, and be
able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the
ocean and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of
any consequence to have seen those marvels face
to face. What I suffered in contemplating his hap-
piness, pen cannot describe. And so, when he offered
me, in cold blood, the sublime position of private
secretary under him, it appeared to me that the heav-
ens and the earth passed away, and the firmament
was rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more
to desire. My contentment was complete. At the
end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey.
Not much packing up was necessary, because we
were going in the overland stage from the Missouri
frontier to Nevada, and passengers were only allowed
a small quantity of baggage apiece. There was no
Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve
years ago — not a single rail of it.
I only proposed to stay in Nevada three months —
I had no thought of staying longer than that. I
meant to see all I could that was new and strange,
and then hurry home to business. I little thought
that I would not see the end of that three-month
pleasure excursion for six or seven uncommonly long
years !
I dreamed all night about Indians, deserts, and
silver bars, and in due time, next day, we took ship-
ROUGHING IT
ping at the St. Louis wharf on board a steamboat
bound up the Missouri River.
We were six days going from St. Louis to "St.
Joe" — a trip that was so dull, and sleepy, and event-
less that it has left no more impression on my mem-
ory than if its duration had been six minutes instead
of that many days. No record is left in my mind,
now, concerning it, but a confused jumble of savage-
looking snags, which we deliberately walked over
with one wheel or the other; and of reefs which we
butted and butted, and then retired from and climbed
over in some softer place; and of sand-bars which
we roosted on occasionally, and rested, and then got
out our crutches and sparred over. In fact, the
boat might almost as well have gone to St. Joe by
land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow
— climbing over reefs and clambering over snags
patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain
said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted
was more "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought
she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagac-
ity not to say so.
CHAPTER II
THE first thing we did on that glad evening that
landed us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the
stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars
apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City,
Nevada.
The next morning, bright and early, we took a
hasty breakfast, and hurried to the starting-place.
Then an inconvenience presented itself which we had
not properly appreciated before, namely, that one
cannot make a heavy traveling trunk stand for
twenty-five pounds of baggage — because it weighs a
good deal more. But that was all we could take —
twenty-five pounds each. So we had to snatch our
trunks open, and make a selection in a good deal of
a hurry. We put our lawful twenty-five pounds
apiece all in one valise, and shipped the trunks back
to St. Louis again. It was a sad parting, for now
we had no swallow-tail coats and white kid gloves to
wear at Pawnee receptions in the Rocky Mountains,
and no stove-pipe hats nor patent-leather boots, nor
anything else necessary to make life calm and peace-
ful. We were reduced to a war-footing. Each of
us put on a rough, heavy suit of clothing, woolen
army shirt and "stogy" boots included; and into
the valise we crowded a few white shirts, some under-
4
ROUGHING IT
clothing and such things. My brother, the Secre-
tary, took along about four pounds of United States
statutes and six pounds of Unabridged Dictionary;
for we did not know — poor innocents — that such
things could be bought in San Francisco on one day
and received in Carson City the next. I was armed
to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's
seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homeo-
pathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a
dose for an adult. But I thought it was grand. It
appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon. It only
had one fault — you could not hit anything with it.
One of our "conductors" practised awhile on a cow
with it, and as long as she stood still and behaved
herself she was safe ; but as soon as she went to mov-
ing about, and he got to shooting at other things,
she came to grief. The Secretary had a small-sized
Colt's revolver strapped around him for protection
against the Indians, and to guard against accidents
he carried it uncapped. Mr. George Bemis was dis-
mally formidable. George Bemis was our fellow-
traveler. We had never seen him before. He wore
in his belt an old original "Allen" revolver, such
as irreverent people called a "pepper-box." Sim-
ply drawing the trigger back, cocked and fired the
pistol. As the trigger came back, the hammer
would begin to rise and the barrel to turn over, and
presently down would drop the hammer, and away
would speed the ball. To aim along the turning
barrel and hit the thing aimed at was a feat which
was probably never done with an "Allen" in the
world. But George's was a reliable weapon, never-
5
MARK TWAIN
theless, because, as one of the stage-drivers after-
ward said, "If she didn't get what she went after,
she would fetch something else." And so she did.
She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree,
once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards
to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but
the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun
and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a
cheerful weapon — the "Allen." Sometimes all its
six barrels would go off at once, and then there was
no safe place in all the region round about, but be-
hind it.
We took two or three blankets for protection
against frosty weather in the mountains. In the
matter of luxuries we were modest — we took none
along but some pipes and five pounds of smoking-
tobacco. We had two large canteens to carry water
in, between stations on the Plains, and we also took
with us a little shot-bag of silver coin for daily ex-
penses in the way of breakfasts and dinners.
By eight o'clock everything was ready, and we
were on the other side of the river. We jumped into
the stage, the driver cracked his whip, and we
bowled away and left "the States" behind us. It
was a superb summer morning, and all the landscape
was brilliant with sunshine. There was a freshness
and breeziness, too, and an exhilarating sense of
emancipation from all sorts of cares and responsi-
bilities, that almost made us feel that the years we
had spent in the close, hot city, toiling and slaving,
had been wasted and thrown away. We were spin-
ning along through Kansas, and in the course of an
6
ROUGHING IT
hour and a half we were fairly abroad on the great
Plains. Just here the land was rolling — a grand
sweep of regular elevations and depressions as far as
the eye could reach — like the stately heave and
swell of the ocean's bosom after a storm. And
everywhere were corn-fields, accenting with squares
of deeper green this limitless expanse of grassy land.
But presently this sea upon dry ground was to lose
its "rolling" character and stretch away for seven
hundred miles as level as a floor!
Our coach was a great swinging and swaying stage,
of the most sumptuous description — an imposing
cradle on wheels. It was drawn by six handsome
horses, and by the side of the driver sat the "con-
ductor," the legitimate captain of the craft; for it
was his business to take charge and care of the
mails, baggage, express matter, and passengers. We
three were the only passengers, this trip. We sat
on the back seat, inside. About all the rest of the
coach was full of mail-bags — for we had three days'
delayed mails with us. Almost touching our knees,
a perpendicular wall of mail matter rose up to the
roof. There was a great pile of it strapped on top
of the stage, and both the fore and hind boots were
full. We had twenty-seven hundred pounds of it
aboard, the driver said — "a little for Brigham, and
Carson, and 'Frisco, but the heft of it for the Injuns,
which is powerful troublesome 'thout they get plenty
of truck to read." But as he just then got up a
fearful convulsion of his countenance which was
suggestive of a wink being swallowed by an earth-
quake, we guessed that his remark was intended
7
MARK TWAIN
to be facetious, and to mean that we would unload
the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains
and leave it to the Indians, or whosoever wanted it.
We changed horses every ten miles, all day long,
and fairly flew over the hard, level road. We jumped
out and stretched our legs every time the coach
stopped, and so the night found us still vivacious
and unfatigued.
After supper a woman got in, who lived about
Afty miles further on, and we three had to take turns
at sitting outside with the driver and conductor.
Apparently she was not a talkative woman. She
would sit there in the gathering twilight and fasten
her steadfast eyes on a mosquito rooting into her
arm, and slowly she would raise her other hand till
she had got his range, and then she would launch a
slap at him that would have jolted a cow; and after
that she would sit and contemplate the corpse with
tranquil satisfaction — for she never missed her mos-
quito; she was a dead shot at short range. She
never removed a carcass, but left them there for
bait. I sat by this grim Sphinx and watched her kill
thirty or forty mosquitoes — watched her, and waited
for her to say something, but she never did. So I
finally opened the conversation myself. I said:
"The mosquitoes are pretty bad, about here,
madam."
"You bet!"
"What did I understand you to say, madam?"
"You bet!"
Then she cheered up, and faced around and said:
"Danged if I didn't begin to think you fellers
8
ROUGHING IT
was deef and dumb. I did, b' gosh. Here I've sot,
and sot, and sot, a-bust'n' muskeeters and wonderin'
what was ailin' ye. Fust I thot you was deef and
dumb, then I thot you was sick or crazy, or suthin',
and then by and by I begin to reckon you was a
passel of sickly fools that couldn't think of nothing
to say. Where'd ye come from?"
The Sphinx was a Sphinx no more ! The fountains
of her great deep were broken up, and she rained
the nine parts of speech forty days and forty nights,
metaphorically speaking, and buried us under a deso-
lating deluge of trivial gossip that left not a crag or pin-
nacle of rejoinder projecting above the tossing waste
of dislocated grammar and decomposed pronunciation !
How we suffered, suffered, suffered! She went
on, hour after hour, till I was sorry I ever opened
the mosquito question and gave her a start. She
never did stop again until she got to her journey's
end toward daylight; and then she stirred us up as
she was leaving the stage (for we were nodding, by
that time), and said:
"Now you git out at Cottonwood, you fellers,
and lay over a couple o' days, and I'll be along some
time to-night, and if I can do ye any good by edgin'
in a word now and then, I'm right thar. Folks '11
tell you 't I've always ben kind o' offish and partic'lar
for a gal that's raised in the woods, and I am, with
the ragtag and bobtail, and a gal has to be, if she
wants to be anything, but when people comes along
which is my equals, I reckon I'm a pretty sociable
heifer after all."
We resolved not to "lay by at Cottonwood."
9
CHAPTER III
ABOUT an hour and a half before daylight we
/"\ were bowling along smoothly over the road —
so smoothly that our cradle only rocked in a gentle,
lulling way, that was gradually soothing us to sleep,
and dulling our consciousness — when something gave
away under us! We were dimly aware of it, but
indifferent to it. The coach stopped. We heard the
driver and conductor talking together outside, and
rummaging for a lantern, and swearing because they
could not find it — but we had no interest in what-
ever had happened, and it only added to our com-
fort to think of those people out there at work in the
murky night, and we snug in our nest with the cur-
tains drawn. But presently, by the sounds, there
seemed to be an examination going on, and then
the driver's voice said:
"By George, the thoroughbrace is broke!"
This startled me broad awake — as an undefined
sense of calamity is always apt to do. I said to my-
self: "Now, a thoroughbrace is probably part of a
horse; and doubtless a vital part, too, from the dis-
may in the driver's voice. Leg, maybe — and yet
how could he break his leg waltzing along such a
road as this? No, it can't be his leg. That is im-
possible, unless he was reaching for the driver. Now,
10
ROUGHING IT
what can be the thoroughbrace of a horse, I wonder?
Well, whatever comes, I shall not air my ignorance
in this crowd, anyway."
Just then the conductor's face appeared at a lifted
curtain, and his lantern glared in on us and our wall
of mail matter. He said:
' ' Gents, you'll have to turn out a spell. Thorough-
brace is broke."
We climbed out into a chill drizzle, and felt ever
so homeless and dreary. When I found that the
thing they called a "thoroughbrace" was the mas-
sive combination of belts and springs which the coach
rocks itself in, I said to the driver:
"I never saw a thoroughbrace used up like that,
before, that I can remember. How did it happen?"
"Why, it happened by trying to make one coach
carry three days' mail — that's how it happened,"
said he. "And right here is the very direction
which is wrote on all the newspaper-bags which was
to be put out for the Injuns for to keep 'em quiet.
It's most uncommon lucky, becuz it's so nation dark
I should 'a' gone by unbeknowns if that air thorough-
brace hadn't broke."
I knew that he was in labor with another of those
winks of his, though I could not see his face, because
he was bent down at work; and wishing him a safe
delivery, I turned to and helped the rest get out the
mail-sacks. It made a great pyramid by the roadside
when it was all out. When they had mended the
thoroughbrace we filled the two boots again, but
put no mail on top, and only half as much inside
as there was before. The conductor bent all the
ii
MARK TWAIN
seat -backs down, and then filled the coach just
half full of mail-bags from end to end. We objected
loudly to this, for it left us no seats. But the con-
ductor was wiser than we, and said a bed was better
than seats, and, moreover, this plan would protect
his thoroughbraces. We never wanted any seats
after that. The lazy bed was infinitely preferable.
I had many an exciting day, subsequently, lying
on it reading the statutes and the dictionary,
and wondering how the characters would turn
out.
The conductor said he would send back a guard
from the next station to take charge of the aban-
doned mail-bags, and we drove on.
It was now just dawn; and as we stretched our
cramped legs full length on the mail - sacks, and
gazed out through the windows across the wide
wastes of greensward clad in cool, powdery mist, to
where there was an expectant look in the eastern
horizon, our perfect enjoyment took the form of a
tranquil and contented ecstasy. The stage whirled
along at a spanking gait, the breeze flapping curtains
and suspended coats in a most exhilarating way;
the cradle swayed and swung luxuriously, the patter-
ing of the horses' hoofs, the cracking of the driver's
whip, and his "Hi-yi! g'lang!" were music; the
spinning ground and the waltzing trees appeared to
give us a mute hurrah as we went by, and then slack
up and look after us with interest, or envy, or some-
thing; and as we lay and smoked the pipe of peace
and compared all this luxury with the years of tire-
some city life that had gone before it. we felt that
12
ROUGHING IT
there was only one complete and satisfying happi-
ness in the world, and we had found it.
After breakfast, at some station whose name I
have forgotten, we three climbed up on the seat
behind the driver, and let the conductor have our
bed for a nap. And by and by, when the sun made
me drowsy, I lay down on my face on top of the
coach, grasping the slender iron railing, and slept for
an hour more. That will give one an appreciable
idea of those matchless roads. Instinct will make
a sleeping man grip a fast hold of the railing when
the stage jolts, but when it only swings and sways,
no grip is necessary. Overland drivers and con-
ductors used to sit in their places and sleep thirty or
forty minutes at a time, on good roads, while spin-
ning along at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour.
I saw them do it, often. There was no danger about
it; a sleeping man will seize the irons in time when
the coach jolts. These men were hard worked, and it
was not possible for them to stay awake all the
time.
By and by we passed through Marysville, and
over the Big Blue and Little Sandy; thence about a
mile, and entered Nebraska. About a mile further
on, we came to the Big Sandy — one hundred and
eighty miles from St. Joseph.
As the sun was going down, we saw the first speci-
men of an animal known familiarly over two thou-
sand miles of mountain and desert — from Kansas
clear to the Pacific Ocean — as the "jackass rabbit."
He is well named. He is just like any other rabbit,
except that he is from one-third to twice as large,
13
MARK TWAIN
has longer legs in proportion to his size, and has the
most preposterous ears that ever were mounted on
any creature but a jackass. When he is sitting
quiet, thinking about his sins, or is absent-minded or
unapprehensive of danger, his majestic ears project
above him conspicuously ; but the breaking of a twig
will scare him nearly to death, and then he tilts his
ears back gently and starts for home. All you can
see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form
stretched out straight and "streaking it" through
the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes right, and ears
just canted a little to the rear, but showing you
where the animal is, all the time, the same as if he
carried a jib. Now and then he makes a marvelous
spring with his long legs, high over the stunted sage-
brush, and scores a leap that would make a horse
envious. Presently, he comes down to a long,
graceful "lope," and shortly he mysteriously disap-
pears. He has crouched behind a sage-bush, and
will sit there and listen and tremble until you get
within six feet of him, when he will get under way
again. But one must shoot at this creature once,
if he wishes to see him throw his heart into his
heels, and do the best he knows how. He is frightened
clear through, now, and he lays his long ears down
on his back, straightens himself out like a yard-
stick every spring he makes, and scatters miles be-
hind him with an easy indifference that is en-
chanting.
Our party made this specimen "hump himself,"
as the conductor said. The Secretary started him
with a shot from the Colt; I commenced spitting at
14
ROUGHING IT
him with my weapon ; and all in the same instant the
old "Allen's" whole broadside let go with a rattling
crash, and it is not putting it too strong to say that
the rabbit was frantic! He dropped his ears, set up
his tail, and left for San Francisco at a speed which
can only be described as a flash and a vanish!
Long after he was out of sight we could hear him
whiz.
I do not remember where we first came across
"sage-brush," but as I have been speaking of it I
may as well describe it. This is easily done, for if
the reader can imagine a gnarled and venerable live-
oak tree reduced to a little shrub two feet high, with
its rough bark, its foliage, its twisted boughs, all
complete, he can picture the "sage-brush" exactly.
Often, on lazy afternoons in the mountains I have
lain on the ground with my face under a sage-bush,
and entertained myself with fancying that the gnats
among its foliage were lilliputian birds, and that the
ants marching and countermarching about its base
were lilliputian flocks and herds, and myself some
vast loafer from Brobdingnag waiting to catch a little
citizen and eat him.
It is an imposing monarch of the forest in ex-
quisite miniature, is the "sage-brush." Its foliage
is a grayish green, and gives that tint to desert and
mountain. It smells like our domestic sage, and
"sage-tea" made from it tastes like the sage-tea
which all boys are so well acquainted with. The
sage-brush is a singularly hardy plant, and grows
right in the midst of deep sand, and among barren
rocks where nothing else in the vegetable world
MARK TWAIN
would try to grow, except "bunch-grass."1 The
sage-bushes grow from three to six or seven feet
apart, all over the mountains and deserts of the Far
West, clear to the borders of California. There is
not a tree of any kind in the deserts, for hundreds
of miles — there is no vegetation at all in a regular
desert, except the sage-brush and its cousin the
"greasewood," which is so much like the sage-brush
that the difference amounts to little. Camp-fires
and hot suppers in the deserts would be impossible
but for the friendly sage-brush. Its trunk is as large
as a boy's wrist (and from that up to a man's arm),
and its crooked branches are half as large as its
trunk — all good, sound, hard wood, very like oak.
When a party camps, the first thing to be done is
to cut sage-brush; and in a few minutes there is an
opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a foot wide,
two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-
brush chopped up and burned in it till it is full to
the brim with glowing coals; then the cooking
begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no
swearing. Such a fire will keep all night, with very
little replenishing; and it makes a very sociable
camp-fire, and one around which the most impossi-
ble reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and
profoundly entertaining.
Sage-brush is very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it
1 " Bunch-grass" grows on the bleak mountainsides of Nevada and
neighboring territories, and offers excellent feed for stock, even in the
dead of winter, wherever the snow is blown aside and exposes it;
notwithstanding its unpromising home, bunch-grass is a better and
more nutritious diet for cattle and horses than almost any other hay
or grass that is known — so stockmen say.
16
ROUGHING IT
is a distinguished failure. Nothing can abide the
taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate child,
the mule. But their testimony to its nutritiousness
is worth nothing, for they will eat pine - knots, or
anthracite coal, or brass filings, or lead pipe, or old
bottles, or anything that comes handy, and then go
off looking as grateful as if they had had oysters for
dinner. Mules and donkeys and camels have appe-
tites that anything will relieve temporarily, but noth-
ing satisfy. In Syria, once, at the headwaters of
the Jordan, a camel took charge of my overcoat
while the tents were being pitched, and examined it
with a critical eye, all over, with as much interest as
if he had an idea of getting one made like it; and
then, after he was done figuring on it as an article
of apparel, he began to contemplate it as an article
of diet. He put his foot on it, and lifted one of the
sleeves out with his teeth, and chewed and chewed
at it, gradually taking it in, and all the while opening
and closing his eyes in a kind of religious ecstasy,
as if he had never tasted anything as good as an
overcoat before in his life. Then he smacked his
lips once or twice, and reached after the other sleeve.
Next he tried the velvet collar, and smiled a smile
of such contentment that it was plain to see that
he regarded that as the daintiest thing about an
overcoat. The tails went next, along with some
percussion-caps and cough-candy, and some fig-paste
from Constantinople. And then my newspaper cor-
respondence dropped out, and he took a chance in
that — manuscript letters written for the home papers.
But he was treading on dangerous ground, now
17
MARK TWAIN
He began to come across solid wisdom in those
documents that was rather weighty on his stomach;
and occasionally he would take a joke that would
shake him up till it loosened his teeth ; it was getting
to be perilous times with him, but he held his grip
with good courage and hopefully, till at last he
began to stumble on statements that not even a
camel could swallow with impunity. He began to
gag and gasp, and his eyes to stand out, and his
forelegs to spread, and in about a quarter of a
minute he fell over as stiff as a carpenter's work-
bench, and died a death of indescribable agony. I
went and pulled the manuscript out of his mouth,
and found that the sensitive creature had choked to
death on one of the mildest and gentlest statements
of fact that I ever laid before a trusting public.
I was about to say, when diverted from my sub-
ject, that occasionally one finds sage-bushes five or
six feet high, and with a spread of branch and foli-
age in proportion, but two or two and a half feet is
the usual height.
CHAPTER IV
AS the sun went down and the evening chill came
L on, we made preparation for bed. We stirred
up the hard leather letter-sacks, and the knotty
canvas bags of printed matter (knotty and uneven
because of projecting ends and corners of magazines,
boxes and books). We stirred them up and redis-
posed them in such a way as to make our bed as
level as possible. And we did improve it, too,
though after all our work it had an upheaved and
billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy
sea. Next we hunted up our boots from odd nooks
among the mail-bags where they had settled, and
put them on. Then we got down our coats, vests,
pantaloons and heavy woolen shirts, from the arm-
loops where they had been swinging all day, and
clothed ourselves in them — for, there being no
ladies either at the stations or in the coach, and the
weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort by
stripping to our underclothing, at nine o'clock in
the morning. All things being now ready, we stowed
the uneasy Dictionary where it would lie as quiet
as possible, and placed the water-canteen and
pistols where we could find them in the dark. Then
we smoked a final pipe, and swapped a final yarn;
after which, we put the pipes, tobacco, and bag of
19
MARK TWAIN
coin in snug holes and caves among the mail-bags,
and then fastened down the coach curtains all arc and
and made the place as "dark as the inside of a cow,"
as the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way.
It was certainly as dark as any place could be —
nothing was even dimly visible in it. And finally,
we rolled ourselves up like silkworms, each person
in his own blanket, and sank peacefully to sleep.
Whenever the stage stopped to change horses, we
would wake up, and try to recollect where we were —
and succeed — and in a minute or two the stage
would be off again, and we likewise. We began to
get into country, now, threaded here and there with
little streams. These had high, steep banks on each
side, and every time we flew down one bank and
scrambled up the other, our party inside got mixed
somewhat. First we would all be down in a pile at
the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting pos-
ture, and in a second we would shoot to the other
end, and stand on our heads. And we would sprawl
and kick, too, and ward off ends and corners of mail-
bags that came lumbering over us and about us ; and
as the dust rose from the tumult, we would all sneeze
in chorus, and the majority of us would grumble,
and probably say some hasty thing, like: "Take
your elbow out of my ribs! — can't you quit crowd-
ing
Every time we avalanched from one end of the
stage to the other, the Unabridged Dictionary would
come too ; and every time it came it damaged some-
body. One trip it "barked" the Secretary's elbow,-
the next trip it hurt me in the stomach, and the
20
ROUGHING IT
third it tilted Bemis's nose up till he could look
down his nostrils — he said. The pistols and coin
soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes, pipe-
stems, tobacco, and canteens clattered and floun-
dered after the Dictionary every time it made an
assault on us, and aided and abetted the book by
spilling tobacco in our eyes, and water down our
backs.
Still, all things considered, it was a very comforta-
ble night. It wore gradually away, and when at last
a cold gray light was visible through the puckers and
chinks in the curtains, we yawned and stretched with
satisfaction, shed our cocoons, and felt that we had
slept as much as was necessary. By and by, as the
sun rose up and warmed the world, we pulled off our
clothes and got ready for breakfast. We were just
pleasantly in time, for five minutes afterward the
driver sent the weird music of his bugle winding over
the grassy solitudes, and presently we detected a low
hut or two in the distance. Then the rattling of the
coach, the clatter of our six horses' hoofs, and the
driver's crisp commands, awoke to a louder and
stronger emphasis, and we went sweeping down on
the station at our smartest speed. It was fascinat-
ing— that old Overland stage-coaching.
We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver
tossed his gathered reins out on the ground, gaped
and stretched complacently, drew off his heavy
buckskin gloves with great deliberation and insuffer-
able dignity — taking not the slightest notice of a
dozen solicitous inquiries after his health, and humbly
facetious and flattering accostings, and obsequious
21
MARK TWAIN
tenders of service, from five or six hairy and half-
civilized station-keepers and hostlers who were nimbly
unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh team
out of the stables — for, in the eyes of the stage-driver
of that day, station-keepers and hostlers were a sort
of good enough low creatures, useful in their place,
and helping to make up a world, but not the kind of
beings which a person of distinction could afford to
concern himself with; while, on the contrary, in the
eyes of the station-keeper and the hostler, the stage-
driver was a hero — a great and shining dignitary, the
world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the ob-
served of the nations. When they spoke to him
they received his insolent silence meekly, and as
being the natural and proper conduct of so great a
man; when he opened his lips they all hung on his
words with admiration (he never honored a particu-
lar individual with a remark, but addressed it with a
broad generality to the horses, the stables, the sur-
rounding country and the human underlings) ; when
he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a
hostler, that hostler was happy for the day; when
he uttered his one jest — old as the hills, coarse,
profane, witless, and inflicted on the same audience,
in the same language, every time his coach drove up
there — the varlets roared, and slapped their thighs,
and swore it was the best thing they'd ever heard in
all their lives. And how they would fly around when
he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same,
or a light for his pipe! — but they would instantly
insult a passenger if he so far forgot himself as to
crave a favor at their hands. They could do that
ROUGHING IT
sort of insolence as well as the driver they copied it
from — for, let it be borne in mind, the Overland
driver had but little less contempt for his passengers
than he had for his hostlers.
The hostlers and station-keepers treated the really-
powerful conductor of the coach merely with the best
of what was their idea of civility, but the driver was
the only being they bowed down to and worshiped.
How admiringly they would gaze up at him in his
high seat as he gloved himself with lingering delib-
eration, while some happy hostler held the bunch of
reins aloft, and waited patiently for him to take it!
And how they would bombard him with glorifying
ejaculations as he cracked his long whip and went
careering away.
The station buildings were long, low huts, made
of sun-dried, mud-colored bricks, laid up without
mortar (adobes, the Spaniards call these bricks, and
Americans shorten it to 'dobies). The roofs, which
had no slant to them worth speaking of, were
thatched and then sodded or covered with a thick
layer of earth, and from this sprung a pretty rank
growth of weeds and grass. It was the first time we
had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house.
The buildings consisted of barns, stable-room for
twelve or fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating-room
for passengers. This latter had bunks in it for the
station-keeper and a hostler or two. You could rest
your elbow on its eaves, and you had to bend in order
to get in at the door. In place of a window there
was a square hole about large enough for a man to
crawl through, but this had no glass in it. There
23
MARK TWAIN
was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard.
There was no stove, but the fireplace served all
needful purposes. There were no shelves, no cup-
boards, no closets. In a corner stood an open sack
of flour, and nestling against its base were a couple
of black and venerable tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a
little bag of salt, and a side of bacon.
By the door of the station-keeper's den, outside,
was a tin wash-basin, on the ground. Near it was a
pail of water and a piece of yellow bar-soap, and
from the eaves hung a hoary blue woolen shirt, sig-
nificantly— but this latter was the station-keeper's
private towel, and only two persons in all the party
might venture to use it — the stage-driver and the
conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of
decency; the former would not, because he did not
choose to encourage the advances of a station-keeper.
We had towels — in the valise; they might as well
have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We (and the
conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and the driver
his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside, was
fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass frame,
with two little fragments of the original mirror
lodged down in one corner of it. This arrangement
afforded a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you
when you looked into it, with one half of your head
set up a couple of inches above the other half. From
the glass frame hung the half of a comb by a string —
but if I had to describe that patriarch or die, I
believe I would order some sample coffins. It had
come down from Esau and Samson, and had been
accumulating hair ever since — along with certain im-
24
ROUGHING IT
purities. In one corner of the room stood three or
four rifles and muskets, together with horns and
pouches of ammunition. The station-men wore
pantaloons of coarse, country-woven stuff, and into
the seat and the inside of the legs were sewed ample
additions of buckskin, to do duty in place of leg-
gings, when the man rode horseback — so the pants
were half dull blue and half yellow, and unspeakably
picturesque. The pants were stuffed into the tops
of high boots, the heels whereof were armed with
great Spanish spurs, whose little iron clogs and
chains jingled with every step. The man wore a
huge beard and mustachios, an old slouch hat, a
blue woolen shirt, no suspenders, no vest, no coat
— in a leathern sheath in his belt, a great long
"navy" revolver (slung on right side, hammer to
the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-
handled bowie-knife. The furniture of the hut was
neither gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-
chairs and sofas were not present, and never had
been, but they were represented by two three-legged
stools, a pine-board bench four feet long, and two
empty candle-boxes. The table was a greasy board
on stilts, and the table-cloth and napkins had not
come — and they were not looking for them, either.
A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin
pint cup, were at each man's place, and the driver
had a queens-ware saucer that had seen better days.
Of course, this duke sat at the head of the table.
There was one isolated piece of table furniture that
bore about it a touching air of grandeur in misfor-
tune. This was the caster. It was German silver,
as
MARK TWAIN
and crippled and rusty, but it was so preposterously
out of place there that it was suggestive of a tattered
exiled king among barbarians, and the majesty of its
native position compelled respect even in its degra-
dation. There was only one cruet left, and that was
a stopperless, fly-specked, broken-necked thing, with
two inches of vinegar in it, and a dozen preserved
flies with their heels up and looking sorry they had
invested there.
The station-keeper up-ended a disk of last week's
bread, of the shape and size of an old-time cheese,
and carved some slabs from it which were as good as
Nicholson pavement, and tenderer.
He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but
only the experienced old hands made out to eat it,
for it was condemned army bacon which the United
States would not feed to its soldiers in the forts, and
the stage company had bought it cheap for the sus-
tenance of their passengers and employees. We may
have found this condemned army bacon further out
on the Plains than the section I am locating it in, but
we found it — there is no gainsaying that.
Then he poured for us a beverage which he called
il Slumgullion, " and it is hard to think he was not
inspired when he named it. It really pretended to
be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand,
and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent
traveler. He had no sugar and no milk — not even
a spoon to stir the ingredients with.
We could not eat the bread or the meat, nor drink
the "Slumgullion." And when I looked at that
melancholy vinegar-cruet, I thought of the anecdote
26
ROUGHING IT
(a very, very old one, even at that day) of the trav.
eler who sat down to a table which had nothing on it
but a mackerel and a pot of mustard. He asked the
landlord if this was all. The landlord said :
"All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should
think there was mackerel enough there for six."
"But I don't like mackerel."
"Oh — then help yourself to the mustard."
In other days I had considered it a good, a very
good, anecdote, but there was a dismal plausibility
about it, here, that took all the humor out of it.
Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were
"die.
I tasted and smelt, and said I would take coffee, I
believed. The station-boss stopped dead still, and
glared at me speechless. At last, when he came to,
he turned away and said, as one who communes
with himself upon a matter too vast to grasp:
"Coffee! Well, if that don't go clean ahead of me,
I'md— d!"
We could not eat, and there was no conversation
among the hostlers and herdsmen — we all sat at the
same board. At least there was no conversation
further than a single hurried request, now and then,
from one employee to another. It was always in the
same form, and always gruffly friendly. Its Western
freshness and novelty startled me, at first, and inter-
ested me; but it presently grew monotonous, and
lost its charm. It was:
"Pass the bread, you son of a skunk!" No, I
forget — skunk was not the word; it seems to me it
was still stronger than that ; I know it was, in fact,
MARK TWAIN
but it is gone from my memory, apparently. How-
ever, it is no matter — probably it was too strong for
print, anyway. It is the landmark in my memory
which tells me where I first encountered the vigorous
new vernacular of the occidental plains and moun-
tains.
We gave up the breakfast, and paid our dollar
apiece and went back to our mail-bag bed in the
coach, and found comfort in our pipes. Right here
we suffered the first diminution of our princely state.
We left our six fine horses and took six mules in
their place. But they were wild Mexican fellows,
and a man had to stand at the head of each of them
and hold him fast while the driver gloved and got
himself ready. And when at last he grasped the
reins and gave the word, the men sprung suddenly
away from the mules' heads and the coach shot
from the station as if it had issued from a cannon.
How the frantic animals did scamper! It was a
fierce and furious gallop — and the gait never altered
for a moment till we reeled off ten or twelve miles
and swept up to the next collection of little station
huts and stables.
So we flew along all day. At 2 p.m. the belt of
timber that fringes the North Platte and marks its
windings through the vast level floor of the Plains
came in sight. At 4 p.m. we crossed a branch of
the river, and at 5 p.m. we crossed the Platte itself,
and landed at Fort Kearney, fifty-six hours out jrow
St. Joe THREE HUNDRED MILES !
Now that was stage-coaching on the great Over-
land, ten or twelve years ago, when perhaps not more
28
ROUGHING IT
than ten men in America, all told, expected to live
to see a railroad follow that route to the Pacific.
But the railroad is there, now, and it pictures a
thousand odd comparisons and contrasts in my mind
to read the following sketch, in the New York Times,
of a recent trip over almost the very ground I have
been describing. I can scarcely comprehend the
new state of things:
ACROSS THE CONTINENT
At 4.20 p.m., Sunday, we rolled out of the station at Omaha,
and started westward on our long jaunt. A couple of hours out,
dinner was announced — an "event" to those of us who had yet
to experience what it is to eat in one of Pullman's hotels on
wheels; so, stepping into the car next forward of our sleeping
palace, we found ourselves in the dining-car. It was a revelation
to us, that first dinner on Sunday. And though we continued
to dine for four days, and had as many breakfasts and suppers,
our whole party never ceased to admire the perfection of the
arrangements, and the marvelous results achieved. Upon tables
covered with snowy linen, and garnished with services of solid
silver, Ethiop waiters, flitting about in spotless white, placed as
by magic a repast at which Delmonico himself could have had no
occasion to blush; and, indeed, in some respects it would be
hard for that distinguished chef to match our menu; for, in
addition to all that ordinarily makes up a first-chop dinner,
had we not our antelope steak (the gormand who has not ex-
perienced this — bah! what does he know of the feast of fat
things?), our delicious mountain -brook trout, and choice fruits
and berries, and (sauce piquant and unpurchasable!) our sweet-
scented, appetite-compelling air of the prairies? You may de-
pend upon it, we all did justice to the good things, and as we
washed them down with bumpers of sparkling Krug, whilst we
sped along at the rate of thirty miles an hour, agreed it was the
fastest living we had ever experienced. (We beat that, however,
two days afterward when we made twenty-seven miles in twenty-
ieven minutes, while our champagne glasses filled to the brim
spilled not a drop!) After dinner we repaired to our drawing-
29
MARK TWAIN
room car, and, as it was Sabbath eve, intoned some of the grand
old hymns — "Praise God from whom," etc.; "Shining Shore,"
"Coronation," etc. — the voices of the men singers and of the
women singers blending sweetly in the evening air, while our
train, with its great, glaring Polyphemus eye, lighting up long
vistas of prairie, rushed into the night and the Wild. Then to
bed in luxurious couches, where we slept the sleep of the just
and only awoke the next morning (Monday) at eight o'clock, to
find ourselves at the crossing of the North Platte, three hundred
miles from Omaha^-fifteen hours and forty minutes out.
CHAPTER V
ANOTHER night of alternate tranquillity and
J~\ turmoil. But morning came, by and by. It
was another glad awakening to fresh breezes, vast
expanses of level greensward, bright sunlight, an
impressive solitude utterly without visible human
beings or human habitations, and an atmosphere of
such amazing magnifying properties that trees that
seemed close at hand were more than three miles
away. We resumed undress uniform, climbed atop
of the flying coach, dangled our legs over the side,
shouted occasionally at our frantic mules, merely
to see them lay their ears back and scamper faster,
tied our hats on to keep our hair from blowing away,
and leveled an outlook over the world-wide carpet
about us for things new and strange to gaze at.
Even at this day it thrills me through and through
to think of the life, the gladness and the wild sense
of freedom that used to make the blood dance in my
veins on those fine overland mornings!
Along about an hour after breakfast we saw the
first prairie-dog villages, the first antelope, and the
first wolf. If I remember rightly, this latter was the
regular coyote (pronounced ky-c-te) of the farther
deserts. And if it was, he was not a pretty creature,
or respectable either, for I got well acquainted with
31
MARK TWAIN
his race afterward, and can speak with confidence.
The coyote is a long, slim, sick and sorry -looking
skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a
tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a
despairing expression of forsakenness and misery
a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with
slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a
general slinking expression all over. The coyote
is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is
always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck and
friendless. The meanest creatures despise him, and
even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede.
He is so spiritless and cowardly that even while his
exposed teeth are pretending a threat, the rest of his
face is apologizing for it. And he is so homely! — so
scrawny, and ribby, and coarse-haired, and pitiful.
When he sees you he lifts his lip and lets a flash of
his teeth out, and then turns a little out of the course
he was pursuing, depresses his head a bit, and strikes
a long, soft-footed trot through the sage-brush,
glancing over his shoulder at you, from time to time,
till he is about out of easy pistol range, and then he
stops and takes a deliberate survey of you; he will
trot fifty yards and stop again — another fifty and
stop again; and finally the gray of his gliding body
blends with the gray of the sage-brush, and he dis-
appears. All this is when you make no demonstra-
tion against him; but if you do, he develops a live-
lier interest in his journey, and instantly electrifies
his heels and puts such a deal of real estate between
himself and your weapon, that by the time you have
raised the hammer you see that you need a minie
7.2
ROUGHING IT
rifle, and by the time you have got him in line you
need a rifled cannon, and by the time you have
''drawn a bead" on him you see well enough that
nothing but an unusually long-winded streak of light-
ning could reach him where he is now. But if you
start a swift-footed dog after him, you will enjoy it
ever so much — especially if it is a dog that has a
good opinion of himself, and has been brought up
to think he knows something about speed. The
coyote will go swinging gently off on that deceitful
trot of his, and every little while he will smile a
fraudful smile over his shoulder that will fill that
dog entirely full of encouragement and worldly ambi-
tion, and make him lay his head still lower to the
ground, and stretch his neck further to the front, and
pant more fiercely, and stick his tail out straighter
behind, and move his furious legs with a yet wilder
frenzy, and leave a broader and broader, and higher
and denser cloud of desert sand smoking behind, and
marking his long wake across the level plain! And
all this time the dog is only a short twenty feet
behind the coyote, and to save the soul of him he
cannot understand why it is that he cannot get
perceptibly closer; and he begins to get aggravated,
and it makes him madder and madder to see how
gently the coyote glides along and never pants or
sweats or ceases to smile ; and he grows still more and
more incensed to see how shamefully he has been
taken in by an entire stranger, and what an ignoble
swindle that long, calm, soft-footed trot is ; and next
he notices that he is getting fagged, and that the
coyote actually has to slacken speed a little to keep
33
MARK TWAIN
from running away from him — and then that town-
dog is mad in earnest, and he begins to strain and
weep and swear, and paw the sand higher than ever,
and reach for the coyote with concentrated and
desperate energy. This "spurt" finds him six feet
behind the gliding enemy, and two miles from his
friends. And then, in the instant that a wild new hope
is lighting up his face, the coyote turns and smiles
blandly upon him once more, and with a something
about it which seems to say: "Well, I shall have to
tear myself away from you, bub — business is busi-
ness, and it will not do for me to be fooling along
this way all day" — and forthwith there is a rushing
sound, and the sudden splitting of a long crack
through the atmosphere, and behold that dog is
solitary and alone in the midst of a vast solitude!
It makes his head swim. He stops, and looks all
around; climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes
into the distance; shakes his head reflectively, and
then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back
to his train, and takes up a humble position under
the hindmost wagon, and feels unspeakably mean,
and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast
for a week. And for as much as a year after that,
whenever there is a great hue and cry after a coyote,
that dog will merely glance in that direction without
emotion, and apparently observe to himself, "I
believe I do not wish any of the pie."
The coyote lives chiefly in the most desolate and
forbidding deserts, along with the lizard, the jackass-
rabbit and the raven, and gets an uncertain and pre-
carious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist
< i
ROUGHING IT
almost wholly on the carcasses of oxen, mules, and
frorses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and
died, and upon windfalls of carrion, and occasional
legacies of offal bequeathed to him by white men
who have been opulent enough to have something
better to butcher than condemned army bacon. He
will eat anything in the world that his first cousins,
the desert-frequenting tribes of Indians, will, and
they will eat anything they can bite. It is a curious
fact that these latter are the only creatures known to
history who will eat nitroglycerin and ask for more
if they survive.
The coyote of the deserts beyond the Rocky
Mountains has a peculiarly hard time of it, owing to
the fact that his relations, the Indians, are just as
apt to be the first to detect a seductive scent on the
desert breeze, and follow the fragrance to the late
ox it emanated from, as he is himself ; and when this
occurs he has to content himself with sitting off at
a little distance watching those people strip off
and dig out everything edible, and walk off with it.
Then he and the waiting ravens explore the skeleton
and polish the bones. It is considered that the
coyote, and the obscene bird, and the Indian of the
desert, testify their blood-kinship with each other in
that they live together in the waste places of the
earth on terms of perfect confidence and friendship,
while hating all other creatures and yearning to assist
at their funerals. He does not mind going a hundred
miles to breakfast, and a hundred and fifty to dinner,
because he is sure to have three or four days between
meals, and he can just as well be traveling and look-
35
MARK TWAIN
ing at the scenery as lying around doing nothing and
adding to the burdens of his parents.
We soon learned to recognize the sharp, vicious
bark of the coyote as it came across the murky plain
at night to disturb our dreams among the mail-sacks ;
and remembering his forlorn aspect and his hard
fortune, made shift to wish him the blessed novelty
of a long day's good luck and a limitless larder the
morrow.
CHAPTER VI
OUR new conductor (just shipped) had been
without sleep for twenty hours. Such a thing
was very frequent. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to
Sacramento, California, by stage-coach, was nearly
nineteen hundred miles, and the trip was often made
in fifteen days (the cars do it in four and a half,
now), but the time specified in the mail contracts,
and required by the schedule, was eighteen or nine-
teen days, if I remember rightly. This was to make
fair allowance for winter storms and snows, and
other unavoidable causes of detention. The stage
company had everything under strict discipline and
good system. Over each two hundred and fifty
miles of road they placed an agent or superintendent,
and invested him with great authority. His beat or
jurisdiction of two hundred and fifty miles was
called a "division." He purchased horses, mules,
harness, and food for men and beasts, and distributed
these things among his stage stations, from time to
time, according to his judgment of what each station
needed. He erected station buildings and dug wells.
He attended to the paying of the station-keepers,
hostlers, drivers, and blacksmiths, and discharged
them whenever he chose. He was a very, very
great man in his "division" — a kind of Grand
MARK TWAIN
Mogul, a Sultan of the Indies, in whose presence
common men were modest of speech and manner,
and in the glare of whose greatness even the dazzling
stage-driver dwindled to a penny dip. There were
about eight of these kings, all told, on the Overland
route.
Next in rank and importance to the division agent
came the "conductor." His beat was the same
length as the agent's — two hundred and fifty miles.
He sat with the driver, and (when necessary) rode
that fearful distance, night and day, without other
rest or sleep than what he could get perched thus on
top of the flying vehicle. Think of it! He had
absolute charge of the mails, express matter, pas-
sengers, and stage-coach, until he delivered them to
the next conductor, and got his receipt for them.
Consequently he had to be a man of intelligence,
decision, and considerable executive ability. He was
usually a quiet, pleasant man, who attended closely
to his duties, and was a good deal of a gentleman.
It was not absolutely necessary that the division
agent should be a gentleman, and occasionally he
wasn't. But he was always a general in administra-
tive ability, and a bulldog in courage and deter-
mination— otherwise the chieftainship over the law-
less underlings of the Overland service would never
in any instance have been to him anything but an
equivalent for a month of insolence and distress and
a bullet and a coffin at the end of it. There were
about sixteen or eighteen conductors on the Over-
land, for there was a daily stage each way, and a
conductor on every stage.
38
ROUGHING IT
Next in real and official rank and importance,
after the conductor, came my delight, the driver —
next in real but not in apparent importance — for we
have seen that in the eyes of the common herd the
driver was to the conductor as an admiral is to the
captain of the flag-ship. The driver's beat was
pretty long, and his sleeping-time at the stations
pretty short, sometimes; and so, but for the grandeur
of his position his would have been a sorry life,
as well as a hard and a wearing one. We took a
new driver every day or every night (for they drove
backward and forward over the same piece of road
all the time), and therefore we never got as well
acquainted with them as we did with the conductors ;
and besides, they would have been above being
familiar with such rubbish as passengers, anyhow, as
a general thing. Still, we were always eager to get a
sight of each and every new driver as soon as the
watch changed, for each and every day we were
either anxious to get rid of an unpleasant one, or
loath to part with a driver we had learned to like and
had come to be sociable and friendly with. And so
the first question we asked the conductor whenever
we got to where we were to exchange drivers, was
always, "Which is him?" The grammar was faulty,
maybe, but we could not know, then, that it would
go into a book some day. As long as everything
went smoothly, the Overland driver was well enough
situated, but if a fellow-driver got sick suddenly it
made trouble, for the coach must go on, and so the
potentate who was about to climb down and take a
luxurious rest after his long night's siege in the midst
39
MARK TWAIN
of wind and rain and darkness, had to stay where he
was and do the sick man's work. Once in the Rocky
Mountains, when I found a driver sound asleep on
the box, and the mules going at the usual breakneck
pace, the conductor said never mind him, there was
no danger, and he was doing double duty — had driven
seventy-five miles on one coach, and was now going
back over it on this without rest or sleep. A hundred
and fifty miles of holding back of six vindictive mules
and keeping them from climbing the trees ! It sounds
incredible, but I remember the statement well enough.
The station-keepers, hostlers, etc., were low, rough
characters, as already described; and from western
Nebraska to Nevada a considerable sprinkling of
them might be fairly set down as outlaws — fugitives
from justice, criminals whose best security was a
section of country which was without law and without
even the pretense of it. When the "division agent"
issued an order to one of these parties he did it with
the full understanding that he might have to enforce
it with a navy six-shooter, and so he always went
"fixed" to make things go along smoothly. Now
and then a division agent was really obliged to shoot
a hostler through the head to teach him some simple
matter that he could have taught him with a club if
his circumstances and surroundings had been differ-
ent. But they were snappy, able men, those division
agents, and when they tried to teach a subordinate
anything, that subordinate generally "got it through
his head."
A great portion of this vast machinery — these
hundreds of men and coaches, and thousands of mules
40
ROUGHING IT
and horses — was in the hands of Mr. Ben Holliday.
All the western half of the business was in his hands.
This reminds me of an incident of Palestine travel
which is pertinent here, and so I will transfer it
just in the language in which I find it set down in
my Holy Land note-book :
No doubt everybody has heard of Ben Holliday — a man of
prodigious energy, who used to send mails and passengers flying
across the continent in his overland stage-coaches like a very
whirlwind — two thousand long miles in fifteen days and a half,
by the watch! But this fragment of history is not about Ben
Holliday, but about a young New York boy by the name of
Jack, who traveled with our small party of pilgrims in the Holy
Land (and who had traveled to California in Mr. Holliday's
overland coaches three years before, and had by no means
forgotten it or lost his gushing admiration of Mr. H.). Aged
nineteen. Jack was a good boy — a good-hearted and always
well-meaning boy, who had been reared in the city of New York,
and although he was bright and knew a great many useful things,
his Scriptural education had been a good deal neglected — to such
a degree, indeed, that all Holy Land history was fresh and new
to him, and all Bible names mysteries that had never disturbed
his virgin ear. Also in our party was an elderly pilgrim who was
the reverse of Jack, in that he was learned in the Scriptures and
an enthusiast concerning them. He was our encyclopedia, and
we were never tired of listening to his speeches, nor he of making
them. He never passed a celebrated locality, from Bashan to
Bethlehem, without illuminating it with an oration. One day,
when camped near the ruins of Jericho, he burst forth with some-
thing like this:
" Jack, do you see that range of mountains over yonder that
bounds the Jordan valley? The mountains of Moab, Jack!
Think of it, my boy — the actual mountains of Moab — renowned
in Scripture history. We are actually standing face to face with
those illustrious crags and peaks — and for all we know [dropping
his voice impressively], our eyes may be resting at this very moment
upon the spot where lies the mysterious grave of Moses!
Think of it, Jack!"
41
MARK TWAIN
"Moses who?" (falling inflection).
" Moses who! Jack, you ought to be ashamed of yourself — you
ought to be ashamed of such criminal ignorance. Why, Moses,
the great guide, soldier, poet, lawgiver of ancient Israel! Jack,
from this spot where we stand, to Egypt, stretches a fearful
desert three hundred miles in extent — and across that desert
that wonderful man brought the children of Israel! — guiding
them with unfailing sagacity for forty years over the sandy
desolation and among the obstructing rocks and hills, and
landed them at last, safe and sound, within sight of this very
spot; and where we now stand they entered the Promised Land
with anthems of rejoicing! It was a wonderful, wonderful thing
to do, Jack. Think of it!"
" Forty years? Only three hundred miles? Humph! Ben Holli-
day would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!"
The boy meant no harm. He did not know that he had said
anything that was wrong or irreverent. And so no one scolded
him or felt offended with him — and nobody could but some
ungenerous spirit incapable of excusing the heedless blunders
of a boy.
At noon on the fifth day out, we arrived at the
"Crossing of the South Platte," alias "Julesburg,"
alias "Overland City," four hundred and seventy
miles from St. Joseph — the strangest, quaintest,
funniest frontier town that our untraveled eyes had
ever stared at and been astonished with.
CHAPTER VII
IT did seem strange enough to see a town again
after what appeared to us such a long acquaint-
ance with deep, still, almost lifeless and houseless
solitude ! We tumbled out into the busy street feel-
ing like meteoric people crumbled off the corner of
some other world, and wakened up suddenly in this.
For an hour we took as much interest in Overland
City as if we had never seen a town before. The
reason we had an hour to spare was because we had
to change our stage (for a less sumptuous affair,
called a "mud- wagon") and transfer our freight of
mails.
Presently we got under way again. We came to
the shallow, yellow, muddy South Platte, with its
low banks and its scattering flat sand-bars and pygmy
islands — a melancholy stream straggling through the
center of the enormous flat plain, and only saved
from being impossible to find with the naked eye by
its sentinel rank of scattering trees standing on either
bank. The Platte was "up," they said — which
made me wish I could see it when it was down, if it
could look any sicker and sorrier. They said it was
a dangerous stream to cross, now, because its quick-
sands were liable to swallow up horses, coach, and
passengers if an attempt was made to ford it. But
43
MARK TWAIN
the mails had to go, and we made the attempt.
Once or twice m midstream the wheels sunk into the
yielding sands so threateningly that we half believed
we had dreaded and avoided the sea all our lives to
be shipwrecked in a "mud-wagon" in the middle of
a desert at last. But we dragged through and sped
away toward the setting sun.
Next morning just before dawn, when about five
hundred and fifty miles from St. Joseph, our mud-
wagon broke down. We were to be delayed five or
six hours, and therefore we took horses, by invita-
tion, and joined a party who were just starting on a
buffalo-hunt. It was noble sport galloping over the
plain in the dewy freshness of the morning, but our
part of the hunt ended in disaster and disgrace, for
a wounded buffalo bull chased the passenger Bemis
nearly two miles, and then he forsook his horse and
took to a lone tree. He was very sullen about the
matter for some twenty-four hours, but at last he
began to soften little by little, and finally he said:
"Well, it was not funny, and there was no sense
in those gawks making themselves so facetious over
it. I tell you I was angry in earnest for a while. I
should have shot that long gangly lubber they called
Hank, if I could have done it without crippling six
or seven other people — but of course I couldn't,
the old 'Allen' 's so confounded comprehensive. I
wish those loafers had been up in the tree; they
wouldn't have wanted to laugh so. If I had had a
horse worth a cent — but no, the minute he saw that
buffalo bull wheel on him and give a bellow, he raised
straight up in the air and stood on his heels. The
44
ROUGHING IT
saddle began to slip, and I took him round the neck
and laid close to him, and began to pray. Then he
came down and stood up on the other end awhile,
and the bull actually stopped pawing sand and bel-
lowing to contemplate the inhuman spectacle. Then
the bull made a pass at him and uttered a bellow
that sounded perfectly frightful, it was so close to
me, and that seemed to literally prostrate my horse's
reason, and make a raving distracted maniac of him,
and I wish I may die if he didn't stand on his head
for a quarter of a minute and shed tears. He was
absolutely out of his mind — he was, as sure as truth
itself, and he really didn't know what he was doing.
Then the bull came charging at us, and my horse
dropped down on all fours and took a fresh start —
and then for the next ten minutes he would actually
throw one handspring after another so fast that the
bull began to get unsettled, too, and didn't know
where to start in — and so he stood there sneezing,
and shoveling dust over his back, and bellowing
every now and then, and thinking he had got a
nf teen-hundred-dollar circus horse for breakfast, cer-
tain. Well, I was first out on his neck — the horse's,
not the bull's — and then underneath, and next on
his rump, and sometimes head up, and sometimes
heels — but I tell you it seemed solemn and awful
to be ripping and tearing and carrying on so in the
presence of death, as you might say. Pretty soon
the bull made a snatch for us and brought away
some of my horse's tail (I suppose, but do not know,
being pretty busy at the time), but something made
him hungry for solitude and suggested to him to get
45
MARK TWAIN
up and hunt for it. And then you ought to have
seen that spider-legged old skeleton go! and you
ought to have seen the bull cut out after him, too —
head down, tongue out, tail up, bellowing like every-
thing, and actually mowing down the weeds, and
tearing up the earth, and boosting up the sand like
a whirlwind! By George, it was a hot race! I and
the saddle were back on the rump, and I had the
bridle in my teeth and holding on to the pommel with
both hands. First we left the dogs behind; then we
passed a jackass-rabbit; then we overtook a coyote,
and were gaining on an antelope when the rotten
girths let go and threw me about thirty yards off
to the left, and as the saddle went down over the
horse's rump he gave it a lift with his heels that sent
it more than four hundred yards up in the air, I
"vish I may die in a minute if he didn't. I fell at the
ot of the only solitary tree there was in nine
counties adjacent (as any creature could see with the
naked eye), and the next second I had hold of the
bark with four sets of nails and my teeth, and the
next second after that I was astraddle of the main
limb and blaspheming my luck in a way that made
my breath smell of brimstone. I had the bull, now,
if he did not think of one thing. But that one
thing I dreaded. I dreaded it very seriously. There
was a possibility that the bull might not think of it,
but there were greater chances that he would. I
made up my mind what I would do in case he did.
It was a little over forty feet to the ground from
where I sat. I cautiously unwound the lariat from
the pommel of my saddle — "
46
ROUGHING IT
"Your saddle? Did you take your saddle up in
the tree with you?"
"Take it up in the tree with me? Why, how you
talk! Of course I didn't. No man could do that.
It fell in the tree when it came down."
"Oh— exactly."
"Certainly. I unwound the lariat, and fastened
one end of it to the limb. It was the very best green
rawhide, and capable of sustaining tons. I made
a slip-noose in the other end, and then hung it
down to see the length. It reached down twenty-
two feet — half-way to the ground. I then loaded
every barrel of the Allen with a double charge. I
felt satisfied. I said to myself, if he never thinks of
that one thing that I dread, all right — but if he does,
all right anyhow — I am fixed for him. But don't
you know that the very thing a man dreads is the
thing that always happens? Indeed it is so. I
watched the bull, now, with anxiety — anxiety which
no one can conceive of who has not been in such a
situation and felt that at any moment death might
come. Presently a thought came into the bull's
eye. I knew it! said I — if my nerve fails now, I
am lost. Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded,
he started in to climb the tree — "
"What, the bull:'"
"Of course — who else?"
"But a bull can't climb a tree."
"He can't, can't he? Since you know so much
about it, did you ever see a bull try?"
"No! I never dreamt of such a thing."
"Well, then, what is the use of your talking that
47
MARK TWAIN
way, then? Because you never saw a thing done, is
that any reason why it can't be done?"
"Well, all right — go on. What did you do?"
"The bull started up, and got along well for
about ten feet, then slipped and slid back. I breathed
easier. He tried it again — got up a little higher —
slipped again. But he came at it once more, and
this time he was careful. He got gradually higher
and higher, and my spirits went down more and
more. Up he came — an inch at a time — with his
eyes hot, and his tongue hanging out. Higher and
higher — hitched his foot over the stump of a limb,
and looked up, as much as to say, 'You are my
meat, friend.' Up again — higher and higher, and
getting more excited the closer he got. He was
within ten feet of me! I took a long breath — and
then said I, 'It is now or never.' I had the coil of
the lariat all ready; I paid it out slowly, till it hung
right over his head; all of a sudden I let go of the
slack and the slip-noose fell fairly round his neck!
Quicker than lightning I out with the Allen and let
him have it in the face. It was an awful roar, and
must have scared the bull out of his senses. When
the smoke cleared away, there he was, dangling in
the air, twenty foot from the ground, and going
out of one convulsion into another faster than you
could count! I didn't stop to count, anyhow — I
shinned down the tree and shot for home."
"Bemis, is all that true, just as you have stated
it?"
' ' I wish I may rot in my tracks and die the death
of a dog if it isn't."
48
ROUGHING IT
"Well, we can't refuse to believe it, and we don't.
But if there were some proofs — "
"Proofs! Did I bring back my lariat?"
"No."
"Did I bring back my horse?"
"No."
"Did you ever see the bull again?"
"No."
"Well, then, what more do you want? I never
saw anybody as particular as you are about a little
thing like that."
I made up my mind that if this man was not a liar
he only missed it by the skin of his teeth. This
episode reminds me of an incident of my brief
sojourn in Siam, years afterward. The European
citizens of a town in the neighborhood of Bangkok
had a prodigy among them by the name of Eckert,
an Englishman — a person famous for the number,
ingenuity, and imposing magnitude of his lies. They
were always repeating his most celebrated false-
hoods, and always trying to "draw him out" before
strangers; but they seldom succeeded. Twice he
was invited to the house where I was visiting, but
nothing could seduce him into a specimen lie. One
day a planter named Bascom, an influential man.
and a proud and sometimes irascible one, invited me
to ride over with him and call on Eckert. As we
•jogged along, said he:
"Now, do you know where the fault lies? It lies
in putting Eckert on his guard. The minute the
boys go to pumping at Eckert he knows perfectly
well what they are after, and of course he shuts up
49
MARK TWAIN
his shell. Anybody might know he would. But
when we get there, we must play him finer than that.
Let him shape the conversation to suit himself — let
him drop it or change it whenever he wants to. Let
him see that nobody is trying to draw him out.
Just let him have his own way. He will soon forget
himself and begin to grind out lies like a mill.
Don't get impatient — just keep quiet, and let me
play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me
that the boys must be blind to overlook such an
obvious and simple trick as that."
Eckert received us heartily — a pleasant-spoken,
gentle-mannered creature. We sat in the veranda
an hour, sipping English ale, and talking about the
king, and the sacred white elephant, the Sleeping
Idol, and all manner of things; and I noticed that
my comrade never led the conversation himself or
shaped it, but simply followed Eckert's lead, and
betrayed no solicitude and no anxiety about any-
thing. The effect was shortly perceptible. Eckert
began to grow communicative; he grew more and
more at his ease, and more and more talkative and
sociable. Another hour passed in the same way, and
then all of a sudden Eckert said:
"Oh, by the way! I came near forgetting. I
have got a thing here to astonish you. Such a thing
as neither you nor any other man ever heard of —
I've got a cat that will eat cocoanut! Common
green cocoanut — and not only eat the meat, but
drink the milk. It is so — I'll swear to it."
A quick glance from Bascom — a glance that I
understood — then :
So
ROUGHING IT
"Why, bless my soul, I never heard of such a
thing. Man, it is impossible."
"I knew you would say it. I'll fetch the cat."
He went in the house. Bascom said:
"There — what did I tell you? Now, that is the
way to handle Eckert. You see, I have petted him
along patiently, and put his suspicions to sleep. I
am glad we came. You tell the boys about it when
you go back. Cat eat a cocoanut — oh, my! Now,
that is just his way, exactly — he will tell the absurd-
est lie, and trust to luck to get out of it again. Cat
eat a cocoanut — the innocent fool!"
Eckert approached with his cat, sure enough.
Bascom smiled. Said he:
"I'll hold the cat — you bring a cocoanut."
Eckert split one open, and chopped up some pieces.
Bascom smuggled a wink to me, and proffered a
slice of the fruit to puss. She snatched it, swallowed
it ravenously, and asked for more !
We rode our two miles in silence, and wide apart,
At least I was silent, though Bascom cuffed his hors*.
and cursed him a good deal, notwithstanding the
horse was behaving well enough. When I branched
off homeward, Bascom said :
"Keep the horse till morning. And — you neecf
not speak of this foolishness to the boys."
CHAPTER VIII
IN a little while all interest was taken up in stretch-
ing our necks and watching for the " pony-rider'*
— the fleet messenger who sped across the continent
from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nine-
teen hundred miles in eight days ! Think of that for
perishable horse and human flesh and blood to do!
The pony-rider was usually a little bit of a man, brim-
ful of spirit and endurance. No matter what time of
the day or night his watch came on, and no matter
whether it was winter or summer, raining, snowing,
hailing, or sleeting, or whether his "beat" was a
level straight road or a crazy trail over mountain
crags and precipices, or whether it led through
peaceful regions or regions that swarmed with hostile
Indians, he must be always ready to leap into the
saddle and be off like the wind! There was no
idling-time for a pony-rider on duty. He rode fifty
miles without stopping, by daylight, moonlight, star-
light, or through the blackness of darkness — just as
it happened. He rode a splendid horse that was born
for a racer and fed and lodged like a gentleman;
kept him at his utmost speed for ten miles, and then,
as he came crashing up to the station where stood
two men holding fast a fresh, impatient steed, the
transfer of rider and mail-bag was made in the
ROUGHING IT
twinkling of an eye, and away flew the eager pair
and were out of sight before the spectator could get
hardly the ghost of a look. Both rider and horse
went "flying light." The rider's dress was thin, and
fitted close; he wore a "roundabout," and a skull-
cap, and tucked his pantaloons into his boot-tops
like a race-rider. He carried no arms — he carried
nothing that was not absolutely necessary, for even
the postage on his literary freight was worth five
dollars a letter. He got but little frivolous corre-
spondence to carry — his bag had business letters in
it, mostly. His horse was stripped of all unneces-
sary weight, too. He wore a little wafer of a racing-
saddle, and no visible blanket. He wore light shoes,
or none at all. The little flat mail-pockets strapped
under the rider's thighs would each hold about the
bulk of a child's primer. They held many and many
an important business chapter and newspaper letter,
but these were written on paper as airy and thin
as gold-leaf, nearly, and thus bulk and weight were
economized. The stage - coach traveled about a
hundred to a hundred and twenty -five miles a day
(twenty-four hours), the pony-rider about two hun-
dred and fifty. There were about eighty pony-
riders in the saddle all the time, night and day,
stretching in a long, scattering procession from
Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and
forty toward the west, and among them making
four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring liveli-
hood and see a deal of scenery every single day in
the year.
We had had a consuming desire, from the begin-
53
MARK TWAIN
ning, to see a pony-rider, but somehow or other all
that passed us and all that met us managed to streak
by in the night, and so we heard only a whiz and a
hail, and the swift phantom of the desert was gone
before we could get our heads out of the windows.
But now we were expecting one along every moment,
and would see him in broad daylight. Presently the
driver exclaims :
"Here he comes!"
Every neck is stretched further, and every eye
strained wider. Away across the endless dead level
of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky,
and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think
so ! In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider,
rising and falling, rising and falling — sweeping
toward us nearer and nearer — growing more and
more distinct, more and more sharply denned —
nearer and still nearer, and the nutter of the hoofs
comes faintly to the ear— another instant a whoop
and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the
rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst
past our excited faces, and go swinging away like a
belated fragment of a storm!
So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal
fancy, that but for the flake of white foam left quiv-
ering and perishing on a mail-sack after the vision
had flashed by and disappeared, we might have
doubted whether we had seen any actual horse and
man at all, maybe.
We rattled through Scott's Bluffs Pass, by and by.
It was along here somewhere that we first came
across genuine and unmistakable alkali water in the
54
ROUGHING IT
road, and we cordially hailed it as a first-class curi-
osity, and a thing to be mentioned with eclat in let-
ters to the ignorant at home. This water gave the
road a soapy appearance, and in many places the
ground looked as if it had been whitewashed. I
think the strange alkali water excited us as much as
any wonder we had come upon yet, and I know we
felt very complacent and conceited, and better satis-
fied with life after we had added it to our list of
things which we had seen and some other people
had not. In a small way we were the same sort of
simpletons as those who climb unnecessarily the
perilous peaks of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn,
and derive no pleasure from it except the reflection
that it isn't a common experience. But once in a
while one of those parties trips and comes darting
down the long mountain crags in a sitting posture,
making the crusted snow smoke behind him, flitting
from bench to bench, and from terrace to terrace,
jarring the earth where he strikes, and still glancing
and flitting on again, sticking an iceberg into himself
every now and then, and tearing his clothes, snatch-
ing at things to save himself, taking hold of trees
and fetching them along with him, roots and all,
starting little rocks now and then, then big boulders,
then acres of ice and snow and patches of forest,
gathering and still gathering as he goes, and adding
and still adding to his massed and sweeping grandeur
as he nears a three-thousand-foot precipice, till at
last he waves his hat magnificently and rides into
eternity on th( back of a raging and tossing ava-
lanche!
55
MARK TWAIN
This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away
by excitement, but ask calmly, how does this person
feel about it in his cooler moments next day, with six
or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on top of him ?
We crossed the sand-hills near the scene of the
Indian mail robbery and massacre of 1856, wherein
the driver and conductor perished, and also all the
passengers but one, it was supposed; but this must
have been a mistake, for at different times afterward
on the Pacific coast I was personally acquainted with
a hundred and thirty-three or four people who were
wounded during that massacre, and barely escaped
with their lives. There was no doubt of the truth of
it — I had it from their own lips. One of these
parties told me that he kept coming across arrow-
heads in his system for nearly seven years after the
massacre ; and another of them told me that he was
stuck so literally full of arrows that after the Indians
were gone and he could raise up and examine him-
self, he could not restrain his tears, for his clothes
were completely ruined.
The most trustworthy tradition avers, however,
that only one man, a person named Babbitt, survived
the massacre, and he was desperately wounded. He
dragged himself on his hands and knee (for one leg
was broken) to a station several miles away. He
did it during portions of two nights, lying concealed
one day and part of another, and for more than
forty hours suffering unimaginable anguish from
hunger, thirst, and bodily pain. The Indians robbed
the coach of everything it contained, including quite
an amount of treasure.
56
CHAPTER IX
WE passed Fort Laramie in the night, and on
the seventh morning out we found ourselves
in the Black Hills, with Laramie Peak at our elbow
(apparently) looming vast and solitary — a deep, dark,
rich indigo blue in hue, so portentously did the old
colossus frown under his beetling brows of storm-
cloud. He was thirty or forty miles away, in reality,
but he only seemed removed a little beyond the
low ridge at our right. We breakfasted at Horse-
Shoe Station, six hundred and seventy-six miles out
from St. Joseph. We had not reached a hostile
Indian country, and during the afternoon we passed
Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort all
the time we were in the neighborhood, being aware
that many of the trees we dashed by at arm's-length
concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the pre-
ceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet
through the pony-rider's jacket, but he had ridden
on, just the same, because pony-riders were not
allowed to stop and inquire into such things except
when killed. As long as they had life enough left
in them they had to stick to the horse and ride, even
if the Indians had been waiting for them a week, and
were entirely out of patience. About two hours and
57
MARK TWAIN
a half before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the
keeper in charge of it had fired four times at an
Indian, but he said with an injured air that the Indian
had "skipped around so's to spile everything — and
ammunition's blamed skurse, too." The most nat-
ural inference conveyed by his manner of speaking
was, that in "skipping around," the Indian had
taken an unfair advantage. The coach we were in
had a neat hole through its front — a reminiscence
of its last trip through this region. The bullet that
made it wounded the driver slightly, but he did not
mind it much. He said the place to keep a man
"huffy" was down on the southern Overland,
among the Apaches, before the company moved the
stage line up on the northern route. He said the
Apaches used to annoy him all the time down there,
and that he came as near as anything to starving to
death in the midst of abundance, because they kept
him so leaky with bullet-holes that he "couldn't
hold his vittles." This person's statements were
not generally believed.
We shut the blinds down very tightly that first
night in the hostile Indian country, and lay on our
arms. We slept on them some, but most of the time
we only lay on them. We did not talk much, but
kept quiet and listened. It was an inky-black night,
and occasionally rainy. We were among woods and
rocks, hills and gorges — so shut in, in fact, that
when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we
could discern nothing. The driver and conductor
on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals,
in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst
58
ROUGHING IT
of invisible dangers. We listened to raindrops pat-
tering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels
through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of
the wind ; and all the time we had that absurd sense
upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-
curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly
still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and
swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses,
and the grinding of the wheels. We listened a long
time, with intent faculties and bated breath; every
time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh of
relief and start to say something, a comrade would
be sure to utter a sudden "Hark!" and instantly
the experimenter was rigid and listening again. So
the tiresome minutes and decades of minutes dragged
away, until at last our intense forms filmed over with
a dulled consciousness, and we slept, if one might
call such a condition by so strong a name — for it was
a sleep set with a hair-trigger. It was a sleep seeth-
ing and teeming with a weird and distressful confu-
sion of shreds and fag-ends of dreams — a sleep that
was a chaos. Presently, dreams and sleep and the
sullen hush of the night were startled by a ringing
report, and cloven by such a long, wild, agonizing
shriek! Then we heard — ten steps from the stage —
"Help! help! help!" [It was our driver's voice.]
1 ' Kill him ! Kill him like a dog !"
"I'm being murdered! Will no man lend me a
pistol?"
' ' Look out ! head him off ! head him off !"
[Two pistol-shots; a confusion of voices and the
trampling of many feet, as if a crowd were closing
59
MARK TWAIN
and surging together around some object; several
heavy, dull blows, as with a club; a voice that said
appealingly, "Don't, gentlemen, please don't — I'm a
dead man!" Then a fainter groan, and another
blow, and away sped the stage into the darkness,
and left the grisly mystery behind us.]
What a startle it was! Eight seconds would
amply cover the time it occupied — maybe even five
would do it. We only had time to plunge at a cur-
tain and unbuckle and unbutton part of it in an awk-
ward and hindering flurry, when our whip cracked
sharply overhead, and we went rumbling and thun-
dering away, down a mountain "grade."
We fed on that mystery the rest of the night —
what was left of it, for it was waning fast. It had
to remain a present mystery, for all we could get
from the conductor in answer to our hails was some-
thing that sounded, through the clatter of the wheels,
like, "Tell you in the morning!"
So we lit our pipes and opened the corner of a
curtain for a chimney, and lay there in the dark, lis-
tening to each other's story of how he first felt and
how many thousand Indians he first thought had
hurled themselves upon us, and what his remem-
brance of the subsequent sounds was, and the order
of their occurrence. And we theorized, too, but
there was never a theory that would account for our
driver's voice being out there, nor yet account for
his Indian murderers talking such good English, if
they were Indians.
So we chatted and smoked the rest of the night
comfortably away, our boding anxiety being some-
60
ROUGHING IT
how marvelously dissipated by the real presence of
something to be anxious about.
We never did get much satisfaction about that
dark occurrence. All that we could make out of the
odds and ends of the information we gathered in the
morning, was that the disturbance occurred at a
station; that we changed drivers there, and that the
driver that got off there had been talking roughly
about some of the outlaws that infested the region
("for there wasn't a man around there but had a
price on his head and didn't dare show himself in the
settlements," the conductor said); he had talked
roughly about these characters, and ought to have
"drove up there with his pistol cocked and ready
on the seat alongside of him, and begun business
himself, because any softy would know they would
be laying for him."
That was all we could gather, and we could see
that neither the conductor nor the new driver were
much concerned about the matter. They plainly
had little respect for a man who would deliver offen-
sive opinions of people and then be so simple as to
come into their presence unprepared to "back his
judgment," as they pleasantly phrased the killing of
any fellow-being who did not like said opinions. And
likewise they plainly had a contempt for the man's
poor discretion in venturing to rouse the wrath of
such utterly reckless wild beasts as those outlaws —
and the conductor added:
"I tell you it's as much as Slade himself wants
to do!"
This remark created an entire revolution in my
61
MARK TWAIN
curiosity. I cared nothing now about the Indians,
and even lost interest in the murdered driver. There
was much magic in that name, Slade ! Day or night,
now, I stood always ready to drop any subject in
hand, to listen to something new about Slade and his
ghastly exploits. Even before we got to Overland
City, we had begun to hear about Slade and his
"division" (for he was a "division agent") on the
Overland; and from the hour we had left Overland
City we had heard drivers and conductors talk about
only three things — " Calif orny," the Nevada silver-
mines, and this desperado Slade. And a deal the
most of the talk was about Slade. We had gradually
come to have a realizing sense of the fact that Slade
was a man whose heart and hands and soul were
steeped in the blood of offenders against his dignity;
a man who awfully avenged all injuries, affronts,
insults or slights, of whatever kind — on the spot if
he could, years afterward if lack of earlier opportu-
nity compelled it; a man whose hate tortured him
day and night till vengeance appeased it — and not
an ordinary vengeance either, but his enemy's abso-
lute death — nothing less; a man whose face would
light up with a terrible joy when he surprised a foe
and had him at a disadvantage. A high and efficient
servant of the Overland, an outlaw among outlaws
and yet their relentless scourge, Slade was at once
the most bloody, the most dangerous, and the most
valuable citizen that inhabited the savage fastnesses
of the mountains.
CHAPTER X
REALLY and truly, two -thirds of the talk of
drivers and conductors had been about this
man Slade, ever since the day before we reached
Julesburg. In order that the Eastern reader may
have a clear conception of what a Rocky Mountain
desperado is, in his highest state of development,
I will reduce all this mass of overland gossip to one
straightforward narrative, and present it in the fol-
lowing shape :
Slade was born in Illinois, of good parentage. At
about twenty-six years of age he killed a man in a
quarrel and fled the country. At St. Joseph, Mis-
souri, he joined one of the early California-bound
emigrant-trains, and was given the post of train-
master. One day on the plains he had an angry
dispute with one of his wagon-drivers, and both drew
their revolvers. But the driver was the quicker
artist, and had his weapon cocked first. So Slade
said it was a pity to waste life on so small a matter,
and proposed that the pistols be thrown on the
ground and the quarrel settled by a fist-fight. The
unsuspecting driver agreed, and threw down his
pistol — whereupon Slade laughed at his simplicity,
and shot him dead!
He made his escape, and lived a wild life for
63
MARK TWAIN
a while, dividing his time between fighting Indians
and avoiding an Illinois sheriff, who had been sent
to arrest him for his first murder. It is said that in
one Indian battle he killed three savages with his own
hand, and afterward cut their ears off and sent
them, with his compliments, to the chief of the tribe.
Slade soon gained a name for fearless resolution,
and this was sufficient merit to procure for him the
important post of Overland division agent at Jules-
burg, in place of Mr. Jules, removed. For some
time previously, the company's horses had been fre-
quently stolen, and the coaches delayed, by gangs
of outlaws, who were wont to laugh at the idea of
any man's having the temerity to resent such out-
rages. Slade resented them promptly. The out-
laws soon found that the new agent was a man who
did not fear anything that breathed the breath of
life. He made short work of all offenders. The
result was that delays ceased, the company's prop-
erty was let alone, and, no matter what happened
or who suffered, Slade's coaches went through,
every time! True, in order to bring about this
wholesome change, Slade had to kill several men —
some say three, others say four, and others six —
but the world was the richer for their loss. The
first prominent difficulty he had was with the ex-
agent, Jules, who bore the reputation of being a reck-
less and desperate man himself. Jules hated Slade
for supplanting him, and a good fair occasion for a.
fight was all he was waiting for. By and by Slade
dared to employ a man whom Jules had once dis-
charged. N~xt, Slade seized a team of stage-horses
64
ROUGHING IT
which he accused Jules of having driven off and hid-
den somewhere for his own use. War was declared,
and for a day or two the two men walked warily
about the streets, seeking each other, Jules armed
with a double-barreled shotgun, and Slade with his
history-creating revolver. Finally, as Slade stepped
into a store, Jules poured the contents of his gun
into him from behind the door. Slade was pluck,
and Jules got several bad pistol wounds in return.
Then both men fell, and were carried to their respect-
ive lodgings, both swearing that better aim should do
deadlier work next time. Both were bed-ridden a
long time, but Jules got on his feet first, and, gath-
ering his possessions together, packed them on a
couple of mules, and fled to the Rocky Mountains to
gather strength in safety against the day of reckon-
ing. For many months he was not seen or heard
of, and was gradually dropped out of the remem-
brance of all save Slade himself. But Slade was
not the man to forget him. On the contrary, com-
mon report said that Slade kept a reward standing
for his capture, dead or alive !
After a while, seeing that Slade's energetic admin-
istration had restored peace and order to one of the
worst divisions of the road, the Overland Stage Com-
pany transferred him to the Rocky Ridge division
in the Rocky Mountains, to see if he could perform
a like miracle there. It was the very paradise of out-
laws and desperadoes. There was absolutely no
semblance of law there. Violence was the rule.
Force was the only recognized authority. The com-
monest misunderstandings were settled on the spot
65
MARK TWAIN
with the revolver or the knife. Murders were done
in open day, and with sparkling frequency, and no-
body thought of inquiring into them. It was con-
sidered that the parties who did the killing had their
private reasons for it; for other people to meddle
would have been looked upon as indelicate. After
a murder, all that Rocky Mountain etiquette re-
quired of a spectator was, that he should help the
gentleman bury his game — otherwise his churlishness
would surely be remembered against him the first
time he killed a man himself and needed a neighborly
turn in interring him.
Slade took up his residence sweetly and peacefully
in the midst of this hive of horse-thieves and assas-
sins, and the very first time one of them aired his
insolent swaggerings in his presence he shot him
dead! He began a raid on the outlaws, and in a
singularly short space of time he had completely
stopped their depredations on the stage stock, recov-
ered a large number of stolen horses, killed several
of the worst desperadoes of the district, and gained
such a dread ascendancy over the rest that they
respected him, admired him, feared him, obeyed
him! He wrought the same marvelous change in
the ways of the community that had marked his
administration at Overland City. He captured two
men who had stolen Overland stock, and with his
own hands he hanged them. He was supreme judge
in his district, and he was jury and executioner like-
wise— and not only in the case of offenses against
his employers, but against passing emigrants as well.
On one occasion some emigrants had their stock
66
IT
lost or stolen, and told Slade, who chanced to visit
their camp. With a single companion he rode to a
ranch, the owners of which he suspected, and, open-
ing the door, commenced firing, killing three, and
wounding the fourth.
From a bloodthirstily interesting little Montana
book l I take this paragraph :
While on the road, Slade held absolute sway. He would ride
down to a station, get into a quarrel, turn the house out of
windows, and maltreat the occupants most cruelly. The unfor-
tunates had no means of redress, and were compelled to recuper-
ate as best they could. On one of these occasions, it is said he
killed the father of the fine little half-breed boy Jemmy, whom
he adopted, and who lived with his widow after his execution.
Stories of Slade's hanging men, and of innumerable assaults,
shootings, stabbings, and beatings, in which he was a principal
actor, form part of the legends of the stage line. As for minor
quarrels and shootings, it is absolutely certain that a minute
history of Slade's life would be one long record of such practices.
Slade was a matchless marksman with a navy re-
volver. The legends say that one morning at Rocky
Ridge, when he was feeling comfortable, he saw a
man approaching who had offended him some days
before — observe the fine memory he had for mat-
ters like that — and, "Gentlemen," said Slade, draw-
ing, "it is a good twenty-yard shot — I'll clip the
third button on his coat!" Which he did. The
bystanders all admired it. And they all attended
the funeral, too.
On one occasion a man who kept a little whisky-
shelf at the station did something which angered
Slade — and went and made his will. A day or two
1 The Vigilantes of Montana, by Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale.
67
MARK TWAIN
afterward Slade came in and called for some brandy.
The man reached under the counter (ostensibly to
get a bottle — possibly to get something else), but
Slade smiled upon him that peculiarly bland and sat-
isfied smile of his which the neighbors had long ago
learned to recognize as a death-warrant in disguise,
and told him to "none of that! — pass out the high-
priced article." So the poor barkeeper had to turn
his back and get the high-priced brandy from the
shelf; and when he faced around again he was look-
ing into the muzzle of Slade' s pistol. "And the
next instant," added my informant, impressively,
"he was one of the deadest men that ever lived."
The stage - drivers and conductors told us that
sometimes Slade would leave a hated enemy wholly
unmolested, unnoticed and unmentioned, for weeks
together — had done it once or twice, at any rate.
And some said they believed he did it in order to
lull the victims into unwatchfulness, so that he could
get the advantage of them, and others said they
believed he saved up an enemy that way, just as a
school-boy saves up a cake, and made the pleasure
go as far as it would by gloating over the anticipa-
tion. One of these cases was that of a Frenchman
who had offended Slade. To the surprise of every-
body Slade did not kill him on the spot, but let him
alone for a considerable time. Finally, however, he
went to the Frenchman's house very late one night,
knocked, and when his enemy opened the door, shot
him dead — pushed the corpse inside the door with
his foot, set the house on fire and burned up the
dead man, his widow and three children! I heard
68
ROUGHING IT
this story from several different people, and they
evidently believed what they were saying. It may
be true, and it may not. "Give a dog a bad name,"
etc.
Slade was captured once, by a party of men who
intended to lynch him. They disarmed him, and
shut him up in a strong log house, and placed a
guard over him. He prevailed on his captors to
send for his wife, so that he might have a last inter-
view with her. She was a brave, loving, spirited
woman. She jumped on a horse and rode for life
and death. When she arrived they let her in with-
out searching her, and before the door could be
closed she whipped out a couple of revolvers, and
she and her lord marched forth defying the party.
And then, under a brisk fire, they mounted double
and galloped away unharmed !
In the fullness of time Slade's myrmidons captured
his ancient enemy, Jules, whom they found in a well-
chosen hiding-place in the remote fastnesses of the
mountains, gaining a precarious livelihood with his
rifle. They brought him to Rocky Ridge, bound hand
and foot, and deposited him in the middle of the
cattle-yard with his back against a post. It is said
that the pleasure that lit Slade's face when he heard
of it was something fearful to contemplate. He ex-
amined his enemy to see that he was securely tied
and then went to bed, content to wait till morning
before enjoying the luxury of killing him. Jules
spent the night in the cattle-yard, and it is a region
where warm nights are never known. In the morn-
ing Slade practised on him with his revolver, nipping
6g
MARK TWAIN
the flesh here and there, and occasionally clipping
off a finger, while Jules begged him to kill him out-
right and put him out of his misery. Finally Slade
reloaded, and walking up close to his victim, made
some characteristic remarks and then despatched
him. The body lay there half a day, nobody ven-
turing to touch it without orders, and then Slade
detailed a party and assisted at the burial himself.
But he first cut off the dead man's ears and put them
in his vest pocket, where he carried them for some
time with great satisfaction. That is the story as I
have frequently heard it told and seen it in print in
California newspapers. It is doubtless correct in all
essential particulars.
In due time we rattled up to a stage-station, and
sat down to breakfast with a half- savage, half-
civilized company of armed and bearded moun-
taineers, ranchmen and station employees. The most
gentlemanly-appearing, quiet, and affable officer we
had yet found along the road in the Overland Com-
pany's service was the person who sat at the head of
the table, at my elbow. Never youth stared and
shivered as I did when I heard them call him Slade !
Here was romance, and I sitting face to face with
it ! — looking upon it — touching it — hobnobbing with
it, as it were! Here, right by my side, was the
actual ogre who, in fights and brawls and various
ways, had taken the lives of twenty-six human beings,
or all men lied about him! I suppose I was the
proudest stripling that ever traveled to see strange
lands and wonderful people.
He was so friendly and so gentle-spoken that I
70
ROUGHING IT
warmed to him in spite of his awful history. It was
hardly possible to realize that this pleasant person
was the pitiless scourge of the outlaws, the raw-head-
and-bloody-bones the nursing mothers of the moun-
tains terrified their children with. And to this day
I can remember nothing remarkable about Slade
except that his face was racher broad across the cheek-
bones, and that the cheek-bones were low and the
lips peculiarly thin and straight. But that was
enough to leave something of an effect upon me,
for since then I seldom see a face possessing those
characteristics without fancying that the owner of it
is a dangerous man.
The coffee ran out. At least it was reduced to
one tin cupful, and Slade was about to take it when
he saw that my cup was empty. He politely offered
to fill it, but although I wanted it, I politely declined.
I was afraid he had not killed anybody that morning,
and might be needing diversion. But still with
firm politeness he insisted on filling my cup, and said
I had traveled all night and better deserved it than
he — and while he talked he placidly poured the
fluid, to the last drop. I thanked him and drank
it, but it gave me no comfort, for I could not feel
sure that he would not be sorry, presently, that
he had given it away, and proceed to kill me to dis-
tract his thoughts from the loss. But nothing of the
kind occurred. We left him with only twenty-six
dead people to account for, and I felt a tranquil satis-
faction in the thought that in so judiciously taking
care of No. i at that breakfast-table I had pleasantly
escaped being No. 27. Slade came out to the coach
71
MARK TWAIN
and saw us off, first ordering certain rearrange-
ments of the mail-bags for our comfort, and then
we took leave of him, satisfied that we should hear
of him again, some day, and wondering in what con-
nection.
CHAPTER XI
AND sure enough, two or three years afterward,
L we did hear of him again. News came to the
Pacific coast that the Vigilance Committee in Mon-
tana (whither Slade had removed from Rocky
Ridge) had hanged him. I find an account of the
affair in the thrilling little book I quoted a paragraph
from in the last chapter — The Vigilantes of Mon-
tana; being a Reliable Account of the Capture, Trial
and Execution of Henry Plummer's Notorious Road
Agent Band: By Prof. Thos. J. Dimsdale, Virginia
City, M. T. Mr. Dimsdale's chapter is well worth
reading, as a specimen of how the people of the
frontier deal with criminals when the courts of law
prove inefficient. Mr. Dimsdale makes two remarks
about Slade, both of which are accurately descrip-
tive, and one of which is exceedingly picturesque:
"Those who saw him in his natural state only,
would pronounce him to be a kind husband, a most
hospitable host, and a courteous gentleman; on the
contrary, those who met him when maddened with
liquor and surrounded by a gang of armed roughs,
would pronounce him a fiend incarnate." And this:
"From Fort Kearney, west, he was feared a great
deal more than the Almighty." For compactness,
simplicity, and vigor of expression, I will "back"
7.3
MARK TWAIN
that sentence against anything in literature. Mr.
Dimsdale's narrative is as follows. In all places
where italics occur they are mine :
After the execution of the five men on the 14th of January, the
Vigilantes considered that their work was nearly ended. They
had freed the country of highwaymen and murderers to a great
extent, and they determined that in the absence of the regular
civil authority they would establish a People's Court where all
offenders should be tried by judge and jury. This was the nearest
approach to social order that the circumstances permitted, and,
though strict legal authority was wanting, yet the people were
firmly determined to maintain its efficiency, and to enforce its
decrees. It may here be mentioned that the overt act which
was the last round on the fatal ladder leading to the scaffold on
which Slade perished, was the tearing in pieces and stamping
upon a writ of this court, followed by his arrest of the Judge, A lex.
Davis, by authority of a presented Derringer, and with his own
hands.
J. A. Slade was himself, we have been informed, a Vigilante;
he openly boasted of it, and said he knew all that they knew.
He was never accused, or even suspected, of either murder or
robbery, committed in this territory (the latter crime was never
laid to his charge, in any place) ; but that he had killed several
men in other localities was notorious, and his bad reputation in
this respect was a most powerful argument in determining his
fate, when he was finally arrested for the offense above men-
tioned. On returning from Milk River he became more and
more addicted to drinking, until at last it was a common feat
for him and his friends to "take the town." He and a couple
of his dependents might often be seen on one horse, galloping
through the streets, shouting and yelling, firing revolvers, etc.
On many occasions he would ride his horse into stores, break up
bars, toss the scales out-of-doors, and use most insulting language
to parties present. Just previous to the day of his arrest, he
had given a fearful beating to one of his followers; but such
was his influence over them that the man wept bitterly at the
gallows, and begged for his life with all his power. 77 had be-
come quite common, when Slade was on a spree, for the shopkeepers
and citizens to close the stores and put out all the lights, being
74
ROUGHING IT
fearful of some outrage at his hands. For his wanton destruction
Df goods and furniture, he was always ready to pay, when sober,
if he had money; but there were not a few who regarded pay-
ment as small satisfaction for the outrage, and these men were
his personal enemies.
From time to time Slade received warnings from men that he
well knew would not deceive him, of the certain end of his
conduct. There was not a moment, for weeks previous to his
arrest, in which the public did not expect to hear of some bloody
outrage. The dread of his very name, and the presence of the
armed band of hangers-on who followed him alone prevented a
resistance which must certainly have ended in the instant murder
or mutilation of the opposing party.
Slade was frequently arrested by order of the court whose
organization we have described, and had treated it with respect
by paying one or two fines and promising to pay the rest when
he had money; but in the transaction that occurred at this
crisis, he forgot even this caution, and, goaded by passion and
the hatred of restraint, he sprang into the embrace of death.
Slade had been drunk and "cutting up" all night. He and
his companions had made the town a perfect hell. In the morn-
ing, J. M. Fox, the sheriff, met him, arrested him, took him
into court and commenced reading a warrant that he had for
his arrest, by way of arraignment. He became uncontrollably
furious, and seizing the writ, he tore it up, threw it on the ground
und stamped upon it. The clicking of the locks of his com-
panions' revolvers was instantly heard, and a crisis was expected.
The sheriff did not attempt his retention; but being at least
as prudent as he was valiant, he succumbed, leaving Slade the
master of the situation and the conqueror and rider of the courts,
law, and lawmakers. This was a declaration of war, and was
so accepted. The Vigilance Committee now felt that the ques-
tion of social order and the preponderance of the law-abiding
citizens had then and there to be decided. They knew the char-
acter of Slade, and they were well aware that they must submit
to his rule without murmur, or else that he must be dealt with
in such fashion as would prevent his being able to wreak his
vengeance on the committee, who could never have hoped to
live in the territory secure from outrage or death, and who could
never leave it without encountering his friends, whom his victory
would have emboldened and stimulated to a pitch that would
75
MARK TWAIN
have rendered them reckless of consequences. The day previous
he had ridden into Dorris's store, and, on being requested to
leave, he drew his revolver and threatened to kill the gentleman
who spoke to him. Another saloon he had led his horse into, and,
buying a bottle of wine, he tried to make the animal drink it.
This was not considered an uncommon performance, as he had
often entered saloons and commenced firing at the lamps,
causing a wild stampede.
A leading member of the committee met Slade, and informed
him in the quiet, earnest manner of one who feels the importance
of what he is saying: "Slade, get your horse at once, and go
home, or there will be to pay." Slade started and took a
long look, with his dark and piercing eyes, at the gentleman.
"What do you mean?" said he. "You have no right to ask
what I mean," was the quiet reply, "get your horse at once,
and remember what I tell you." After a short pause he promised
to do so, and actually got into the saddle; but, being still intoxi-
cated, he began calling aloud to one after another of his friends,
and at last seemed to have forgotten the warning he had re-
ceived and became again uproarious, shouting the name of a
well-known courtezan in company with those of two men whom
he considered heads of the committee, as a sort of challenge;
perhaps, however, as a simple act of bravado. It seems probable
that the intimation of personal danger he had received had not
been forgotten entirely; though, fatally for him, he took a foolish
way of showing his remembrance of it. He sought out Alex-
ander Davis, the Judge of the Court, and, drawing a cocked
Derringer, he presented it at his head, and told him that he should
hold him as a hostage for his own safety. As the Judge stood
perfectly quiet, and offered no resistance to his captor, no
further outrage followed on this score. Previous to this, on
account of the critical state of affairs, the committee had met,
and at last resolved to arrest him. His execution had not been
agreed upon, and, at that time, would have been negatived, most
assuredly. A messenger rode down to Nevada to inform the
leading men of what was on hand, as it was desirable to show
that there was a feeling of unanimity on the subject, all along
the gulch.
The miners turned out almost en masse; leaving their work
and forming in solid column, about six hundred strong, armed
to the teeth, they marched up to Virginia. The leader of the
76
ROUGHING IT
body well knew the temper of his men on the subject. He
spurred on ahead of them, and, hastily calling a meeting of the
executive, he told them plainly that the miners meant "busi-
ness," and that, if they came up, they would not stand in the
street to be shot down by Slade's friends; but that they would
take him and hang him. The meeting was small, as the Virginia
men were loath to act at all. This momentous announcement
of the feeling of the Lower Town was made to a cluster of men,
who were deliberating behind a wagon, at the rear of a store on
Main Street.
The committee were most unwilling to proceed to extremities.
All the duty they had ever performed seemed as nothing to the
task before them; but they had to decide, and that quickly.
It was finally agreed that if the whole body of the miners were
of the opinion that he should be hanged, that the committee
left it in their hands to deal with him. Off, at hot speed, rode
the leader of the Nevada men to join his command.
Slade had found out what was intended, and the news sobered
him instantly. He went into P. S. Pfouts's store, where Davis
was, and apologized for his conduct, saying that he would take it
all back.
The head of the column now wheeled into Wallace Street and
marched up at quick time. Halting in front of the store, the
executive officer of the committee stepped forward and arrested
Slade, who was at once informed of his doom, and inquiry was
made as to whether he had any business to settle. Several
parties spoke to him on the subject; but to all such inquiries
he turned a deaf ear, being entirely absorbed in the terrifying
reflections on his own awful position. He never ceased his
entreaties for life, and to see his dear wife. The unfortunate
lady referred to, between whom and Slade there existed a warm
affection, was at this time living at their ranch on the Madison.
She was possessed of considerable personal attractions; tall,
well formed, of graceful carriage, pleasing manners, and was,
withal, an accomplished horsewoman.
A messenger from Slade rode at full speed to inform her of
her husband's arrest. In an instant she was in the saddle, and
with all the energy that love and despair could lend to an ardent
temperament and a strong physique, sir3 urged her fleet charger
over the twelve miles of rough and rocky ground that inter-
vened between her and the object of her passionate devo+ion.
77
MARK TWAIN
Meanwhile, a party of volunteers had made the necessary
preparations for the execution, in the valley traversed by the
branch. Beneath the site of Pfouts and Russell's stone building
there was a corral, the gate-posts of which were strong and high.
Across the top was laid a beam, to which the rope was fastened,
and a dry-goods box served for the platform. To this place
Slade was marched, surrounded by a guard, composing the best-
armed and most numerous force that has ever appeared in Mon-
tana Territory.
The doomed man had so exhausted himself by tears, prayers,
and lamentations, that he had scarcely strength left to stand
under the fatal beam. He repeatedly exclaimed, "My God!
my God! must I die? Oh, my dear wife!"
On the return of the fatigue party, they encountered some
friends of Slade, stanch and reliable citizens and members of
the committee, but who were personally attached to the con-
demned. On hearing of his sentence, one of them, a stout-
hearted man, pulled out his handkerchief and walked away,
weeping like a child. Slade still begged to see his wife, most
piteously, and it seemed hard to deny his request; but the
bloody consequences that were sure to follow the inevitable
attempt at a rescue, that her presence and entreaties would have
certainly incited, forbade the granting of his request. Several
gentlemen were sent for to see him, in his last moments, one of
whom (Judge Davis) made a short address to the people; but
in such low tones as to be inaudible, save to a few in his imme-
diate vicinity. One of his friends, after exhausting his powers
of entreaty, threw off his coat and declared that the prisoner
could not be hanged until he himself was killed. A hundred
guns were instantly leveled at him; whereupon he turned and
fled; but, being brought back, he was compelled to resume his
coat, and to give a promise of future peaceable demeanor.
Scarcely a leading man in Virginia could be found, though
numbers of the citizens joined the ranks of the guard when the
arrest was made. All lamented the stern necessity which dic-
tated the execution.
Everything being ready, the command was given, "Men, do
your duty," and the box being instantly slipped from beneatn
his feet, he died almost instantaneously.
The body was cut down and carried to the Virginia Hotel,
where, in a darkened room, it was scarcely laid out, when the
78
ROUGHING IT
unfortunate and bereaved companion of the deceased arrived,
at headlong speed, to find that all was over, and that she was a
widow. Her grief and heart-piercing cries were terrible evidences
of the depth of her attachment for her lost husband, and a
considerable period elapsed before she could regain the command
of her excited feelings.
There is something about the desperado nature
that is wholly unaccountable — at least it looks un-
accountable. It is this. The true desperado is gifted
with splendid courage, and yet he will take the most
infamous advantage of his enemy; armed and free,
he will stand up before a host and fight until he is
shot all to pieces, and yet when he is under the gal-
lows and helpless he will cry and plead like a child.
Words are cheap, and it iL easy to call Slade a
coward (all executed men who do not "die game"
are promptly called cowards by unreflecting people),
and when we read of Slade that he ' ' had so exhausted
himself by tears, prayers, and lamentations, that
he had scarcely strength left to stand under the
fatal beam," the disgraceful word suggests itself in
a moment — yet in frequently defying and inviting the
vengeance of banded Rocky Mountain cutthroats by
shooting down their comrades and leaders, and never
offering to hide or fly, Slade showed that he was a
man of peerless bravery. No coward would dare
that. Many a notorious coward, many a chicken-
livered poltroon, coarse, brutal, degraded, has made
his dying speech without a quaver in his voice and
been swung into eternity with what looked like the
calmest fortitude, and so we are justified in believing,
from the low intellect of such a creature, that it
was not moral courage that enabled him to do it.
7Q
MARK TWAIN
Then, if moral courage is not the requisite quality,
what could it have been that this stout-hearted Slade
lacked? — this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered,
urbane gentleman, who never hesitated to warn his
most ruffianly enemies that he would kill them when-
ever or wherever he came across them next! I think
it is a conundrum worth investigating.
CHAPTER XII
JUST beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a
Mormon emigrant-train of thirty-three wagons;
and tramping wearily along and driving their herd
of loose cows, were dozens of coarse-clad and sad-
looking men, women, and children, who had walked
as they were walking now, day after day for eight
lingering weeks, and in that time had compassed the
distance our stage had come in eight days and three
hours — seven hundred and ninety-eight miles ! They
were dusty and uncombed, hatless, bonnetless, and
ragged, and they did look so tired!
After breakfast, we bathed in Horse Creek, a
(previously) limpid, sparkling stream — an appre-
ciated luxury, for it was very seldom that our furi-
ous coach halted long enough for an indulgence of
that kind. We changed horses ten or twelve times in
every twenty-four hours — changed mules, rather —
six mules — and did it nearly every time in four min-
utes. It was lively work. As our coach rattled up
to each station six harnessed mules stepped gaily
from the stable; and in the twinkling of an eye,
almost, the old team was out and the new one in and
we off and away again.
During the afternoon we passed Sweetwater Creek,
Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, and the Devil's
MARK TWAIN
Gap. The latter were wild specimens of rugged
scenery, and full of interest — we were in the heart
of the Rocky Mountains, now. And we also passed
by "Alkali" or "Soda Lake," and we woke up to
the fact that our journey had stretched a long way
across the world when the driver said that the
Mormons often came there from Great Salt Lake
City to haul away saleratus. He said that a few
days gone by they had shoveled up enough pure
saleratus from the ground (it was a dry lake) to
load two wagons, and that when they got these two
wagon-loads of a drug that cost them nothing, to
Salt Lake, they could sell it for twenty-five cents a
pound.
In the night we sailed by a most notable curiosity,
and one we had been hearing a good deal about for
a day or two, and were suffering to see. This was
what might be called a natural ice-house. It was
August, now, and sweltering weather in the daytime,
yet at one of the stations the men could scrape the
soil on the hillside under the lee of a range of boul-
ders, and at a depth of six inches cut out pure blocks
of ice — hard, compactly frozen, and clear as crystal !
Toward dawn we got under way again, and pres-
ently, as we sat with raised curtains enjoying our
early morning smoke and contemplating the first
solendor of the rising sun as it swept down the long
array of mountain peaks, flushing and gilding crag
after crag and summit after summit, as if the invisible
Creator reviewed his gray veterans and they saluted
with a smile, we hove in sight of South Pass City.
The hotel-keeper, the postmaster, the blacksmith,
82
ROUGHING IT
the mayor, the constable, the city marshal, and the
principal citizen and property-holder, all came out
and greeted us cheerily, and we gave him good day.
He gave us a little Indian news, and a little Rocky
Mountain news, and we gave him some Plains
information in return. He then retired to his lonely
grandeur and we climbed on up among the bristling
peaks and the ragged clouds. South Pass City con-
sisted of four log cabins, one of which was unfinished,
and the gentleman with all those offices and titles
was the chiefest of the ten citizens of the place.
Think of hotel-keeper, postmaster, blacksmith,
mayor, constable, city marshal and principal citizen
all condensed into one person and crammed into
one skin. Bemis said he was "a perfect Allen's
revolver of dignities." And he said that if he were
to die as postmaster, or as blacksmith, or as post-
master and blacksmith both, the people might stand
it ; but if he were to die all over, it would be a fright-
ful loss to the community.
Two miles beyond South Pass City we saw for
the first time that mysterious marvel which all West-
ern untraveled boys have heard of and fully believe
in, but are sure to be astounded at when they see it
with their own eyes, nevertheless — banks of snow in
dead summer-time. We were now far up toward the
sky, and knew all the time that we must presently
encounter lofty summits clad in the "eternal snow"
which was so commonplace a matter of mention in
books, and yet when I did see it glittering in the sun
on stately domes in the distance and knew the
month was August and that my coat was hanging up
83
MARK TWAIN
because it was too warm to wear it, I was full as
much amazed as if I never had heard of snow in
August before. Truly, "seeing is believing" — and
many a man lives a long life through, thinking he
believes certain universally received and well estab-
lished things, and yet never suspects that if he were
confronted by those things once, he would discover
that he did not really believe them before, but only
thought he believed them.
In a little while quite a number of peaks swung
into view with long claws of glittering snow clasping
them; and with here and there, in the shade, down
the mountainside, a little solitary patch of snow
looking no larger than a lady's pocket-handker-
chief but being in reality as large as a "public
square."
And now, at last, we were fairly in the renowned
South Pass, and whirling gaily along high above
the common world. We were perched upon the
extreme summit of the great range of the Rocky
Mountains, toward which we had been climbing,
patiently climbing, ceaselessly climbing, for days and
nights together — and about us was gathered a con-
vention of Nature's kings that stood ten, twelve,
and even thirteen thousand feet high — grand old
fellows who would have to stoop to see Mount
Washington, in the twilight. We were in such an
airy elevation above the creeping populations of the
earth, that now and then when the obstructing crags
stood out of the way it seemed that we could look
around and abroad and contemplate the whole great
globe, with its dissolving views of mountains, seas.
84
ROUGHING IT
and continents stretching away through the mystery
of the summer haze.
As a general thing the Pass was more suggestive
of a valley than a suspension-bridge in the clouds —
but it strongly suggested the latter at one spot. At
that place the upper third of one or two majestic
purple domes projected above our level on either
hand and gave us a sense of a hidden great deep of
mountains and plains and valleys down about their
bases which we fancied we might see if we could step
to the edge and look over. These Sultans of the
fastnesses were turbaned with tumbled volumes of
cloud, which shredded away from time to time and
drifted off fringed and torn, trailing their continents
of shadow after them; and catching presently on an
intercepting peak, wrapped it about and brooded
there — then shredded away again and left the purple
peak, as they had left the purple domes, downy and
white with new-laid snow. In passing, these mon-
strous rags of cloud hung low and swept along right
over the spectator's head, swinging their tatters
so nearly in his face that his impulse was to shrink
when they came closest. In the one place I speak
of, one could look below him upon a world of dimin-
ishing crags and canons leading down, down, and
away to a vague plain with a thread in it which was
a road, and bunches of feathers in it which were trees
— a pretty picture sleeping in the sunlight — but with
a darkness stealing over it and glooming its features
deeper and deeper under the frown of a coming storm ;
and then, while no film or shadow marred the noon
brightness of his high perch, he could watch the
«5
MARK TWAIN
tempest break forth down there and see the lightnings
leap from crag to crag and the sheeted rain drive
along the canon-sides, and hear the thunders peal
and crash and roar. We had this spectacle; a
familiar one to many, but to us a novelty.
We bowled along cheerily, and presently, at the
very summit (though it had been all summit to us,
and all equally level, for half an hour or more), we
came to a spring which spent its water through two
outlets and sent it in opposite directions. The con-
ductor said that one of those streams which we were
looking at was just starting on a journey westward
to the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean,
through hundreds and even thousands of miles of
desert solitudes. He said that the other was just
leaving its home among the snow-peaks on a similar
journey eastward — and we knew that long after we
should have forgotten the simple rivulet it would still
be plodding its patient way down the mountainsides,
and canon-beds, and between the banks of the Yel-
lowstone; and by and by would join the broad Mis-
souri and flow through unknown plains and deserts
and unvisited wildernesses ; and add a long and trou-
bled pilgrimage among snags and wrecks and sand-
bars; and enter the Mississippi, touch the wharves
of St. Louis, and still drift on, traversing shoals and
rocky channels, then endless chains of bottomless
and ample bends, walled with unbroken forests,
then mysterious byways and secret passages among
woody islands, then the chained bends again, bor-
dered with wide levels of shining sugar-cane in place
of the somber forests ; then by New Orleans and still
86
ROUGHING IT
othe/ chains of bends — and finally, after two long
months of daily and nightly harassment, excitement,
enjoyment, adventure, and awful peril of parched
throats, pumps and evaporation, pass the Gulf and
enter into its rest upon the bosom of the tropic sea,
never to look uponits snow-peaks again or regret them.
I freighted a leaf with a mental message for the
friends at home, and dropped it in the stream. But
I put no stamp on it and it was held for postage
somewhere.
On the summit we overtook an emigrant-train of
many wagons, many tired men and women, and
many a disgusted sheep and cow. In the woefully
dusty horseman in charge of the expedition I recog-
nized John . Of all persons in the world to meet
on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles
from home, he was the last one I should have looked
for. We were school-boys together and warm friends
for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disrup-
tured this friendship, and it had never been renewed.
The act of which I speak was this. I had been
accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose
room was in the third story of a building and over-
looked the street. One day this editor gave me a
watermelon which I made preparations to devour on
the spot, but chancing to look out of the window, I
saw John standing directly under it and an irresistible
desire came upon me to drop the melon on his head,
which I immediately did. I was the loser, for it
spoiled the melon, and John never forgave me, and
HTe dropped all intercourse and parted, but now met
again under these circumstances.
MARK TWAIN
We recognized each other simultaneously, and
hands were grasped as warmly as if no coldness had
ever existed between us, and no allusion was made
to any. All animosities were buried, and the simple
fact of meeting a familiar face in that isolated spot
so far from home was sufficient to make us forget all
things but pleasant ones, and we parted again with
sincere "good-bys" and "God bless you" from both.
We had been climbing up the long shoulders of
the Rocky Mountains for many tedious hours — we
started down them, now. And we went spinning
away at a round rate, too.
We left the snowy Wind River Mountains and the
Uinta Mountains behind, and sped away, always
through splendid scenery, but occasionally through
long ranks of white skeletons of mules and oxen —
monuments of the huge emigration of other days —
and here and there were up-ended boards or small
piles of stones which the driver said marked the
resting-place of more precious remains. It was the
loneliest land for a grave ! A land given over to the
coyote and the raven — which is but another name
for desolation and utter solitude. On damp, murky
nights, these scattered skeletons gave forth a soft,
hideous glow, like very faint spots of moonlight
starring the vague desert. It was because of the
phosphorus in the bones. But no scientific explana-
tion could keep a body from shivering when he
drifted by one of those ghostly lights and knew that
a skull held it.
At midnight it began to rain, and I never saw any-
thing like it — indeed, I did not even see this, for it
ROUGHING IT
was too dark. We fastened down the curtains
and even calked them with clothing, but the rain
streamed in in twenty places, notwithstanding.
There was no escape. If one moved his feet out of
a stream, he brought his body under one; and if he
moved his body he caught one somewhere else. If
he struggled out of the drenched blankets and sat
up, he was bound to get one down the back of his
neck. Meantime the stage was wandering about a
plain with gaping gullies in it, for the driver could
not see an inch before his face nor keep the road,
and the storm pelted so pitilessly that there was no
keeping the horses still. With the first abatement
the conductor turned out with lanterns to look for
the road, and the first dash he made was into a
chasm about fourteen feet deep, his lantern following
like a meteor. As soon as he touched bottom he
sang out frantically :
"Don't come here!"
To which the driver, who was looking over the
precipice where he had disappeared, replied, with
an injured air: "Think I'm a dam' fool?"
The conductor was more than an hour finding the
road — a matter which showed us how far we had
wandered and what chances we had been taking.
He traced our wheel-tracks to the imminent verge of
danger, in two places. I have always been glad
that wre were not killed that night. I do not know
any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
In the morning, the tenth day out, we crossed
Green River, a fine, large, limpid stream — stuck in
it, with the water just up to the top of our mail-bed,
80
MARK TWAIN
and waited till extra teams were put on to haul us
up the steep bank. But it was nice cool water, and
besides it could not find any fresh place on us to wet.
At the Green River station we had breakfast —
hot biscuits, fresh antelope steaks, and coffee — the
only decent meal we tasted between the United
States and Great Salt Lake City, and the only one
we were ever really thankful for. Think of the
monotonous execrableness of the thirty that went
before it, to leave this one simple breakfast looming
up in my memory like a shot-tower after all these
years have gone by !
At 5 p.m. we reached Fort Bridger, one hundred
and seventeen miles from the South Pass, and one
thousand and twenty-five miles from St. Joseph.
Fifty-two miles further on, near the head of Echo
Canon, we met sixty United States soldiers from
Camp Floyd. The day before, they had fired upon
three hundred or four hundred Indians, whom they
supposed gathered together for no good purpose.
In the fight that had ensued, four Indians were cap-
tured, and the main body chased four miles, but
nobody killed. This looked like business. We had
a notion to get out and join the sixty soldiers, but
upon reflecting that there were four hundred of the
Indians, we concluded to go on and join the Indians.
Echo Canon is twenty miles long. It was like a
long, smooth, narrow street, with a gradual descend-
ing grade, and shut in by enormous perpendicular
walls of coarse conglomerate, four hundred feet high
in many places, and turreted like medieval castles.
This was the most faultless piece of road in the
90
ROUGHING IT
mountains, and the driver said he would "let his
team out." He did, and if the Pacific express-trains
whiz through there now any faster than we did then
in the stage-coach, I envy the passengers the exhilara-
tion of it. We fairly seemed to pick up our wheels
and fly — and the mail matter was lifted up free
from everything and held in solution! I am not
given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I
mean it.
However, time presses. At four in the afternoon
we arrived on the summit of Big Mountain, fifteen
miles from Salt Lake City, when all the world was
glorified with the setting sun, and the most stupen-
dous panorama of mountain peaks yet encountered
burst on our sight. We looked out upon this sub-
lime spectacle from under the arch of a brilliant
rainbow! Even the Overland stage-driver stopped
his horses and gazed!
Half an hour or an hour later, we changed horses,
and took supper with a Mormon "Destroying
Angel." "Destroying Angels," as I understand it,
are Latter-Day Saints who are set apart by the
Church to conduct permanent disappearances of ob-
noxious citizens. I had heard a deal about these
Mormon Destroying Angels and the dark and bloody
deeds they had done, and when I entered this one's
house I had my shudder all ready. But alas for all
our romances, he was nothing but a loud, profane,
offensive old blackguard ! He was murderous enough,
possibly, to fill the bill of a Destroyer, but would
you have any kind of an Angel devoid of dignity?
Could you abide an Angel in an unclean shirt and
01
MARK TWAIN
no suspenders? Could you respect an Angel with
a horse-laugh and a swagger like a bucaneer?
There were other blackguards present — comrades
of this one. And there was one person that looked
like a gentleman — Heber C. Kimball's son, tall and
well made, and thirty years old, perhaps. A lot of
slatternly women flitted hither and thither in a
hurry, with coffee-pots, plates of bread, and other
appurtenances to supper, and these were said to be
the wives of the Angel — or some of them at least.
And of course they were; for if they had been
hired "help" they would not have let an angel from
above storm and swear at them as he did, let alone
one from the place this one hailed from.
This was our first experience of the Western "pe-
culiar institution," and it was not very prepossessing.
We did not tarry long to observe it, but hurried on
to the home of the Latter-Day Saints, the stronghold
of the prophets, the capital of the only absolute mon-
archy in America — Great Salt Lake City. As the
night closed in we took sanctuary in the Salt Lake
House and unpacked our baggage.
CHAPTER XIII
WE had a fine supper, of the freshest meats and
fowls and vegetables — a great variety, and as
great abundance. We walked about the streets
some, afterward, and glanced in at shops and stores ;
and there was fascination in surreptitiously staring
at every creature we took to be a Mormon. This
was fairyland to us, to all intents and purposes — a
land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful mys-
tery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how
many mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart;
and we experienced a thrill every time a dwelling-
house door opened and shut as we passed, disclosing
a glimpse of human heads and backs and shoulders —
for we so longed to have a good satisfying look at
a Mormon family in all its comprehensive ample-
ness, disposed in the customary concentric rings of
its home circle.
By and by the Acting Governor of the territory
introduced us to other "Gentiles," and we spent a
sociable hour with them. "Gentiles " are people who
are not Mormons. Our fellow-passenger, Bemis,
took care of himself, during this part of the evening,
and did not make an overpowering success of it,
either, for he came into our room in the hotel about
eleven o'clock, full of cheerfulness, and talking
93
MARK TWAIN
loosely, dispiritedly, and indiscriminately, and every
now and then tugging out a ragged word by the
roots that had more hiccups than syllables in it.
This, together with his hanging his coat on the floor
on one side of a chair, and his vest on the floor on
the other side, and piling his pants on the floor just
in front of the same chair, and then contemplating
the general result with superstitious awe, and finally
pronouncing it "too many for him" and going to
bed with his boots on, led us to fear that something
he had eaten had not agreed with him.
But we knew afterward that it was something he
had been drinking. It was the exclusively Mormon
refresher, "valley tan." Valley tan (or, at least,
one form of valley tan) is a kind of whisky, or first
cousin to it; is of Mormon invention and manu-
factured only in Utah. Tradition says it is made of
(imported) fire and brimstone. If I remember
rightly, no public drinking-saloons were allowed in
the kingdom by Brigham Young, and no private
drinking permitted among the faithful, except they
confined themselves to "valley tan."
Next day we strolled about everywhere through
the broad, straight, level streets, and enjoyed the
pleasant strangeness of a city of fifteen thousand
inhabitants with no loafers perceptible in it ; and no
visible drunkards or noisy people; a limpid stream
rippling and dancing through every street in place of
a filthy gutter; block after block of trim dwellings,
built of "frame" and sunburned brick — a great
thriving orchard and garden behind every one of
them, apparently — branches from the street stream
94
ROUGHING IT
winding and sparkling among the garden-beds and
fruit trees — and a grand general air of neatness,
repair, thrift, and comfort, around and about and
over the whole. And everywhere were workshops,
factories, and all manner of industries; and intent
faces and busy hands were to be seen wherever one
looked; and in one's ears was the ceaseless clink of
hammers, the buzz of trade and the contented hum
of drums and fly-wheels.
The armorial crest of my own state consisted of
two dissolute bears holding up the head of a dead
and gone cask between them and making the perti-
nent remark, "United, We Stand — (hico — Divided,
We Fall." It was always too figurative for the
author of this book. But the Mormon crest was
easy. And it was simple, unostentatious, and fitted
like a glove. It was a representation of a Golden
Beehive, with the bees all at work!
The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad
as the state of Connecticut, and crouches close down
to the ground under a curving wall of mighty moun-
tains whose heads are hidden in the clouds, and
whose shoulders bear relics of the snows of winter
all the summer long. Seen from one of these dizzy
heights, twelve or fifteen miles off, Great Salt Lake
City is toned down and diminished till it is suggestive
of a child's toy village reposing under the majestic
protection of the Chinese wall.
On some of these mountains, to the southwest, it
had been raining every day for two weeks, but not
a drop had fallen in the city. And on hot days in
late spring and early autumn the citizens could quit
95
MARK TWAIN
fanning and growling and go out and cool off by
looking at the luxury of a glorious snow-storm going
on in the mountains. They could enjoy it at a dis-
tance, at those seasons, every day, though no snow
would fall in their streets, or anywhere near them.
Salt Lake City was healthy — an extremely healthy
city. They declared that there was only one physi-
cian in the place and he was arrested every week
regularly and held to answer under the vagrant act
for having "no visible means of support." They
always give you a good substantial article of truth in
Salt Lake, and good measure and good weight, too.
Very often, if you wished to weigh one of their airiest
little commonplace statements you would want the
hay-scales.
We desired to visit the famous inland sea, the
American "Dead Sea," the great Salt Lake — seven-
teen miles, horseback, from the city — for we had
dreamed about it, and thought about it, and talked
about it, and yearned to see it, all the first part of
our trip; but now when it was only arm's-length
away it had suddenly lost nearly every bit of its
interest. And so we put it off, in a sort of general
way, till next day — and that was the last we ever
thought of it. We dined with some hospitable Gen-
tiles; and visited the foundation of the prodigious
temple ; and talked long with that shrewd Connecti-
cut Yankee, Heber C. Kimball (since deceased), a
saint of high degree and a mighty man of commerce.
We saw the "Tithing-House," and the "Lion House,"
and I do not know or remember how many more
church and government buildings of various kind?
96
ROUGHING IT
and curious names. We flitted hither and thither
and enjoyed every hour, and picked up a great
deal of useful information and entertaining non-
sense, and went to bed at night satisfied.
The second day, we made the acquaintance of Mr.
Street (since deceased) and put on white shirts and
went and paid a state visit to the king. He seemed
a quiet, kindly, easy-mannered, dignified, self-pos-
sessed old gentleman of fifty-five or sixty, and had a
gentle craft in his eye that probably belonged there.
He was very simply dressed and was just taking off
a straw hat as we entered. He talked about Utah,
and the Indians, and Nevada, and general American
matters and questions, with our secretary and cer-
tain government officials who came with us. But he
never paid any attention to me, notwithstanding I
made several attempts to "draw him out " on federal
politics and his high-handed attitude toward Con-
gress. I thought some of the things I said were
rather fine. But he merely looked around at me,
at distant intervals, something as I have seen a
benignant old cat look around to see which kitten
was meddling with her tail. By and by I subsided
into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end,
hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for
an ignorant savage. But he was calm. His conver-
sation with those gentlemen flowed on as sweetly
and peacefully and musically as any summer brook.
When the audience was ended and we were retiring
from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed
down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother :
"Ah — your child, I presume? Boy or girl?"
97
CHAPTER XIV
MR. STREET was very busy with his tele-
, graphic matters — and considering that he
had eight or nine hundred miles of rugged, snowy,
uninhabited mountains, and waterless, treeless,
melancholy deserts to traverse with his wire, it was
natural and needful that he should be as busy as
possible. He could not go comfortably along and cut
his poles by the roadside, either, but they had to be
hauled by ox-teams across those exhausting deserts —
and it was two days' journey from water to water,
in one or two of them. Mr. Street's contract was
a vast work, every way one looked at it; and yet to
comprehend what the vague words "eight hundred
miles of rugged mountains and dismal deserts"
mean, one must go over the ground in person — pen-
and-ink descriptions cannot convey the dreary reality
to the reader. And after all, Mr. S.'s mightiest
difficulty turned out to be one which he had never
taken into the account at all. Unto Mormons he
had sublet the hardest and heaviest half of his
great undertaking, and all of a sudden they concluded
that they were going to make little or nothing, and
so they tranquilly threw their poles overboard in
mountain or desert, just as it happened when they
took the notion, and drove home and went about
98
ROUGHING IT
their customary business! They were under written
contract to Mr. Street, but they did not care any-
thing for that. They said they would "admire" to
see a "Gentile" force a Mormon to fulfil a losing
contract in Utah! And they made themselves very
merry over the matter. Street said — for it was he
that told us these things:
"I was in dismay. I was under heavy bonds to
complete my contract in a given time, and this dis-
aster looked very much like ruin. It was an astound-
ing thing; it was such a wholly unlooked-for diffi-
culty, that I was entirely nonplussed. I am a busi-
ness man — have always been a business man — do
not know anything but business — and so ycu can
imagine how like being struck by lightning it was to
find myself in a country where written contracts were
worthless! — that main security, that sheet-anchor,
that absolute necessity, of business. My confidence
left me. There was no use in making new contracts
— that was plain. I talked with first one prominent
citizen and then another. They all sympathized
with me, first rate, but they did not know how to
help me. But at last a Gentile said, 'Go to Brigham
Young! — these small fry cannot do you any good.'
I did not think much of the idea, for if the law
could not help me, what could an individual do who
had not even anything to do with either making
the laws or executing them? He might be a very
good patriarch of a church and preacher in its taber-
nacle, but something sterner than religion and moral
suasion was needed to handle a hundred refractory,
half-civilized subcontractors. But what was a man
99
MARK TWAIN
jo do? I thought if Mr. Young could not do any-
thing else, he might probably be able to give me
some advice and a valuable hint or two, and so I
went straight to him and laid the whole case before
him. He said very little, but he showed strong
interest all the way through. He examined all the
papers in detail, and whenever there seemed any-
thing like a hitch, either in the papers or in my
statement, he would go back and take up the thread
and follow it patiently out to an intelligent and
satisfactory result. Then he made a list of the con-
tractors' names. Finally he said :
"'Mr. Street, this is all perfectly plain. These
contracts are strictly and legally drawn, and are
duly signed and certified. These men manifestly
entered into them with their eyes open. I see no
fault or flaw anywhere.'
' ' Then Mr. Young turned to a man waiting at the
other end of the room and said: 'Take this list of
names to So-and-so, and tell him to have these men
here at such-and-such an hour.'
"They were there, to the minute. So was I. Mr.
Young asked them a number of questions, and their
answers made my statement good. Then he said to
them:
"'You signed these contracts and assumed these
obligations of your own free will and accord?'
"'Yes.'
' ' ' Then carry them out to the letter, if it makes
paupers of you i Go!'
"And they did go, too! They are strung across
the deserts now, working like bees. And I never
ioo
ROUGHING IT
hear a word out of them. There is a batch of gov-
ernors, and judges, and other officials here, shipped
from Washington, and they maintain the semblance
of a republican form of government — but the petri-
fied truth is that Utah is an absolute monarchy and
Brigham Young is king!"
Mr. Street was a fine man, and I believe his story.
I knew him well during several years afterward in
San Francisco.
Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two
days, and therefore we had no time to make the
customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy
and get up the usual statistics and deductions pre-
paratory to calling the attention of the nation at
large once more to the matter. I had the will to do
it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I
was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a
great reform here — until I saw the Mormon women.
Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my
head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly, and
pathetically "homely" creatures, and as I turned
to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said,
"No — the man that marries one of them has done
an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the
kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh cen-
sure— and the man that marries sixty of them has
done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime
that the nations should stand uncovered in his pres-
ence and worship in silence." 1
1 For a brief sketch of Mormon history, and the noted Mountain
Meadows massacre, see Appendices A and B.
IOI
I
CHAPTER XV
T is a luscious country for thrilling evening stories
cannot easily conceive of anything more cozy than
the night in Salt Lake which we spent in a Gentile
den, smoking pipes and listening to tales of how
Burton galloped in among the pleading and defense-
less "Morisites" and shot them down, men and
women, like so many dogs. And how Bill Hickman,
a Destroying Angel, shot Drown and Arnold dead for
bringing suit against him for a debt. And how
Porter Rockwell did this and that dreadful thing.
And how heedless people often come to Utah and
make remarks about Brigham, or polygamy, or some
other sacred matter, and the very next morning at
daylight such parties are sure to be found lying up
some back alley, contentedly waiting for the hearse.
And the next most interesting thing is to sit and listen
to these Gentiles talk about polygamy; and how
some portly old frog of an elder, or a bishop, marries
a girl — likes her, marries her sister — likes her, mar-
ries another sister — likes her, takes another — likes
her, marries her mother — likes her, marries her
father, grandfather, great grandfather, and then
comes back hungry and asks for more. And how
the pert young thing of eleven will chance to be the
102
ROUGHING IT
favorite wife, and her own venerable grandmother
have to rank away down toward D 4 in their mutual
husband's esteem, and have to sleep in the kitchen,
as like as not. And how this dreadful sort of thing,
this hiving together in one foul nest of mother
and daughters, and the making a young daughter
superior to her own mother in rank and authority,
are things which Mormon women submit to because
their religion teaches them that the more wives a
man has on earth, and the more children he rears,
the higher the place they will all have in the world
to come — and the warmer, maybe, though they do
not seem to say anything about that.
According to these Gentile friends of ours, Brig-
ham Young's harem contains twenty or thirty wives.
They said that some of them had grown old and
gone out of active service, but were comfortably
housed and cared for in the hennery — or the Lion
House, as it is strangely named. Along with each
wife were her children — fifty altogether. The house
was perfectly quiet and orderly, when the children
were still. They all took their meals in one room,
and a happy and homelike sight it was pronounced
to be. None of our party got an opportunity to
take dinner with Mr. Young, but a Gentile by the
name of Johnson professed to have enjoyed a sociable
breakfast in the Lion House. He gave a prepos-
terous account of the "calling of the roll," and other
preliminaries, and the carnage that ensued when
the buckwheat-cakes came in. But he embellished
rather too much. He said that Mr. Young told him
several smart sayings of certain of his "two-year-
103
MARK TWAIN
olds," observing with some pride that for many years
he had been the heaviest contributor in that line to
one of the Eastern magazines; and then he wanted
to show Mr. Johnson one of the pets that had said
the last good thing, but he could not find the child.
He searched the faces of the children in detail,
but could not decide which one it was. Finally, he
gave it up with a sigh and said : "I thought I would
know the little cub again, but I don't." Mr. Johnson
said further, that Mr. Young observed that life
was a sad, sad thing — "because the joy of every
new marriage a man contracted was so apt to be
blighted by the inopportune funeral of a less recent
bride." And Mr. Johnson said that while he and
Mr. Young were pleasantly conversing in private,
one of the Mrs. Youngs came in and demanded a
breastpin, remarking that she had found out that
he had been giving a breastpin to No. 6, and she,
for one, did not propose to let this partiality go on
without making a satisfactory amount of trouble
about it. Mr. Young reminded her that there was
a stranger present. Mrs. Young said that if the state
of things inside the house was not agreeable to
the stranger, he could find room outside. Mr.
Young promised the breastpin, and she went away.
But in a minute or two another Mrs. Young came
in and demanded a breastpin. Mr. Young began a
remonstrance, but Mrs. Young cut him short. She
said No. 6 had got one, and No. n was promised
one, and it was "no use for him to try to impose on
her — she hoped she knew her rights." He gave
his promise, and she went. And presently three
104
ROUGHING IT
Mrs. Youngs entered in a body and opened on theii
husband a tempest of tears, abuse, and entreaty.
They had heard all about No. 6, No. n, and No.
14. Three more breastpins were promised. They
were hardly gone when nine more Mrs. Youngs filed
into the presence, and a new tempest burst forth and
raged round about the prophet and his guest. Nine
breastpins were promised, and the weird sisters filed
out again. And in came eleven more, weeping and
wailing and gnashing their teeth. Eleven promised
breastpins purchased peace once more.
"That is a specimen," said Mr. Young. "You
see how it is. You see what a life I lead. A man
can't be wise all the time. In a heedless moment I
gave my darling No. 6 — excuse my calling her thus,
as her other name has escaped me for the moment — ■
a breastpin. It was only worth twenty -five dollars —
that is, apparently that was its whole cost — but
its ultimate cost was inevitably bound to be a good
deal more. You yourself have seen it climb up to
six hundred and fifty dollars — and alas, even that
is not the end! For I have wives all over this
territory of Utah. I have dozens of wives whose
numbers, even, I do not know without looking in the
family Bible. They are scattered far and wide among
the mountains and valleys of my realm. And, mark
you, every solitary one of them will hear of this
wretched breastpin, and every last one of them will
have one or die. No. 6's breastpin will cost me
twenty-five hundred dollars before I see the end of
it. And these creatures will compare these pins
together, and if one is a shade finer than the rest,
105
MARK TWAIN
chey will all be thrown on my hands, and I will have
to order a new lot to keep peace in the family. Sir,
you probably did not know it, but all the time you
were present with my children your every movement
was watched by vigilant servitors of mine. If you
had offered to give a child a dime, or a stick of
candy, or any trifle of the kind, you would have been
snatched out of the house instantly, provided it could
be done before your gift left your hand. Other-
wise it would be absolutely necessary for you to make
an exactly similar gift to all my children — and know-
ing by experience the importance of the thing, I
would have stood by and seen to it myself that you
did it, and did it thoroughly. Once a gentleman
gave one of my children a tin whistle — a veritable
invention of Satan, sir, and one which I have an
unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had
eighty or ninety children in your house. But the
deed was done — the man escaped. I knew what the
result was going to be, and I thirsted for vengeance.
I ordered out a flock of Destroying Angels, and
they hunted the man far into the fastnesses of the
Nevada mountains. But they never caught him. I
am not cruel, sir — I am not vindictive except when
sorely outraged — but if I had caught him, sir, so
help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him into
the nursery till the brats whistled him to death. By
the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt (whom God
assoil!) there was never anything on this earth like
it! I knew who gave the whistle to the child, but I
could not make those jealous mothers believe me.
They believed I did it, and the result was just what
1 06
ROUGHING IT
any man of reflection could have foreseen: I had to
order a hundred and ten whistles — I think we had a
hundred and ten children in the house then, but
some of them are off at college now — I had to order
a hundred and ten of those shrieking things, and I
wish I may never speak another word if we didn't
have to talk on our fingers entirely, from that time
forth until the children got tired of the whistles.
And if ever another man gives a whistle to a child
of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him
higher than Haman ! That is the word with the bark
on it! Shade of Nephi! You don't know anything
about married life. I am rich, and everybody knows
it. I am benevolent, and everybody takes advantage
of it. I have a strong fatherly instinct, and all the
foundlings are foisted on me. Every time a woman
wants to do well by her darling, she puzzles her brain
to cipher out some scheme for getting it into my
hands. Why, sir, a woman came here once with a
child of a curious lifeless sort of complexion (and so
had the woman), and swore that the child was mine
and she my wife — that I had married her at such-
and-such a time in such-and-such a place, but she had
forgotten her number, and of course I could not
remember her name. Well, sir, she called my atten-
tion to the fact that the child looked like me, and
really it did seem to resemble me — a common thing
in the territory — and, to cut the story short, I put
it in my nursery, and she left. And, by the ghost of
Orson Hyde, when they came to wash the paint off
that child it was an Injun! Bless my soul, you don't
know anything about married life. It is a perfect
107
MARK TWAIN
dog's life, sir — a perfect dog's life. You can't econo-
mize. It isn't possible. I have tried keeping one
set of bridal attire for all occasions. But it is of no
use. First you'll marry a combination of calico and
consumption that's as thin as a rail, and next you'll
get a creature that's nothing more than the dropsy in
disguise, and then you've got to eke out that bridal
dress with an old balloon. That is the way it goes.
And think of the wash-bill — (excuse these tears) —
nine hundred and eighty-four pieces a week! No,
sir, there is no such a thing as economy in a family
like mine. Why, just the one item of cradles —
think of it! And vermifuge! Soothing - syrup !
Teething - rings ! And 'papa's watches' for the
babies to play with! And things to scratch the
furniture with ! And lucifer matches for them to eat,
and pieces of glass to cut themselves with ! The item
of glass alone would support your family, I venture
to say, sir. Let me scrimp and squeeze all I can, I
still can't get ahead as fast as I feel I ought to, with
my opportunities. Bless you, sir, at a time when I
had seventy-two wives in this house, I groaned under
the pressure of keeping thousands of dollars tied up
in seventy-two bedsteads when the money ought to
have been out at interest; and I just sold out the
whole stock, sir, at a sacrifice, and built a bedstead
seven feet long and ninety-six feet wide. But it was
a failure, sir. I could not sleep. It appeared to me
that the whole seventy-two women snored at once.
The roar was deafening. And then the danger of
it! That was what I was looking at. They would
all draw in their breath at once, and you could actu-
108
ROUGHING IT
ally see the walls of the house suck in — and then
they would all exhale their breath at once, and you
could see the walls swell out, and strain, and hear
the rafters crack, and the shingles grind together.
My friend, take an old man's advice and don't
encumber yourself with a large family — mind, I tell
you, don't do it. In a small family, and in a small
family only, you will find that comfort and that peace
of mind which are the best at last of the blessings
this world is able to afford us, and for the lack of
which no accumulation of wealth, and no acquisition
of fame, power, and greatness can ever compensate
us. Take my word for it, ten or eleven wives is all
you need — never go over it."
Some instinct or other made me set this Johnson
down as being unreliable. And yet he was a very
entertaining person, and I doubt if some of the infor-
mation he gave us could have been acquired from
any other source. He was a pleasant contrast to
those reticent Mormons.
CHAPTER XVI
ALL men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but
, few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at
least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away
a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to
me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow,"
so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It
is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed
this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake
while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to
tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient
and mysteriously engraved plates of copper, which he
declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way
locality, the work of translating was equally a mir-
acle, for the same reason.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of
imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a
model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New
Testament. The author labored to give his words
and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and
structure of our King James's translation of the
Scriptures ; and the result is a mongrel — half modern
glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity.
The latter is awkward and constrained; the former
natural, but grotesque by the contrast. When-
ever he found his speech growing too modern —
no
ROUGHING IT
which was about every sentence or two — he ladled
in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore,"
"and it came to pass," etc., and made things satis-
factory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet.
If he had left that out, his Bible would have been
only a pamphlet.
The title-page reads as follows :
The Book of Mormon: an account written by the Hand of
Mormon, upon Plates taken from the Plates of Nephi.
Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of
Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites,
who are a remnant of the House of Israel ; and also to Jew and
Gentile; written by way of commandment, and also by the
spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up;
and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed;
to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpreta-
tion thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto
the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile,
the interpretation thereof by the gift of God. An abridgment
taken from the Book of Ether also; which is a record of the
people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord con-
founded the language of the people when they were building a
tower to get to Heaven.
"Hid up" is good. And so is "wherefore" —
though why "wherefore"? Any other word would
have answered as well — though in truth it would not
have sounded so Scriptural.
Next comes
THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people
unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of
God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates
which contain this record, which is a record of the people of
Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of
the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath
MARK TWAIN
been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated
by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it
unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.
And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are
upon the plates ; and they have been shown unto us by the power
of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of sober-
ness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he
brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the
plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by
the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that
we beheld and bear record that these things are true; and
it is marvelous in our eyes; nevertheless the voice of the Lord
commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore,
to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testi-
mony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in
Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be
found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall
dwell with Him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is
one God. Amen. Oliver Cowdery,
David Whitmer,
Martin Harris.
Some people have to have a world of evidence
before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood
of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells
me that he has ' ' seen the engravings which are upon
the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there
at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took
his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to con-
viction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man
before or not, and even if I do not know the name of
the angel, or his nationality either.
Next is this :
AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people
unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the
ROUGHING IT
translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which
hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as
many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did
handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon,
all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious
workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness,
that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and
hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the
plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto
the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen;
and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.
Christian Whither, Hiram Page,
Jacob Whitmer, Joseph Smith, Sr.,
Peter Whitmer, Jr., Hyrum Smith,
John Whitmer, Samuel H. Smith.
And when I am far on the road to conviction, and
eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come
forward and tell me that they have seen the plates
too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted"
them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satis-
fied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had
testified.
The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen "books" —
being the books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni,
Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two
"books" of Mormon, and three of Nephi.
In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the
Old Testament, which gives an account of the exo-
dus from Jerusalem of the "children of Lehi"; and
it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilder-
ness, during eight years, and their supernatural pro-
tection by one of their number, a party by the name
of Nephi. They finally reached the land of "Boun-
tiful," and camped by the sea. After they had re-
i*3
MARK TWAIN
mained there "for the space of many days" —
which is more Scriptural than definite — Nephi was
commanded from on high to build a ship wherein to
"carry the people across the waters." He traves-
tied Noah's ark — but he obeyed orders in the matter
of the plan. He finished the ship in a single day,
while his brethren stood by and made fun of it —
and of him, too — "saying, our brother is a fool, for
he thinketh that he can build a ship." They did
not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe
or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine
nature cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken
Nephi with Scriptural frankness — they all got on a
spree! They, "and also their wives, began to make
themselves merry, insomuch that they began to
dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness;
yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness."
Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings;
but they tied him neck and heels, and went on with
their lark. But observe how Nephi, the prophet, cir-
cumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:
And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch
that I could not move, the compass, which had been prepared
of the Lord, did cease to work; wherefore, they knew not whither
they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great
storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven
back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began
to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in
the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth
day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be
exceeding sore.
And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up
in the depths of the sea.
Then they untied him.
114
ROUGHING IT
And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behoid, I took
the compass, and it did work whither I desired it. And it came
to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed,
the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a
great calm.
Equipped with their compass, these ancients ap-
pear to have had the advantage of Noah.
Their voyage was toward a "promised land" —
the only name they gave it. They reached it in
safety.
Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon relig-
ion, and was added by Brigham Young after Joseph
Smith's death. Before that, it was regarded as an
"abomination." This verse from the Mormon Bible
occurs in Chapter II of the Book of Jacob :
For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in
iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to
excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the
things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his
son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and
concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the
Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people
forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm,
that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit
of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God, will not
suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
However, the project failed — or at least the mod-
ern Mormon end of it — for Brigham "suffers" it.
This verse is from the same chapter:
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom you hate, because
of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their
skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten
the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our
fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and con-
cubines they should have none.
US
MARK TWAIN
'ihe following verse (from Chapter IX of the Book
of Nephi) appears to contain information not familiar
to everybody :
And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into
heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his
wife and his children, and did return to his own home.
And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude
was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he
had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also
his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and Mathoni-
hah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenonhi, and Jeremiah,
and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah; now these
were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen.
In order that the reader may observe how much
more grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these
Mormon twelve) accompanied one of the tenderest
episodes in the life of our Saviour than other eyes
seem to have been aware of, I quote the following
from the same "book" — Nephi:
And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade
them arise. And they arose from the earth, and He said unto
them, Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, My
joy is full. And when He had said these words, He wept, and
the multitude bear record of it, and He took their little children,
one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for
them. And when He had done this He wept again, and He
spake unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your
little ones. And as they looked to behold, they cast their eyes
toward heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw
angels descending out of heaven as it were, in the midst of fire;
and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and
they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister
unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record ;
and they know that their record is true, for they all of them did
see and hear, every man for himself; and they were in number
about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did con-
sist of men, women, and children.
116
ROUGHING IT
And what else would they be likely to consist of?
The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley
of "history," much of it relating to battles and
sieges among peoples whom the reader has possibly
never heard of; and who inhabited a country which
is not set down in the geography. There was a
King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr, and
he warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and
others, in the ' ' plains of Heshlon ' ' ; and the ' ' valley
ofGilgal"; and the " wilderness of Akish " ; and the
"land of Moran"; and the "plains of Agosh";
and "Ogath," and "Ramah," and the "land of
Corihor," and the "hill Comnor," by "the waters
of Ripliancum," etc., etc., etc. "And it came to
pass," after a deal of righting, that Coriantumr,
upon making calculation of his losses, found that
"there had been slain two millions of mighty men,
and also their wives and their children" — say
5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all — "and he began to
sorrow in his heart." Unquestionably it was time.
So he wrote to Shiz, asking a cessation of hostilities,
and offering to give up his kingdom to save his
people. Shiz declined, except upon condition that
Coriantumr would come and let him cut his head
off first — a thing which Coriantumr would not do.
Then there was more fighting for a season; then
four years were devoted to gathering the forces
for a final struggle — after which ensued a battle,
which, I take it, is the most remarkable set forth in
history — except, perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats,
which it resembles in some respects. This is the
account of the gathering and the battle:
117
MARK TWAIN
7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the
people, upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain,
save it was Ether. And it came to pass that Ether did behold
all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who
were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to the army of
Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered
together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were for the space
of four years gathering together the people, that they might
get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might
receive all the strength which it was possible that they could
receive. And it came to pass that when they were all gathered
together, every one to the army which he would, with their
wives and their children; both men, women, and children being
armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breast -plates,
and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war,
they did march forth one against another, to battle; and they
fought all that day, and conquered not. And it came to pass
that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their
camps; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up
a howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their
people; and so great were their cries, their howlings and lamen-
tations, that it did rend the air exceedingly. And it came to
pass that on the morrow they did go again to battle, and great
and terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not,
and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their
cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of
the slain of their people.
8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle
unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to battle, but
that he would take the kingdom, and spare the lives of the
people. But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving
with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the
people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts
and the blindness of their minds, that they might be destroyed;
wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that
they fought all that day, and when the night came they slept
upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought even until
the night came; and when the night came they were drunken
with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine; and they
slept again upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought
again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword
118
ROUGHING IT
save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty
and nine of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they
slept upon their swords that night, and on the morrow they
fought again, and they contended in their mights with their
swords, and with their shields, all that day; and when the night
came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and
twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr.
9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared
for death on the morrow. And they were large and mighty
men, as to the strength of men. And it came to pass that they
fought for the space of three hours, and they fainted with the
loss of blood. And it came to pass that when the men of Corian-
tumr had received sufficient strength, that they could walk,
they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose,
and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay
Coriantumr, or he would perish by the sword; wherefore he did
pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they
fought again with the sword. And it came to pass that when they
had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz,
behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood. And it came to pass
that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested
a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that
after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon
his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath,
he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth,
and became as if he had no life. And the Lord spake unto Ether,
and said unto him, go forth. And he went forth, and beheld
that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished
his record; and the hundredth part I have not written.
It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his
dreary former chapters of commonplace, he stopped
just as he was in danger of becoming interesting.
The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome
to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teach-
ings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable — it is
"smouched"1 from the New Testament and no
credit given.
1 Milton.
no
CHAPTER XVII
AT the end of our two days' sojourn, we left;
L Great Salt Lake City hearty and well fed and
happy — physically superb but not so very much
wiser, as regards the "Mormon question," than we
were when we arrived, perhaps. We had a deal
more "information" than we had before, of course,
but we did not know what portion of it was reliable
and what was not — for it all came from acquaint-
ances of a day — strangers, strictly speaking. We
were told, for instance, that the dreadful "Moun-
tain Meadows Massacre" was the work of the
Indians entirely, and that the Gentiles had meanly
tried to fasten it upon the Mormons; we were told,
likewise, that the Indians were to blame, partly, and
partly the Mormons; and we were told, likewise,
and just as positively, that the Mormons were
almost if not wholly and completely responsible for
that most treacherous and pitiless butchery. We
got the story in all these different shapes, but it was
not till several years afterward that Mrs. Waite's
book, The Mormon Prophet, came out with Judge
Cradlebaugh's trial of the accused parties in it and
revealed the truth that the latter version was the
correct one and that the Mormons were the assas-
sins. All our "information" had three sides to it,
t?o
ROUGHING IT
and so I gave up the idea that I could settle the
"Mormon question" in two days. Still I have seen
newspaper correspondents do it in one.
I left Great Salt Lake a good deal confused as to
what state of things existed there — and sometimes
even questioning in my own mind whether a state of
things existed there at all or not. But presently I
remembered with a lightening sense of relief that we
had learned two or three trivial things there which
we could be certain of; and so the two days were
not wholly lost. For instance, we had learned that
we were at last in a pioneer land, in absolute and
tangible reality. The high prices charged for trifles
were eloquent of high freights and bewildering dis-
tances of freightage. In the East, in those days, the
smallest moneyed denomination was a penny and it
represented the smallest purchasable quantity of any
commodity. West of Cincinnati the smallest coin
in use wTas the silver five-cent piece, and no smaller
quantity of an article could be bought than "five
cents' worth." In Overland City the lowest coin
appeared to be the ten-cent piece ; but in Salt Lake
there did not seem to be any money in circulation
smaller than a quarter, or any smaller quantity pur-
chasable of any commodity than twenty-five cents'
worth. We had always been used to half-dimes and
"five cents' worth" as the minimum of financial
negotiations; but in Salt Lake if one wanted a cigar,
it was a quarter; if he wanted a chalk pipe, it was a
quarter; if he wanted a peach, or a candle, or a
newspaper, or a shave, or a little Gentile whisky to
rub on his corns to arrest indigestion and keep him
121
MARK TWAIN
from having the toothache, twenty -five cents was the
price, every time. When we looked at the shot-bag
of silver, now and then, we seemed to be wasting our
substance in riotous living, but if we referred to the
expense account we could see that we had not been
doing anything of the kind. But people easily get
reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond
and vain of both — it is a descent to little coins and
cheap prices that is hardest to bear and slowest to
take hold upon one's toleration. After a month's
acquaintance with the twenty -five-cent minimum, the
average human being is ready to blush every time he
thinks of his despicable five-cent days. How sun-
burnt with blushes I used to get in gaudy Nevada,
every time I thought of my first financial experience
in Salt Lake. It was on this wise (which is a favor-
ite expression of great authors, and a very neat one,
too, but I never hear anybody say on this wise when
they are talking). A young half-breed with a com-
plexion like a yellow- jacket asked me if I would have
my boots blacked. It was at the Salt Lake House
the morning after we arrived. I said yes, and he
blacked them. Then I handed him a silver five-cent
piece, with the benevolent air of a person who is con-
ferring wealth and blessedness upon poverty and
suffering. The yellow-jacket took it with what I
judged to be suppressed emotion, and laid it rever-
ently down in the middle of his broad hand. Then
he began to contemplate it, much as a philosopher
contemplates a gnat's ear in the ample field of his
microscope. Several mountaineers, teamsters, stage-
drivers, etc., drew near and dropped into the tableau
122
ROUGHING IT
and fell to surveying the money with that attractive
indifference to formality which is noticeable in the
hardy pioneer. Presently the yellow-jacket handed
the half-dime back to me and told me I ought to
keep my money in my pocket-book instead of in my
soul, and then I wouldn't get it cramped and shriv-
eled up so!
What a roar of vulgar laughter there was! I de-
stroyed the mongrel reptile on the spot, but I smiled
and smiled all the time I was detaching his scalp, for
the remark he made was good for an "Injun."
Yes, we had learned in Salt Lake to be charged
great prices without letting the inward shudder ap-
pear on the surface — for even already we had over-
heard and noted the tenor of conversations among
drivers, conductors, and hostlers, and finally among
citizens of Salt Lake, until we were well aware that
these superior beings despised "emigrants." We
permitted no telltale shudders and winces in our
countenances, for we wanted to seem pioneers,
or Mormons, half-breeds, teamsters, stage-drivers,
Mountain Meadows assassins — anything in the world
that the plains and Utah respected and admired —
but we were wretchedly ashamed of being "emi-
grants," and sorry enough that we had white shirts
and could not swear in the presence of ladies with-
out looking the other way.
And many a time in Nevada, afterward, we had
occasion to remember with humiliation that we were
"emigrants," and consequently a low and inferior
sort of creatures. Perhaps the reader has visited
Utah, Nevada, or California, even in these latter
123
MARK TWAIN
days, and while communing with himself upon the
sorrowful banishment of those countries from what
he considers "the world," has had his wings clipped
by finding that he is the one to be pitied, and that
there are entire populations around him ready and
willing to do it for him — yea, who are complacently
doing it for him already, wherever he steps his
foot. Poor thing! they are making fun of his hat;
and the cut of his New York coat; and his con-
scientiousness about his grammar; and his feeble
profanity; and his consumingly ludicrous ignorance
of ores, shafts, tunnels, and other things which he
never saw before, and never felt enough interest in
to read about. And all the time that he is thinking
what a sad fate it is to be exiled to that far country,
that lonely land, the citizens around him are looking
down on him with a blighting compassion because
he is an "emigrant" instead of that proudest and
blessedest creature that exists on all the earth, a
"FORTY-NlNER."
The accustomed coach life began again, now, and
by midnight it almost seemed as if we never had
been out of our snuggery among the mail-sacks at
all. We had made one alteration, however. We
had provided enough bread, boiled ham, and hard-
boiled eggs to last double the six hundred miles of
staging we had still to do.
And it was comfort in those succeeding days to
sit up and contemplate the majestic panorama of
mountains and valleys spread out below us and eat
ham and hard-boiled eggs while our spiritual natures
reveled alternatclv in rainbows, thunder-storms, anH
124
ROUGHING IT
peerless sunsets. Nothing helps scenery like ham
and eggs. Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe —
an old, rank, delicious pipe — ham and eggs and
scenery, a "down grade," a flying coach, a fragrant
pipe and a contented heart — these make happiness.
It is what all the ages have struggled for.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT eight in the morning we reached the remnant
l\ and ruin of what had been the important mili-
tary station of "Camp Floyd," some forty-five or
fifty miles from Salt Lake City. At 4 p.m. we had
doubled our distance and were ninety or a hundred
miles from Salt Lake. And now we entered upon
one of that species of deserts whose concentrated
hideousness shames the diffused and diluted horrors
of Sahara — an "alkali" desert. For sixty-eight
miles there was but one break in it. I do not remem-
ber that this was really a break; indeed, it seems
to me that it was nothing but a watering-depot in
the midst of the stretch of sixty-eight miles. If
my memory serves me, there was no well or spring
at this place, but the water was hauled there by
mule and ox teams from the further side of the
desert. There was a stage-station there. It was
forty-five miles from the beginning of the desert, and
twenty-three from the end of it.
We plowed and dragged and groped along, the
whole livelong night, and at the end of this uncom-
fortable twelve hours we finished the forty-five-mile
part of the desert and got to the stage-station where
the imported water was. The sun was just rising.
It was easy enough to cross a desert in the night
while we were asleep; and it was pleasant to reflect,
126
ROUGHING IT
in the morning, that we in actual person had encoun-
tered an absolute desert and could always speak
knowingly of deserts in presence of the ignorant
thenceforward. And it was pleasant also to reflect
that this was not an obscure, back-country desert,
but a very celebrated one, the metropolis itself, as
you may say. All this was very well and very com-
fortable and satisfactory — but now we were to cross
a desert in daylight. This was fine — novel — ro-
mantic— dramatically adventurous — this, indeed, was
worth living for, worth traveling for! We would
write home all about it.
This enthusiasm, this stern thirst for adventure,
wilted under the sultry August sun and did not last
above one hour. One poor little hour — and then
we were ashamed that we had "gushed" so. The
poetry was all in the anticipation — there is none in
the reality. Imagine a vast, waveless ocean stricken
dead and turned to ashes ; imagine this solemn waste
tufted with ash-dusted sage-bushes ; imagine the life-
less silence and solitude that belong to such a place;
imagine a coach, creeping like a bug through the
midst of this shoreless level, and sending up tum-
bled volumes of dust as if it were a bug that went
by steam; imagine this aching monotony of toiling
and plowing kept up hour after hour, and the shore
still as far away as ever, apparently ; imagine team,
driver, coach, and passengers so deeply coated with
ashes that they are all one colorless color; imagine
ash-drifts roosting above mustaches and eyebrows
like snow accumulations on boughs and bushes.
This is the reality of it.
127
MARK TWAIN
The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relent-
less malignity ; the perspiration is welling from every
pore in man and beast, but scarcely a sign of it finds
its way to the surface — it is absorbed before it gets
there; there is not the faintest breath of air stirring;
there is not a merciful shred of cloud in all the bril-
liant firmament ; there is not a living creature visible
in any direction whither one searches the blank level
that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand;
there is not a sound — not a sigh — not a whisper —
not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or distant pipe of
bird — not even a sob from the lost souls that doubt-
less people that dead air. And so the occasional
sneezing of the resting mules and the champing of
the bits, grate harshly on the grim stillness, not dis-
sipating the spell, but accenting it and making one
feel more lonesome and forsaken than before.
The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing, and
whip-cracking, would make at stated intervals a
"spurt," and drag the coach a hundred or maybe
two hundred yards, stirring up a billowy cloud of
dust that rolled back, enveloping the vehicle to the
wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem afloat in a
fog. Then a rest followed, with the usual sneezing
and bit-champing. Then another "spurt" of a
hundred yards and another rest at the end of it.
All day long we kept this up, without water for the
mules and without ever changing the team. At least
.ve kept it up ten hours, which, I take it, is a day,
and a pretty honest one, in an alkali desert. It was
from four in the morning till two in the afternoon.
And i" was ro hot! and so close! and our water
T28
ROUGHING IT
canteens went dry in the middle of the day and we
got so thirsty! It was so stupid and tiresome and
dull! and the tedious hours did lag and drag and
limp along with such a cruel deliberation! It was
so trying to give one's watch a good long undis-
turbed spell and then take it out and find that it had
been fooling away the time and not trying to get
ahead any! The alkali dust cut through our lips, it
persecuted our eyes, it ate through the delicate
membranes and made our noses bleed and kept them
bleeding — and truly and seriously the romance all
faded far away and disappeared, and left the desert
trip nothing but a harsh reality — a thirsty, swelter-
ing, longing, hateful reality!
Two miles and a quarter an hour for ten hours —
that was what we accomplished. It was hard to
bring the comprehension away down to such a snail-
pace as that, when we had been used to making
eight and ten miles an hour. When we reached
the station on the farther verge of the desert, we
were glad, for the first time, that the dictionary was
along, because we never could have found language
to tell how glad we were, in any sort of dictionary
but an unabridged one with pictures in it. But
there could not have been found in a whole library
of dictionaries language sufficient to tell how tired
those mules were after their twenty-three-mile pull.
To try to give the reader an idea of how thirsty they
were, would be to "gild refined gold or paint the
lily."
Somehow, now that it is there, the quotation does
not seem to fit — but no matter, let it stay, any-
129
MARK TWAIN
how. I think it is a graceful and attractive thing,
and therefore have tried time and time again to work
it in where it would fit, but could not succeed.
These efforts have kept my mind distracted and ill
at ease, and made my narrative seem broken and
disjointed, in places. Under these circumstances it
seems to me best to leave it in, as above, since this
will afford at least a temporary respite from the wear
and tear of trying to "lead up" to this really apt
and beautiful quotation.
CHAPTER XIX
ON the morning of the sixteenth day out from St.
Joseph we arrived at the entrance of Rocky
Canon, two hundred and fifty miles from Salt
Lake. It was along in this wild country somewhere,
and far from any habitation of white»men, except
the stage-stations, that we came across the wretched-
est type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this
writing. I refer to the Goshoot Indians. From
what we could see and all we could learn, they are
very considerably inferior to even the despised Dig-
ger Indians of California; inferior to all races of
savages on our continent ; inferior to even the Terra
del Fuegans ; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually
inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa.
Indeed, I have been obliged to look the bulky
volumes of Wood's Uncivilized Races of Men clear
through in order to find a savage tribe degraded
enough to take rank with the Goshoots. I find
but one people fairly open to that shameful ver-
dict. It is the Bosjesmans (Bushmen) of South
Africa. Such of the Goshoots as we saw, along the
road and hanging about the stations, were small,
lean, "scrawny" creatures; in complexion a dull
black like the ordinary American negro; their faces
and hands bearing dirt which they had been hoard-
131
MARK TWAIN
ing and accumulating for months, years, and even
generations, according to the age of the proprietor;
a silent, sneaking, treacherous-looking race; taking
note of everything, covertly, like all the other
" Noble Red Men" that we (do not) read about,
and betraying no sign in their countenances; indo-
lent, everlastingly patient and tireless, like all other
Indians ; prideless beggars — for if the beggar instinct
were left out of an Indian he would not "go," any
more than a clock without a pendulum; hungry,
always hungry, and yet never refusing anything that
a hog would* eat, though often eating what a hog
would decline; hunters, but having no higher ambi-
tion than to kill and eat jackass-rabbits, crickets,
and grasshoppers, and embezzle carrion from the
buzzards and coyotes; savages who, when asked if
they have the common Indian belief in a Great
Spirit, show a something which almost amounts
to emotion, thinking whisky is referred to; a thin,
scattering race of almost naked black children, these
Goshoots are, who produce nothing at all, and have
no villages, and no gatherings together into strictly
defined tribal communities — a people whose only
shelter is a rag cast on a bush to keep off a portion
of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most
rocky, wintry, repulsive wastes that our country or
any other can exhibit.
The Bushmen and our Goshoots are manifestly
descended from the self-same gorilla, or kangaroo,
or Norway rat, whichever animal-Adam the Dar-
winians trace them to.
One would as soon expect the rabbits to fight as
132
ROUGHING IT
the Goshoots, and yet they used to live off the offal
and refuse of the stations a few months and then
come some dark night when no mischief was ex-
pected, and burn down the buildings and kill the
men from ambush as they rushed out. And once,
in the night, they attacked the stage-coach when a
District Judge, of Nevada Territory, was the only
passenger, and with their first volley of arrows (and
a bullet or two) they riddled the stage curtains,
wounded a horse or two and mortally wounded the
driver. The latter was full of pluck, and so was
his passenger. At the driver's call Judge Mott
swung himself out, clambered to the box and seized
the reins of the team, and away they plunged,
through the racing mob of skeletons and under a
hurtling storm of missiles. The stricken driver had
sunk down on the boot as soon as he was wounded,
but had held on to the reins and said he would
manage to keep hold of them until relieved. And
after they were taken from his relaxing grasp, he
lay with his head between Judge Mott's feet, and
tranquilly gave directions about the road; he said
he believed he could live till the miscreants were
outrun and left behind, and that if he managed that,
the main difficulty would be at an end, and then if
the Judge drove so and so (giving directions about
bad places in the road, and general course) he would
reach the next station without trouble. The Judge
distanced the enemy and at last rattled up to the
station and knew that the night's perils were done;
but there was no comrade-in-arms for him to rejoice
with, for the soldierly driver was dead.
133
MARK TWAIN
Let us forget that we have been saying harsh
things about the Overland drivers, now. The dis-
gust which the Goshoots gave me, a disciple of
Cooper and a worshiper of the Red Men — even of
the scholarly savages in the Last of the Mohicans,
who are fittingly associated with backwoodsmen who
divide each sentence into two equal parts; one part
critically grammatical, refined, and choice of lan-
guage, and the other part just such an attempt to
talk like a hunter or a mountaineer as a Broadway
clerk might make after eating an edition of Emerson
Bennett's works and studying frontier life at the
Bowery Theater a couple of weeks — I say that the
nausea which the Goshoots gave me, an Indian-
worshiper, set me to examining authorities, to see
if perchance I had been overestimating the Red
Man while viewing him through the mellow moon-
shine of romance. The revelations that came were
disenchanting. It was curious to see how quickly
the paint and tinsel fell away from him and left him
treacherous, filthy, and repulsive — and how quickly
the evidences accumulated that wherever one finds
an Indian tribe he has only found Goshoots more
or less modified by circumstances and surround-
ings— but Goshoots, after all. They deserve pity,
poor creatures! and they can have mine — at this
distance. Nearer by, they never get anybody's.
There is an impression abroad that the Baltimore
and Washington Railroad Company and many of its
employees are Goshoots; but it is an error. There
is only a plausible resemblance, which, while it is
apt enough to mislead the ignorant, cannot deceive
i34
ROUGHING IT
parties who have contemplated both tribes. But
seriously, it was not only poor wit, but very wrong
to start the report referred to above; for however
innocent the motive may have been, the necessary
effect was to injure the reputation of a class who
have a hard enough time of it in the pitiless deserts
of the Rocky Mountains, Heaven knows! If we
cannot find it in our hearts to give those poor naked
creatures our Christian sympathy and compassion,
in God's name let us at least not throw mud at them.
CHAPTER XX
ON the seventeenth day we passed the highest
mountain peaks we had yet seen, and although
the day was very warm the night that followed upon
its heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to
useless.
On the eighteenth day we encountered the east-
ward-bound telegraph-constructors at Reese River
station and sent a message to his Excellency Gov-
ernor Nye at Carson City (distant one hundred and
fifty-six miles).
On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great
American Desert — forty memorable miles of bot-
tomless sand, into which the coach wheels sunk
from six inches to a foot. We worked our passage
most of the way across. That is to say, we got out
and walked. It was a dreary pull and a long and
thirsty one, for we had no water. From one ex-
tremity of this desert to the other, the road was
white with the bones of oxen and horses. It would
hardly be an exaggeration to say that we could have
walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone at
every step! The desert was one prodigious grave-
yard. And the log-chains, wagon tires, and rotting
wrecks of vehicles were almost as thick as the bones.
I think we saw log-chains enough rusting there in
136
ROUGHING IT
the desert to reach across any state in the Union.
Do not these relics suggest something of an idea of
the fearful suffering and privation the early emi-
grants to California endured?
At the border of the desert lies Carson Lake, or
the "Sink" of the Carson, a shallow, melancholy
sheet of water some eighty or a hundred miles in
circumference. Carson River empties into it and
is lost — sinks mysteriously into the earth and never
appears in the light of the sun again — for the lake
has no outlet whatever.
There are several rivers in Nevada, and they all
have this mysterious fate. They end in various
lakes or "sinks," and that is the last of them.
Carson Lake, Humboldt Lake, Walker Lake, Mono
Lake, are all great sheets of water without any
visible outlet. Water is always flowing into them;
none is ever seen to flow out of them, and yet they
remain always level full, neither receding nor over-
flowing. What they do with their surplus is only
known to the Creator.
On the western verge of the desert we halted a
moment at Ragtown. It consisted of one log house
and is not set down on the map.
This reminds me of a circumstance. Just after
we left Julesburg, on the Platte, I was sitting with
the driver, and he said :
"I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if'
you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went
over this road once. When he was leaving Carson
City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an
engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very
i37
MARK TWAIN
anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked
his whip and started off at an awful pace. The
coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way
that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace's coat,
and finally shot his head clean through the roof of
the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and
begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as much
of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank Monk
said, 'Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get you
there on time' — and you bet you he did, too, what
was left of him!"
A day or two after that we picked up a Denver man
at the cross-roads, and he told us a good deal about
the country and the Gregory Diggings. He seemed
a very entertaining person and a man well posted
in the affairs of Colorado. By and by he remarked :
"I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if
you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley
went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he
had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was
very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace.
The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific
way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace's
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the
roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk
and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as
much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank
Monk said, 'Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get
you there on time' — and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!"
138
ROUGHING IT
At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took
on board a cavalry sergeant, a very proper and
soldierly person indeed. From no other man during
the whole journey did we gather such a store of
concise and well-arranged military information. It
was surprising to find in the desolate wilds of our
country a man so thoroughly acquainted with every-
thing useful to know in his line of life, and yet of
such inferior rank and unpretentious bearing. For
as much as three hours we listened to him with
unabated interest. Finally he got upon the subject
of transcontinental travel, and presently said:
"I can tell you a very laughable thing indeed, if
you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley
went over this road once. When he was leaving
Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he
had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was
very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace.
The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific
way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace's
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the
roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk
and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as
much of a hurry as he was awhile ago. But Hank
Monk said, 'Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get
you there on time' — and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!"
When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake
City a Mormon preacher got in with us at a way-
station — a gentle, soft-spoken, kindly man, and one
whom any stranger would warm to at first sight.
i39
MARK TWAIN
I can never forget the pathos that was in his voice
as he told, in simple language, the story of his
people's wanderings and unpitied sufferings. No
pulpit eloquence was ever so moving and so beauti-
ful as this outcast's picture of the first Mormon
pilgrimage across the plains, struggling sorrowfully
onward to the land of its banishment and marking
its desolate way with graves and watering it with
tears. His words so wrought upon us that it was a
relief to us all when the conversation drifted into a
more cheerful channel and the natural features of
the curious country we were in came under treat-
ment. One matter after another was pleasantly dis-
cussed, and at length the stranger said:
"I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if
you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went
over this road once. When he was leaving Carson
City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had
an engagement to lecture in Placerville, and was
very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk
cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace.
The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific
way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace's
coat, and finally shot his head clean through the
roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk
and begged him to go easier — said he warn't in as
much of a hurry as he was a while ago. But Hank
Monk said, 'Keep your seat, Horace, and I'll get
you there on time' — and you bet you he did, too,
what was left of him!"
Ten miles out of Ragtown we found a poor wan-
derer who had lain down to die. He had walked
140
ROUGHING IT
as long as he could, but his limbs had failed him at
last. Hunger and fatigue had conquered him. It
would have been inhuman to leave him there. We
paid his fare to Carson and lifted him into the
coach. It was some little time before he showed
any very decided signs of life ; but by dint of chafing
him and pouring brandy between his lips we finally
brought him to a languid consciousness. Then we
fed him a little, and by and by he seemed to com-
prehend the situation and a grateful light softened
his eye. We made his mail-sack bed as comfortable
as possible, and constructed a pillow for him with
our coats. He seemed very thankful. Then he
looked up in our faces, and said in a feeble voice
that had a tremble of honest emotion in it :
"Gentlemen, I know not who you are, but you
have saved my life; and although I can never be
able to repay you for it, I feel that I can at least
make one hour of your long journey lighter. I take
it you are strangers to this great thoroughfare, but
I am entirely familiar with it. In this connection
I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you
would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley — "
I said, impressively:
"Suffering stranger, proceed at your peril. You
see in me the melancholy wreck of a once stalwart
and magnificent manhood. What has brought me
to this? That thing which you are about to tell.
Gradually, but surely, that tiresome old anecdote has
sapped my strength, undermined my constitution,
withered my life. Pity my helplessness. Spare
me only just this once, and tell me about young
141
MARK TWAIN
George Washington and his little hatchet for a
change."
We were saved. But not so the invalid. In trying
to retain the anecdote in his system he strained
himself and died in our arms.
I am aware, now, that I ought not to have asked
of the sturdiest citizen of all that region, what I
asked of that mere shadow of a man; for, after
seven years' residence on the Pacific coast, I know
that no passenger or driver on the Overland ever
corked that anecdote in, when a stranger was by,
and survived. Within a period of six years I crossed
and recrossed the Sierras between Nevada and
California thirteen times by stage and listened to
that deathless incident four hundred and eighty-
one or eighty-two times. I have the list somewhere.
Drivers always told it, conductors told it, landlords
told it, chance passengers told it, the very Chinamen
and vagrant Indians recounted it. I have had the
same driver tell it to me two or three times in the
same afternoon. It has come to me in all the multi-
tude of tongues that Babel bequeathed to earth,
and flavored with whisky, brandy, beer, cologne,
sozodont, tobacco, garlic, onions, grasshoppers —
everything that has a fragrance to it through all the
long list of things that are gorged or guzzled by the
sons of men. I never have smelt any anecdote as
often as I have smelt that one; never have smelt
any anecdote that smelt so variegated as that one.
And you never could learn to know it by its smell,
because every time you thought you had learned
the smell of it, it would turn up with a different
14.?
ROUGHING IT
smell. Bayard Taylor has written about this hoary
anecdote, Richardson has published it; so have
Jones, Smith, Johnson, Ross Browne, and every
other correspondence-inditing being that ever set his
foot upon the great overland road anywhere between
Julesburg and San Francisco ; and I have heard that
it is in the Talmud. I have seen it in print in nine
different foreign languages; I have been told that
it is employed in the inquisition in Rome; and I
now learn with regret that it is going to be set to
music. I do not think that such things are right.
Stage-coaching on the Overland is no more, and
stage-drivers are a race defunct. I wonder if they
bequeathed that bald-headed anecdote to their suc-
cessors, the railroad brakemen and conductors, and
if these latter still persecute the helpless passenger
with it until he concludes, as did many a tourist of
other days, that the real grandeurs of the Pacific
coast are not Yo Semite and the Big Trees, but
Hank Monk and his adventure with Horace Greeley.1
1 And what makes that worn anecdote the more aggravating, is,
that the adventure it celebrates never occurred. If it were a good
anecdote, that seeming demerit would be its chiefest virtue, for
creative power belongs to greatness; but what ought to be done
to a man who would wantonly contrive so flat a one as this? If I
were to suggest what ought to be done to him, I should be called
extravagant — but what does the sixteenth chapter of Daniel say?
Aha!
CHAPTER XXI
WE were approaching the end of our long jour-
ney. It was the morning of the twentieth
day. At noon we would reach Carson City, the
capital of Nevada Territory. We were not glad, but
sorry. It had been a fine pleasure trip; we had fed
fat on wonders every day; we were now well accus-
tomed to stage life, and very fond of it ; so the idea
of coming to a standstill and settling down to a hum-
drum existence in a village was not agreeable, but
on the contrary depressing.
Visibly our new home was a desert, walled in by
barren, snow-clad mountains. There was not a tree
in sight. There was no vegetation but the endless
sage-brush and grease wood. All nature was gray
with it. We were plowing through great deeps of
powdery alkali dust that rose in thick clouds and
floated across the plain like smoke from a burning
house. We were coated with it like millers; so were
the coach, the mules, the mail-bags, the driver —
we and the sage-brush and the other scenery were all
one monotonous color. Long trains of freight-wagons
in the distance enveloped in ascending masses of dust
suggested pictures of prairies on fire. These teams
and their masters were the only life we saw. Other-
wise we moved in the midst of solitude, silence, and
144
ROUGHING IT
desolation. Every twenty steps we passed the skele-
ton of some dead beast of burthen, with its dust-
coated skin stretched tightly over its empty ribs.
Frequently a solemn raven sat upon the skull or the
hips and contemplated the passing coach with medi-
tative serenity.
By and by Carson City was pointed out to us. It
nestled in the edge of a great plain and was a suffi-
cient number of miles away to look like an assem-
blage of mere white spots in the shadow of a giim
range of mountains overlooking it, whose summits
seemed lifted clear out of companionship and con-
sciousness of earthly things.
We arrived, disembarked, and the stage went on.
It was a "wooden" town; its population two thou-
sand souls. The main street consisted of four or
five blocks of little white frame stores which were
too high to sit down on, but not too high for various
other purposes; in fact, hardly high enough. They
were packed close together, side by side, as if room
were scarce in that mighty plain. The sidewalk
was of boards that were more or less loose and
inclined to rattle when walked upon. In the middle
of the town, opposite the stores, was the "plaza,"
which is native to all towns beyond the Rocky
Mountains — a large, unfenced, level vacancy, with
a liberty pole in it, and very useful as a place for
public auctions, horse trades, and mass-meetings,
and likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other
sides of the plaza were faced by stores, offices, and
stables. The rest of Carson City was pretty scat-
tering.
145
MARK TWAIN
We were introduced to several citizens, at the
stage-office and on the way up to the Governor's
from the hotel — among others, to a Mr. Harris,
who was on horseback; he began to say something,
but interrupted himself with the remark:
"I'll have to get you to excuse me a minute;
yonder is the witness that swore I helped to rob the
California coach — a piece of impertinent intermed-
dling, sir, for I am not even acquainted with the
man."
Then he rode over and began to rebuke the
stranger with a six-shooter, and the stranger began
to explain with another. When the pistols were
emptied, the stranger resumed his work (mending a
whip-lash), and Mr. Harris rode by with a polite
nod, homeward bound, with a bullet through one of
his lungs, and several through his hips; and from
them issued little rivulets of blood that coursed down
the horse's sides and made the animal look quite
picturesque. I never saw Harris shoot a man after
that but it recalled to mind that first day in Carson.
This was all we saw that day, for it was two
o'clock, now, and accordh-^ to custom the daily
' ' Washoe Zephyr ' ' set in ; a soaring dust-drift about
the size of the United States set up edgewise came
with it, and the capital of Nevada Territory dis-
appeared from view. Still, there were sights to be
seen which were not wholly uninteresting to new-
comers; for the vast dust-cloud was thickly freckled
with things strange to the upper air — things living
and dead, that flitted hither and thither, going and
coming, appearing and disappearing among the roll-
146
ROUGHING IT
ing billows of dust — hats, chickens, and parasols
sailing in the remote heavens; blankets, tin signs,
sage-brush, and shingles a shade lower; door-mats
and buffalo-robes lower still; shovels and coal-scut-
tles on the next grade; glass doors, cats, and little
children on the next; disrupted lumber yards, light
buggies, and wheelbarrows on the next; and down
only thirty or forty feet above ground was a scurrying
storm of emigrating roofs and vacant lots.
It was something to see that much. I could have
seen more, if I could have kept the dust out of my
eyes.
But, seriously, a Washoe wind is by no means a
trifling matter. It blows flimsy houses down, lifts
shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet
music, now and then blows a stage-coach over and
spills the passengers; and tradition says the reason
there are so many bald people there is, that the
wind blows the hair off their heads while they are
looking skyward after their hats. Carson streets
seldom look inactive on summer afternoons, because
there are so many citizens skipping around their
escaping hats, like chambermaids trying to head off
a spider.
The "Washoe Zephyr" (Washoe is a pet nick-
name for Nevada) is a peculiarly Scriptural wind, in
that no man knoweth "whence it cometh." That
is to say, where it originates. It comes right over
the mountains from the West, but when one crosses
the ridge he does not find any of it on the other
side ! It probably is manufactured on the mountain-
top for the occasion, and starts from there. It is a
147
MARK TWAIN
pretty regular wind, in the summer-time. Its office-
hours are from two in the afternoon till two the next
morning; and anybody venturing abroad during
those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or he
will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point.
he is aiming at. And yet the first complaint, a
Washoe visitor to San Francisco makes, is that the
sea-winds blow so, there! There is a good deal of
human nature in that.
We found the state palace of the Governor of
Nevada Territory to consist of a white frame one-
story house with two small rooms in it and a stan-
chion-supported shed in front — for grandeur — it
compelled the respect of the citizen and inspired the
Indians with awe. The newly arrived Chief and
Associate Justices of the territory, and other machin-
ery of the government, were domiciled with less
splendor. They were boarding around privately, and
had their offices in their bedrooms.
The Secretary and I took quarters in the "ranch"
of a worthy French lady by the name of Bridget
O'Flannigan, a camp-follower of his Excellency the
Governor. She had known him in his prosperity as
commander-in-chief of the Metropolitan Police of
New York, and she would not desert him in his
adversity as Governor of Nevada. Our room was on
the lower floor, facing the plaza; and when we had
got our bed, a small table, two chairs, the govern-
ment fire-proof safe, and the Unabridged Dictionary
into it, there was still room enough left for a visitor —
maybe two, but not without straining the walls.
But the walls could stand it — at least the partitions
148
ROUGHING IT
could, for they consisted simply of one thickness of
white "cotton domestic" stretched from corner to
corner of the room. This was the rule in Carson —
any other kind of partition was the rare exception.
And if you stood in a dark room and your neigh-
bors in the next had lights, the shadows on your
canvas told queer secrets sometimes! Very often
these partitions were made of old flour-sacks basted
together; and then the difference between the com-
mon herd and the aristocracy was, that the common
herd had unornamented sacks, while the walls of the
aristocrat were overpowering with rudimental fresco
— i. e., red and blue mill brands on the flour-sacks.
Occasionally, also, the better classes embellished
their canvas by pasting pictures from Harper's
Weekly on them. In many cases, too, the wealthy
and the cultured rose to spittoons and other evi-
dences of a sumptuous and luxurious taste.1 We
had a carpet and a genuine queen's-ware washbowl.
Consequently we were hated without reserve by the
other tenants of the O'Flannigan "ranch." When
we added a painted oilcloth window - curtain, we
simply took our lives into our own hands. To pre-
vent bloodshed I removed up-stairs and took up
quarters with the untitled plebeians in one of the
fourteen white-pine cot-bedsteads that stood in two
long ranks in the one sole room of which the second
story consisted.
1 Washoe people take a joke so hard that I must explain that the
above description was only the rule; there were many honorable
exceptions in Carson — plastered ceilings and houses that had con-
siderable furniture in them. — M. T.
149
MARK TWAIN
It was a jolly company, the fourteen. They were
principally voluntary camp-followers of the Gover-
nor, who had joined his retinue by their own election
at New York and San Francisco, and came along,
feeling that in the scuffle for little territorial crumbs
and offices they could not make their condition more
precarious than it was, and might reasonably expect
to make it better. They were popularly known as
the "Irish Brigade," though there were only four or
five Irishmen among all the Governor's retainers.
His good-natured Excellency was much annoyed at
the gossip his henchmen created — especially when
there arose a rumor that they were paid assassins of
his, brought along to quietly reduce the Democratic
vote when desirable!
Mrs. O'Flannigan was boarding and lodging them
at ten dollars a week apiece, and they were cheer-
fully giving their notes for it. They were perfectly
satisfied, but Bridget presently found that notes that
could not be discounted were but a feeble constitu-
tion for a Carson boarding-house. So she began to
harry the Governor to find employment for the
"Brigade." Her importunities and theirs together
drove him to a gentle desperation at last, and he
finally summoned the Brigade to the presence. Then,
said he :
"Gentlemen, I have planned a lucrative and use-
ful service for you — a service which will provide
you with recreation amid noble landscapes, and
afford you never-ceasing opportunities for enriching
your minds by observation and study. I want you
to survey a railroad from Carson City westward to
ISO
ROUGHING IT
a certain point! When the legislature meets I will
have the necessary bill passed and the remuneration
arranged."
"What, a railroad over the Sierra Nevada Moun-
tains?"
"Well, then, survey it eastward to a certain point !"
He converted them into surveyors, chain-bearers,
and so on, and turned them loose in the desert. It
was "recreation" with a vengeance! Recreation on
foot, lugging chains through sand and sage-brush,
under a sultry sun and among cattle bones, coyotes,
and tarantulas. "Romantic adventure" could go
no further. They surveyed very slowly, very delib-
erately, very carefully. They returned every night
during the first week, dusty, footsore, tired, and
hungry, but very jolly. They brought in great store
of prodigious hairy spiders — tarantulas — and im-
prisoned them in covered tumblers up-stairs in the
"ranch." After the first week, they had to camp
on the field, for they were getting well eastward.
They made a good many inquiries as to the location
of that indefinite "certain point," but got no in-
formation. At last, to a peculiarly urgent inquiry
of "How far eastward?" Governor Nye telegraphed
back:
"To the Atlantic Ocean, blast you! — and then
bridge it and go on!"
This brought back the dusty toilers, who sent in a
report and ceased from their labors. The Governor
was always comfortable about it; he said Mrs.
O'Flannigan would hold him for the Brigade's board
anyhow, and he intended to get what entertainment
151
MARK TWAIN
he could out of the boys; he said, with his old-time
pleasant twinkle, that he meant to survey them into
Utah and then telegraph Brigham to hang them for
trespass !
The surveyors brought back more tarantulas with
them, and so we had quite a menagerie arranged
along the shelves of the room. Some of these spiders
could straddle over a common saucer with their
hairy, muscular legs, and when their feelings were
hurt, or their dignity offended, they were the
wickedest-looking desperadoes the animal world can
furnish. If their glass prison-houses were touched
ever so lightly they were up and spoiling for a fight
in a minute. Starchy? — proud? Indeed, they would
take up a straw and pick their teeth like a member
of Congress. There was as usual a furious ' ' zephyr ' '
blowing the first night of the Brigade's return, and
about midnight the roof of an adjoining stable blew
off, and a corner of it came crashing through the
side of our ranch. There was a simultaneous awak-
ening, and a tumultuous muster of the Brigade in
the dark, and a general tumbling and sprawling
over each other in the narrow aisle between the
bed-rows. In the midst of the turmoil, Bob H
sprung up out of a sound sleep, and knocked down
a shelf with his head. Instantly he shouted:
"Turn out, boys — the tarantulas is loose!"
No warning ever sounded so dreadful. Nobody
tried, any longer, to leave the room, lest he might
step on a tarantula. Every man groped for a trunk
or a bed, and jumped on it. Then followed the
strangest silence — a silence of grisly suspense it was,
1^2
ROUGHING IT
too — waiting, expectancy, fear. It was as dark as
pitch, and one had to imagine the spectacle of those
fourteen scant-clad men roosting gingerly on trunks
and beds, for not a thing could be seen. Then came
occasional little interruptions of the silence, and one
could recognize a man and tell his locality by his
voice, or locate any other sound a sufferer made by
his gropings or changes of position. The occasional
voices were not given to much speaking — you simply
heard a gentle ejaculation of "Ow!" followed by a
solid thump, and you knew the gentleman had felt
a hairy blanket or something touch his bare skin
and had skipped from a bed to the floor. Another
silence. Presently you would hear a gasping voice
say:
"Su-su-something's crawling up the back of my
neck!"
Every now and then you could hear a little sub-
dued scramble and a sorrowful "O Lord!" and then
you knew that somebody was getting away from
something he took for a tarantula, and not losing
any time about it, either. Directly a voice in the
corner rang out wild and clear:
"I've got him! I've got him!" [Pause, and
probable change of circumstances.] "No, he's got
me! Oh, ain't they never going to fetch a lantern!"
The lantern came at that moment, in the hands
of Mrs. O'Flannigan, whose anxiety to know the
amount of damage done by the assaulting roof had
not prevented her waiting a judicious interval, after
getting out of bed and lighting up, to see if the wind
was done, now, up-stairs, or had a larger contract.
153
MARK TWAIN
The landscape presented when the lantern flashed
into the room was picturesque, and might have been
funny to some people, but was not to us. Although
we were perched so strangely upon boxes, trunks
and beds, and so strangely attired, too, we were too
earnestly distressed and too genuinely miserable to
see any fun about it, and there was not the sem-
blance of a smile anywhere visible. I know I am
not capable of suffering more than I did during those
few minutes of suspense in the dark, surrounded by
those creeping, bloody-minded tarantulas. I had
skipped from bed to bed and from box to box in a
cold agony, and every time I touched anything that
was fuzzy I fancied I felt the fangs. I had rather
go to war than live that episode over again. No-
body was hurt. The man who thought a tarantula
had "got him" was mistaken — only a crack in a
box had caught his finger. Not one of those escaped
tarantulas was ever seen again. There were ten or
twelve of them. We took candles and hunted the
place high and low for them, but with no success.
Did we go back to bed then? We did nothing of
the kind. Money could not have persuaded us to
do it. We sat up the rest of the night playing
cribbage and keeping a sharp lookout for the enemy.
CHAPTER XXII
IT was the end of August, and the skies were
cloudless and the weather superb. In two or
three weeks I had grown wonderfully fascinated with
the curious new country, and concluded to put off
my return to "the States" awhile. I had grown well
accustomed to wearing a damaged slouch hat, blue
woolen shirt, and pants crammed into boot-tops,
and gloried in the absence of coat, vest, and braces.
I felt rowdyish and "bully" (as the historian
Josephus phrases it, in his fine chapter upon the
destruction of the Temple). It seemed to me that
nothing could be so fine and so romantic. I had be-
come an officer of the government, but that was for
mere sublimity. The office was an unique sinecure.
I had nothing to do and no salary. I was private
secretary to his majesty the Secretary, and there was
not yet writing enough for two of us. So Johnny
K and I devoted our time to amusement. He
was the young son of an Ohio nabob and was out
there for recreation. He got it. We had heard a
world of talk about the marvelous beauty of Lake
Tahoe, and finally curiosity drove us thither to see
it. Three or four members of the Brigade had been
there and located some timber-lands on its shores and
stored up a quantity of provisions in their camp.
i55
MARK TWAIN
We strapped a couple of blankets on our shoulders
and took an ax apiece and started — for we intended
to take up a wood ranch or so ourselves and become
wealthy. We were on foot. The reader will find
it advantageous to go horseback. We were told
that the distance was eleven miles. We tramped
a long time on level ground, and then toiled labori-
ously up a mountain about a thousand miles high
and looked over. No lake there. We descended
on the other side, crossed the valley and toiled up
another mountain three or four thousand miles high,
apparently, and looked over again. No lake yet.
We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a couple
of Chinamen to curse those people who had beguiled
us. Thus refreshed, we presently resumed the
march with renewed vigor and determination. We
plodded on, two or three hours longer, and at last
the lake burst upon us — a noble sheet of blue water
lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the
level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad
mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thou-
sand feet higher still! It was a vast oval, and one
would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles
in traveling around it. As it lay there with the
shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed
upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the
fairest picture the whole earth affords.J
We found the small skiff belonging to the Brigade
boys, and without loss of time set out across a deep
bend of the lake toward the landmarks that signified
the locality of the camp. I got Johnny to row —
not because I mind exertion myself, but because it
156
ROUGHING IT
makes me sick to ride backward when I am at work.
But I steered. A three-mile pull brought us to
the camp just as the night fell, and we stepped
ashore very tired and wolfishly hungry. In a " cache"
among the rocks we found the provisions and the
cooking-utensils, and then, all fatigued as I was,
I sat down on a boulder and superintended while
Johnny gathered wood and cooked supper. Many
a man who had gone through what I had, would
have wanted to rest.
It was a delicious supper — hot bread, fried bacon,
and black coffee. It was a delicious solitude we
were in, too. Three miles away was a sawmill and
some workmen, but there were not fifteen other
human beings throughout the wide circumference of
the lake. As the darkness closed down and the
stars came out and spangled the great mirror with
jewels, we smoked meditatively in the solemn hush
and forgot our troubles and our pains. In due time
we spread our blankets in the warm sand between
two large boulders and soon fell asleep, careless of
the procession of ants that passed in through rents
in our clothing and explored our persons. Nothing
could disturb the sleep that fettered us, for it had
been fairly earned, and if our consciences had any
sins on them they had to adjourn court for that
night, anyway. The wind rose just as we were losing
consciousness, and we were lulled to sleep by the
beating of the surf upon the shore.
It is always very cold on that lake-shore in the
night, but we had plenty of blankets and were warm
enough. We never moved a muscle all night, but
iS7
MARK TWAIN
waked at early dawn in the original positions, and
got up at once, thoroughly refreshed, free from sore-
ness, and brim full of f riskiness. There is no end of
wholesome medicine in such an experience. That
morning we could have whipped ten such people as
we were the day before — sick ones at any rate.
But the world is slow, and people will go to "water
cures" and "movement cures" and to foreign lands
for health. Three months of camp life on Lake
Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his
pristine vigor, and give him an appetite like an alli-
gator. I do not mean the oldest and driest mum-
mies, of course, but the fresher ones. The air up
there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing
and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? — it is
the same the angels breathe. I think that hardly
any amount of fatigue can be gathered together
that a man cannot sleep off in one night on the sand
by its side. Not under a roof, but under the sky;
it seldom or never rains there in the summer-time.
I know a man who went there to die. But he made
a failure of it. He was a skeleton when he came,
and could barely stand. He had no appetite, and
did nothing but read tracts and reflect on the future.
Three months later he was sleeping out-of-doors
regularly, eating all he could hold, three times a day,
and chasing game over mountains three thousand
feet high for recreation. And he was a skeleton no
longer, but weighed part of a ton. This is no fancy
sketch, but the truth. His disease was consumption.
I confidently commend his experience to other
skeletons.
ic8
ROUGHING IT
I superintended again, and as soon as we had
eaten breakfast we got in the boat and skirted along
the lake-shore about three miles and disembarked.
We liked the appearance of the place, and so we
claimed some three hundred acres of it and stuck our
"notices" on a tree. It was yellow-pine timber-land
— a dense forest of trees a hundred feet high and
from one to five feet through at the butt. It was
necessary to fence our property or we could not
hold it. That is to say, it was necessary to cut
down trees here and there and make them fall in
such a way as to form a sort of inclosure (with pretty
wide gaps in it). We cut down three trees apiece,
and found it such heartbreaking work that we de-
cided to "rest our case" on those; if they held the
property, well and good; if they didn't, let the
property spill out through the gaps and go; it was
no use to work ourselves to death merely to save a
few acres of land. Next day we came back to build
a house — for a house was also necessary, in order
to hold the property. We decided to build a sub-
stantial log house and excite the envy of the Brigade
boys; but by the time we had cut and trimmed the
first log it seemed unnecessary to be so elaborate,
and so we concluded to build it of saplings. How-
ever, two saplings, duly cut and trimmed, compelled
recognition of the fact that a still modester architec-
ture would satisfy the law, and so we concluded to
build a "brush" house. We devoted the next day
to this work, but we did so much "sitting around"
and discussing, that by the middle of the afternoon
we had achieved only a half-way sort of affair which
iS9
MARK TWAIN
one of us had to watch while the other cut brush,
lest if both turned our backs we might not be able
to find it again, it had such a strong family resem-
blance to the surrounding vegetation. But we were
satisfied with it.
We were landowners now, duly seized and pos-
sessed, and within the protection of the law. There-
fore we decided to take up our residence on our own
domain and enjoy that large sense of independence
which only such an experience can bring. Late the
next afternoon, after a good long rest, we sailed
away from the Brigade camp with all the provisions
and cooking-utensils we could carry off — borrow is
the more accurate word — and just as the night was
falling we beached the boat at our own landing.
CHAPTER XXIII
JF there is any life that is happier than the life we
led on our timber ranch for the next two or three
weeks, it must be a sort of life which I have not read
of in books or experienced in person. We did no*
see a human being but ourselves during the time,
or hear any sounds but those that were made by the
wind and the waves, the sighing of the pines, and now
and then the far-off thunder of an avalanche. The
forest about us was dense and cool, the sky above
us was cloudless and brilliant with sunshine, the
broad lake before us was glassy and clear, or rippled
and breezy, or black and storm-tossed, according to
Nature's mood; and its circling border of mountain
domes, clothed with forests, scarred with landslides,
cloven by canons and valleys, and helmeted with
glittering snow, fitly framed and finished the noble
picture. The view was always fascinating, bewitch-
ing, entrancing. The eye was never tired of gazing,
night or day, in calm or storm; it suffered but one
grief, and that was that it could not look always,
but must close sometimes in sleep.
We slept in the sand close to the water's edge,
between two protecting boulders, which took care of
the stormy night winds for us. We never took any
paregoric to make us sleep. At the first break of
161
MARK TWAIN
dawn we were always up and running foot-races to
tone down excess of physical vigor and exuberance
of spirits. That is, Johnny was — but I held his hat.
While smoking the pipe of peace after breakfast we
watched the sentinel peaks put on the glory of the
sun, and followed the conquering light as it swept
down among the shadows, and set the captive crags
and forests free. We watched the tinted pictures
grow and brighten upon the water till every little
detail of forest, precipice, and pinnacle was wrought
in and finished, and the miracle of the enchanter
complete. Then to "business."
That is, drifting around in the boat. We were on
the north shore. There, the rocks on the bottom
are sometimes gray, sometimes white. This gives
the marvelous transparency of the water a fuller
advantage than it has elsewhere on the lake. We
usually pushed out a hundred yards or so from the
shore, and then lay down on the thwarts in the sun,
and let the boat drift by the hour whither it would.
We seldom talked. It interrupted the Sabbath still-
ness, and marred the dreams the luxurious rest and
indolence brought. The shore all along was in-
dented with deep, curved bays and coves, bordered
by narrow sand-beaches ; and where the sand ended,
the steep mountainsides rose right up aloft into
space — rose up like a vast wall a little out of the
perpendicular, and thickly wooded with tall pines.
So singularly clear was the water, that where it
was only twenty or thirty feet deep the bottom was
so perfectly distinct that the boat seemed floating in
the air! Yes, where it was even eighty feet deep
163
ROUGHING IT
Every little pebble was distinct, every speckled trout,
every hand's-breadth of sand. Often, as we lay on
our faces, a granite boulder, as large as a village
church, would start out of the bottom apparently,
and seem climbing up rapidly to the surface, till
presently it threatened to touch our faces, and we
could not resist the impulse to seize an oar and avert
the danger. But the boat would float on, and the
boulder descend again, and then we could see that
when we had been exactly above it, it must still
have been twenty or thirty feet below the surface.
Down through the transparency of these great
depths, the water was not merely transparent, but
dazzlingly, brilliantly so. All objects seen through
it had a bright, strong vividness, not only of outline,
but of every minute detail, which they would not
have had when seen simply through the same depth
of atmosphere. So empty and airy did all spaces
seem below us, and so strong was the sense of floating
high aloft in mid-nothingness, that we called these
boat excursions "balloon voyages."
We fished a good deal, but we did not average one
fish a week. We could see trout by the thousand
winging about in the emptiness under us, or sleeping
in shoals on the bottom, but they would not bite —
they could see the line too plainly, perhaps. We
frequently selected the trout we wanted, and rested
the bait patiently and persistently on the end of his
nose at a depth of eighty feet, but he would only shake
it off with an annoyed manner, and shift his position.
We bathed occasionally, but the water was rather
chilly, for all it looked so sunny. Sometimes we
162
MARK TWAIN
rowed out to the "blue water," a mile or two from
shore. It was as dead blue as indigo there, because
of the immense depth. By official measurement,
the lake in its center is one thousand five hundred
and twenty -five feet deep !
Sometimes, on lazy afternoons, we lolled on the
sand in camp, and smoked pipes and read some old
well-worn novels. At night, by the camp-fire, we
played euchre and seven-up to strengthen the mind
— and played them with cards so greasy and defaced
that only a whole summer's acquaintance with them
could enable the student to tell the ace of clubs from
the jack of diamonds.
rWe never slept in our "house." It never occurred
to us, for one thing; and besides, it was built to
hold ground, and that was enough. We did not
wish to strain it.~j
By and by our provisions began to run short,
and we went back to the old camp and laid in a
new supply. We were gone all day, and reached
home again about nightfall, pretty tired and hungry.
While Johnny was carrying the main bulk of the
oro visions up to our ' ' house ' ' for future use, I took
the loaf of bread, some slices of bacon, and the
coffee-pot, ashore, set them down by a tree, lit a
fire, and went back to the boat to get the frying-pan.
While I was at this, I heard a shout from Johnny,
and looking up I saw that my fire was galloping all
over the premises!
Johnny was on the other side of it. He had to
run through the flames to get to the lake-shore, and
then we stood helpless and watched the devastation.
164
ROUGHING IT
The ground was deeply carpeted with dry pine-
needles, and the fire touched them off as if they were
gunpowder. It was wonderful to see with what fierce
speed the tall sheet of flame traveled! My coffee-
pot was gone, and everything with it. In a minute
and a half the fire seized upon a dense growth of
dry manzanita chapparal six or eight feet high, and
then the roaring and popping and crackling was
something terrific. We were driven to the boat
by the intense heat, and there we remained, spell-
bound.
Within half an hour all before us was a tossing,
blinding tempest of flame ! It went surging up adja-
cent ridges — surmounted them and disappeared in
the canons beyond — burst into view upon higher
and farther ridges, presently — shed a grander illu-
mination abroad, and dove again — flamed out again,
directly, higher and still higher up the mountain-
side— threw out skirmishing parties of fire here and
there, and sent them trailing their crimson spirals
away among remote ramparts and ribs and gorges,
till as far as the eye could reach the lofty mountain-
fronts were webbed as it were with a tangled network
of red lava streams. Away across the water the crags
and domes were lit with a ruddy glare, and the
firmament above was a reflected hell!
Every feature of the spectacle was repeated in the
glowing mirror of the lake! Both pictures were
sublime, both were beautiful; but that in the lake
had a bewildering richness about it that enchanted
the eye and held it with the stronger fascination.
We sat absorbed and motionless through four long
16s
MARK TWAIN
hours. We never thought of supper, and never felt
fatigue. But at eleven o'clock the conflagration had
traveled beyond our range of vision, and then dark-
ness stole down upon the landscape again.
Hunger asserted itself now, but there was nothing
to eat. The provisions were all cooked, no doubt,
but we did not go to see. We were homeless wan-
derers again, without any property. Our fence
was gone, our house burned down; no insurance.
Our pine forest was well scorched, the dead trees all
burned up, and our broad acres of manzanita swept
away. Our blankets were on our usual sand-bed,
however, and so we lay down and went to sleep.
The next morning we started back to the old camp,
but while out a long way from shore, so great a storm
came up that we dared not try to land. So I bailed
out the seas we shipped, and Johnny pulled heavily
through the billows till we had reached a point three
or four miles beyond the camp. The storm was
increasing, and it became evident that it was better
to take the hazard of beaching the boat than go
down in a hundred fathoms of water; so we ran in,
with tall white-caps following, and I sat down in the
stern-sheets and pointed her head-on to the shore.
The instant the bow struck, a wave came over the
stern that washed crew and cargo ashore, and saved
a deal of trouble. We shivered in the lee of a boulder
all the rest of the day, and froze all the night through.
In the morning the tempest had gone down, and we
paddled down to the camp without any unnecessary
delay. We were so starved that we ate up the rest
of the Brigade's provisions, and then set out to Car-
166
ROUGHING IT
son to tell them about it and ask their forgiveness.
It was accorded, upon payment of damages.
We made many trips to the lake after that, and
had many a hair-breadth escape and blood-curdling
adventure which will never be recorded of any
history.
CHAPTER XXIV
1 RESOLVED to have a horse to ride. I had never
seen such wild, free, magnificent horsemanship
outside of a circus as these picturesquely clad Mexi-
cans, Californians, and Mexicanized Americans dis-
played in Carson streets every day. How they
rode! Leaning just gently forward out of the per-
pendicular, easy and nonchalant, with broad slouch-
hat brim blown square up in front, and long riata
swinging above the head, they swept through the
town like the wind! The next minute they were
only a sailing puff of dust on the far desert. If
they trotted, they sat up gallantly and gracefully,
and seemed part of the horse; did not go jiggering
up and down after the silly Miss-Nancy fashion of
the riding-schools. I had quickly learned to tell a
horse from a cow, and was full of anxiety to learn
more. I was resolved to buy a horse.
While the thought was rankling in my mind, the
auctioneer came scurrying through the plaza on a
black beast that had as many humps and corners on
him as a dromedary, and was necessarily uncomely;
but he was "going, going, at twenty- two! — horse,
saddle and bridle at twenty-two dollars, gentlemen!"
and I could hardly resist.
A man whom I did not know (he turned out to
16S
ROUGHING IT
be the auctioneer's brother) noticed the wistlui look
in my eye, and observed that that was a very remark-
able horse to be going at such a price; and added
that the saddle alone was worth the money. It was
a Spanish saddle, with ponderous tapidaros, and
furnished with the ungainly sole-leather covering
with the unspellable name. I said I had half a
notion to bid. Then this keen-eyed person appeared
to me to be " taking my measure ' ' ; but I dismissed
the suspicion when he spoke, for his manner was
full of guileless candor and truthfulness. Said he:
"I know that horse — know him well. You are a.
stranger, I take it, and so you might think he was
an American horse, maybe, but I assure you he is
not. He is nothing of the kind; but — excuse my
speaking in a low voice, other people being near —
he is, without the shadow of a doubt, a Genuine
Mexican Plug!"
I did not know what a Genuine Mexican Plug was,
but there was something about this man's way of
saying it, that made me swear inwardly that I would
own a Genuine Mexican Plug, or die.
' ' Has he any other — er — advantages ?" I inquired,
suppressing what eagerness I could.
He hooked his forefinger in the pocket of my
army shirt, led me to one side, and breathed in
my ear impressively these words :
"He can out-buck anything in America!"
"Going, going, going — at twent-ty-ioui dollars and
a half , gen — " ' ' Twenty-seven !" I shouted, in a frenzy.
"And sold!" said the auctioneer, and passed over
the Genuine Mexican Plug to me.
169
MARK TWAIN
I could scarcely contain my exultation. I paid
the money, and put the animal in a neighboring
livery stable to dine and rest himself.
In the afternoon I brought the creature into the
plaza, and certain citizens held him by the head, and
others by the tail, while I mounted him. As soon
as they let go, he placed all his feet in a bunch
together, lowered his back, and then suddenly arched
it upward, and shot me straight into the air a matter
of three or four feet ! I came as straight down again,
lit in the saddle, went instantly up again, came
down almost on the high pommel, shot up again,
and came down on the horse's neck — all in the
space of three or four seconds. Then he rose and
stood almost straight up on his hind feet, and I,
clasping his lean neck desperately, slid back into
the saddle, and held on. He came down, and imme-
diately hoisted his heels into the air, delivering a
vicious kick at the sky, and stood on his fore feet.
And then down he came once more, and began the
original exercise of shooting me straight up again.
The third time I went up I heard a stranger say:
"Oh, don't he buck, though!"
While I was up, somebody struck the horse a
sounding thwack with a leathern strap, and when I
arrived again the Genuine Mexican Plug was not
there. A Calif ornian youth chased him up and
caught him, and asked if he might have a ride. I
granted him that luxury. He mounted the Gen-
uine, got lifted into the air once, but sent his spurs
home as he descended, and the horse darted away
like a telegram. He soared over three fences like
170
ROUGHING IT
a bird, and disappeared down the road toward the
Washoe Valley.
I sat down on a stone with a sigh, and by a natural
impulse one of my hands sought my forehead, and
the other the base of my stomach. I believe I never
appreciated, till then, the poverty of the human
machinery — for I still needed a hand or two to place
elsewhere. Pen cannot describe how I was jolted up.
Imagination cannot conceive how disjointed I was —
how internally, externally, and universally I was un-
settled, mixed up, and ruptured. There was a sym-
pathetic crowd around me, though.
One elderly-looking comforter said:
"Stranger, you've been taken in. Everybody in
this camp knows that horse. Any child, any Injun,
could have told you that he'd buck; he is the very
worst devil to buck on the continent of America.
You hear me. I'm Curry. Old Curry. Old Abe
Curry. And moreover, he is a simon-pure, out-and-
out, genuine d — d Mexican plug, and an uncommon
mean one at that, too. Why, you turnip, if you
had laid low and kept dark, there's chances to buy
an American horse for mighty little more than you
paid for that bloody old foreign relic."
I gave no sign ; but I made up my mind that if the
auctioneer's brother's funeral took place while I
was in the territory I would postpone all other
recreations and attend it.
After a gallop of sixteen miles the Californian
youth and the Genuine Mexican Plug came tearing
into town again, shedding foam-flakes like the spume-
spray that drives before a typhoon, and, with one
171
MARK TWAIN
final skip over a wheelbarrow and a Chinaman, cast
anchor in front of the "ranch."
Such panting and blowing! Such spreading and
contracting of the red equine nostrils, and glaring
of the wild equine eye! But was the imperial beast
subjugated? Indeed, he was not. His lordship the
Speaker of the House thought he was, and mounted
him to go down to the Capitol ; but the first dash the
creature made was over a pile of telegraph - poles
half as high as a church; and his time to the Capi-
tol— one mile and three-quarters — remains unbeaten
to this day. But then he took an advantage — he
left out the mile, and only did the three-quarters.
That is to say, he made a straight cut across lots,
preferring fences and ditches to a crooked road;
and when the Speaker got to the Capitol he said
he had been in the air so much he felt as if he had
made the trip on a comet.
In the evening the Speaker came home afoot for
exercise, and got the Genuine towed back behind
a quartz-wagon. The next day I loaned the animal
to the Clerk of the House to go down to the Dana
silver-mine, six miles, and he walked back for ex-
ercise, and got the horse towed. Everybody I loaned
him to always walked back; they never could get
enough exercise any other way. Still, I continued
to loan him to anybody who was willing to borrow
him, my idea being to get him crippled, and throw
him on the borrower's hands, or killed, and make
the borrower pay for him. But somehow nothing
ever happened to him. He took chances that no
other horse ever took and survived, but he always
172
ROUGHING IT
came out safe. It was his daily habit to try experi-
ments that had always before been considered
impossible, but he always got through. Sometimes
he miscalculated a little, and did not get his rider
through intact, but he always got through himself.
Of course I had tried to sell him; but that was a
stretch of simplicity which met with little sympathy.
The auctioneer stormed up and down the streets on
him for four days, dispersing the populace, inter-
rupting business, and destroying children, and never
got a bid — at least never any but the eighteen-dollar
one he hired a notoriously substanceless bummer
to make. The people only smiled pleasantly, and
restrained their desire to buy, if they had any.
Then the auctioneer brought in his bill, and I with-
drew the horse from the market. We tried to trade
him off at private vendue next, offering him at a
sacrifice for second-hand tombstones, old iron, tem-
perance tracts — any kind of property. But holders
were stiff, and we retired from the market again. I
never tried to ride the horse any more. Walking
was good enough exercise for a man like me, that
had nothing the matter with him except ruptures,
internal injuries, and such things. Finally I tried to
give him away. But it was a failure. Parties said
earthquakes were handy enough on the Pacific coast
— they did not wish to own one. As a last resort
I offered him to the Governor for the use of the
"Brigade." His face lit up eagerly at first, but
toned down again, and he said the thing would be
too palpable.
Just then the livery-stable man brought in his bill
i73
MARK TWAIN
for six weeks' keeping — stall-room for the horse
fifteen dollars; hay for the horse, two hundred and
fifty! The Genuine Mexican Plug had eaten a ton
of the article, and the man said he would have eaten
a hundred if he had let him.
I will remark here, in all seriousness, that the
regular price of hay during that year and a part of
the next was really two hundred and fifty dollars a
ton. During a part of the previous year it had sold
at five hundred a ton, in gold, and during the winter
before that there was such scarcity of the article
that in several instances small quantities had brought
eight hundred dollars a ton in coin! The conse-
quence might be guessed without my telling it:
people turned their stock loose to starve, and before
the spring arrived Carson and Eagle Valleys were
almost literally carpeted with their carcasses! Any
old settler there will verify these statements.
I managed to pay the livery bill, and that same
day I gave the Genuine Mexican Plug to a passing
Arkansas emigrant whom fortune delivered into my
hand. If this ever meets his eye, he will doubtless
remember the donation.
Now whoever has had the luck to ride a real
Mexican plug will recognize the animal depicted in
this chapter, and hardly consider him exaggerated —
but the uninitiated will feel justified in regarding
his portrait as a fancy sketch, perhaps.
CHAPTER XXV
ORIGINALLY, Nevada was a part of Utah and
was called Carson County; and a pretty large
county it was, too. Certain of its valleys produced
no end of hay, and this attracted small colonies of
Mormon stock-raisers and farmers to them. A few
orthodox Americans straggled in from California,
but no love was lost between the two classes of
colonists. There was little or no friendly inter-
course; each party stayed to itself. The Mormons
were largely in the majority , and had the additional
advantage of being peculiarly under the protection
of the Mormon government of the territory. There-
fore they could afford to be distant, and even
peremptory toward their neighbors. One of the
traditions of Carson Valley illustrates the condition
of things that prevailed at the time I speak of. The
hired girl of one of the American families was Irish,
and a Catholic; yet it was noted with surprise that
she was the only person outside of the Mormon ring
who could get favors from the Mormons. She asked
kindnesses of them often, and always got them.
It was a mystery to everybody. But one day as
she was passing out at the door, a large bowie-knife
dropped from under her apron, and when her mis-
tress asked for an explanation she observed that she
175
MARK TWAIN
was going out to "bony a washtub from the Mor-
mons!"
In 1858 silver lodes were discovered in "Carson
County," and then the aspect of things changed.
Californians began to flock in, and the American
element was soon in the majority. Allegiance to
Brigham Young and Utah was renounced, and a
temporary territorial government for ' ' Washoe ' ' was
instituted by the citizens. Governor Roop was the
first and only chief magistrate of it. In due course
of time Congress passed a bill to organize "Nevada
Territory," and President Lincoln sent our Governor
Nye to supplant Roop.
At this time the population of the territory was
about twelve or fifteen thousand, and rapidly in-
creasing. Silver-mines were being vigorously devel-
oped and silver-mills erected. Business of all kinds
was active and prosperous and growing more so
day by day.
The people were glad to have a legitimately con-
stituted government, but did not particularly enjoy
having strangers from distant states put in authority
over them — a sentiment that was natural enough.
They thought the officials should have been chosen
from among themselves — from among prominent
citizens who had earned a right to such promotion,
and who would be in sympathy with the populace
and likewise thoroughly acquainted with the needs
of the territory. They were right in viewing the
matter thus, without doubt. The new officers were
"emigrants," and that was no title to anybody's
nffection or admiration either.
176
ROUGHING IT
The new government was received with consider-
able coolness. It was not only a foreign intruder,
but a poor one. It was not even worth plucking
— except by the smallest of small-fry office-seekers
and such. Everybody knew that Congress had
appropriated only twenty thousand dollars a year
in greenbacks for its support — about money enough
to run a quartz-mill a month. And everybody knew,
also, that the first year's money was still in Wash-
ington, and that the getting hold of it would be a
tedious and difficult process. Carson City was too
wary and too wise to open up a credit account with
the imported bantling with anything like indecent
haste.
There is something solemnly funny about the
struggles of a new-born territorial government to
get a start in this world. Ours had a trying time of
it. The Organic Act and the "instructions" from
the State Department commanded that a legislature
should be elected at such-and-such a time, and its
sittings inaugurated at such-and-such a date. It
was easy to get legislators, even at three dollars a
day, although board was four dollars and fifty cents,
for distinction has its charm in Nevada as well as
elsewhere, and there were plenty of patriotic souls
out of employment; but to get a legislative hall for
them to meet in was another matter altogether.
Carson blandly declined to give a room rent-free, or
let one to the government on credit.
But when Curry heard of the difficulty, he came
forward, solitary and alone, and shouldered the Ship
of State over the bar and got her afloat again. I
177
MARK TWAIN
refer to ' ' Curry— Old Curry— Old A be Curry. ' ' But
for him the legislature would have been obliged
to sit in the desert. He offered his large stone
building just outside the capital limits, rent-free, and
it was gladly accepted. Then he built a horse-
railroad from town to the Capitol, and carried the
legislators gratis. He also furnished pine benches
and chairs for the legislature, and covered the floors
with clean sawdust by way of carpet and spittoor
combined. But for Curry the government would
have died in its tender infancy. A canvas partition
to separate the Senate from the House of Repre-
sentatives was put up by the Secretary, at a cost of
three dollars and forty cents, but the United States
declined to pay for it. Upon being reminded that
the "instructions" permitted the payment of a
liberal rent for a legislative hall, and that that money
was saved to the country by Mr. Curry's generosity,
the United States said that did not alter the matter,
and the three dollars and forty cents would be sub-
tracted from the Secretary's eighteen-hundred-dollar
salary — and it was!
The matter of printing was from the beginning an
interesting feature of the new government's difficul-
ties. The Secretary was sworn to obey his volume
of written "instructions," and these commanded him
to do two certain things without fail, viz. :
i. Get the House and Senate journals printed;
and,
2. For this work, pay one dollar and fifty cents
per "thousand" for composition, and one dollar and
fifty cents per "token" for press-work, in greenbacks,
-78
ROUGHING IT
It was easy to swear to do these two things, but
it was entirely impossible to do more than one of
them. When greenbacks had gone down to forty
cents on the dollar, the prices regularly charged
everybody by printing establishments were one dollar
and fifty cents per "thousand" and one dollar and
fifty cents per "token," in gold. The "instructions"
commanded that the Secretary regard a paper dollar
issued by the government as equal to any other dol-
lar issued by the government. Hence the printing
of the journals was discontinued. Then the United
States sternly rebuked the Secretary for disregarding
the "instructions," and warned him to correct his
ways. Wherefore he got some printing done, for-
warded the bill to Washington with full exhibits
of the high prices of things in the territory, and
called attention to a printed market report wherein
it would be observed that even hay was two hundred
and fifty dollars a ton. The United States responded
by subtracting the printing-bill from the Secretary's
suffering salary — and moreover remarked with dense
gravity that he would find nothing in his "instruc-
tions" requiring him to purchase hay!
Nothing in this world is palled in such impene-
trable obscurity as a U. S. Treasury Comptroller's
understanding. The very fires of the hereafter could
get up nothing more than a fitful glimmer in it.
In the days I speak of he never could be made
to comprehend why it was that twenty thousand
dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where aiJ
commodities ranged at an enormous figure, as it
would in the other territories, where exceeding cheap-
170
MARK TWAIN
ness was the rule. He was an officer who looked out
for the little expenses all the time. The Secretary
of the territory kept his office in his bedroom, as J
before remarked; and he charged the United States
no rent, although his "instructions " provided for that
item, and he could have justly taken advantage of
it (a thing which I would have done with more than
lightning promptness if I had been Secretary my-
self). But the United States never applauded this
devotion. Indeed, I think my country was ashamed
to have so improvident a person in its employ.
Those "instructions" (we used to read a chapter
from them every morning, as intellectual gymnas-
tics, and a couple of chapters in Sunday-school every
Sabbath, for they treated of all subjects under the
sun and had much valuable religious matter in them
along with the other statistics) — those "instructions"
commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens, and
writing-paper be furnished the members of the legis-
lature. So the Secretary made the purchase and the
distribution. The knives cost three dollars apiece.
There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it
to the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The
United States said the Clerk of the House was not a
"member" of the legislature, and took that three
dollars out of the Secretary's salary, as usual.
White men charged three or four dollars a "load"
for sawing up stove- wood. The Secretary was saga-
cious enough to know that the United States would
never pay any such price as that; so he got an
Indian to saw up a load of office wood at one dollar
and a half. He made out the usual voucher, but
t8o
ROUGHING IT
signed no name to it — simply appended a note
explaining that an Indian had done the work, and
had done it in a very capable and satisfactory way.
but could not sign the voucher owing to lack of
ability in the necessary direction. The Secretary-
had to pay that dollar and a half. He thought the
United States would admire both his economy and
his honesty in getting the work done at half price
and not putting a pretended Indian's signature to the
voucher, but the United States did not see it in that
light. The United States was too much accustomed
to employing dollar-and-a-half thieves in all manner
of official capacities to regard his explanation of the
voucher as having any foundation in fact.
But the next time the Indian sawed wood for us
I taught him to make a cross at the bottom of the
voucher — it looked like a cross that had been drunk
a year — and then I "witnessed" it and it went
through all right. The United States never said a
word. I was sorry I had not made the voucher for
a thousand loads of wood instead of one. The
government of my country snubs honest simplicity,
but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have
developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had
remained in the public service a year or two.
That was a fine collection of sovereigns, that first
Nevada legislature. They levied taxes to the amount
of thirty or forty thousand dollars and ordered
expenditures to the extent of about a million. Yet
they had their little periodical explosions of economy
like all other bodies of the kind. A member pro-
posed to save three dollars a day to the nation bj;
181
MARK TWAIN
dispensing with the Chaplain. And yet that short-
sighted man needed the Chaplain more than any
other member, perhaps, for he generally sat with
his feet on his desk, eating raw turnips, during the
morning prayer.
The legislature sat sixty days, and passed private
toll-road franchises all the time. When they ad-
journed it was estimated that every citizen owned
about three franchises, and it was believed that
unless Congress gave the territory another degree
of longitude there would not be room enough to
accommodate the toll-roads. The ends of them
were hanging over the boundary line everywhere like
a fringe.
The fact is, the freighting business had grown to
such important proportions that there was nearly as
much excitement over suddenly acquired toll-road
fortunes as over the wonderful silver-mines.
CHAPTER XXVI
BY and by I was smitten with the silver fever.
"Prospecting parties" were leaving for the
mountains every day, and discovering and taking
possession of rich silver-bearing lodes and ledges of
quartz. Plainly this was the road to fortune. The
great "Gould and Curry" mine was held at three
or four hundred dollars a foot when we arrived ; but
in two months it had sprung up to eight hundred.
The "Ophir" had been worth only a mere trifle, a
year gone by, and now it was selling at nearly jour
thousand dollars a foot! Not a mine could be named
that had not experienced an astonishing advance
in value within a short time. Everybody was talking
about these marvels. Go where you would, you
heard nothing else, from morning till far into the
night. Tom So-and-So had sold out of the "Amanda
Smith" for $40,000 — hadn't a cent when he "took
up" the ledge six months ago. John Jones had
sold half his interest in the "Bald Eagle and Mary
Ann" for $65,000, gold coin, and gone to the States
for his family. The widow Brewster had "struck
it rich" in the "Golden Fleece" and sold ten feet
for $18,000 — hadn't money enough to buy a crape
bonnet when Sing-Sing Tommy killed her husband
at Baldy Johnson's wake last spring. The "Last
183
MARK TWAIN
Chance" had found a "clay casing" and knew they
were "right on the ledge" — consequence, "feet"
that went begging yesterday were worth a brick
house apiece to-day, and seedy owners who could
not get trusted for a drink at any bar in the country
yesterday were roaring drunk on champagne to-
day and had hosts of warm personal friends in a
town where they had forgotten how to bow or
shake hands from long-continued want of practice.
Johnny Morgan, a common loafer, had gone to
sleep in the gutter and waked up worth a hundred
thousand dollars, in consequence of the decision in
the "Lady Franklin and Rough and Ready" law-
suit. And so on — day in and day out the talk
pelted our ears and the excitement waxed hotter
and hotter around us.
I would have been more or less than human if I
had not gone mad like the rest. Cart-loads of solid
silver bricks, as large as pigs of lead, were arriving
from the mills every day, and such sights as that
gave substance to the wild talk about me. I suc-
cumbed and grew as frenzied as the craziest.
Every few days news would come of the discovery
of a brand-new mining region; immediately the
papers would teem with accounts of its richness,
and away the surplus population would scamper to
take possession. By the time I was fairly inocu-
lated with the disease, "Esmeralda" had just had
a run and "Humboldt" was beginning to shriek
for attention. "Humboldt! Humboldt!" was the
new cry, and straightway Humboldt, the newest of
the new, the richest of the rich, the most marvelous
184
ROUGHING IT
of the marvelous discoveries in silver-land, was occu-
pying two columns of the public prints to "Esmer-
alda's" one. I was just on the point of starting to
Esmeralda, but turned with the tide and got ready
for Humboldt. That the reader may see what
moved me, and what would as surely have moved
him had he been there, I insert here one of the
newspaper letters of the day. It and several other
letters from the same calm hand were the main
means of converting me. I shall not garble the
extract, but put it in just as it appeared in the Daily
Territorial Enterprise:
But what about our mines? I shall be candid with you. I
shall express an honest opinion, based upon a thorough examina-
tion. Humboldt County is the richest mineral region upon God's
footstool. Each mountain range is gorged with the precious ores.
Humboldt is the true Golconda.
The other day an assay of mere croppings yielded exceeding
four thousand dollars to the ton. A week or two ago an assay of
just such surface developments made returns of seven thousand
dollars to the ton. Our mountains are full of rambling prospec-
tors. Each day and almost every hour reveals new and more
startling evidences of the profuse and intensified wealth of oui
favored county. The metal is not silver alone. There are dis-
tinct ledges of auriferous ore. A late discovery plainly evinces
cinnabar. The coarser metals are in gross abundance. Lately
evidences of bituminous coal have been detected. My theory
has ever been that coal is a ligneous formation. I told Col.
Whitman, in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton
(Nevada) betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a
ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no confidence in his
lauded coal-mines. I repeated the same doctrine to the exultant
coal-discoverers of Humboldt. I talked with my friend Captain
Burch on the subject. My pyrhanism vanished upon his state-
ment that in the very region referred to he had seen petrified
trees of the length of two hundred feet. Then is the fact estab-
lished that huge forests once cast their grim shadows over this
185
MARK TWAIN
remote section. I am firm in the coal faith. Have no fears of
the mineral resources of Humboldt County. They are immense
— incalculable.
Let me state one or two things which will help
the reader to better comprehend certain items in the
above. At this time, our near neighbor, Gold Hill,
was the most successful silver-mining locality in
Nevada. It was from there that more than half the
daily shipments of silver bricks came. "Very rich"
(and scarce) Gold Hill ore yielded from $100 to
$400 to the ton; but the usual yield was only $20
to $40 per ton — that is to say, each hundred pounds
of ore yielded from one dollar to two dollars. But
the reader will perceive by the above extract, that
in Humboldt from one-fourth to nearly half the mass
was silver! That is to say, every one hundred
pounds of the ore had from two hundred dollars
up to about three hundred and fifty in it. Some
days later this same correspondent wrote:
I have spoken of the vast and almost fabulous wealth of this
region — it is incredible. The intestines of our mountains are
gorged with precious ore to plethora. I have said that nature has
so shaped our mountains as to furnish most excellent facilities
for the working of our mines. I have also told you that the coun-
try about here is pregnant with the finest mill sites in the world.
But what is the mining history of Humboldt? The Sheba mine
is in the hands of energetic San Francisco capitalists. It would
seem that the ore is combined with metals that render it difficult
of reduction with our imperfect mountain machinery. The
proprietors have combined the capital and labor hinted at in
my exordium. They are toiling and probing. Their tunnel
has reached the length of one hundred feet. From primal assays
alone, coupled with the development of the mine and public
confidence in the continuance of effort, the stock had reared
itself to eight hundred dollars market value. I do not know that
186
ROUGHING IT
one ton of the ore has been converted into current metal. I do
know that there are many lodes in this section that surpass
the Sheba in primal assay value. Listen a moment to the
calculations of the Sheba operators. They purpose transporting
the ore concentrated to Europe. The conveyance from Star
City (its locality) to Virginia City will cost seventy dollars per
ton; from Virginia to San Francisco, forty dollars per ton; from
thence to Liverpool, its destination, ten dollars per ton. Their
idea is that its conglomerate metals will reimburse them their
cost of original extraction, the price of transportation, and the
expense of reduction, .and that then a ton of the raw ore will
net them twelve hundred dollars. The estimate may be extrava-
gant. Cut it in twain, and the product is enormous, far tran-
scending any previous developments of our racy territory.
A very common calculation is that many of our mines will
yield five hundred dollars to the ton. Such fecundity throws
the Gould & Curry, the Ophir and the Mexican, of your neighbor-
hood, in the darkest shadow. I have given you the estimate
of the value of a single developed mine. Its richness is indexed
by its market valuation. The people of Humboldt County are
feet crazy. As I write, our towns are near deserted. They look
as languid as a consumptive girl. What has become of our sinewy
and athletic fellow-citizens? They are coursing through ravines
and over mountain-tops. Their tracks are visible in every direc-
tion. Occasionally a horseman will dash among us. His steed
betrays hard usage. He alights before his adobe dwelling,
hastily exchanges courtesies with his townsmen, hurries to an
assay office and from thence to the District Recorder's. In the
morning, having renewed his provisional supplies, he is off again
on his wild and unbeaten route. Why, the fellow numbers
already his feet by the thousands. He is the horse-leech. He
has the craving stomach of the shark or anaconda. He would
conquer metallic worlds.
This was enough. The instant we had finished
reading the above article, four of us decided to go
to Humboldt. We commenced getting ready at
once. And we also commenced upbraiding ourselves
for not deciding sooner — for we were in terror lest
187
MARK TWAIN
all the rich mines would be found and secured
before we got there, and we might have to put up
with ledges that would not yield more than two or
three hundred dollars a ton, maybe. An hour
before, I would have felt opulent if I had owned
ten feet in a Gold Hill mine whose ore produced
twenty-five dollars to the ton; now I was already
annoyed at the prospect of having to put up with
mines the poorest of which would be a marvel in
Gold Hill.
CHAPTER XXVII
HURRY, was the word! We wasted no time.
Our party consisted of four persons — a black-
smith sixty years of age, two young lawyers, and
myself. We bought a wagon and two miserable
old horses. We put eighteen hundred pounds of
provisions and mining-tools in the wagon and drove
out of Carson on a chilly December afternoon. The
horses were so weak and old that we soon found
that it would be better if one or two of us got out
and walked. It was an improvement. Next, we
found that it would be better if a third man got
out. That was an improvement also. It was at
this time that I volunteered to drive, although I had
never driven a harnessed horse before, and many
a man in such a position would have felt fairly
excused from such a responsibility. But in a little
while it was found that it would be a fine thing if
the driver got out and walked also. It was at this
time that I resigned the position of driver, and never
resumed it again. Within the hour, we found that
it would not only be better, but was absolutely
necessary, that we four, taking turns, two at a time,
should put our hands against the end of the wagon
and push it through the sand, leaving the feeble
horses little to do but keep out of the way and hold
189
MARK TWAIN
up the tongue. Perhaps it is well for one to know
his fate at first, and get reconciled to it. We had
learned ours in one afternoon. It was plain that we
had to walk through the sand and shove that wagon
and those horses two hundred miles. So we ac-
cepted the situation, and from that time forth we
never rode. More than that, we stood regular and
nearly constant watches pushing up behind.
We made seven miles, and camped in the desert.
Young Claggett (now member of Congress from
Montana) unharnessed and fed and watered the
horses; Oliphant and I cut sage-brush, built the fire
and brought water to cook with ; and old Mr. Ballou,
the blacksmith, did the cooking. This division of
labor, and this appointment, was adhered to through-
out the journey. We had no tent, and so we slept
under our blankets in the open plain. We were so
tired that we slept soundly.
We were fifteen days making the trip — two hun-
dred miles; thirteen, rather, for we lay by a couple
of days, in one place, to let the horses rest. We
could really have accomplished the journey in ten
days if we had towed the horses behind the wagon,
but we did not think of that until it was too late,
and so went on shoving the horses and the wagon
too when we might have saved half the labor.
Parties who met us, occasionally, advised us to put
the horses in the wagon, but Mr. Ballou, through
whose iron-clad earnestness no sarcasm could pierce,
said that that would not do, because the provisions
were exposed and would suffer, the horses being
"bituminous from long deprivation." The reader
190
ROUGHING IT
will excuse me from translating. What Mr. Ballou
customarily meant, when he used a long word, was
a secret between himself and his Maker. He was
one of the best and kindest-hearted men that ever
graced a humble sphere of life. He was gentleness
and simplicity itself — and unselfishness, too. Al-
though he was more than twice as old as the eldest
of us, he never gave himself any airs, privileges, or
exemptions on that account. He did a young man's
share of the work; and did his share of conversing
and entertaining from the general standpoint of any
age — not from the arrogant, overawing summit-
height of sixty years. His one striking peculiarity
was his Partingtonian fashion of loving and using
big words for their own sokes, and independent of
any bearing they might have upon the thought he
was purposing to convey. He always let his ponder-
ous syllables fall with an easy unconsciousness that
left them wholly without offensiveness. In truth,
his air was so natural and so simple that one was
always catching himself accepting his stately sen-
tences as meaning something, when they really
meant nothing in the world. If a word was long
and grand and resonant, that was sufficient to win
the old man's love, and he would drop that word
into the most out-of-the-way place in a sentence
or a subject, and be as pleased with it as if it were
perfectly luminous with meaning.
We four always spread our common stock of
blankets together on the frozen ground, and slept
side by side; and finding that our foolish, long-
legged hound pup had a deal of animal heat in him,
191
MARK TWAIN
Oliphant got to admitting him to the bed, between
himself and Mr. Ballou, hugging the dog's warm
back to his breast and finding great comfort in it.
But in the night the pup would get stretchy and
brace his feet against the old man's back and shove,
grunting complacently the while ; and now and then,
being warm and snug, grateful and happy, he would
paw the old man's back simply in excess of com-
fort; and at yet other times he would dream of the
chase and in his sleep tug at the old man's back
hair and bark in his ear. The old gentleman com-
plained mildly about these familiarities, at last, and
when he got through with his statement he said that
such a dog as that was not a proper animal to admit
tc bed with tired men, because he was "so meretri-
cious in his movements and so organic in his emo-
tions." We turned the dog out.
It was a hard, wearing, toilsome journey, but it
had its bright side; for after each day was done
and our wolfish hunger appeased with a hot supper
of fried bacon, bread, molasses, and black coffee,
the pipe-smoking, song-singing, and yarn-spinning
around the evening camp-fire in the still solitudes
of the desert was a happy, care-free sort of recrea-
tion that seemed the very summit and culmination
of earthly luxury. It is a kind of life that has a
potent charm for all men, whether city or country
bred. We are descended from desert-lounging Arabs,
and countless ages of growth toward perfect civili-
zation have failed to root out of us the nomadic
instinct. We all confess to a gratified thrill at the
thought of "camping out."
192
ROUGHING IT
Once we made twenty-five miles in a day, and
once we made forty miles (through the Great
American Desert), and ten miles beyond — fifty in
all — in twenty- three hours, without halting to eat,
drink, or rest. To stretch out and go to sleep, even
on stony and frozen ground, after pushing a wagon
and two horses fifty miles, is a delight so supreme
that for the moment it almost seems cheap at the
price.
We camped two days in the neighborhood of the
"Sink of the Humboldt." We tried to use the
strong alkaline water of the Sink, but it would not
answer. It was like drinking lye, and not weak lye,
either. It left a taste in the mouth, bitter and every
way execrable, and a burning in the stomach that
was very uncomfortable. We put molasses in it,
but that helped it very little ; we added a pickle, yet
the alkali was the prominent taste, and so it was
unfit for drinking. The coffee we made of this
water was the meanest compound man has yet
invented. It was really viler to the taste than the
unameliorated water itself. Mr. Ballou, being the
architect and builder of the beverage, felt constrained
to indorse and uphold it, and so drank half a cup,
by little sips, making shift to praise it faintly the
while, but finally threw out the remainder, and said
frankly it was "too technical for him."
But presently we found a spring of fresh water,
convenient, and then, with nothing to mar our
enjoyment, and no stragglers to interrupt it, we
entered into our rest.
J93
CHAPTER XXVIII
AFTER leaving the Sink, we traveled along the
i\ Humboldt River a little way. People accus-
tomed to the monster mile-wide Mississippi, grow
accustomed to associating the term "river" with a
high degree of watery grandeur. Consequently, such
people feel rather disappointed when they stand on
the shores of the Humboldt or the Carson and find
that a "river" in Nevada is a sickly rivulet which
is just the counterpart of the Erie canal in all respects
save that the canal is twice as long and four times
as deep. One of the pleasantest and most invigorat-
ing exercises one can contrive is to run and jump
across the Humboldt River till he is overheated,
and then drink it dry.
On the fifteenth day we completed our march of
two hundred miles and entered Unionville, Hum-
boldt County, in the midst of a driving snow-storm.
Unionville consisted of eleven cabins and a liberty
pole. Six of the cabins were strung along one side
of a deep canon, and the other five faced them.
The rest of the landscape was made up of bleak
mountain walls that rose so high into the sky from
both sides of the canon that the village was left,
as it were, far down in the bottom of a crevice. It
was always daylight on the mountain-tops a long
194
ROUGHING IT
time before the darkness lifted and revealed Union-
ville.
We built a small, rude cabin in the side of the
crevice and roofed it with canvas, leaving a corner
open to serve as a chimney, through which the cattle
used to tumble occasionally, at night, and mash our
furniture and interrupt our sleep. It was very cold
weather and fuel was scarce. Indians brought brush
and bushes several miles on their backs; and when
we could catch a laden Indian it was well — and
when we could not (which was the rule, not the
exception), we shivered and bore it.
I confess, without shame, that I expected to find
masses of silver lying all about the ground. I ex-
pected to see it glittering in the sun on the mountain
summits. I said nothing about this, for some
instinct told me that I might possibly have an exag-
gerated idea about it, and so if I betrayed my
thought I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I
was as perfectly satisfied in my own mind as I could
be of anything, that I was going to gather up, in a
day or two, or at furthest a week or two, silver
enough to make me satisfactorily wealthy — and so
my fancy was already busy with plans for spending
this money. The first opportunity that offered, I
sauntered carelessly away from the cabin, keeping
an eye on the other boys, and stopping and con-
templating the sky when they seemed to be observ-
ing me; but as soon as the coast was manifestly
clear, I fled away as guiltily as a thief might have
done and never halted till I was far beyond sight
and call. Then I began my search with a feverish
i95
MARK TWAIN
excitement that was brimful of expectation — almost
of certainty. I crawled about the ground, seizing
and examining bits of stone, blowing the dust from
them or rubbing them on my clothes, and then
peering at them with anxious hope. Presently I
found a bright fragment and my heart bounded! I
hid behind a boulder and polished it and scrutinized
it with a nervous eagerness and a delight that was
more pronounced than absolute certainty itself could
have afforded. The more I examined the fragment
the more I was convinced that I had found the door
to fortune. I marked the spot and carried away my
specimen. Up and down the rugged mountainside
I searched, with always increasing interest and
always augmenting gratitude that I had come to
Humboldt and come in time. Of all the experiences
of my life, this secret search among the hidden
treasures of silver-land was the nearest to unmarred
ecstasy. It was a delirious revel. By and by, in
the bed of a shallow rivulet, I found a deposit of
shining yellow scales, and my breath almost forsook
me! A gold-mine, and in my simplicity I had been
content with vulgar silver! I was so excited that I
half believed my overwrought imagination was de-
ceiving me. Then a fear came upon me that people
might be observing me and would guess my secret.
Moved by this thought, I made a circuit of the piace,
and ascended a knoll to reconnoiter. Solitude. No
creature was near. Then I returned to my mine,
fortifying myself against possible disappointment,
but my fears were groundless — the shining scales
were still there. I set about scooping them out,
196
ROUGHING IT
and for an hour I toiled down the windings of the
stream and robbed its bed. But at last the descend-
ing sun warned me to give up the quest, and I
turned homeward laden with wealth. As I walked
along I could not help smiling at the thought of my
being so excited over my fragment of silver when
a nobler metal was almost under my nose. In this
little time the former had so fallen in my estimation
that once or twice I was on the point of throwing
it away.
The boys were as hungry as usual, but I could
eat nothing. Neither could I talk. I was full of
dreams and far away. Their conversation inter-
rupted the flow of my fancy somewhat, and annoyed
me a little, too. I despised the sordid and com-
monplace things they talked about. But as they
proceeded, it began to amuse me. It grew to be
rare fun to hear them planning their poor little
economies and sighing over possible privations and
distresses when a gold-mine, all our own, lay within
sight of the cabin, and I could point it out at any
moment. Smothered hilarity began to oppress me,
presently. It was hard to resist the impulse to
burst out with exultation and reveal everything; but
I did resist. I said within myself that I would filter
the great news through my lips calmly and be serene
as a summer morning while I watched its effect in
their faces. I said :
"Where have you all been?"
"Prospecting."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing."
197
MARK TWAIN
"Nothing? What do you think of the country?'"
"Can't tell, yet," said Mr. Ballou, who was an
old gold-miner, and had likewise had considerable
experience among the silver-mines.
"Well, haven't you formed any sort of opinion?"
"Yes, a sort of a one. It's fair enough here, may-
be, but overrated. Seven - thousand - dollar ledges
are scarce, though. That Sheba may be rich enough,
but we don't own it; and, besides, the rock is so
full of base metals that all the science in the world
can't work it. We'll not starve, here, but we'll
not get rich, I'm afraid."
"So you think the prospect is pretty poor?"
"No name for it!"
"Well, we'd better go back, hadn't we?"
"Oh, not yet — of course not. We'll try it a riffle,
first."
"Suppose, now — this is merely a supposition, you
know — suppose you could find a ledge that would
yield, say, a hundred and fifty dollars a ton — would
that satisfy you?"
"Try us once!" from the whole party.
"Or suppose — merely a supposition, of course —
suppose you were to find a ledge that would yield
two thousand dollars a ton — would that satisfy you?"
"Here — what do you mean? What are you
coming at? Is there some mystery behind all this?"
"Never mind. I am not saying anything. You
know perfectly well there are no rich mines here —
of course you do. Because you have been around
and examined for yourselves. Anybody would know
that, that had been around. But just for the sake
198
ROUGHING IT
of argument, suppose — in a kind of general way —
suppose some person were to tell you that two-
thousand-dollar ledges were simply contemptible —
contemptible, understand — and that right yonder in
sight of this very cabin there were piles of pure
gold and pure silver — oceans of it — enough to make
you all rich in twenty-four hours! Come!"
"I should say he was as crazy as a loon!" said
old Ballou, but wild with excitement, neverthe-
less.
"Gentlemen," said I, "I don't say anything —
I haven't been around, you know, and of course
don't know anything — but all I ask of you is to
cast your eye on that, for instance, and tell me what
you think of it!" and I tossed my treasure before
them.
There was an eager scrabble for it, and a closing
of heads together over it under the candle-light.
Then old Ballou said:
"Think of it? I think it is nothing but a lot of
granite rubbish and nasty glittering mica that isn't
worth ten cents an acre!"
So vanished my dream. So melted my wealth
away. So toppled my airy castle to the earth and
left me stricken and forlorn.
Moralizing, I observed, then, that "all that glit-
ters is not gold."
Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and
lay it up among my treasures of knowledge, that
nothing that glitters is gold. So I learned then,
once for all, that gold in its native state is but dull,
unornamental stuff, and that only low-born metals
199
MARK TWAIN
excite the admiration of the ignorant with an osten-
tatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world,
I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying
men of mica. Commonplace human nature cannot
rise above that
CHAPTER XXIX
TRUE knowledge of the nature of silver-mining
came fast enough. We went out "prospect-
ing" with Mr. Ballou. We climbed the mountain-
sides, and clambered among sage-brush, rocks, and
snow till we were ready to drop with exhaustion,
but found no silver — nor yet any gold. Day after
day we did this. Now and then we came upon
holes burrowed a few feet into the declivities and
apparently abandoned; and now and then we found
one or two listless men still burrowing. But there
was no appearance of silver. These holes were the
beginnings of tunnels, and the purpose was to drive
them hundreds of feet into the mountain, and some
day tap the hidden ledge where the silver was.
Some day! It seemed far enough away, and very
hopeless and dreary. Day after day we toiled, and
climbed, and searched, and we younger partners grew
sicker and still sicker of the promiseless toil. At
last we halted under a beetling rampart of rock
which projected from the earth high upon the moun-
tain. Mr. Ballou broke off some fragments with a
hammer, and examined them long and attentively
with a small eyeglass; threw them away and broke
off more; said this rock was quartz, and quartz
was the sort of rock that contained silver. Contained
it! I had thought that at least it would be caked
201
MARK TWAIN
on the outside of it like a kind of veneering. Ha
still broke off pieces and critically examined them,
now and then wetting the piece with his tongue and
applying the glass. At last he exclaimed:
"We've got it!"
We were full of anxiety in a moment. The rock
was clean and white, where it was broken, and across
it ran a ragged thread of blue. He said that that
little thread had silver in it, mixed with base metals,
such as lead and antimony, and other rubbish, and
that there was a speck or two of gold visible. After
a great deal of effort we managed to discern some
little fine yellow specks, and judged that a couple
of tons of them massed together might make a gold
dollar, possibly. We were not jubilant, but Mr.
Ballou said there were worse ledges in the world
than that. He saved what he called the "richest"
piece of the rock, in order to determine its value by
the process called the "fire-assay." Then we named
the mine "Monarch of the Mountains" (modesty
of nomenclature is not a prominent feature in the
mines), and Mr. Ballou wrote out and stuck up the
following "notice," preserving a copy to be entered
upon the books in the mining recorder's office in the
town.
NOTICE
We the undersigned claim three claims, of three hundred feet
each (and one for discovery), on this silver-bearing quartz lead
or lode, extending north and south from this notice, with all
its dips, spurs, and angles, variations and sinuosities, together
with fifty feet of ground on either side for working the same.
We put our names to it and tried to feel that our
fortunes were made. But when we talked the matter
202
ROUGHING IT
all over with Mr. Ballou, we felt depressed and
dubious. He said that this surface quartz was not
all there was of our mine ; but that the wrall or ledge
of rock called the "Monarch of the Mountains"
extended down hundreds and hundreds of feet into
the earth — he illustrated by saying it was like a curb-
stone, and maintained a nearly uniform thickness
— say twenty feet — away down into the bowels of
earth, and was perfectly distinct from the casing
rock on each side of it; and that it kept to itself,
and maintained its distinctive character always, no
matter how deep it extended into the earth or how
far it stretched itself through and across the hills
and valleys. He said it might be a mile deep and
ten miles long, for all we knew; and that wherever
we bored into it above ground or below, we would
find gold and silver in it, but no gold or silver in
the meaner rock it was cased between. And he
said that down in the great depths of the ledge
was its richness, and the deeper it went the richer
it grew. Therefore, instead of working here on the
surface, we must either bore down into the rock with
a shaft till we came to where it was rich — say a
hundred feet or so — or else we must go down into the
valley and bore a long tunnel into the mountain-
side and tap the ledge far under the earth. To
do either was plainly the labor of months ; for
we could blast and bore only a few feet a day —
some five or six. But this was not all. He
said that after we got the ore out it must be
hauled in wagons to a distant silver- mill, ground
up, and the silver extracted by a tedious and
203
MARK TWAIN
costly process. Our fortune seemed a century
away!
But we went to work. We decided to sink a
shaft. So, for a week we climbed the mountain,
laden with picks, drills, gads, crowbars, shovels,
cans of blasting-powder and coils of fuse, and strove
with might and main. At first the rock was broken
and loose, and we dug it up with picks and threw it
out with shovels, and the hole progressed very well.
But the rock became more compact, presently, and
gads and crowbars came into play. But shortly
nothing could make an impression but blasting-
powder. That was the weariest work! One of us
held the iron drill in its place and another would
strike with an eight-pound sledge — it was like driving
nails on a large scale. In the course of an hour or
two the drill would reach a depth of two or three
feet, making a hole a couple of inches in diameter.
We would put in a charge of powder, insert half a
yard of fuse, pour in sand and gravel and ram it
down, then light the fuse and run. When the explo-
sion came and the rocks and smoke shot into the air,
we would go back and find about a bushel of that
hard, rebellious quartz jolted out. Nothing more
One week of this satisfied me. I resigned. Claggett
and Oliphant followed. Our shaft was only twelva
feet deep. We decided that a tunnel was the thing
we wanted.
So we went down the mountainside and worked
a week; at the end of which time we had blasted a
tunnel about deep enough to hide a hogshead in,
and judged that about nine hundred feet more of it
204
ROUGHING IT
would reach the ledge. I resigned again, and the
other boys only held out one day longer. We de-
cided that a tunnel was not what we wanted. We
wanted a ledge that was already "developed."
There were none in the camp.
We dropped the "Monarch" for the time being.
Meantime the camp was filling up with people, and
there was a constantly growing excitement about our
Humboldt mines. We fell victims to the epidemic
and strained every nerve to acquire more "feet."
We prospected and took up new claims, put "notices"
on them and gave them grandiloquent names. We
traded some of our "feet" for "feet" in other
people's claims. In a little while we owned largely in
the "Gray Eagle," the "Columbiana," the "Branch
Mint," the "Maria Jane," the "Universe," the
"Root-Hog-or-Die," the "Samson and Delilah," the
"Treasure Trove," the "Golconda," the "Sultana,"
the "Boomerang," the "Great Republic," the
"Grand Mogul," and fifty other "mines" that had
never been molested by a shovel or scratched with
a pick. We had not less than thirty thousand "feet "
apiece in the "richest mines on earth" as the fren-
zied cant phrased it — and were in debt to the butcher.
We were stark mad with excitement — drunk with
happiness — smothered under mountains of prospec-
tive wealth — arrogantly compassionate toward the
plodding millions who knew not our marvelous
canon — but our credit was not good at the grocer's.
It was the strangest phase of life one can imagine.
It was a beggars' revel. There was nothing doing
in the district — no mining — no milling — no pro-
20-
MARK TWAIN
ductive effort — no income — and not enough money
in the entire camp to buy a corner lot in an eastern
village, hardly; and yet a stranger would have sup-
posed he was walking among bloated millionaires.
Prospecting parties swarmed out of town with the
first flush of dawn, and swarmed in again at night-
fall laden with spoil — rocks. Nothing but rocks.
Every man's pockets were full of them; the floor of
his cabin was littered with them ; they were disposed
in labeled rows on his shelves.
CHAPTER XXX
1MET men at every turn who owned from one
thousand to thirty thousand "feet" in unde-
veloped silver-mines, every single foot of which they
believed would shortly be worth from fifty to a
thousand dollars — and as often as any other way
they were men who had not twenty-five dollars in
the world. Every man you met had his new mine
to boast of, and his "specimens" ready; and if
the opportunity offered, he would infallibly back
you into a corner and offer as a favor to you, not to
him, to part with just a few feet in the "Golden
Age," or the "Sarah Jane," or some other unknown
stack of croppings, for money enough to get a
"square meal" with, as the phrase went. And you
were never to reveal that he had made you the
offer at such a ruinous price, for it was only out of
friendship for you that he was willing to make the
sacrifice. Then he would fish a piece of rock out
of his pocket, and after looking mysteriously around
as if he feared he might be waylaid and robbed if
caught with such wealth in his possession, he would
dab the rock against his tongue, clap an eyeglass to
it, and exclaim:
;Look at that! Right there in that red dirt!
See it? See the specks of gold? And the streak of
207
MARK TWAIN
silver? That's from the 'Uncle Abe.' There's a
hundred thousand tons like that in sight! Right in
sight, mind you! And when we get down on it and
the ledge comes in solid, it will be the richest thing
in the world! Look at the assay! I don't want
you to believe me — look at the assay!"
Then he would get out a greasy sheet of paper
which showed that the portion of rock assayed had
given evidence of containing silver and gold in the
proportion of so many hundreds or thousands of
dollars to the ton. I little knew, then, that the
custom was to hunt out the richest piece of rock
and get it assayed! Very often, that piece, the size
of a filbert, was the only fragment in a ton that
had a particle of metal in it — and yet the assay
made it pretend to represent the average value of
the ton of rubbish it came from!
On such a system of assaying as that, the Hum-
boldt world had gone crazy. On the authority of
such assays its newspaper correspondents were
frothing about rock worth four and seven thousand
dollars a ton !
And does the reader remember, a few pages back,
the calculations of a quoted correspondent, whereby
the ore is to be mined and shipped all the way to
England, the metals extracted, and the gold and
silver contents received back by the miners as clear
profit, the copper, antimony, and other things in
the ore being sufficient to pay all the expenses in-
curred? Everybody's head was full of such "calcu-
lations" as those — such raving insanity, rather. Few
people, took work into their calculations — or outlay
208
ROUGHING IT
of money either; except the work and expenditures
of other people.
We never touched our tunnel or our shaft again.
Why? Because we judged that we had learned the
real secret of success in silver-mining — which was,
not to mine the silver ourselves by the sweat of our
brows and the labor of our hands, but to sell the
ledges to the dull slaves of toil and let them do the
mining !
Before leaving Carson, the Secretary and I had
purchased "feet" from various Esmeralda strag-
glers. We had expected immediate returns of bullion,
but were only afflicted with regular and constant
"assessments" instead — demands for money where-
with to develop the said mines. These assessments
had grown so oppressive that it seemed necessary
to look into the matter personally. Therefore I
projected a pilgrimage to Carson and thence to
Esmeralda. I bought a horse and started, in com-
pany with Mr. Ballou and a gentleman named
Ollendorff, a Prussian — not the party who has in-
flicted so much suffering on the world with his
wretched foreign grammars, with their interminable
repetitions of questions which never have occurred
and are never likely to occur in any conversation
among human beings. We rode through a snow-
storm for two or three days, and arrived at "Honey
Lake Smith's," a sort of isolated inn on the Carson
River. It was a two-story log house situated on a
small knoll in the midst of the vast basin or desert
through which the sickly Carson winds its melan-
choly way. Close to the house were the Overland
209
MARK *TWAIN
stage stables, built of sun-dried bricks. There was
not another building within several leagues of the
place. Toward sunset about twenty hay- wagons
arrived and camped around the house, and all the
teamsters came in to supper — a very, very rough
set. There were one or two Overland stage-drivers
there, also, and half a dozen vagabonds and strag-
glers; consequently the house was well crowded.
We walked out, after supper, and visited a small
Indian camp in the vicinity. The Indians were in a
great hurry about something, and were packing up
and getting away as fast as they could. In their
broken English they said, "By'm-by, heap water!"
and by the help of signs made us understand that in
their opinion a flood was coming. The weather was
perfectly clear, and this was not the rainy season.
There was about a foot of water in the insignificant
river — or maybe two feet ; the stream was not wider
than a back alley in a village, and its banks were
scarcely higher than a man's head. So, where was
the flood to come from? We canvassed the subject
awhile and then concluded it was a ruse, and that
the Indians had some better reason for leaving in a
hurry than fears of a flood in such an exceedingly
dry time.
At seven in the evening we went to bed in the
second story — with our clothes on, as usual, and
all three in the same bed, for every available space
on the floors, chairs, etc., were in request, and even
then there was barely room for the housing of the
inn's guests. An hour later we were awakened by a
great turmoil, and springing out of bed we picked
ROUGHING 1^
Our way nimbly among the ranks of snoring team*
sters on the floor and got to the front windows of
the long room. A glance revealed a strange spec-
tacle, under the moonlight. The crooked Carson
was full to the brim, and its waters were raging and
foaming in the wildest way — sweeping around the
sharp bends at a furious speed, and bearing on their
surface a chaos of logs, brush, and all sorts of rub-
bish. A depression, where its bed had once been,
in other times, was already filling, and in one or two
places the water was beginning to wash over the
main bank. Men were flying hither and thither,
bringing cattle and wagons close up to the house,
for the spot of high ground on which it stood ex-
tended only some thirty feet in front and about a
hundred in the rear. Close to the old river-bed just
spoken of, stood a little log stable, and in this our
horses were lodged. While we looked, the waters
increased so fast in this place that in a few minutes
a torrent was roaring by the little stable and its
margin encroaching steadily on the logs. We sud-
denly realized that this flood was not a mere holiday
spectacle, but meant damage — and not only to the
small log stable, but to the Overland buildings close
to the main river, for the waves had now come ashore
and were creeping about the foundations and invad-
ing the great hay-corral adjoining. We ran down
and joined the crowd of excited men and frightened
animals. We waded knee-deep into the log stable,
unfastened the horses and waded out almost waist-
deep, so fast the waters increased. Then the crowd
rushed in a body to the hay-corral and began to
211
MARK TWAIN
tumble down the huge stacks of baled hay and roll
the bales up on the high ground by the house.
Meantime it was discovered that Owens, an Overland
driver, was missing, and a man ran to the large
stable, and wading in, boot-top deep, discovered
him asleep in his bed, awoke him, and waded out
again. But Owens was drowsy and resumed his
nap; but only for a minute or two, for presently he
turned in his bed, his hand dropped over the side
and came in contact with the cold water! It was
up level with the mattress! He waded out, breast-
deep, almost, and the next moment the sun-burned
bricks melted down like sugar and the big building
crumbled to a ruin and was washed away in a twink-
ling.
At eleven o'clock only the roof of the little log
stable was out of water, and our inn was on an island
in midocean. As far as the eye could reach, in the
moonlight, there was no desert visible, but only a
level waste of shining water. The Indians were true
prophets, but how did they get their information?
I am not able to answer the question.
We remained cooped up eight days and nights
with that curious crew. Swearing, drinking, and
card-playing were the order of the day, and occa-
sionally a fight was thrown in for variety. Dirt and
vermin — but let us forget those features; their pro-
fusion is simply inconceivable — it is better that they
remain so.
There were two men — however, this chapter v
long enough.
212
CHAPTER XXXI
THERE were two men in the company who
caused me particular discomfort. One was a
little Swede, about twenty-five years old, who knew
only one song, and he was forever singing it. By
day we were all crowded into one small, stifling
barroom, and so there was no escaping this person's
music. Through all the profanity, whisky-guzzling,
"old sledge," and quarreling, his monotonous song
meandered with never a variation in its tiresome
sameness, and it seemed to me, at last, that I would
be content to die, in order to be rid of the torture.
The other man was a stalwart ruffian called ' ' Arkan-
sas," who carried two revolvers in his belt and a
bowie-knife projecting from his boot, and who was
always drunk and always suffering for a fight. But
he was so feared, that nobody would accommodate
him. He would try all manner of little wary ruses
to entrap somebody into an offensive remark, and
his face would light up now and then when he
fancied he was fairly on the scent of a fight, but
invariably his victim would elude his toils and then
he would show a disappointment that was almost
pathetic. The landlord, Johnson, was a meek, well-
meaning fellow, and Arkansas fastened on him early,
as a promising subject, and gave him no rest day
213
MARK TWAIN
or night, for a while. On the fourth morning, Arkan-
sas got drunk and sat himself down to wait for an
opportunity. Presently Johnson came in, just com-
fortably sociable with whisky, and said:
"I reckon the Pennsylvania 'lection — "
Arkansas raised his finger impressively and John-
son stopped. Arkansas rose unsteadily and con-
fronted him. Said he :
"Wha-what do you know a-about Pennsylvania?
Answer me that. Wha-what do you know 'bout
Pennsylvania?"
"I was only goin' to say — "
"You was only goin' to say. You was! You was
only goin' to say — what was you goin' to say?
That's it! That's what 7 want to know. J want to
know wha-what you ('ic) what you know about
Pennsylvania, since you're makin' yourself so d — d
free. Answer me that!"
"Mr. Arkansas, if you'd only let me — "
"Who's a-henderin' you? Don't you insinuate
nothing agin me! — don't you do it. Don't you
come in here bullyin' around, and cussin' and goin'
on like a lunatic — don't you do it. 'Coz I won't
stand it. If fight's what you want, out with it!
I'm your man! Out with it!"
Said Johnson, backing into a corner, Arkansas
following, menacingly:
"Why, I never said nothing, Mr. Arkansas.
You don't give a man no chance. I was only goin'
to say that Pennsylvania was goin' to have an elec-
tion next week — that was all — that was everything I
was goin' to say — I wish I may never stir if it wasn't."
214
ROUGHING IT
"Well then why d'n't you say it? What did you
come swellin' around that way for, and tryin' to
raise trouble?"
"Why, I didn't come swellin' around, Mr. Arkan-
sas— I just — "
"I'm a liar am I! Ger-reat Caesar's ghost — "
"Oh, please, Mr. Arkansas, I never meant such
a thing as that, I wish I may die if I did. All the
boys will tell you that I've always spoke well of
you, and respected you more'n any man in the
house. Ask Smith. Ain't it so, Smith? Didn't
I say, no longer ago than last night, that for a man
that was a gentleman all the time and every way you
took him, give me Arkansas? I'll leave it to any
gentleman here if them warn't the very words I
used. Come, now, Mr. Arkansas, le's take a drink
— le's shake hands and take a drink. Come up —
everybody! It's my treat. Come up, Bill, Tom,
Bob, Scotty — come up. I want you all to take a
drink with me and Arkansas — old Arkansas, I call
him — bully old Arkansas. Gimme your hand ag'in.
Look at him, boys — just take a look at him. Thar
stands the whitest man in America! — and the man
that denies it has got to fight me, that's all. Gimme
that old nipper ag'in!"
They embraced, with drunken affection on the
landlord's part and unresponsive toleration on the
part of Arkansas, who, bribed by a drink, was dis-
appointed of his prey once more. But the foolish
landlord was so happy to have escaped butchery,
that he went on talking when he ought to have
marched h;mself out of danger. The consequence
2IS
MARK TWAIN
was that Arkansas shortly began to glower upon him
dangerously, and presently said :
"Lan'lord, will you p-please make that remark
over ag'in if you please?"
"I was a-sayin' to Scotty that my father was
up'ards of eighty year old when he died."
"Was that all that you said?"
"Yes, that was all."
"Didn't say nothing but that?"
"No— nothing."
Then an uncomfortable silence.
Arkansas played with his glass a moment, lolling
on his elbows on the counter. Then he meditatively
scratched his left shin with his right boot, while the
awkward silence continued. But presently he loafed
away toward the stove, looking dissatisfied ; roughly
shouldered two or three men out of a comfortable
position; occupied it himself, gave a sleeping dog a
kick that sent him howling under a bench, then
spread his long legs and his blanket-coat tails apart
and proceeded to warm his back. In a little while
he fell to grumbling to himself, and soon he slouched
back to the bar and said :
"Lan'lord, what's your idea for rakin' up old
personalities and bio win' about your father? Ain't
this company agreeable to you? Ain't it? If this
company ain't agreeable to you, p'r'aps we'd better
leave. Is that your idea? Is that what you're
coming at?"
"Why, bless your soul, Arkansas, I warn't think-
ing of such a thing. My father and my mother — "
"Lan'lord, don't crowd a man! Don't do it. If
216
ROUGHING IT
nothing '11 do you but a disturbance, out with it
like a man (Jic) — but don't rake up old bygones
and fling 'em in the teeth of a passel of people that
wants to be peaceable if they could git a chance.
What's the matter with you this mornin', anyway?
I never see a man carry on so."
"Arkansas, I reely didn't mean no harm, and I
won't go on with it if it's onpleasant to you. I
reckon my licker's got into my head, and what with
the flood, and havin' so many to feed and look out
for—"
"So that's what's a-ranklin' in your heart, is it?
You want us to leave, do you? There's too many
on us. You want us to pack up and swim. Is
that it? Come!"
' ' Please be reasonable, Arkansas. Now you know
that I ain't the man to — "
' ' Are you a-threatenin' me ? Are you ? By George,
the man don't live that can skeer me! Don't you
try to come that game, my chicken — 'cuz I can
stand a good deal, but I won't stand that. Come
out from behind that bar till I clean you' You
want to drive us out, do you, you sneakin' under-
handed hound! Come out from behind that bar!
I'll learn you to bully and badger and browbeat
a gentleman that's forever trying to befriend you
and keep you out of trouble!"
"Please, Arkansas, please don't shoot! If there's
got to be bloodshed — "
"Do you hear that, gentlemen? Do you hear
him talk about bloodshed? So it's blood you want,
is it, you ravin' desperado! You'd made up your
217
MARK TWAIN
mind to murder somebody this mornin' — I knowed
it perfectly well. I'm the man, am I ? It's me you're
goin' to murder, is it? But you can't do it 'thout
I get one chance first, you thievin' black-hearted,
white-livered son of a nigger! Draw your weepon!"
With that, Arkansas began to shoot, and the
landlord to clamber over benches, men, and every
sort of obstacle in a frantic desire to escape. In
the midst of the wild hubbub the landlord crashed
through a glass door, and as Arkansas charged after
him the landlord's wife suddenly appeared in the
doorway and confronted the desperado with a pair
of scissors! Her fury was magnificent. With head
erect and flashing eye she stood a moment and then
advanced, with her weapon raised. The astonished
ruffian hesitated, and then fell back a step. She
followed. She backed him step by step into the
middle of the barroom, and then, while the wonder-
ing crowd closed up and gazed, she gave him such
another tongue-lashing as never a cowed and shame-
faced braggart got before, perhaps! As she finished
and retired victorious, a roar of applause shook the
house, and every man ordered "drinks for the
crowd" in one and the same breath.
The lesson was entirely sufficient. The reign of
terror was over, and the Arkansas domination broken
for good. During the rest of the season of island
captivity, there was one man who sat apart in a
state of permanent humiliation, never mixing in any
quarrel or uttering a boast, and never resenting the
insults the once cringing crew now constantly leveled
at him, and that man was Arkansas.
218
ROUGHING IT
By the fifth or sixth morning the waters had sub-
sided from the land, but the stream in the old river-
bed was still high and swift and there was no possi-
bility of crossing it. On the eighth it was still too
high for an entirely safe passage, but life in the inn
had become next to insupportable by reason of the
dirt, drunkenness, fighting, etc., and so we made an
effort to get away. In the midst of a heavy snow-
storm we embarked in a canoe, taking our saddles
aboard and towing our horses after us by their
halters. The Prussian, Ollendorff, was in the bow,
with a paddle, Ballou paddled in the middle, and I
sat in the stern holding the halters. When the
horses lost their footing and began to swim, Ollen-
dorff got frightened, for there was great danger that
the horses would make our aim uncertain, and it
was plain that if we failed to land at a certain spot
the current would throw us off and almost surely
cast us into the main Carson, which was a boiling
torrent, now. Such a catastrophe would be death,
in all probability, for we would be swept to sea in
the "Sink " or overturned and drowned. We warned
Ollendorff to keep his wits about him and handle
himself carefully, but it was useless; the moment
the bow touched the bank, he made a spring and the
canoe whirled upside down in ten-foot water. Ollen-
dorff seized some brush and dragged himself ashore,
but Ballou and I had to swim for it, encumbered
with our overcoats. But we held on to the canoe,
and although we were washed down nearly to the
Carson, we managed to push the boat ashore and
make a safe landing. We were cold and water-
219
MARK TWAIN
soaked, but safe. The horses made a landing, too,
but our saddles were gone, of course. We tied the
animals in the sage-brush and there they had to
stay for twenty-four hours. We bailed out the canoe
and ferried over some food and blankets for them,
but we slept one more night in the inn before making
another venture on our journey.
The next morning it was still snowing furiously
when we got away with our new stock of saddles and
accoutrements. We mounted and started. The
snow lay so deep on the ground that there was no
sign of a road perceptible, and the snowfall was so
thick that we could not see more than a hundred
yards ahead, else we could have guided our course
by the mountain ranges. The case looked dubious,
but Ollendorff said his instinct was as sensitive as
any compass, and that he could "strike a bee-line"
for Carson City and never diverge from it. He said
that if he were to straggle a single point out of the
true line his instinct would assail him like an out-
raged conscience. Consequently we dropped into
his wake happy and content. For half an hour we
poked along warily enough, but at the end of that
time we came upon a fresh trail, and Ollendorff
shouted proudly :
"I knew I was as dead certain as a compass,
boys! Here we are, right in somebody's tracks
that will hunt the way for us without any trouble.
Let's hurry up and join company with the party."
So we put the horses into as much of a trot as the
deep snow would allow, and before long it was
evident that we were gaining on our predecessors,
220
ROUGHING IT
for the tracks grew more distinct. We hurried
along, and at the end of an hour the tracks looked
still newer and fresher — but what surprised us was,
that the number of travelers in advance of us seemed
to steadily increase. We wondered how so large a
party came to be traveling at such a time and in
such a solitude. Somebody suggested that it must
be a company of soldiers from the fort, and so we
accepted that solution and jogged along a little
faster still, for they could not be far off now. But
the tracks still multiplied, and we began to think the
platoon of soldiers was miraculously expanding into
a regiment — Ballou said they had already increased
to five hundred! Presently he stopped his horse
and said:
' ' Boys, these are our own tracks, and we've actu-
ally been circussing round and round in a circle
for more than two hours, out here in this blind
desert! By George, this is perfectly hydraulic!"
Then the old man waxed wroth and abusive. He
called Ollendorff all manner of hard names — said
he never saw such a lurid fool as he was, and ended
with the peculiarly venomous opinion that he "did
not know as much as a logarithm!"
We certainly had been following our own tracks.
Ollendorff and his "mental compass" were in dis-
grace from that moment. After all our hard travel,
here we were on the bank of the stream again, with
the inn beyond dimly outlined through the driving
snowfall. While we were considering what to do,
the young Swede landed from the canoe and took
his pedestrian way Carson-wards, singing his same
MARK TWAIN
tiresome song about his "sister and his brother"
and " the child in the grave with its mother," and
in a short minute faded and disappeared in the white
oblivion. He was never heard of again. He no
doubt got bewildered and lost, and Fatigue delivered
him over to Sleep and Sleep betrayed him to Death.
Possibly he followed our treacherous tracks till he
became exhausted and dropped.
Presently the Overland stage forded the now fast-
receding stream and started toward Carson on its
first trip since the flood came. We hesitated no
longer, now, but took up our march in its wake, and
trotted merrily along, for we had good confidence in
the driver's bump of locality. But our horses were
no match for the fresh stage-team. We were soon
left out of sight; but it was no matter, for we had
the deep ruts the wheels made for a guide. By
this time it was three in the afternoon, and conse-
quently it was not very long before night came —
and not with a lingering twilight, but with a sudden
shutting-down like a cellar door, as is its habit in
that country. The snowfall was still as thick as ever,
and of course we could not see fifteen steps before
us; but all about us the white glare of the snow-
bed enabled us to discern the smooth sugar-loaf
mounds made by the covered sage-bushes, and just
in front of us the two faint grooves which we knew
were the steadily filling and slowly disappearing
wheel-tracks.
Now those sage-bushes were all about the same
height — three or four feet; they stood just about
seven feet apart, all over the vast desert; each of
ROUGHING IT
them was a mere snow-mound, now; in any direc-
tion that you proceeded (the same as in a well-laid-
out orchard) you would find yourself moving down
a distinctly defined avenue, with a row of these
snow-mounds on either side of it — an avenue the
customary width of a road, nice and level in its
breadth, and rising at the sides in the most natural
way, by reason of the mounds. But we had not
thought of this. Then imagine the chilly thrill that
shot through us when it finally occurred to us, far in
the night, that since the last faint trace of the wheel-
tracks had long ago been buried from sight, we might
now be wandering down a mere sage-brush avenue,
miles away from the road and diverging further and
further away from it all the time. Having a cake
of ice slipped down one's back is placid comfort
compared to it. There was a sudden leap and stir
of blood that had been asleep for an hour, and as
sudden a rousing of all the drowsing activities in our
minds and bodies. We were alive and awake at
once — and shaking and quaking with consternation,
too. There was an instant halting and dismount-
ing, a bending low and an anxious scanning of the
road-bed. Useless, of course; for if a faint depres-
sion could not be discerned from an attitude of
four or five feet above it, it certainly could not with
one's nose nearly against it.
CHAPTER XXXII
WE seemed to be in a road, but that was no
proof. We tested this by walking off in
various directions — the regular snow-mounds and
the regular avenues between them convinced each
man that he had found the true road, and that the
others had found only false ones. Plainly the situa-
tion was desperate. We were cold and stiff and the
horses were tired. We decided to build a sage-
brush fire and camp out till morning. This was
wise, because if we were wandering from the right
road and the snow-storm continued another day our
case would be the next thing to hopeless if we kept on.
All agreed that a camp-fire was what would come
nearest to saving us, now, and so we set about build-
ing it. We could find no matches, and so we tried
to make shift with the pistols. Not a man in the
party had ever tried to do such a thing before, but
not a man in the party doubted that it could be
done, and without any trouble — because every man
in the party had read about it in books many a time
and had naturally come to believe it, with trusting
simplicity, just as he had long ago accepted and
believed that other common book-fraud about In-
dians and lost hunters making a fire by rubbing two
dry sticks together.
224
ROUGHING IT
We huddled together on our knees in the dee^
snow, and the horses put their noses together and
bowed their patient heads over us; and while the
feathery flakes eddied down and turned us into a
group of white statuary, we proceeded with the
momentous experiment. We broke twigs from a
sage-bush and piled them on a little cleared place in
the shelter of our bodies. In the course of ten or
fifteen minutes all was ready, and then, while con-
versation ceased and our pulses beat low with
anxious suspense, Ollendorff applied his revolver,
pulled the trigger and blew the pile clear out of the
county! It was the flattest failure that ever was.
This was distressing, but it paled before a greater
horror — the horses were gone ! I had been appointed
to hold the bridles, but in my absorbing anxiety over
the pistol experiment I had unconsciously dropped
them and the released animals had walked off in
the storm. It was useless to try to follow them,
for their footfalls could make no sound, and one
could pass within two yards of the creatures and
never see them. We gave them up without an effort
at recovering them, and cursed the lying books that
said horses would stay by their masters for protection
and companionship in a distressful time like ours.
We were miserable enough, before; we felt still
more forlorn, now. Patiently, but with blighted
hope, we broke more sticks and piled them, and
once more the Prussian shot them into annihilation.
Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol was an art
requiring practice and experience, and the middle: of
a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good
22s
MARK TWAIN
place or time for the acquiring of the accomplish-
ment. We gave it up and tried the other. Each man
took a couple of sticks and fell to chafing them
together. At the end of half an hour we were
thoroughly chilled, and so were the sticks. We bit-
terly execrated the Indians, the hunters, and the
books that had betrayed us with the silly device, and
wondered dismally what was next to be done. At
this critical moment Mr. Ballou fished out four
matches from the rubbish of an overlooked pocket.
To have found four gold bars would have seemed
poor and cheap good luck compared to this. One
cannot think how good a match looks under such
circumstances — or how lovable and precious, and
sacredly beautiful to the eye. This time we gathered
sticks with high hopes; and when Mr. Ballou pre-
pared to light the first match, there was an amount
of interest centered upon him that pages of writing
could not describe. The match burned hopefully a
moment, and then went out. It could not have car-
ried more regret with it if it had been a human life.
The next match simply flashed and died. The wind
puffed the third one out just as it was on the immi-
nent verge of success. We gathered together closer
than ever, and developed a solicitude that was rapt
and painful, as Mr. Ballou scratched our last hope
on his leg. It lit, burned blue and sickly, and then
budded into a robust flame. Shading it with his
hands, the old gentleman bent gradually down and
every heart went with him — everybody, too, for
that matter — and blood and breath stood still. The
flame touched the sticks at last, took gradual hold
226
ROUGHING IT
upon them — hesitated — took a stronger hold — hesi-
tated again — held its breath five heartbreaking
seconds, then gave a sort of human gasp, and went
out.
Nobody said a word for several minutes. It was
a solemn sort of silence; even the wind put on a
stealthy, sinister quiet, and made no more noise
than the falling flakes of snow. Finally a sad-voiced
conversation began, and it was soon apparent that
in each of our hearts lay the conviction that this
was our last night with the living. I had so hoped
that I was the only one who felt so. When the
others calmly acknowledged their conviction, it
sounded like the summons itself. Ollendorff said:
"Brothers, let us die together. And let us go
without one hard feeling toward each other. Let
us forget and forgive bygones. I know that you
have felt hard toward me for turning over the canoe,
and for knowing too much and leading you round
and round in the snow — but I meant well; forgive
me. I acknowledge freely that I have had hard
feelings against Mr. Ballou for abusing me and
calling me a logarithm, which is a thing I do not
know what, but no doubt a thing considered dis-
graceful and unbecoming in America, and it has
scarcely been out of my mind and has hurt me a
great deal — but let it go; I forgive Mr. Ballou
with all my heart, and — "
Poor Ollendorff broke down and the tears came.
He was not alone, for I was crying too, and so was
Mr. Ballou. Ollendorff got his voice again and for-
gave me for things I had done and said. Then he
227
MARK TWAIN
got out his bottle of whisky and said that whether
he lived or died he would never touch another drop.
He said he had given up all hope of life, and although
ill-prepared, was ready to submit humbly to his
fate; that he wished he could be spared a little
longer, not for any selfish reason, but to make a
thorough reform in his character, and by devoting
himself to helping the poor, nursing the sick, and
pleading with the people to guard themselves against
the evils of intemperance, make his life a beneficent
example to the young, and lay it down at last
with the precious reflection that it had not been
lived in vain. He ended by saying that his reform
should begin at this moment, even here in the
presence of death, since no longer time was to be
vouchsafed wherein to prosecute it to men's help
and benefit — and with that he threw away the bottle
of whisky.
Mr. Ballou made remarks of similar purport, and
began the reform he could not live to continue, by
throwing away the ancient pack of cards that had
solaced our captivity during the flood and made it
bearable. He said he never gambled, but still was
satisfied that the meddling with cards in any way
was immoral and injurious, and no man could be
wholly pure and blemishless without eschewing them.
"And therefore," continued he, "in doing this act
I already feel more in sympathy with that spiritual
saturnalia necessary to entire and obsolete reform."
These rolling syllables touched him as no intelligible
eloquence could have done, and the old man sobbed
with a onournfulness not unmingled with satisfaction.
228
ROUGHING IT
My own remarks were of the same tenor as thost,
of my comrades, and I know that the feelings that
prompted them were heartfelt and sincere. We
were all sincere, and all deeply moved and earnest,
for we were in the presence of death and without
hope. I threw away my pipe, and in doing it felt
that at last I was free of a hated vice and one that
had ridden me like a tyrant all my days. While I
yet talked, the thought of the good I might have
done in the world, and the still greater good I might
now do, with these new incentives and higher and
better aims to guide me if I could only be spared a
few years longer, overcame me and the tears came
again. We put our arms about each other's necks
and awaited the warning drowsiness that precedes
death by freezing.
It came stealing over us presently, and then we
bade each other a last farewell. A delicious dreami-
ness wrought its web about my yielding senses, while
the snowflakes wove a winding sheet about my
conquered body. Oblivion came. The battle of life
was done.
CHAPTER XXXIII
1D0 not know how long I was in a state of for-
getfulness, but it seemed an age. A vague con-
sciousness grew upon me by degrees, and then came
a gathering anguish of pain in my limbs and through
all my body. I shuddered. The thought flitted
through my brain, "this is death — this is the here-
after."
Then came a white upheaval at my side, and a
voice said, with bitterness :
"Will some gentleman be so good as to kick me
behind?"
It wras Ballou — at least it was a tousled snow
image in a sitting posture, with Ballou's voice.
I rose up, and there in the gray dawn, not fifteen
steps from us, were the frame buildings of a stage-
station, and under a shed stood our still saddled and
bridled horses!
An arched snowdrift broke up, now, and Ollen-
dorff emerged from it, and the three of us sat and
stared at the houses without speaking a word. We
really had nothing to say. We were like the profane
man who could not "do the subject justice," the
whole situation was so painfully ridiculous and
humiliating that words were tame and we did not
know where to commence anyhow.
230
ROUGHING IT
The joy in our hearts at our deliverance was
poisoned; well-nigh dissipated, indeed. We pres-
ently began to grow pettish by degrees, and sullen;
and then, angry at each other, angry at ourselves,
angry at everything in general, we moodily dusted
the snow from our clothing and in unsociable single
file plowed our way to the horses, unsaddled them,
and sought shelter in the station.
I have scarcely exaggerated a detail of this curious
and absurd adventure. It occurred almost exactly
as I have stated it. We actually went into camp in
a snow - drift in a desert, at midnight in a storm,
forlorn and hopeless, within fifteen steps of a com-
fortable inn.
For two hours we sat apart in the station and
ruminated in disgust. The mystery was gone, now,
and it was plain enough why the horses had deserted
us. Without a doubt they were under that shed a
quarter of a minute after they had left us, and
they must have overheard and enjoyed all our con-
fessions and lamentations.
After breakfast we felt better, and the zest of life
soon came back. The world looked bright again,
and existence was as dear to us as ever. Presently
an uneasiness came over me — grew upon me —
assailed me without ceasing. Alas, my regeneration
was not complete — I wanted to smoke! I resisted
with all my strength, but the flesh was weak. I
wandered away alone and wrestled with myself an
hour. I recalled my promises of reform and preached
to myself persuasively, upbraidingly, exhaustively.
But it was all vain, I shortly found myself sneaking
231
MARK TWAIN
among the snowdrifts hunting for my pipe. I dis-
covered it after a considerable search, and crept
away to hide myself and enjoy it. I remained behind
the barn a good while, asking myself how I would
feel if my braver, stronger, truer comrades should
catch me in my degradation. At last I lit the pipe,
and no human being can feel meaner and baser than
I did then. I was ashamed of being in my own pitiful
company. Still dreading discovery, I felt that
perhaps the further side of the barn would be some-
what safer, and so I turned the corner. As I turned
the one corner, smoking, Ollendorff turned the other
with his bottle to his lips, and between us sat uncon-
scious Ballou deep in a game of "solitaire" with
the old greasy cards!
Absurdity could go no farther. We shook hands
and agreed to say no more about "reform" and
" examples to the rising generation."
The station we were at was at the verge of the
Twenty-six Mile Desert. If we had approached it
half an hour earlier the night before, we must have
heard men shouting there and firing pistols; for
they were expecting some sheep - drovers and their
flocks and knew that they would infallibly get lost
and wander out of reach of help unless guided by
sounds. While we remained at the station, three of
the drovers arrived, nearly exhausted with their
wanderings, but two others of their party were never
heard of afterward.
We reached Carson in due time, and took a rest.
This rest, together with preparations for the journey
to Esmeralda, kept us there a week, and the delay
232
ROUGHING IT
gave us the opportunity to be present at the trial of
the great landslide case of Hyde vs. Morgan — an
episode which is famous in Nevada to this day.
After a word or two of necessary explanation, I
will set down the history of this singular affair just
as it transpireci
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE mountains are very high and steep about
Carson, Eagle, and Washoe Valleys — very high
and very steep, and so when the snow gets to melting
off fast in the spring and the warm surface-earth
begins to moisten and soften, the disastrous land-
slides commence. The reader cannot know what a
landslide is, unless he has lived in that country and
seen the whole side of a mountain taken off some
fine morning and deposited down in the valley,
leaving a vast, treeless, unsightly scar upon the
mountain's front to keep the circumstance fresh in
his memory all the years that he may go on living
within seventy miles of that place.
General Buncombe was shipped out to Nevada in
the invoice of territorial officers, to be United States
Attorney. He considered himself a lawyer of parts,
and he very much wanted an opportunity to mani-
fest it — partly for the pure gratification of it and
partly because his salary was territorially meager
(which is a strong expression). Now the older citi-
zens of a new territory look down upon the rest of
the world with a calm, benevolent compassion, as
long as it keeps out of the way — when it gets in the
way they snub it. Sometimes this latter takes the
shape of a practical joke.
234
,
ROUGHING IT
One morning Dick Hyde rode furiously up to
General Buncombe's door in Carson City and rushed
into his presence without stopping to tie his horse.
He seemed much excited. He told the General that
he wanted him to conduct a suit for him and would
pay him five hundred dollars if he achieved a victory.
And then, with violent gestures and a world of pro-
fanity, he poured out his griefs. He said it was
pretty well known that for some years he had been
farming (or ranching, as the more customary term
is) in Washoe District, and making a successful
thing of it, and furthermore it was known that his
ranch was situated just in the edge of the valley, and
that Tom Morgan owned a ranch immediately above
it on the mountainside. And now the trouble was,
that one of those hated and dreaded landslides had
come and slid Morgan's ranch, fences, cabins, cattle,
barns, and everything down on top of his ranch and
exactly covered up every single vestige of his prop-
erty, to a depth of about thirty-eight feet. Morgan
was in possession and refused to vacate the premises
— said he was occupying his own cabin and not
interfering with anybody else's — and said the cabin
was standing on the same dirt and same ranch it
had always stood on, and he would like to see any-
body make him vacate.
"And when I reminded him," said Hyde, weep-
ing, "that it was on top of my ranch and that he
was trespassing, he had the infernal meanness to ask
me why didn't I stay on my ranch and hold posses-
sion when I see him a-coming! Why didn't I stay
on it, the blathering lunatic — by George, when I
225
MARK TWAIN
heard that racket and looked up that hill it was just
like the whole world was a-ripping and a-tearing
down that mountainside — splinters and cord- wood,
thunder and lightning, hail and snow, odds and
ends of haystacks, and awful clouds of dust! — trees
going end over end in the air, rocks as big as a
house jumping 'bout a thousand feet high and bust-
ing into ten million pieces, cattle turned inside out
and a-coming head on with their tails hanging out
between their teeth! — and in the midst of all that
wrack and destruction sot that cussed Morgan on his
gatepost, a-wondering why I didn't stay and hold-
possession ! Laws bless me, I just took one glimpse,
General, and lit out'n the county in three jumps
exactly.
"But what grinds me is that that Morgan hangs
on there and won't move off'n that ranch — says it's
his'n and he's going to keep it — likes it better'n he
did when it was higher up the hill. Mad! Well,
I've been so mad for two days I couldn't find my
way to town — been wandering around in the brush
in a starving condition — got anything here to drink,
G2neral? But I'm here now, and I'm a-going to
law. You hear me!"
Never in all the world, perhaps, were a man's feel-
ings so outraged as were the General's. He said he
had never heard of such high-handed conduct in all
his life as this Morgan's. And he said there was no
use in going to law — Morgan had no shadow of right
to remain where he was — nobody in the wide world
would uphold him in it, and no lawyer would take
his case and no judge listen to it. Hyde said that
2}6
ROUGHING IT
right there was where he was mistaken — everybody
in town sustained Morgan; Hal Bray ton, a very
smart lawyer, had taken his case; the courts being
in vacation, it was to be tried before a referee, and
ex-Governor Roop had already been appointed to
that office, and would open his court in a large public
hall near the hotel at two that afternoon.
The General was amazed. He said he had sus-
pected before that the people of that territory were
fools, and now he knew it. But he said rest easy,
rest easy and collect the witnesses, for the victory
was just as certain as if the conflict were already
over. Hyde wiped away his tears and left.
At two in the afternoon referee Roop's Court
opened, and Roop appeared throned among his
sheriffs, the witnesses, and spectators, and wearing
upon his face a solemnity so awe-inspiring that some
of his fellow-conspirators had misgivings that maybe
he had not comprehended, after all, that this was
merely a joke. An unearthly stillness prevailed, for
at the slightest noise the judge uttered sternly the
command :
"Order in the Court!"
And the sheriffs promptly echoed it. Presently
the General elbowed his way through the crowd of
spectators, with his arms full of law-books, and on
his ears fell an order from the judge which was the
first respectful recognition of his high official dignity
that had ever saluted them, and it trickled pleasantly
through his whole system :
"Way for the United States Attorney!"
The witnesses were called — legislators, high gov-
237
MARK TWAIN
eminent officers, ranchmen, miners, Indians, China-
men, negroes. Three-fourths of them were called
by the defendant Morgan, but no matter, their testi-
mony invariably went in favor of the plaintiff Hyde.
Each new witness only added new testimony to the
absurdity of a man's claiming to own another man's
property because his farm had slid down on top of
it. Then the Morgan lawyers made their speeches,
and seemed to make singularly weak ones — they
did really nothing to help the Morgan cause. And
now the General, with exultation in his face, got
up and made an impassioned effort; he pounded
the table, he banged the law-books, he shouted,
and roared, and howled, he quoted from everything
and everybody, poetry, sarcasm, statistics, history,
pathos, bathos, blasphemy, and wound up with a
grand war-whoop for free speech, freedom of the
press, free schools, the Glorious Bird of America and
the principles of eternal justice! [Applause.]
When the General sat down, he did it with the
conviction that if there was anything in good strong
testimony, a great speech and believing and admiring
countenances all around, Mr. Morgan's case was
killed. Ex-Governor Roop leaned his head upon his
hand for some minutes, thinking, and the still audi-
ence waited for his decision. And then he got up and
stood erect, with bended head, and thought again.
Then he walked the floor with long, deliberate
strides, his chin in his hand, and still the audience
waited. At last he returned to his throne, seated
himself, and began, impressively:
"Gentlemen, I feci the great responsibility that
238
ROUGHING IT
rests upon me this day. This is no ordinary casi. .
On the contrary, it is plain that it is the most solemn
and awful that ever man was called upon to decide.
Gentlemen, I have listened attentively to the evi-
dence, and have perceived that the weight of it,
the overwhelming weight of it, is in favor of the
plaintiff Hyde. I have listened also to the remark
of counsel, with high interest — and especially will I
commend the masterly and irrefutable logic of the
distinguished gentleman who represents the plaintiff.
But, gentlemen, let us beware how we allow mere
human testimony, human ingenuity in argument and
human ideas of equity, to influence us at a moment
so solemn as this. Gentlemen, it ill becomes us,
worms as we are, to meddle with the decrees of
Heaven. It is plain to me that Heaven, in its in-
scrutable wisdom, has seen fit to move this defend-
ant's ranch for a purpose. We are but creatures,
and we must submit. If Heaven has chosen to favor
the defendant Morgan in this marked and wonderful
manner; and if Heaven, dissatisfied with the posi-
tion of the Morgan ranch upon the mountainside,
has chosen to remove it to a position more eligible
and more advantageous for its owner, it ill becomes
us, insects as we are, to question the legality of the
act or inquire into the reasons that prompted it.
No — Heaven created the ranches, and it is Heaven's
prerogative to rearrange them, to experiment with
them, to shift them around at its pleasure. It is for
us to submit, without repining. I warn you that this
thing which has happened is a thing with which the
sacrilegious hands and brains and tongues of men
239
MARK TWAIN
must not meddle. Gentlemen, it is the verdict of
this court that the plaintiff, Richard Hyde, has been
deprived of his ranch by the visitation of God!
And from this decision there is no appeal."
Buncombe seized his cargo of law-books and
plunged out of the court-room frantic with indigna-
tion. He pronounced Roop to be a miraculous fool,
an inspired idiot. In all good faith he returned at
night and remonstrated with Roop upon his extrava-
gant decision, and implored him to walk the floor
and think for half an hour, and see if he could not
figure out some sort of modification of the verdict.
Roop yielded at last and got up to walk. He walked
two hours and a half, and at last his face lit up
happily and he told Buncombe it had occurred to
him that the ranch underneath the new Morgan
ranch still belonged to Hyde, that his title to the
ground was just as good as it had ever been, and
therefore he was of opinion that Hyde had a right
to dig it out from under there and —
The General never waited to hear the end of it.
He was always an impatient and irascible man,
that way. At the end of two months the fact that
he had been played upon with a joke had managed
to bore itself, like another Hoosac Tunnel, through
the solid adamant of his understanding.
CHAPTER XXXV
WHEN we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback,
we had an addition to the company in the
person of Capt. John Nye, the Governor's brother.
He had a good memory, and a tongue hung in the
middle. This is a combination which gives immor-
tality to conversation. Capt. John never suffered
the talk to flag or falter once during the hundred
and twenty miles of the journey. In addition to
his conversational powers, he had one or two other
endowments of a marked character. One was a
singular "handiness" about doing anything and.
everything, from laying out a railroad or organizing
a political party, down to sewing on buttons, shoe-
ing a horse, or setting a broken leg, or a hen. Another
was a spirit of accommodation that prompted him
to take the needs, difficulties, and perplexities of
anybody and everybody upon his own shoulders at
any and all times, and dispose of them with admirable
facility and alacrity — hence he always managed to
find vacant beds in crowded inns, and plenty to
eat in the emptiest larders. And finally, wherever
he met a man, woman or child, in camp, inn, or
desert, he either knew such parties personally or
had been acquainted with a relative of the same.
Such another traveling comrade was never seen
241
MARK TWAIN
before. I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the
way in which he overcame difficulties. On the
second day out, we arrived, very tired and hungry,
at a poor little inn in the desert, and were told that
the house was full, no provisions on hand, and
neither hay nor barley to spare for the horses —
we must move on. The rest of us wanted to hurry
on while it was yet light, but Capt. John insisted on
stopping awhile. We dismounted and entered. There
was no welcome for us on any face. Capt. John
began his blandishments, and within twenty minutes
he had accomplished the following things, viz. : found
old acquaintances in three teamsters; discovered
that he used to go to school with the landlord's
mother; recognized his wife as a lady whose life he
had saved once in California, by stopping her run-
away horse; mended a child's broken toy and won
the favor of its mother, a guest of the inn; helped
the hostler bleed a horse, and prescribed for another
horse that had the "heaves"; treated the entire
party three times at the landlord's bar; produced a
later paper than anybody had seen for a week and
sat himself down to read the news to a deeply
interested audience. The result, summed up, was
as follows: The hostler found plenty of feed for
our horses; we had a trout supper, an exceedingly
sociable time after it, good beds to sleep in, and a
surprising breakfast in the morning — and when we
left, we left lamented by all! Capt. John had some
bad traits, but he had some uncommonly valuable
ones to offset them with.
Esmeralda was in many respects another Kuni-
2*2
ROUGHING IT
boldt, but in a little more forward state. The claims
we had been paying assessments on were entirely
worthless, and we threw them away. The principal
one cropped out of the top of a knoll that was
fourteen feet high, and the inspired Board of Direc-
tors were running a tunnel under that knoll to
strike the ledge. The tunnel would have to be
seventy feet long, and would then strike the ledge
at the same depth that a shaft twelve feet deep
would have reached! The Board were living on
the "assessments." [N. B. — This hint comes too
late for the enlightenment of New York silver-miners ;
they have already learned all about this neat trick
by experience.] The Board had no desire to strike
the ledge, knowing that it was as barren of silver
as a curbstone. This reminiscence calls to mind
Jim Townsend's tunnel. He had paid assessments
on a mine called the "Daley" till he was well-nigh
penniless. Finally an assessment was levied to run
a tunnel two hundred and fifty feet on the Daley,
and Townsend went up on the hill to look into
matters. He found the Daley cropping out of the
apex of an exceedingly sharp-pointed peak, and a
couple of men up there "facing" the proposed tunnel.
Townsend made a calculation . Then he said to the men :
"So you have taken a contract to run a tunnel
into this hill two hundred and fifty feet to strike this
ledge?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, do you know that you have got one of
the most expensive and arduous undertakings before
you that was ever conceived by man?"
3 43
MARK TWAIN
"Why no— how is that?"
"Because this hill is only twenty-five feet through
from side to side; and so you have got to build two
hundred and twenty-five feet of your tunnel on
trestle- wrork!"
The ways of silver-mining Boards are exceedingly
dark and sinuous.
We took up various claims, and commenced shafts
and tunnels on them, but never finished any of
them. We had to do a certain amount of work on
each to "hold" it, else other parties could seize
our property after the expiration of ten days. We
were always hunting up new claims and doing a
little work on them and then waiting for a buyer —
who never came. We never found any ore that would
yield more than fifty dollars a ton; and as the mills
charged fifty dollars a ton for working ore and ex-
tracting the silver, our pocket-money melted steadily
away and none returned to take its place. We lived
in a little cabin and cooked for ourselves; and
altogether it was a hard life, though a hopeful one —
for we never ceased to expect fortune and a cus-
tomer to burst upon us some day.
At last, when flour reached a dollar a pound, and
money could not be borrowed on the best security
at less than eight per cent, a month (I being without
the security, too), I abandoned mining and went to
milling. That is to say, I went to work as a com-
mon laborer in a quartz-mill, at ten dollars a week
and board.
CHAPTER XXXVI
I HAD already learned how hard and long and
dismal a task it is to burrow down into the
bowels of the earth and get out the coveted ore;
and now I learned that the burrowing was only half
the work; and that to get the silver out of the ore
was the dreary and laborious other half of it. We
had to turn out at six in the morning and keep at it
till dark. This mill was a six-stamp affair, driven
by steam. Six tall, upright rods of iron, as large as
a man's ankle, and heavily shod with a mass of iron
and steel at their lower ends, were framed together
like a gate, and these rose and fell, one after the
other, in a ponderous dance, in an iron box called
a "battery." Each of these rods or stamps weighed
six hundred pounds. One of us stood by the battery
all day long, breaking up masses of silver-bearing
rock with a sledge and shoveling it into the battery.
The ceaseless dance of the stamps pulverized the
rock to powder, and a stream of water that trickled
into the battery turned it to a creamy paste. The
minutest particles were driven through a fine wire
screen which fitted close around the battery, and
were washed into great tubs warmed by superheated
steam — amalgamating-pans, they are called. The
mass of pulp in the pans was kept constantly stirred
24S
MARK TWAIN
up by revolving "mullers." A quantity of quick-
silver was kept always in the battery, and this seized
some of the liberated gold and silver particles and
held on to them; quicksilver was shaken in a fine
shower into the pans, also, about every half-hour,
through a buckskin sack. Quantities of coarse salt
and sulphate of copper were added from time to
time to assist the amalgamation by destroying base
metals which coated the gold and silver and would
not let it unite with the quicksilver. All these tire-
some things we had to attend to constantly. Streams
of dirty water flowed always from the pans and were
carried off in broad wooden troughs to the ravine.
One would not suppose that atoms of gold and silver
would float on top of six inches of water, but they
did; and in order to catch them, coarse blankets
were laid in the troughs, and little obstructing
"riffles" charged with quicksilver were placed here
and there across the troughs also. These riffles had
to be cleaned and the blankets washed out every
evening, to get their precious accumulations — and
after all this eternity of trouble one-third of the
silver and gold in a ton of rock would find its way
to the end of the troughs in the ravine at last and
have to be worked over again some day. There is
nothing so aggravating as silver - milling. There
never was any idle time in that mill. There was
always something to do. It is a pity that Adam
could not have gone straight out of Eden into a
quartz-mill, in order to understand the full force
of his doom to "earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow." Every now and then, during the day, we
246
ROUGHING IT
had to scoop some pulp out of the pans, and tedi
ously "wash" it in a horn spoon — wash it little by
little over the edge till at last nothing was left but
some little dull globules of quicksilver in the bottom.
If they were soft and yielding, the pan needed some
salt or some sulphate of copper or some other chem-
ical rubbish to assist digestion; if they were crisp
to the touch and would retain a dint, they were
freighted with all the silver and gold they could
seize and hold, and consequently the pans needed
a fresh charge of quicksilver. When there was
nothing else to do, one could always "screen tailings."
That is to say, he could shovel up the dried sand
that had washed down to the ravine through the
troughs and dash it against an upright wire screen
to free it from pebbles and prepare it for working
over. The process of amalgamation differed in the
various mills, and this included changes in style of
pans and other machinery, and a great diversity of
opinion existed as to the best in use, but none of
the methods employed involved the principle of
milling ore without "screening the tailings." Of all
recreations in the world, screening tailings on a hot
day, with a long-handled shovel, is the most unde-
sirable.
At the end of the week the machinery was stopped
and we "cleaned up." That is to say, we got the
pulp out of the pans and batteries, and washed the
mud patiently away till nothing was left but the
long - accumulating mass of quicksilver, with its
imprisoned treasures. This we made into heavy,
compact snowballs, and piled them up in a bright,
247
MARK TWAIN
luxurious heap for inspection. Making these snow-
balls cost me a fine gold ring — that and ignorance
together; for the quicksilver invaded the ring with
the same facility with which water saturates a
sponge — separated its particles and the ring crum-
bled to pieces.
We put our pile of quicksilver balls into an iron
retort that had a pipe leading from it to a pail of
water, and then applied a roasting heat. The
quicksilver turned to vapor, escaped through the
pipe into the pail, and the water turned it into good
wholesome quicksilver again. Quicksilver is very
costly, and they never waste it. On opening the
retort, there was our week's work — a lump of pure-
white, frosty - looking silver, twice as large as a
man's head. Perhaps a fifth of the mass was gold,
but the color of it did not show — would not have
shown if two-thirds of it had been gold. We melted
it up and made a solid brick of it by pouring it into
an iron brick-mold.
By such a tedious and laborious process were
silver bricks obtained. This mill was but one of
many others in operation at the time. The first
one in Nevada was built at Egan Canon and was a
small insignificant affair and compared most unfavor-
ably with some of the immense establishments after-
ward located at Virginia City and elsewhere.
From our bricks a little corner was chipped off
for the "fire assay" — a method used to determine
the proportions of gold, silver, and base metals in
the mass. This is an interesting process. The chip
is hammered oMt as thin as paper and weighed on
248
ROUGHING IT
scales so fine and sensitive that if you weigh a two-
inch scrap of paper on them and then write your
name on the paper with a coarse, soft pencil and
weigh it again, the scales will take marked notice of
the addition. Then a little lead (also weighed) is
rolled up with the flake of silver, and the two are
melted at a great heat in a small vessel called a
cupel, made by compressing bone ashes into a cup-
shape in a steel mold. The base metals oxydize
and are absorbed with the lead into the pores of the
cupel. A button or globule of perfectly pure gold
and silver is left behind, and by weighing it and
noting the loss, the assayer knows the proportion of
base metal the brick contains. He has to separate
the gold from the silver now. The button is ham-
mered out flat and thin, put in the furnace and kept
some time at a red heat; after cooling it off it is
rolled up like a quill and heated in a glass vessel
containing nitric acid; the acid dissolves the silver
and leaves the gold pure and ready to be weighed
on its own merits. Then salt-water is poured into
the vessel containing the dissolved silver, and the
silver returns to palpable form again and sinks to
the bottom. Nothing now remains but to weigh it;
then the proportions of the several metals contained
in the brick are known, and the assayer stamps the
value of the brick upon its surface.
The sagacious reader will know now, without
being told, that the speculative miner, in getting a
"fire-assay" made of a piece of rock from his mine
(to help him sell the same), was not in the habit of
picking out the least valuable fragment of rock on
249
MARK TWAIN
his dump-pile, but quite the contrary. I have seen
men hunt over a pile of nearly worthless quartz for
an hour, and at last find a little piece as large as a
filbert, which was rich in gold and silver — and this
was reserved for a fire-assay ! Of course the fire-assay
would demonstrate that a ton of such rock would
yield hundreds of dollars — and on such assays many
an utterly worthless mine was sold.
Assaying was a good business, and so some men
engaged in it, occasionally, who were not strictly
scientific and capable. One assayer got such rich
results out of all specimens brought to him that in
time he acquired almost a monopoly of the business.
But like all men who achieve success, he became an
object of envy and suspicion. The other assay ers
entered into a conspiracy against him, and let some
prominent citizens into the secret in order to show
that they meant fairly. Then they broke a little
fragment off a carpenter's grindstone and got a
stranger to take it to the popular scientist and get it
assayed. In the course of an hour the result came —
whereby it appeared that a ton of that rock would
yield $1,284.40 in silver and $366.36 in gold!
Due publication of the whole matter was made in
the paper, and the popular assayer left town "be-
tween two days."
I will remark, in passing, that I only remained in
the milling business one week. I told my employer
I could not stay longer without an advance in my
wages; that I liked quartz -milling, indeed was in-
fatuated with it; that I had never before grown so
tenderly attached to an occupation in so short a
250
ROUGHING IT
time; that nothing, it seemed to me, gave such
scope to intellectual activity as feeding a battery and
screening tailings, and nothing so stimulated the
moral attributes as retorting bullion and washing
blankets — still, I felt constrained to ask an increase
of salary.
He said he was paying me ten dollars a week, and
thought it a good round sum. How much did I
want?
I said about four hundred thousand dollars a
month, and board, was about all I could reasonably
ask, considering the hard times.
I was ordered off the premises! And yet, when
I look back to those days and call to mind the ex-
ceeding hardness of the labor I performed in that
mill, I only regret that I did not ask him seven hun-
dred thousand.
Shortly after this I began to grow crazy, along
with the rest of the population, about the mysterious
and wonderful "cement -mine," and to make prepa-
rations to take advantage of any opportunity that
might offer to go and help hunt for it.
CHAPTER XXXVII
IT was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono
Lake that the marvelous Whiteman cement-mine
was supposed to lie. Every now and then it would
be reported that Mr. W. had passed stealthily
through Esmeralda at dead of night, in disguise,
and then we would have a wild excitement — because
he must be steering for his secret mine, and now
was the time to follow him. In less than three
hours after daylight all the horses and mules and
donkeys in the vicinity would be bought, hired, or
stolen, and half the community would be off for the
mountains, following in the wake of Whiteman. But
W. would drift about through the mountain gorges
for days together, in a purposeless sort of way, until
the provisions of the miners ran out, and they would
have to go back home. I have known it reported
at eleven at night, in a large mining - camp, that
Whiteman had just passed through, and in two
hours the streets, so quiet before, would be swarm-
ing with men and animals. Every individual would
be trying to be very secret, but yet venturing to
whisper to just one neighbor that W. had passed
through. And long before daylight — this in the dead
of winter — the stampede would be complete, the
camp deserted, and the whole population gone chas-
ing after W.
252
ROUGHING IT
The tradition was that in the early immigration,
more than twenty years ago, three young Germans;
brothers, who had survived an Indian massacre on
the Plains, wandered on foot through the deserts,
avoiding all trails and roads, and simply holding a
westerly direction and hoping to find California
before they starved or died of fatigue. And in a
gorge in the mountains they sat down to rest one
day, when one of them noticed a curious vein of
cement running along the ground, shot full of lumps
of dull yellow metal. They saw that it was gold,
and that here was a fortune to be acquired in a single
day. The vein was about as wide as a curbstone,
and fully two-thirds of it was pure gold. Every
pound of the wonderful cement was worth well-nigh
two hundred dollars. Each of the brothers loaded
himself with about twenty-five pounds of it, and then
they covered up all traces of the vein, made a rude
drawing of the locality and the principal landmarks
in the vicinity, and started westward again. But
troubles thickened about them. In their wanderings
one brother fell and broke his leg, and the others
were obliged to go on and leave him to die in the
wilderness. Another, worn out and starving, gave
up by and by, and laid down to die, but after two
or three weeks of incredible hardships, the third
reached the settlements of California exhausted, sick,
and his mind deranged by his sufferings. He had
thrown away all his cement but a few fragments,
but these were sufficient to set everybody wild with
excitement. However, he had had enough of the
cement country, and nothing could induce him tc
2 53
MARK TWAIN
lead a party thither. He was entirely content to work
on a farm for wages. But he gave Whiteman his
map, and described the cement region as well as he
could, and thus transferred the curse to that gentle-
man— for when I had my one accidental glimpse
of Mr. W. in Esmeralda he had been hunting for
the lost mine, in hunger and thirst, poverty and sick-
ness, for twelve or thirteen years. Some people
believed he had found it, but most people believed
he had not. I saw a piece of cement as large as my
fist which was said to have been given to Whiteman
by the young German, and it was of a seductive
nature. Lumps of virgin gold were as thick in it
as raisins in a slice of fruit cake. The privilege of
working such a mine one week would be sufficient
for a man of reasonable desires.
A new partner of ours, a Mr. Higbie, knew White-
man well by sight, and a friend of ours, a Mr. Van
Dorn, was well acquainted with him, and not only
that, but had Whiteman's promise that he should
have a private hint in time to enable him to join
the next cement expedition. Van Dorn had promised
to extend the hint to us. One evening Higbie came
in greatly excited, and said he felt certain he had
recognized Whiteman, up-town, disguised and in a
pretended state of intoxication. In a little while
Van Dorn arrived and confirmed the news; and so
we gathered in our cabin and with heads close
together arranged our plans in impressive whispers.
We were to leave town quietly, after midnight, in
two or three small parties, so as not to attract atten-
tion, and meet at dawn on the "divide" overlook-
254
ROUGHING IT
ing Mono Lake, eight or nine miles distant. Wt
were to make no noise after starting, and not speak
above a whisper under any circumstances. It was
believed that for once Whiteman's presence was un-
known in the town and his expedition unsuspected.
Our conclave broke up at nine o'clock, and we set
about our preparations diligently and with profound
secrecy. At eleven o'clock we saddled our horses,
hitched them with their long riatas (or lassos), and
then brought out a side of bacon, a sack of beans, a
small sack of coffee, some sugar, a hundred pounds
of flour in sacks, some tin cups and a coffee-pot,
frying-pan and some few other necessary articles.
All these things were "packed" on the back of a
led horse — and whoever has not been taught, by a
Spanish adept, to pack an animal, let him never
hope to do the thing by natural smartness. That is
impossible. Higbie had had some experience, but
was not perfect. He put on the pack - saddle (a
thing like a sawbuck), piled the property on it, and
then wound a rope all over and about it and under
it, "every which way," taking a hitch in it every
now and then, and occasionally surging back on it
till the horse's side sunk in and he gasped for breath
— but every time the lashings grew tight in one
place they loosened in another. We never did get
the load tight all over, but we got it so that it would
do, after a fashion, and then we started, in single
file, close order, and without a word. It was a dark
night. We kept the middle of the road, and pro-
ceeded in a slow walk past the rows of cabins, and
whenever a miner came to his door I trembled for
255
MARK TWAIN
fear the light would shine on us and excite curiosity.
But nothing happened. We began the long winding
ascent of the canon, toward the "divide," and
presently the cabins began to grow infrequent, and
the intervals between them wider and wider, and
then I began to breathe tolerably freely and feel less
like a thief and a murderer. I was in the rear, lead-
ing the pack-horse. As the ascent grew steeper he
grew proportionately less satisfied with his cargo,
and began to pull back on his riata occasionally and
delay progress. My comrades were passing out of
sight in the gloom. I was getting anxious. I coaxed
and bullied the pack-horse till I presently got him
into a trot, and then the tin cups and pans strung
about his person frightened him and he ran. His
riata was wound around the pommel of my saddle,
and so, as he went by he dragged me from my horse
and the two animals traveled briskly on without
me. But I was not alone — the loosened cargo tum-
bled overboard from the pack-horse and fell close to
me. It was abreast of almost the last cabin. A
miner came out and said:
"Hello!"
I was thirty steps from him, and knew he could
not see me, it was so very dark in the shadow of the
mountain. So I lay still. Another head appeared
in the light of the cabin door, and presently the two
men walked toward me. They stopped within ten
steps of me, and one said :
"'St! Listen."
I could not have been in a more distressed state if
I had been escaping justice with a price on my head.
256
ROUGHING IT
Then the miners appeared to sit down on a boulder,
though I could not see them distinctly enough to be
very sure what they did. One said :
"I heard a noise, as plain as I ever heard any-
thing. It seemed to be about there — "
A stone whizzed by my head. I flattened myself
out in the dust like a postage-stamp, and thought to
myself if he mended his aim ever so little he would
probably hear another noise. In my heart, now, I
execrated secret expeditions. I promised myself
that this should be my last, though the Sierras were
ribbed with cement veins. Then one of the men
said:
"I'll tell you what! Welch knew what he was
talking about when he said he saw Whiteman to-
day. I heard horses — that was the noise. I am
going down to Welch's, right away."
They left and I was glad. I did not care whither
they went, so they went. I was willing they should
visit Welch, and the sooner the better.
As soon as they closed their cabin door my com-
rades emerged from the gloom; they had caught
the horses and were waiting for a clear coast again.
We remounted the cargo on the pack-horse and got
under way, and as day broke we reached the "di-
vide" and joined Van Dorn. Then we journeyed
down into the valley of the lake, and feeling secure,
we halted to cook breakfast, for we were tired and
sleepy and hungry. Three hours later the rest of
the population filed over the "divide" in a long
procession, and drifted off out of sight around the
bo1- iers of the lake !
2S7
MARK TWAIN
Whether or not my accident had produced this
result we never knew, but at least one thing was cer-
tain— the secret was out and Whiteman would not
enter upon a search for the cement-mine this time.
We were filled with chagrin.
We held a council and decided to make the best
of our misfortune and enjoy a week's holiday on the
borders of the curious lake. Mono, it is sometimes
called, and sometimes the "Dead Sea of California."
It is one of the strangest freaks of Nature to be
found in any land, but it is hardly ever mentioned
in print and very seldom visited, because it lies away
off the usual routes of travel, and besides is so diffi-
cult to get at that only men content to endure the
roughest life will consent to take upon themselves
the discomforts of such a trip. On the morning of
our second day, we traveled around to a remote and
particularly wild spot on the borders of the lake,
where a stream of fresh, ice-cold water entered it
from the mountainside, and then we went regularly
into camp. We hired a large boat and two shot-
guns from a lonely ranchman who lived some ten
miles further on, and made ready for comfort and
recreation. We soon got thoroughly acquainted
with the lake and all its peculiarities.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
MONO LAKE lies in a lifeless, treeless, hideous
desert, eight thousand feet above the level of
the sea, and is guarded by mountains two thousand
feet higher, whose summits are always clothed in
clouds. This solemn, silent, sailless sea — this lonely
tenant of the loneliest spot on earth — is little graced
with the picturesque. It is an unpretending ex-
panse of grayish water, about a hundred miles in
circumference, with two islands in its center, mere
upheavals of rent and scorched and blistered lava,
snowed over with gray banks and drifts of pumice-
stone and ashes, the winding-sheet of the dead
volcano, whose vast crater the lake has seized upon
and occupied.
The lake is two hundred feet deep, and its slug-
gish waters are so strong with alkali that if you only
dip the most hopelessly soiled garment into them
once or twice, and wring it out, it will be found as
clean as if it had been through the ablest of washer-
women's hands. While we camped there our laun-
dry work was easy. We tied the week's washing
astern of our boat, and sailed a quarter of a mile,
and the job was complete, all to the wringing out.
If we threw the water on our heads and gave them
a rub or so, the white lather would pile up three
259
MARK TWAIN
inches high. This water is not good for bruised
places and abrasions of the skin. We had a valu-
able dog. He had raw places on him. He had
more raw places on him than sound ones. He was
the rawest dog I almost ever saw. He jumped
overboard one day to get away from the flies. But
it was bad judgment. In his condition, it would
have been just as comfortable to jump into the fire.
The alkali water nipped him in all the raw places
simultaneously, and he struck out for the shore with
considerable interest. He yelped and barked and
howled as he went — and by the time he got to the
shore there was no bark to him — for he had barked
the bark all out of his inside, and the alkali water
had cleaned the bark all off his outside, and he
probably wished he had never embarked in any such
enterprise. He ran round and round in a circle,
and pawed the earth and clawed the air, and threw
double somersaults, sometimes backward and some-
times forward, in the most extraordinary manner.
He was not a demonstrative dog, as a general thing,
but rather of a grave and serious turn of mind, and
I never saw him take so much interest in anything
before. He finally struck out over the mountains,
at a gait which we estimated at about two hundred
and fifty miles an hour, and he is going yet. This
was about nine years ago. We look for what is left
of him along here every day.
A white man cannot drink the water of Mono
Lake, for it is nearly pure lye. It is said that the
Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes, though.
It is not improbable, for they are among the purest
260
ROUGHING IT
liars I ever saw. [There will be no additional
charge for this joke, except to parties requiring an
explanation of it. This joke has received high com-
mendation from some of the ablest minds of the age.]
There are no fish in Mono Lake — no frogs, no
snakes, no polliwogs — nothing, in fact, that goes to
make life desirable. Millions of wild ducks and sea-
gulls swim about the surface, but no living thing
exists under the surface, except a white feathery sort
of worm, one-half an inch long, which looks like a
bit of white thread frayed out at the sides. If you
dip up a gallon of water, you will get about fifteen
thousand of these. They give to the water a sort of
grayish- white appearance. Then there is a fly,
which looks something like our house-fly. These
settle on the beach to eat the worms that wash
ashore — and any time, you can see there a belt of
flies an inch deep and six feet wide, and this belt
extends clear around the lake — a belt of flies one
hundred miles long. If you throw a stone among
them, they swarm up so thick that they look dense,
like a cloud. You can hold them under water as
long as you please — they do not mind it — they are
only proud of it. When you let them go, they pop
up to the surface as dry as a patent-office report,
and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been
educated especially with a view to affording instruct-
ive entertainment to man in that particular way.
Providence leaves nothing to go by chance. All
things have their uses and their part and proper
place in Nature's economy: the ducks eat the flies
— the flies eat the worms — the Indians eat all
261
MARK TWAIN
three — the wildcats eat the Indians — the white
folks eat the wildcats — and thus all things are lovely.
Mono Lake is a hundred miles in a straight line
from the ocean — and between it and the ocean are
one or two ranges of mountains — yet thousands of
sea-gulls go there every season to lay their eggs and
rear their young. One would as soon expect to
find sea-gulls in Kansas. And in this connection let
us observe another instance of Nature's wisdom.
The islands in the lake being merely huge masses of
lava, coated over with ashes and pumice-stone, and
utterly innocent of vegetation or anything that
would burn; and sea-gulls' eggs being entirely use-
less to anybody unless they be cooked, Nature has
provided an unfailing spring of boiling water on the
largest island, and you can put your eggs in there,
and in four minutes you can boil them as hard as
any statement I have made during the past fifteen
years. Within ten feet of the boiling spring is a
spring of pure cold water, sweet and wholesome.
So, in that island you get your board and washing
free of charge — and if Nature had gone further and
furnished a nice American hotel clerk who was crusty
and disobliging, and didn't know anything about the
time-tables, or the railroad routes — or — anything —
and was proud of it — I would not wish for a more
desirable boarding-house.
Half a dozen little mountain brooks flow into
Mono Lake, but not a stream of any kind flows out
of it. It neither rises nor falls, apparently, and what
it does with its surplus water is a dark and bloody
mystery.
262
ROUGHING IT
There are only two seasons in the region round
about Mono Lake — and these are, the breaking up
of one winter and the beginning of the next. More
than once (in Esmeralda) I have seen a perfectly
blistering morning open up with the thermometer at
ninety degrees at eight o'clock, and seen the snow
fall fourteen inches deep and that same identical
thermometer go down to forty-four degrees under
shelter, before nine o'clock at night. Under favor-
able circumstances it snows at least once in every
single month in the year, in the little town of Mono
So uncertain is the climate in summer that a lady
who goes out visiting cannot hope to be prepared
for all emergencies unless she takes her fan under one
arm and her snow-shoes under the other. When
they have a Fourth-of-July procession it generally
snows on them, and they do say that as a general
thing when a man calls for a brandy toddy there,
the barkeeper chops it off with a hatchet and wraps
it up in a paper, like maple-sugar. And it is further
reported that the old soakers haven't any teeth —
wore them out eating gin cocktails and brandy
punches. I do not indorse that statement — I simply
give it for what it is worth — and it is worth — well,
I should say, millions, to any man who can believe
it without straining himself. But I do indorse the
snow on the Fourth of July — because I know that
to be true.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ABOUT seven o'clock one blistering hot morning
/~\ — for it was now dead summer-time — Higbie
and I took the boat and started on a voyage of dis-
covery to the two islands. We had often longed to
do this, but had been deterred by the fear of storms;
for they were frequent, and severe enough to capsize
an ordinary rowboat like ours without great diffi-
culty— and once capsized, death would ensue in
spite of the bravest swimming, for that venomous
water would eat a man's eyes out like fire, and burn
him out inside, too, if he shipped a sea. It was
called twelve miles, straight out to the islands — a
long pull and a warm one — but the morning was so
quiet and sunny, and the lake so smooth and glassy
and dead, that we could not resist the temptation.
So we filled two large tin canteens with water (since
we were not acquainted with the locality of the
spring said to exist on the large island), and started.
Higbie's brawny muscles gave the boat good speed,
but by the time we reached our destination we
judged that we had pulled nearer fifteen miles than
twelve.
We landed on the big island and went ashore.
We tried the water in the canteens, now, and found
that the sun had spoiled it; it was so brackish that
264
ROUGHING IT
we could not drink it; so we poured it out and
began a search for the spring — for thirst augments
fast as soon as it is apparent that one has no means
at hand of quenching it. The island was a long,
moderately high hill of ashes — nothing but gray-
ashes and pumice-stone, in which we sunk to our
knees at every step — and all around the top was a
forbidding wall of scorched and blasted rocks.
When we reached the top and got within the wall,
we found simply a shallow, far-reaching basin, car-
peted with ashes, and here and there a patch of fine
sand. In places, picturesque jets of steam shot up
out of crevices, giving evidence that although this
ancient crater had gone out of active business, there
was still some fire left in its furnaces. Close to one
of these jets of steam stood the only tree on the
island — a small pine of most graceful shape and
most faultless symmetry; its color was a brilliant
green, for the steam drifted unceasingly through its
branches and kept them always moist. It contrasted
strangely enough, did this vigorous and beautiful
outcast, with its dead and dismal surroundings. It
was like a cheerful spirit in a mourning household.
We hunted for the spring everywhere, traversing
the full length of the island (two or three miles),
and crossing it twice — climbing ash-hills patiently,
and then sliding down the other side in a sitting
posture, plowing up smothering volumes of gray
dust. But we found nothing but solitude, ashes.
and a heartbreaking silence. Finally we noticed
that the wind had risen, and we forgot our thirst in
a solicitude of greater importance; for, the lake
265
MARK TWAIN
oeing quiet, we had not taken pains about securing
the boat. We hurried back to a point overlooking
our landing-place, and then — but mere words can-
not describe our dismay — the boat was gone! The
chances were that there was not another boat on the
entire lake. The situation was not comfortable —
in truth, to speak plainly, it was frightful. We
were prisoners on a desolate island, in aggravating
proximity to friends who were for the present help-
less to aid us; and what was still more uncomfort-
able was the reflection that we had neither food nor
water. But presently we sighted the boat. It was
drifting along, leisurely, about fifty yards from shore,
tossing in a foamy sea. It drifted, and continued
to drift, but at the same safe distance from land,
and we walked along abreast it and waited for for-
tune to favor us. At the end of an hour it approached
a jutting cape, and Higbie ran ahead and posted
himself on the utmost verge and prepared for the
assault. If we failed there, there was no hope for
us. It was driving gradually shoreward all the time,
now; but whether it was driving fast enough to
make the connection or not was the momentous
question. When it got within thirty steps of Higbie
I was so excited that I fancied I could hear my own
heart beat. When, a little later, it dragged slowly
along and seemed about to go by, only one little
yard out of reach, it seemed as if my heart stood
still; and when it was exactly abreast him and
began to widen away, and he still standing like a
watching statue, I knew my heart did stop. But
when he gave a great spring, the next instant, and
266
ROUGHING IT
lit fairly in the stern, I discharged a war-wnoop
that awoke the solitudes!
But it dulled my enthusiasm, presently, when he
told me he had not been caring whether the boat
came within jumping distance or not, so that it
passed within eight or ten yards of him, for he had
made up his mind to shut his eyes and mouth and
swim that trifling distance. Imbecile that I was, I
had not thought of that. It was only a long swim
that could be fatal.
The sea was running high and the storm increas-
ing. It was growing late, too — three or four in the
afternoon. Whether to venture toward the mainland
or not, was a question of some moment. But we
were so distressed by thirst that we decided to try it,
and so Higbie fell to work and I took the steering-
oar. When we had pulled a mile, laboriously, we
were evidently in serious peril, for the storm had
greatly augmented; the billows ran very high and
were capped with foaming crests, the heavens were
hung with black, and the wind blew with great fury.
We would have gone back, now, but we did not dare
to turn the boat around, because as soon as she got
in the trough of the sea she would upset, of course.
Our only hope lay in keeping her head-on to the
seas. It was hard work to do this, she plunged so,
and so beat and belabored the billows with her rising
and falling bows. Now and then one of Higbie's
oars would trip on the top of a wave, and the other
one would snatch the boat half around in spite of
my cumbersome steering apparatus. We were
drenched by the sprays constantly, and the boat
267
MARK TWAIN
occasionally shipped water. By and by, powerful
as my comrade was, his great exertions began to
tell on him, and he was anxious that I should change
places with him till he could rest a little. But I told
him this was impossible ; for if the steering-oar were
dropped a moment while we changed, the boat would
slue around into the trough of the sea, capsize, and
in less than five minutes we would have a hundred
gallons of soapsuds in us and be eaten up so quickly
that we could not even be present at our own inquest.
But things cannot last always. Just as the dark-
ness shut down we came booming into port, head-
on. Higbie dropped his oars to hurrah — I dropped
mine to help — the sea gave the boat a twist, and
over she went !
The agony that alkali water inflicts on bruises,
chafes, and blistered hands, is unspeakable, and
nothing but greasing all over will modify it — but
we ate, drank, and slept well, that night, notwith-
standing.
In speaking of the peculiarities of Mono Lake, I
ought to have mentioned that at intervals all around
its shores stand picturesque turret-looking masses
and clusters of a whitish, coarse-grained rock that
resembles inferior mortar dried hard; and if one
breaks off fragments of this rock he will find per-
fectly shaped and thoroughly petrified gulls' eggs
deeply embedded in the mass. How did they get
there? I simply state the fact — for it is a fact —
and leave the geological reader to crack the nut at
his leisure and solve the problem after his own
fashion.
268
ROUGHING IT
At the end of a week we adjourned to the Sierras
on a fishing excursion, and spent several days in
camp under snowy Castle Peak, and fished success-
fully for trout in a bright, miniature lake whose sur-
face was between ten and eleven thousand feet above
the level of the sea; cooling ourselves during the
hot August noons by sitting on snowbanks ten feet
deep, under whose sheltering edges fine grass and
dainty flowers flourished luxuriously; and at night
entertaining ourselves by almost freezing to death.
Then we returned to Mono Lake, and finding that
the cement excitement was over for the present,
packed up and went back to Esmeralda. Mr.
Ballou reconnoitered awhile, and not liking the pros-
pect, set out alone for Humboldt.
About this time occurred a little incident which
has always had a sort of interest to me, from the
fact that it came so near "instigating" my funeral.
At a time when an Indian attack had been expected,
the citizens hid their gunpowder where it would be
safe and yet convenient to hand when wanted. A
neighbor of ours hid six cans of rifle-powder in the
bake-oven of an old discarded cooking-stove which
stood on the open ground near a frame outhouse or
shed, and from and after that day never thought of
it again. We hired a half-tamed Indian to do some
washing for us, and he took up quarters under the
shed with his tub. The ancient stove reposed within
six feet of him, and before his face. Finally it oc-
curred to him that hot water would be better than
cold, and he went out and fired up under that for-
gotten powder magazine and set on a kettle of water
269
MARK TWAIN
Then he returned to his tub. I entered the shed
presently and threw down some more clothes, and
was about to speak to him when the stove blew up
with a prodigious crash, and disappeared, leaving
not a splinter behind. Fragments of it fell in the
streets full two hundred yards away. Nearly a third
of the shed roof over our heads was destroyed, and
one of the stove-lids, after cutting a small stanchion
half in two in front of the Indian, whizzed between
us and drove partly through the weather-boarding
beyond. I was as white as a sheet and as weak as a
kitten and speechless. But the Indian betrayed no
trepidation, no distress, not even discomfort. He
simply stopped washing, leaned forward and sur-
veyed the clean, blank ground a moment, and then
remarked :
"Mph! Dam' stove heap gone!" — and resumed
his scrubbing as placidly as if it were an entirely
customary thing for a stove to do. I will explain,
that "heap" is "Injun-English" for "very much."
The reader will perceive the exhaustive expressive-
ness of it in the present instance.
CHAPTER XL
NOW come to a curious episode — the most
1 curious, I think, that had yet accented my sloth-
ful, valueless, heedless career. J Out of a hillsidt.
toward the upper end of the town, projected a wall
of reddish - looking quartz croppings, the exposed
comb of a silver-bearing ledge that extended deep
down into the earth, of course. It was owned by a
company entitled the "Wide West." There was a
shaft sixty or seventy feet deep on the under side of
the croppings, and everybody was acquainted with
the rock that came from it — and tolerably rich rock
it was, too, but nothing extraordinary. I will remark
here, that although to the inexperienced stranger
all the quartz of a particular "district" looks about
alike, an old resident of the camp can take a glance
at a mixed pile of rock, separate the fragments and
tell you which mine each came from, as easily as
a confectioner can separate and classify the various
kinds and qualities of candy in a mixed heap of the
article.
All at once the town was thrown into a state of
extraordinary excitement. In mining parlance the
Wide West had "struck it rich!" Everybody went
to see the new developments, and for some days
there was such a crowd of people about the Wide
271
MARK TWAIN
West shaft that a stranger would have supposed
there was a mass-meeting in session there. No other
topic was discussed but the rich strike, and nobody
thought or dreamed about anything else. Every
man brought away a specimen, ground it up in a
hand-mortar, washed it out in his horn spoon, and
glared speechless upon the marvelous result. It was
not hard rock, but black, decomposed stuff which
could be crumbled in the hand like a baked potato,
and when spread out on a paper exhibited a thick
sprinkling of gold and particles of "native" silver.
Higbie brought a handful to the cabin, and when he
had washed it out his amazement was beyond
description. Wide West stock soared skyward. It
was said that repeated offers had been made for it
at a thousand dollars a foot, and promptly refused.
We have all had the "blues" — the mere skyblues —
but mine were indigo, now — because I did not own
in the Wide West. The world seemed hollow to
me, and existence a grief. I lost my appetite, and
ceased to take an interest in anything. Still I had
to stay, and listen to other people's rejoicings, be-
cause I had no money to get out of the camp with.
The Wide West company put a stop to the carry-
ing away of "specimens," and well they might, for
every handful of the ore was worth a sum of some
consequence. To show the exceeding value of the
ore, I will remark that a sixteen-hundred-pounds
parcel of it was sold, just as it lay, at the mouth of
the shaft, at one dollar a pound; and the man who
bought it "packed" it on mules a hundred and fifty
or two hundred miles, over the mountains, to San
272
ROUGHING IT
Francisco, satisfied that it would yield at a rate that
would richly compensate him for his trouble. The
Wide West people also commanded their foreman
to refuse any but their own operatives permission
to enter the mine at any time or for any purpose.
I kept up my "blue" meditations and Higbie kept up
a deal of thinking, too, but of a different sort. He
puzzled over the "rock," examined it with a glass,
inspected it in different lights and from different
points of view, and after each experiment delivered
himself, in soliloquy, of one and the same unvarying
opinion in the same unvarying formula:
"It is not Wide West rock!"
He said once or twice that he meant to have a
look into the Wide West shaft if he got shot for it.
I was wretched, and did not care whether he got a
look into it or not. He failed that day, and tried
again at night; failed again; got up at dawn and
tried, and failed again. Then he lay in ambush in
the sage-brush hour after hour, waiting for the two
or three hands to adjourn to the shade of a boulder
for dinner; made a start once, but was premature
— one of the men came back for something; tried
it again, but when almost at the mouth of the shaft,
another of the men rose up from behind the boulder
as if to reconnoitre, and he dropped on the ground
and lay quiet; presently he crawled on his hands
and knees to the mouth of the shaft, gave a quick
glance around, then seized the rope and slid down
the shaft. He disappeared in the gloom of a "side
drift" just as a head appeared in the mouth of the
shaft and somebody shouted "Hello!"— which he
2 73
MARK TWAIN
aid not answer. He was not disturbed any more.
An hour later he entered the cabin, hot, red, and
ready to burst with smothered excitement, and ex-
claimed in a stage whisper:
"I knew it! We are rich! It's a blind lead!'*
I thought the very earth reeled under me. Doubt
— conviction — doubt again — exultation — hope,
amazement, belief, unbelief — every emotion im-
aginable swept in wild procession through my heart
and brain, and I could not speak a word. After a
moment or two of this mental fury, I shook myself
to rights, and said:
"Say it again!"
"It's a blind lead!"
"Cal, let's — let's burn the house — or kill some-
body! Let's get out where there's room to hurrah!
But what is the use ? It is a hundred times too good
to be true."
"It's a blind lead for a million! — hanging wall —
foot wall — clay casings — everything complete!" He
swung his hat and gave three cheers, and I cast
doubt to the winds and chimed in with a will. For
I was worth a million dollars, and did not care
"whether school kept or not!"
But perhaps I ought to explain. A "blind lead"
is a lead or ledge that does not "crop out" above
the surface. A miner does not know where to look
for such leads, but they are often stumbled upon by
accident in the course of driving a tunnel or sinking
a shaft. Higbie knew the Wide West rock perfectly
well, and the more he had examined the new develop-
ments the more he was satisfied that the ore couid
274
ROUGHING IT
not have come from the Wide West vein. And so
nad it occurred to him alone, of all the camp, that
there was a blind lead down in the shaft, and that
even the Wide West people themselves did not
suspect it. He was right. When he went down the
shaft, he found that the blind lead held its inde-
pendent way through the Wide West vein, cutting it
diagonally, and that it was inclosed in its own well-
defined casing-rocks and clay. Hence it was public
property. Both leads being perfectly well defined,
it was easy for any miner to see which one belonged
to the Wide West and which did not.
We thought it well to have a strong friend, and
therefore we brought the foreman of the Wide West
to our cabin that night and revealed the great sur-
prise to him. Higbie said:
"We are going to take possession of this blind
lead, record it and establish ownership, and then
forbid the Wide West company to take out any
more of the rock. You cannot help your company
in this matter — nobody can help them. I will go
into the shaft with you and prove to your entire
satisfaction that it is a blind lead. Now we propose
to take you in with us, and claim the blind lead in
our three names. What do you say?"
What could a man say who had an opportunity
to simply stretch forth his hand and take possession
of a fortune without risk of any kind and without
wronging any one or attaching the least taint
of dishonor to his name? He could only say,
"Agreed."
The notice was put up that night, and duly spread
275
MARK TWAIN
upon the recorder's books before ten o'clock. We
claimed two hundred feet each — six hundred feet
in all — the smallest and compactest organization in
the district, and the easiest to manage.
No one can be so thoughtless as to suppose that
we slept that night. Higbie and I went to bed at
midnight, but it was only to lie broad awake and
think, dream, scheme. The floorless, tumble-down
cabin was a palace, the ragged gray blankets silk,
the furniture rosewood and mahogany. Each new
splendor that burst out of my visions of the future
whirled me bodily over in bed or jerked me to a
sitting posture just as if an electric battery had been
applied to me. We shot fragments of conversation
back and forth at each other. Once Higbie said:
"When are you going home — to the States?"
"To-morrow!" — with an evolution or two, end-
ing with a sitting position. "Well — no — but next
month, at furthest."
"We'll go in the same steamer."
"Agreed."
A pause.
"Steamer of the ioth?"
"Yes. No, the ist."
"All right."
Another pause.
"Where are you going to live?" said Higbie.
"San Francisco."
"That's me!"
Pause.
"Too high — too much climbing" — from Higbie.
"What is?"
276
ROUGHING IT
"I was thinking of Russian Hill — building a house
up there."
"Too much climbing? Sha'n't you keep a car-
riage?"
"Of course. I forgot that."
Pause.
"Cal, what kind of a house are you going to
build?"
"I was thinking about that. Three-story and an
attic."
"But what kind?"
"Well, I don't hardly know. Brick, I suppose."
"Brick— bosh."
"Why? What is your idea?"
"Brown-stone front — French plate-glass — billiard-
room off the dining-room — statuary and paintings —
shrubbery and two-acre grass-plat — greenhouse —
iron dog on the front stoop — gray horses — landau,
and a coachman with a bug on his hat!"
"By George!"
A long pause.
"Cal, when are you going to Europe?"
"Well— I hadn't thought of that. When are you?"
"In the spring."
"Going to be gone all summer?"
"All summer! I shall remain there three years."
"No — but are you in earnest?"
"Indeed I am."
"I will go along too."
"Why, of course you will."
"What part of Europe shall you go to?"
"All parts. France, England, Germany — Spain,
277
MARK TWAIN
Italy, Switzerland, Syria, Greece, Palestine, Arabia,
Persia, Egypt — all over — everywhere."
"I'm agreed."
"All right."
"Won't it be a swell trip!"
"We'll spend forty or fifty thousand dollars try-
ing to make it one, anyway."
Another long pause.
"Higbie, we owe the butcher six dollars, and he
has been threatening to stop our — "
"Hang the butcher!"
"Amen."
And so it went on. By three o'clock we found it
was no use, and so we got up and played cribbage
and smoked pipes till sunrise. It was my week to
cook. I always hated cooking — now, I abhorred it.
The news was all over town. The former excite-
ment was great — this one was greater still. I walked
the streets serene and happy. Higbie said the
foreman had been offered two hundred thousand
dollars for his third of the mine. I said I would
like to see myself selling for any such price. My
ideas were lofty. My figure was a million. Still,
I honestly believe that if I had been offered it, it
would have had no other effect than to make me
hold off for more.
I found abundant enjoyment in being rich. A
man offered me a three-hundred-dollar horse, and
wanted to take my simple, unindorsed note for it.
That brought the most realizing sense I had yet had
that I was actually rich, beyond shadow of doubt.
It was followed by numerous other evidences of a
2?8
ROUGHING IT
similar nature — among which I may mention the
fact of the butcher leaving us a double supply of
meat and saying nothing about money.
By the laws of the district, the "locators" or
claimants of a ledge were obliged to do a fair and
reasonable amount of work on their new property
within ten days after the date of the location, or the
property was forfeited, and anybody could go and
seize it that chose. So we determined to go to work
the next day. About the middle of the afternoon,
as I was coming out of the post-office, I met a Mr.
Gardiner, who told me that Capt. John Nye was
lying dangerously ill at his place (the "Nine-Mile
Ranch"), and that he and his wife were not able
to give him nearly as much care and attention as his
case demanded. I said if he would wait for me a
moment, I would go down and help in the sick-
room. I ran to the cabin to tell Higbie. He was
not there, but I left a note on the table for him, and
a few minutes later I left town in Gardiner's wagon.
CHAPTER XLI
CAPTAIN NYE was very ill indeed, with spas-
modic rheumatism. But the old gentleman
was himself — which is to say, he was kind-hearted
and agreeable when comfortable, but a singularly
violent wildcat when things did not go well. He
would be smiling along pleasantly enough, when a
sudden spasm of his disease would take him and he
would go out of his smile into a perfect fury. He
would groan and wail and howl with the anguish,
and fill up the odd chinks with the most elaborate
profanity that strong convictions and a fine fancy
could contrive. With fair opportunity he could
swear very well and handle his adjectives with con-
siderable judgment; but when the spasm was on
him it was painful to listen to him, he was so awk-
ward. However, I had seen him nurse a sick man
himself and put up patiently with the inconveniences
of the situation, and consequently I was willing that
he should have full license now that his own turn
had come. He could not disturb me, with all his
raving and ranting, for my mind had work on hand,
and it labored on diligently, night and day, whether
my hands were idle or employed. I was altering
and amending the plans for my house, and thinking
over the propriety of having the billiard-room in the
•280
ROUGHING IT
attic, instead of on the same floor with the dining-
room; also, I was trying to decide between green
and blue for the upholstery of the drawing-room,
for, although my preference was blue, I feared it was
a color that would be too easily damaged by dust
and sunlight; likewise while I was content to put
the coachman in a modest livery, I was uncertain
about a footman — I needed one, and was even re-
solved to have one, but wished he could properly
appear and perform his functions out of livery, for
I somewhat dreaded so much show; and yet, inas-
much as my late grandfather had had a coachman
and such things, but no liveries, I felt rather drawn
to beat him; — or beat his ghost, at any rate; I was
also systematizing the European trip, and managed
to get it all laid out, as to route and length of time
to be devoted to it — everything, with one exception
— namely, whether to cross the desert from Cairo
to Jerusalem per camel, or go by sea to Beirut, and
thence down through the country per caravan.
Meantime I was writing to the friends at home every
day, instructing them concerning all my plans and
intentions, and directing them to look up a hand-
some homestead for my mother and agree upon a
price for it against my coming, and also directing
them to sell my share of the Tennessee land and
tender the proceeds to the widows' and orphans'
fund of the typographical union of which I had long
been a member in good standing. [This Tennessee
land had been in the possession of the family many
years, and promised to confer high fortune upon us
some day ; it still promises it, but in a less violent waj .J
281
MARK TWAIN
When I had been nursing the captain nine days
he was somewhat better, but very feeble. During
the afternoon we lifted him into a chair and gave
him an alcoholic vapor bath, and then set about
putting him on the bed again. We had to be ex-
ceedingly careful, for the least jar produced pain.
Gardiner had his shoulders and I his legs; in an
unfortunate moment I stumbled and the patient fell
heavily on the bed in an agony of torture. I never
heard a man swear so in my life. He raved like a
maniac, and tried to snatch a revolver from the table
— but I got it. He ordered me out of the house,
and swore a world of oaths that he would kill me
wherever he caught me when he got on his feet again.
It was simply a passing fury, and meant nothing.
I knew he would forget it in an hour, and maybe
be sorry for it, too; but it angered me a little, at
the moment. So much so, indeed, that I determined
to go back to Esmeralda. I thought he was able to
get along alone, now, since he was on the war-path.
I took supper, and as soon as the moon rose, began
my nine-mile journey, on foot. Even millionaires
needed no horses, in those days, for a mere nine-
mile jaunt without baggage.
As I "raised the hill" overlooking the town, it
lacked fifteen minutes of twelve. I glanced at the
hill over beyond the canon, and in the bright moon-
light saw what appeared to be about half the popu-
lation of the village massed on and around the Wide
West croppings. My heart gave an exulting bound,
and I said to myself, "They have made a new
strike to-night — and struck it richer than ever, no
ROUGHING II
doubt." I started over there, but gave it up. I
said the "strike" would keep, and I had climbed
hills enough for one night. I went on down through
the town, and as I was passing a little German
bakery, a woman ran out and begged me to come in
and help her. She said her husband had a fit. I
went in, and judged she was right — he appeared to
have a hundred of them, compressed into one.
Two Germans were there, trying to hold him, and
not making much of a success of it. I ran up the
street half a block or so and routed out a sleeping
doctor, brought him down half dressed, and we four
wrestled with the maniac, and doctored, drenched
and bled him, for more than an hour, and the poor
German woman did the crying. He grew quiet,
now, and the doctor and I withdrew and left him to
his friends.
It was a little after one o'clock. As I entered the
cabin door, tired but jolly, the dingy light of a
tallow candle revealed Higbie, sitting by the pine
table gazing stupidly at my note, which he held in
his fingers, and looking pale, old, and haggard. I
halted, and looked at him. He looked at me,
stolidly. I said:
"Higbie, what — what is it?"
"We're ruined — we didn't do the work — the
BLIND LEAD'S RELOCATED!"
It was enough. I sat down sick, grieved — broken-
hearted, indeed. A minute before, I was rich and
brimful of vanity; I was a pauper now, and very
meek. We sat still an hour, busy with thought,
busy with vain and useless self-upbraidings, busy
283
MARK TWAIN
with "Why didn't I do this, and why didn't I do
that," but neither spoke a word. Then we dropped
into mutual explanations, and the mystery was
cleared away. It came out that Higbie had de-
pended on me, as I had on him, and as both of us
had on the foreman. The folly of it! It was the
first time that ever staid and steadfast Higbie had
left an important matter to chance or failed to be
true to his full share of a responsibility.
But he had never seen my note till this moment,
and this moment was the first time he had been in
the cabin since the day he had seen me last. He,
also, had left a note for me, on that same fatal after-
noon— had ridden up on horseback, and looked
through the window, and being in a hurry and not
seeing me, had tossed the note into the cabin through
a broken pane. Here it was, on the floor, where it
had remained undisturbed for nine days:
Don't fail to do the work before the ten days expire. W. has
passed through and given me notice. I am to join him at Mono
Lake, and we shall go on from there to-night. He says he will
find it this time, sure. Cal.
"W." meant Whiteman, of course. That thrice
accursed ' ' cement ' ' !
That was the way of it. An old miner, like
Higbie, could no more withstand the fascination of
a mysterious mining excitement like this "cement"
foolishness, than he could refrain from eating when
he was famishing. Higbie had been dreaming about
the marvelous cement for months ; and now, against
his better judgment, he had gone off and "taken
the chances" on my keeping secure a mine worth a
284
ROUGHING IT
million undiscovered cement veins. They had not
been followed this time. His riding out of town in
broad daylight was such a commonplace thing to do
that it had not attracted any attention. He said they
prosecuted their search in the fastnesses of the
mountains during nine days, without success; they
could not find the cement. Then a ghastly fear
came over him that something might have happened
to prevent the doing of the necessary work to hold
the blind lead (though indeed he thought such a
thing hardly possible) and forthwith he started
home with all speed. He would have reached
Esmeralda in time, but his horse broke down and he
had to walk a great part of the distance. And so it
happened that as he came into Esmeralda by one
road. I entered it by another. His was the superior
energy, however, for he went straight to the Wide
West, instead of turning aside as I had done — and
he arrived there about five or ten minutes too late!
The "notice" was already up, the "relocation" of
our mine completed beyond recall, and the crowd
rapidly dispersing. He learned some facts before
he left the ground. The foreman had not been seen
about the streets since the night we had located
the mine — a telegram had called him to California
on a matter of life and death, it was said. At any
rate he had done no work and the watchful eyes of
the community were taking note of the fact. At
midnight of this woeful tenth day, the ledge would
be "relocatable," and by eleven o'clock the hill
was black with men prepared to do the relocating.
That was the crowd I had seen when I fancied a
235
MARK TWAIN
new "strike" had been made — idiot that I was.
[We three had the same right to relocate the lead
that other people had, provided we were quick
enough.] As midnight was announced, fourteen men,
duly armed and ready to back their proceedings,
put up their "notice" and proclaimed their owner-
ship of the blind lead, under the new name of the
"Johnson." But A. D. Allen, our partner (the
foreman), put in a sudden appearance about that
time, with a cocked revolver in his hand, and said
his name must be added to the list, or he would
"thin out the Johnson company some." He was
a manly, splendid, determined fellow, and known to
be as good as his word, and therefore a compromise
was effected. They put in his name for a hundred
feet, reserving to themselves the customary two
hundred feet each. Such was the history of the
night's events, as Higbie gathered from a friend on
the way home.
Higbie and I cleared out on a new mining excite-
ment the next morning, glad to get away from the
scene of our sufferings, and after a month or two of
hardship and disappointment, returned to Esmeralda
once more. Then we learned that the Wide West
and the Johnson companies had consolidated; that
the stock, thus united, comprised five thousand feet,
or shares; that the foreman, apprehending tiresome
litigation, and considering such a huge concern
unwieldy, had sold his hundred feet for ninety thou-
sand dollars in gold and gone home to the States to
enjoy it. If the stock was worth such a gallant
figure, with five thousand shares in the corporation,
286
ROUGHING IT
it makes me dizzy to think what it would have been
worth with only our original six hundred in it. It
was the difference between six hundred men owning
a house and five thousand owning it. We would
have been millionaires if we had only worked with
pick and spade one little day on our property and
so secured our ownership!
It reads like a wild fancy sketch, but the evidence
of many witnesses, and likewise that of the official
records of Esmeralda District, is easily obtainable in
proof that it is a true history. I can always have it
to say that I was absolutely and unquestionably
worth a million dollars, once, for ten days.
A year ago my esteemed and in every way es-
timable old millionaire partner, Higbie, wrote me
from an obscure little mining -camp in California
that after nine or ten years of bufferings and hard
striving, he was at last in a position where he could
command twenty-five hundred dollars, and said he
meant to go into the fruit business in a modest way.
How such a thought would have insulted him the
night we lay in our cabin planning European trips
and brown-stone houses on Russian Hill!
AN INFERIOR SORT OF A MURDER
ROUGHING
IT
By
MARK TWAIN
VOLUME II
HARPER 0 BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
Roughing It. Vol. II
Copyright, 1871, 1899, by The American Publishing Company
Copyright, 1899, by Samuel L. Clemens
Copyright, 1913, by Clara Gabrilowitsch
Printed in the United States of America
D-M
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
I. I Become City Editor i
II. Boggs Gluts His Ire 8
'III. Mines Not Worth Their "Salt" 16
IV. Our Gold-bearing Flour-sack 24
V. A Sixty-thousand-dollar Horse 32
VI. SCOTTY BRIGGS AND THE PARSON 42
VII. Six-fingered Pete and the Other "Killers" . 54
VIII. The Official City Desperado ....... 62
IX. The Right Way to Deal with Pirates ... 68
X. A Fearful and Wonderful Novel 76
XI. Bullion Beyond Belief 90
XII. Jim Blaine and His Grandfather's Ram ... 98
XIII. The Gentle, Inoffensive Chinese . . . . . 105
XIV. The Glorious Flag on Davidson 113
XV. Glorious Climate of California 124
XVI. "Well, if It Ain't a Child!" 131
XVII. What an Earthquake Does 136
XVIII. Blucher's Banquet by Proxy 145
XIX. Pocket-mining 153
XX. The Prejudiced Cat 158
XXI. "Blanketing" the Admiral ....... 164
XXII. Honolulu the Beautiful 176
XXIII. Struggling with a Horse 181
XXIV. Wiles of the Horse-coupers 189
XXV. Poi is Not for- Every Palate 197
XXVI. Playing at Empire 205
XXVII. The End of Great Kamehameha 216
XXVIII. Fauna of the Schooner "Boomerang" . . . 226
V
CONTENTS
CHAP. PACK
XXIX. A Horrific Letter from Greeley .... 233
XXX. Captain Cook was Rightly Killed .... 243
XXXI. I Guard the Fair Bathers 249
XXXII. Strange Gigantic Temple Walls 256
XXXIII. Kilauea, the Pillar of Fire 264
XXXIV. Down into the Crater 271
XXXV. My Winning Mule-trade 276
XXXVI. Markiss, King of Liars 284
XXXVII. Lecturing, an Unexpected Success .... 291
XXXVIII. The Too Practical Joke 297
APPENDIX
A. — Brief Sketch of Mormon History . . . ... . 305
B. — The Mountain Meadows Massacre 310
C — Concerning a Frightful Assassination that was
Never Consummated 315
ROUGHING IT
PART II
CHAPTER I
WHAT to do next?
It was a momentous question. I had gone
out into the world to shift for myself, at the age of
thirteen (for my father had indorsed for friends,
and although he left us a sumptuous legacy of pride
in his fine Virginian stock and its national distinc-
tion, I presently found that I could not live on that
alone without occasional bread to wash it down
with). I had gained a livelihood in various voca-
tions, but had not dazzled anybody with my suc-
cesses; still the list was before me, and the amplest
liberty in the matter of choosing, provided I wanted
to work — which I did not, after being so wealthy.
I had once been a grocery clerk, for one day, but
had consumed so much sugar in that time that I was
relieved from further duty by the proprietor; said
he wanted me outside, so that he could have my
custom. I had studied law an entire week, and then
given it up because it was so prosy and tiresome. I
had engaged briefly in the study of blacksmithing,
but wasted so much time trying to fix the bellows so
that it would blow itself, that the master turned me
i
MARK TWAIN
adrift in disgrace, and told me I would come to no
good. I had been a bookseller's clerk for a while,
but the customers bothered me so much I could not
read with any comfort, and so the proprietor gave
me a furlough and forgot to put a limit to it. I
had clerked in a drug store part of a summer, but
my prescriptions were unlucky, and we appeared to
sell more stomach-pumps than soda-water. So I
had to go. I had made of myself a tolerable printer,
under the impression that I would be another
Franklin some day, but somehow had missed the
connection thus far. There was no berth open in
the Esmeralda Union, and besides I had always
been such a slow compositor that I looked with
envy upon the achievements of apprentices of two
years' standing; and when I took a "take," foremen
were in the habit of suggesting that it would be
wanted "some time during the year." I was a good
average St. Louis and New Orleans pilot and by no
means ashamed of my abilities in that line: wages
were two hundred and fifty dollars a month and no
board to pay, and I did long to stand behind a
wheel again and never roam any more — but I had
been making such an ass of myself lately in grandilo-
quent letters home about my blind lead and my
European excursion that I did what many and many
a poor disappointed miner had done before; said,
"It is all over with me now, and I will never go back
home to be pitied — and snubbed." I had been a
private secretary, a silver-miner and a silver-mill
operative, and amounted to less than nothing in
each, and now —
2
ROUGHING IT
What to do next?
I yielded to Higbie's appeals and consented to try
the mining once more. We climbed far up on the
mountainside and went to work on a little rubbishy
claim of ours that had a shaft on it eight feet deep.
Higbie descended into it and worked bravely with
his pick till he had loosened up a deal of rock and
dirt, and then I went down with a long-handled
shovel (the most awkward invention yet contrived
by man) to throw it out. You must brace the shovel
forward with the side of your knee till it is full,
and then, with a skilful toss, throw it backward
over your left shoulder. I made the toss, and landed
the mess just on the edge of the shaft and it all
came back on my head and down the back of my
neck. I never said a word, but climbed out and
walked home. I inwardly resolved that I would
starve before I would make a target of myself and
shoot rubbish at it with a long-handled shovel. I
sat down, in the cabin, and gave myself up to solid
misery — so to speak. Now in pleasantcr days I
had amused myself with writing letters to the chief
paper of the territory, the Virginia Daily Territorial
Enterprise, and had always been surprised when
they appeared in print. My good opinion of the
editors had steadily declined; for it seemed to me
that they might have found something better to fill
up with than my literature. I had found a letter in
the post-office as I came home from the hillside,
and finally I opened it. Eureka! [I never did
know what Eureka meant, but it seems to be as
proper a word to heave in as any when no other that.
3
MARK TWAIN
sounds pretty offers.] It was a deliberate offer to
me of Twenty-five Dollars a week to come up to
Virginia and be city editor of the Enterprise.
I would have challenged the publisher in the
"blind lead" days — I wanted to fall down and
worship him, now. Twenty-five Dollars a week —
it looked like bloated luxury — a fortune, a sinful
and lavish waste of money. But my transports
cooled when I thought of my inexperience and con-
sequent unfitness for the position — and straightway,
on top of this, my long array of failures rose up
before me. Yet if I refused this place I must pres-
ently become dependent upon somebody for my
bread, a thing necessarily distasteful to a man who
had never experienced such a humiliation since he
was thirteen years old. Not much to be proud of,
since it is so common — but then it was all I had to
be proud of. So I was scared into being a city
editor. I would have declined, otherwise. Neces-
sity is the mother of "taking chances." I do not
doubt that if, at that time, I had been offered a
salary to translate the Talmud from the original
Hebrew, I would have accepted — albeit with diffi-
dence and some misgivings — and thrown as much
variety into it as I could for the money.
I went up to Virginia and entered upon my new
vocation. I was a rusty-looking city editor, I am
free to confess — coatless, slouch hat, blue woolen
shirt, pantaloons stuffed into boot-tops, whiskered
half down to the waist, and the universal navy re-
volver slung to my belt. But I secured a more
Christian costume and discarded the revolver. I
4
ROUGHING IT
had never had occasion to kill anybody, nor ever
felt a desire to do so, but had worn the thing in
deference to popular sentiment, and in order that I
might not, by its absence, be offensively conspicu-
ous, and a subject of remark. But the other editors,
and all the printers, carried revolvers. I asked the
chief editor and proprietor (Mr. Goodman, I will
call him, since it describes him as well as any name
could do) for some instructions with regard to my
duties, and he told me to go all over town and ask
all sorts of people all sorts of questions, make notes
of the information gained, and write them out for
publication. And he added:
" Never say 'We learn' so-and-so, or 'It is report-
ed,' or 'It is rumored,' or 'We understand' so-and-so,
but go to headquarters and get the absolute facts,
and then speak out and say 'It is so-and-so.' Other-
wise, people will not put confidence in your news.
Unassailable certainty is the thing that gives a
newspaper the firmest and most valuable reputa-
tion."
It was the whole thing in a nutshell; and to this
day, when I find a reporter commencing his article
with "We understand," I gather a suspicion that he
has not taken as much pains to inform himself as he
ought to have done. I moralize well, but I did not
always practise well when I was a city editor; I let
fancy get the upper hand of fact too often when
there was a dearth of news. I can never forget my
first day's experience as a reporter. I wandered
about towm questioning everybody, boring every-
body, and finding out that nobody knew anything.
5
MARK TWAIN
At the end of five hours my note-book was still bar-
ren. I spoke to Mr. Goodman. He said:
"Dan used to make a good thing out of the hay-
wagons in a dry time when there were no fires or
inquests. Are there no hay- wagons in from the
Truckee? If there are, you might speak of the
renewed activity and all that sort of thing, in the hay
business, you know. It isn't sensational or exciting,
but it fills up and looks business-like."
I canvassed the city again and found one wretched
old hay-truck dragging in from the country. But
I made affluent use of it. I multiplied it by sixteen,
brought it into town from sixteen different direc-
tions, made sixteen separate items of it, and got
up such another sweat about hay as Virginia City
had never seen in the world before.
This was encouraging. Two nonpareil columns
had to be filled, and I was getting along. Presently,
when things began to look dismal again, a desperado
killed a man in a saloon and joy returned once more.
I never was so glad over any mere trifle before in
my life. I said to the murderer:
"Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you have done
me a kindness this day which I can never forget. If
whole years of gratitude can be to you any slight com-
pensation, they shall be yours. I was in trouble and
you have relieved me nobly and at a time when all
seemed dark and drear. Count me your friend from
this time forth, for I am not a man to forget a favor."
If I did not really say that to him I at least felt a
sort of itching desire to do it. I wrote up the murder
with a hungry attention to details, and when it
ROUGHING IT
was finished experienced but one regret — namely,
that they had not hanged my benefactor on the spot,
so that I could work him up too.
Next I discovered some emigrant -wagons going
into camp on the plaza and found that they had
lately come through the hostile Indian country and
had fared rather roughly. I made the best of the
item that the circumstances permitted, and felt that
if I were not confined within rigid limits by the
presence of the reporters of the other papers I could
add particulars that would make the article much
more interesting. However, I found one wagon that
was going on to California, and made some judicious
inquiries of the proprietor. When I learned, through
his short and surly answers to my cross-questioning,
that he was certainly going on and would not be
in the city next day to make trouble, I got ahead
of the other papers, for I took down his list of names
and added his party to the killed and wounded. Hav-
ing more scope here, I put this wagon through an
Indian fight that to this day has no parallel in history.
My two columns were filled. When I read them
over in the morning I felt that I had found my
legitimate occupation at last. I reasoned within
myself that news, and stirring news, too, was what
a paper needed, and I felt that I was peculiarly
endowed with the ability to furnish it. Mr. Good-
man said that I was as good a reporter as Dan. I
desired no higher commendation. With encourage-
ment like that, I felt that I could take my pen and
murder all the immigrants on the plains if need be,
and the interests of the paper demanded it.
7
CHAPTER II
HOWEVER, as I grew better acquainted with the
business and learned the run of the sources of
information I ceased to require the aid of fancy to
any large extent, and became able to fill my columns
without diverging noticeably from the domain of
fact
I struck up friendships with the reporters of the
other journals, and we swapped "regulars" with
each other and thus economized work. "Regulars"
are permanent sources of news, like courts, bullion
returns, "clean-ups" at the quartz-mills, and in-
quests. Inasmuch as everybody went armed, we had
an inquest about every day, and so this department
was naturally set down among the "regulars." We
had lively papers in those days. My great com-
petitor among the reporters was Boggs of the Union.
He was an excellent reporter. Once in three or four
months he would get a little intoxicated, but as a
general thing he was a wary and cautious drinker
although always ready to tamper a little with the
enemy. He had the advantage of me in one thing;
he could get the monthly public-school report and I
could not, because the principal hated the Enterprise.
One snowy night when the report was due, I
started out sadly wondering how I was going to get
3
ROUGHING IT
it. Presently, a few steps up the almost deserted
street I stumbled on Boggs and asked him where
he was going.
"After the school report."
"I'll go along with you."
'No, sir. I'll excuse you."
'Just as you say."
A saloon-keeper's boy passed by with a steaming
pitcher of hot punch, and Boggs snuffed the fragrance
gracefully. He gazed fondly after the boy and saw
him start up the Enterprise stairs. I said:
"I wish you could help me get that school busi-
ness, but since you can't, I must run up to the
Union office and see if I can get them to let me have
a proof of it after they have set it up, though I
don't begin to suppose they will. Good night."
"Hold on a minute. I don't mind getting the
report and sitting around with the boys a little, while
you copy it, if you're willing to drop down to the
principal's with me."
1 ' Now you talk like a rational being. Come along. ' '
We plowed a couple of blocks through the snow,
got the report and returned to our office. It was a
short document and soon copied. Meantime Boggs
helped himself to the punch. I gave the manuscript
back to him and we started out to get an inquest,
for we heard pistol-shots near by. We got the
particulars with little loss of time, for it was only
an inferior sort of bar-room murder, and of little
interest to the public, and then we separated. Away
at three o'clock in the morning, when we had gone
to press and were having a relaxing concert as usual
9
MARK TWAIN
— for some of the printers were good singers and
others good performers on the guitar and on that
atrocity, the accordion — the proprietor of the Union
strode in and desired to know if anybody had heard
anything of Boggs or the school report. We stated
the case, and all turned out to help hunt for the
delinquent. We found him standing on a table in a
saloon, with an old tin lantern in one hand and the
school report in the other, haranguing a gang of
intoxicated Cornish miners on the iniquity of squan-
dering the public moneys on education "when hun-
dreds and hundreds of honest hard-working men are
literally starving for whisky." [Riotous applause.]
He had been assisting in a regal spree with those
parties for hours. We dragged him away and put
him to bed.
Of course there was no school report in the Union,
and Boggs held me accountable, though I was inno-
cent of any intention or desire to compass its absence
from that paper and was as sorry as any one that the
misfortune had occurred.
But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the
school report was next due, the proprietor of the
"Genesee" mine furnished us a buggy and asked
us to go down and write something about the prop-
erty— a very common request and one always gladly
acceded to when people furnished buggies, for we
were as fond of pleasure excursions as other people.
In due time we arrived at the "mine" — nothing
but a hole in the ground ninety feet deep, and no
way of getting down into it but by holding on to a
rope and being lowered with a windlass. The work-
IO
ROUGHING IT
men had just gone off somewhere to dinner. I was
not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk; so I took
an unlighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for
my foot in the end of the rope, implored Boggs not
to go to sleep or let the windlass get the start of
him, and then swung out over the shaft. I reached
the bottom muddy and bruised about the elbows,
but safe. I lit the candle, made an examination of
the rock, selected some specimens and shouted to
Boggs to hoist away. No answer. Presently a
head appeared in the circle of daylight away aloft,
and a voice came down:
"Are you all set?"
"All set — hoist away."
"Are you comfortable?"
"Perfectly."
"Could you wait a little?"
"Oh certainly — no particular hurry."
"Well— good-by."
"Why? Where are you going?"
"After the school report!"
And he did. I stayed down there an hour, and sur-
prised the workmen when they hauled up and found
a man on the rope instead of a bucket of rock. I
walked home, too — five miles — uphill. We had
no school report next morning; but the Union had.
Six months after my entry into journalism the
grand "flush times" of Silverland began, and they
continued with unabated splendor for three years.
All difficulty about filling up the "local department"
ceased, and the only trouble now was how to make
the lengthened columns hold the world of incidents
ii
MARK TWAIN
and happenings that came to our literary net every
day. Virginia had grown to be the "livest" town,
for its age and population, that America had ever
produced. The sidewalks swarmed with people —
to such an extent, indeed, that it was generally no
easy matter to stem the human tide. The streets
themselves were just as crowded with quartz- wagons,
freight-teams, and other vehicles. The procession
was endless. So great was the pack, that buggies
frequently had to wait half an hour for an oppor-
tunity to cross the principal street. Joy sat on every
countenance, and there was a glad, almost fierce,
intensity in every eye, that told of the money-getting
schemes that were seething in every brain and the
high hope that held sway in every heart. Money
was as plenty as dust; every individual considered
himself wealthy, and a melancholy countenance was
nowhere to be seen. There were military companies,
fire companies, brass-bands, banks, hotels, theaters,
"hurdy-gurdy houses," wide-open gambling-palaces,
political pow-wows, civic processions, street-fights,
murders, inquests, riots, a whisky-mill every fifteen
steps, a Board of Aldermen, a Mayor, a City Sur-
veyor, a City Engineer, a Chief of the Fire Depart-
ment, with First, Second, and Third Assistants, a
Chief of Police, City Marshal, and a large police
force, two Boards of Mining Brokers, a dozen brew-
eries, and half a dozen jails and station-houses in
full operation, and some talk of building a church.
The "flush times" were in magnificent flower!
Large fire-proof brick buildings were going up in the
principal streets, and the wooden suburbs were
12
ROUGHING IT
spreading out in all directions. Town lots soared
up to prices that were amazing.
The great "Comstock lode" stretched its opulent
length straight through the town from north to
south, and every mine on it was in diligent process
of development. One of these mines alone em-
ployed six hundred and seventy-five men, and in the
matter of elections the adage was, "as the 'Gould
& Curry' goes, so goes the city." Laboring-men's
wages were four and six dollars a day, and they
worked in three "shifts" or gangs, and the blasting
and picking and shoveling went on without ceasing,
night and day.
The "city" of Virginia roosted royally midway
up the steep side of Mount Davidson, seven thou-
sand two hundred feet above the level of the sea,
and in the clear Nevada atmosphere was visible from
a distance of fifty miles! It claimed a population of
fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand, and all day
long half of this little army swarmed the streets like
bees and the other half swarmed among the drifts
and tunnels of the "Comstock," hundreds of feet
down in the earth directly under those same streets.
Often we felt our chairs jar, and heard the faint
boom of a blast down in the bowels of the earth
under the office.
The mountainside was so steep that the entire
town had a slant to it like a roof. Each street was
a terrace, and from each to the next street below the
descent was forty or fifty feet. The fronts of the
houses were level with the street they faced, but
their rear first floors were propped on lofty stilts; a
i2
MARK TWAIN
man could stand at a rear first-floor window of a C
Street house and look down the chimneys of the
row of houses below him facing D Street. It was a
laborious climb, in that thin atmosphere, to ascend
from D to A Street, and you were panting and out
of breath when you got there; but you could turn
around and go down again like a house afire — so
to speak. The atmosphere was so rarefied, on ac-
count of the great altitude, that one's blood lay near
the surface always, and the scratch of a pin was a
disaster worth worrying about, for the chances were
that a grievous erysipelas would ensue. But to
offset this, the thin atmosphere seemed to carry heal-
ing to gunshot wounds, and, therefore, to simply
shoot your adversary through both lungs was a thing
not likely to afford you any permanent satisfaction,
for he would be nearly certain to be around looking
for you within the month, and not with an opera-
glass, either.
From Virginia's airy situation one could look over
a vast, far-reaching panorama of mountain ranges
and deserts; and whether the day was bright or
overcast, whether the sun was rising or setting, or
flaming in the zenith, or whether night and the
moon held sway, the spectacle was always impressive
and beautiful. Over your head Mount Davidson
lifted its gray dome, and before and below you a
rugged canon clove the battlemented hills, making
a somber gateway through which a soft-tinted desert
;vas glimpsed, with the silver thread of a river wind-
ing through it, bordered with trees which many miles
of distance diminished to a delicate fringe; and still
14
ROUGHING IT
further away the snowy mountains rose up and
stretched their long barrier to the filmy horizon —
far enough beyond a lake that burned in the desert
like a fallen sun, though that, itself, lay fifty miles
removed. Look from your window where you would,
there was fascination in the picture. At rare inter-
vals— but very rare — there were clouds in our skies.
and then the setting sun would gild and flush and
glorify this mighty expanse of scenery with a bewil-
dering pomp of color that held the eye like a spel
and moved the spirit like music.
CHAPTER III
MY salary was increased to forty dollars a week.
. But I seldom drew it. I had plenty of other
resources, and what were two broad twenty-dollar
gold pieces to a man who had his pockets full of
such and a cumbersome abundance of bright half-
dollars besides? [Paper money has never come into
use on the Pacific coast.] Reporting was lucrative,
and every man in the town was lavish with his
money and his "feet." The city and ail the great
mountainside were riddled with mining-shafts. There
were more mines than miners. True, not ten of
these mines were yielding rock worth hauling to a
mill, but everybody said, "Wait till the shaft gets
down where the ledge comes in solid, and then you
will see!" So nobody was discouraged. These were
nearly all "wildcat" mines, and wholly worthless,
but nobody believed it then. The "Ophir," the
"Gould & Curry," the "Mexican," and other great
mines on the Comstock lead in Virginia and Gold
Hill were turning out huge piles of rich rock every
day, and every man believed that his little wildcat
claim was as good as any on the "main lead" and
would infallibly be worth a thousand dollars a foot
when he "got down where it came in solid." Poor
fellow! he was blessedly blind to the fact that he
16
ROUGHING IT
never would see that day. So the thousand wildcat
shafts burrowed deeper and deeper into the earth
day by day, and all men were beside themselves with
hope and happiness. How they labored, prophesied,
exulted ! Surely nothing like it was ever seen before
since the world began. Every one of these wildcat
mines — not mines, but holes in the ground over
imaginary mines — was incorporated and had hand-
somely engraved "stock" and the stock was salable,
too. It was bought and sold with a feverish avidity
in the boards every day. You could go up on the
mountainside, scratch around and find a ledge
(there was no lack of them), put up a "notice"
with a grandiloquent name on it, start a shaft, get
your stock printed, and with nothing whatever to
prove that your mine was worth a straw, you could
put your stock on the market and sell out for hun-
dreds and even thousands of dollars. To make
money, and make it fast, was as easy as it was to
eat your dinner. Every man owned "feet" in fifty
different wildcat mines and considered his fortune
made. Think of a city with not one solitary poor
man in it! One would suppose that when month
after month went by and still not a wildcat mine
(by wildcat I mean, in general terms, any claim not
located on the mother vein, i. e., the "Comstock")
yielded a ton of rock worth crushing, the people
would begin to wonder if they were not putting too
much faith in their prospective riches ; but there was
not a thought of such a thing. They burrowed away,
bought and sold, and were happy.
New claims were taken daily, and it was the
17
MARK TWAIN
friendly custom to run straight to the newspaper
offices, give the reporter forty or fifty "feet," and
get him to go and examine the mine and publish a
notice of it. They did not care a fig what you said
about the property so you said something. Conse-
quently we generally said a word or two to the effect
that the "indications" were good, or that the ledge
'was "six feet wide," or that the rock "resembled
the Comstock" (and so it did — but as a general
thing the resemblance was not startling enough to
knock you down). If the rock was moderately
promising, we followed the custom of the country,
used strong adjectives and frothed at the mouth as
if a very marvel in silver discoveries had transpired.
If the mine was a "developed" one, and had no
pay -ore to show (and of course it hadn't), we praised
the tunnel; said it was one of the most infatuating
tunnels in the land; driveled and driveled about the
tunnel till we ran entirely out of ecstasies — but
never said a word about the rock. We would
squander half a column of adulation on a shaft, or
a new wire rope, or a dressed-pine windlass, or a
fascinating force-pump, and close with a burst of
admiration of the ' ' gentlemanly and efficient superin-
tendent" of the mine — but never utter a whisper
about the rock. And those people were always
pleased, always satisfied. Occasionally we patched
up and varnished our reputation for discrimination
and stern, undeviating accuracy, by giving some old
abandoned claim a blast that ought to have made its
dry bones rattle — and then somebody would seize it and
sell it on the fleeting notoriety thus conferred upon it.
18
ROUGHING IT
There was nothing in the shape of a mining claim
that was not salable. We received presents of "feet "
every day. If we needed a hundred dollars or so,
we sold some; if not, we hoarded it away, satisfied
that it would ultimately be worth a thousand dollars
a foot. I had a trunk about half full of "stock."
When a claim made a stir in the market and went
up to a high figure, I searched through my pile to
see if I had any of its stock — and generally found it.
The prices rose and fell constantly; but still a fall
disturbed us little, because a thousand dollars a
foot was our figure, and so we were content to let it
fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. My
pile of stock was not all given to me by people who
wished their claims "noticed." At least half of it
was given me by persons who had no thought of
such a thing, and looked for nothing more than a
simple verbal "thank you"; and you were not even
obliged by law to furnish that. If you are coming
up the street with a couple of baskets of apples in
your hands, and you meet a friend, you naturally
invite him to take a few. That describes the condi-
tion of things in Virginia in the "flush times."
Every man had his pockets full of stock, and it was
the actual custom of the country to part with small
quantities of it to friends without the asking. Very
often it was a good idea to close the transaction
instantly, when a man offered a stock present to a
friend, for the offer was only good and binding at
that moment, and if the price went to a high figure
shortly afterward the procrastination was a thing to
be regretted. Mr. Stewart (Senator, now, from
19
MARK TWAIN
Nevada) one day told me he would give me twenty
feet of "Justis" stock if I would walk over to his
office. It was worth five or ten dollars a foot. I
asked him to make the offer good for next day, as
I was just going to dinner. He said he would not
be in town ; so I risked it and took my dinner instead
of the stock. Within the week the price went up
to seventy dollars and afterward to a hundred and
fifty, but nothing could make that man yield. I
suppose he sold that stock of mine and placed the
guilty proceeds in his own pocket. I met three
friends one afternoon, who said they had been buying
"Overman" stock at auction at eight dollars a foot.
One said if I would come up to his office he would
give me fifteen feet; another said he would add
fifteen; the third said he would do the same. But
I was going after an inquest and could not stop. A
few weeks afterward they sold all their "Overman"
at six hundred dollars a foot and generously came
around to tell me about it — and also to urge me to
accept of the next forty -five feet of it that people
tried to force on me. These are actual facts, and I
could make the list a long one and still confine myself
strictly to the truth. Many a time friends gave
us as much as twenty-five feet of stock that was
selling at twenty-five dollars a foot, and they thought
no more of it than they would of offering a guest
a cigar. These were ' ' flush times ' ' indeed ! I thought
they were going to last always, but somehow I never
was much of a prophet.
To show what a wild spirit possessed the mining
brain of the community, I will remark that "claims"
20
ROUGHING IT
were actually "located" in excavations for cellars,
where the pick had exposed what seemed to be
quartz veins — and not cellars in the suburbs, either,
but in the very heart of the city; and forthwith
stock would be issued and thrown on the market. It
was small matter who the cellar belonged to — the
"ledge" belonged to the finder, and unless the
United States Government interfered (inasmuch as
the government holds the primary right to mines of
the noble metals in Nevada — or at least did then),
it was considered to be his privilege to work it.
Imagine a stranger staking out a mining claim
among the costly shrubbery in your front yard and
calmly proceeding to lay waste the ground with pick
and shovel and blasting - powder ! It has been
often done in California. In the middle of one of
the principal business streets of Virginia, a man
"located" a mining claim and began a shaft on it.
He gave me a hundred feet of the stock and I sold
it for a fine suit of clothes because I was afraid
somebody would fall down the shaft and sue for
damages. I owned in another claim that was located
in the middle of another street; and to show how
absurd people can be, that "East India" stock (as
it was called) sold briskly although there was an
ancient tunnel running directly under the claim and
any man could go into it and see that it did not cut
a quartz ledge or anything that remotely resembled
one.
One plan of acquiring sudden wealth was to
"salt" a wildcat claim and sell out while the excite-
ment was up. The process was simple. The
21
MARK TWAIN
schemer located a worthless ledge, sunk a shaft on
it, bought a wagon-load of rich "Comstock" ore,
dumped a portion of it into the shaft and piled the
rest by its side above-ground. Then he showed
the property to a simpleton and sold it to him at a
high figure. Of course the wagon-load of rich ore
was all that the victim ever got out of his purchase.
A most remarkable case of "salting" was that of
the "North Ophir." It was claimed that this vein
was a remote "extension" of the original "Ophir,"
a valuable mine on the "Comstock." For a few
days everybody was tallcng about the rich develop-
ments in the North OpLir. It was said that it
yielded perfectly pure silver in small, solid lumps.
I went to the place with the owners, and found a
shaft six or eight feet deep, in the bottom of which
was a badly shattered vein of dull, yellowish, un-
promising rock. One would as soon expect to find
silver in a grindstone. We got out a pan of the rub-
bish and washed it in a puddle, and sure enough,
among the sediment we found half a dozen black,
bullet-looking pellets of unimpeachable "native"
silver. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing be-
fore; science could not account for such a queer
novelty. The stock rose to sixty-five dollars a foot,
and at this figure the world-renowned tragedian,
McKean Buchanan, bought a commanding interest
and prepared to quit the stage once more — he was
always doing that. And then it transpired that the
mine had been "salted" — and not in any hack-
neyed way, either, but in a singularly bold, bare-
faced and peculiarly original and Outrageous fashion.
22
ROUGHING IT
On one of the lumps of "native" silver was dis-
covered the minted legend, "ted States of," and
then it was plainly apparent that the mine had been
"salted" with melted half-dollars! The lumps thus
obtained had been blackened till they resembled
native silver, and were then mixed with the shattered
rock in the bottom of the shaft. It is literally true.
Of course the price of the stock at once fell to noth-
ing, and the tragedian was ruined. But for this
calamity we might have lost McKean Buchanan
from the stage.
CHAPTER IV
THE "flush times" held bravely on. Something
over two years before, Mr. Goodman and an-
other journeyman printer had borrowed forty dollars
and set out from San Francisco to try their fortunes
in the new city of Virginia. They found the Terri-
torial Enterprise, a poverty-stricken weekly journal,
gasping for breath and likely to die. They bought
it, type, fixtures, good will, and all, for a thousand
dollars, on long time. The editorial sanctum, news-
room, press-room, publication office, bed-chamber,
parlor, and kitchen were all compressed into one
apartment, and it was a small one, too. The editors
and printers slept on the floor, a Chinaman did their
cooking, and the "imposing-stone" was the general
dinner-table. But now things were changed. The
paper was a great daily, printed by steam; there
were five editors and twenty-three compositors; the
subscription price was sixteen dollars a year; the
advertising rates were exorbitant, and the columns
crowded. The paper was clearing from six to ten
thousand dollars a month, and the "Enterprise
Building" was finished and ready for occupation — a
stately fire-proof brick. Every day from five all the
way up to eleven columns of "live" advertisements
were left out or crowded into spasmodic and irregular
"supplements."
24
ROUGHING IT
The "Gould & Curry" company were erecting a
monster hundred-stamp mill at a cost that ultimately
fell little short of a million dollars. Gould & Curry
stock paid heavy dividends — a rare thing, and an
experience confined to the dozen or fifteen claims
located on the "main lead," the "Comstock." The
superintendent of the Gould & Curry lived, rent
free, in a fine house built and furnished by the
company. He drove a fine pair of horses which
were a present from the company, and his salary was
twelve thousand dollars a year. The superintendent
of another of the great mines traveled in grand state,
had a salary of twenty-eight thousand dollars a year,
and in a lawsuit in after days claimed that he was
to have had one per cent, of the gross yield of the
bullion likewise.
Money was wonderfully plenty. The trouble was,
not how to get it — but how to spend it, how to
lavish it, get rid of it, squander it. And so it was
a happy thing that just at this juncture the news
came over the wires that a great United States Sani-
tary Commission had been formed and money was
wanted for the relief of the wounded sailors and
soldiers of the Union languishing in the Eastern
hospitals. Right on the heels of it came word that
San Francisco had responded superbly before the
telegram was half a day old. Virginia rose as one
man! A Sanitary Committee was hurriedly organ-
ized, and its chairman mounted a vacant cart in C
Street and tried to make the clamorous multitude
understand that the rest of the committee were flying
hither and thither and working with all their might
2 a
MARK TWAIN
and main, and that if the town would only wait an
hour, an office would be ready, books opened, and
the Commission prepared to receive contributions.
His voice was drowned and his information lost in
a ceaseless roar of cheers, and demands that the
money be received now — they swore they would not
wait. The chairman pleaded and argued, but, deaf
to all entreaty, men plowed their way through the
throng and rained checks of gold coin into the cart
and scurried away for more. Hands clutching
money were thrust aloft out of the jam by men
who hoped this eloquent appeal would cleave a road
their strugglings could not open. The very China-
men and Indians caught the excitement and dashed
their half-dollars into the cart without knowing or
caring what it was all about. Women plunged into
the crowd, trimly attired, fought their way to the
cart with their coin, and emerged again, by and by,
with their apparel in a state of hopeless dilapidation.
It was the wildest mob Virginia had ever seen and
the most determined and ungovernable; and when
at last it abated its fury and dispersed, it had not a
penny in its pocket. To use its own phraseology,
it came there "flush" and went away "busted."
After that, the Commission got itself into sys-
tematic working order, and for weeks the contribu-
tions flowed into its treasury in a generous stream.
Individuals and all sorts of organizations levied upon
themselves a regular weekly tax for the sanitary
fund, graduated according to their means, and there
was not another grand universal outburst till the
famous "Sanitary Flour-Sack" came our way. Its
26
ROUGHING IT
history is peculiar and interesting A former school-
mate of mine, by the name of Reuel Gridley, was
living at the little city of Austin, in the Reese River
country, at this time, and was the Democratic candi-
date for mayor. He and the Republican candidate
made an agreement that the defeated man should
be publicly presented with a fifty-pound sack of flour
by the successful one, and should carry it home on
his shoulder. Gridley was defeated. The new
mayor gave him the sack of flour, and he shouldered
it and carried it a mile or two, from Lower Austin
to his home in Upper Austin, attended by a band of
music and the whole population. Arrived there, he
said he did not need the flour, and asked what the
people thought he had better do with it. A voice
said:
"Sell it to the highest bidder, for the benefit of
the Sanitary fund."
The suggestion was greeted with a round of ap-
plause, and Gridley mounted a dry-goods box and
assumed the role of auctioneer. The bids went
higher and higher, as the sympathies of the pioneers
awoke and expanded, till at last the sack was knocked
down to a mill-man at two hundred and fifty dollars,
and his check taken. He was asked where he would
have the flour delivered, and he said:
"Nowhere — sell it again."
Now the cheers went up royally, and the multitude
were fairly in the spirit of the thing. So Gridley
stood there and shouted and perspired till the sun
went down; and when the crowd dispersed he had
sold the sack to three hundred different people, and
MARK TWAIN
had taken in eight thousand dollars in gold. And
still the flour-sack was in his possession.
The news came to Virginia, and a telegram went
back:
"Fetch along your flour-sack!"
Thirty-six hours afterward Gridley arrived, and an
afternoon mass - meeting was held in the Opera
House, and the auction began. But the sack had
come sooner than it was expected; the people were
not thoroughly aroused, and the sale dragged. At
nightfall only five thousand dollars had been secured,
and there was a crestfallen feeling in the community.
However, there was no disposition to let the matter
rest here and acknowledge vanquishment at the
hands of the village of Austin. Till late in the night
the principal citizens were at work arranging the
morrow's campaign, and when they went to bed they
had no fears for the result. At eleven the next
morning a procession of open carriages, attended by
clamorous bands of music and adorned with a mov-
ing display of flags, filed along C Street and was soon
in danger of blockade by a huzzaing multitude of
citizens. In the first carriage sat Gridley, with the
flour-sack in prominent view, the latter splendid with
bright paint and gilt lettering; also in the same car-
riage sat the mayor and the recorder. The other
carriages contained the Common Council, the editors
and reporters, and other people of imposing conse-
quence. The crowd pressed to the corner of C and
Taylor streets, expecting the sale to begin there, but
they were disappointed, and also unspeakably sur-
prised; for the cavalcade moved on as if Virginia
2&
ROUGHING IT
had ceased to be of importance, and took its way
over the "divide," toward the small town of Gold
Hill. Telegrams had gone ahead to Gold Hill,
Silver City, and Dayton, and those communities
were at fever-heat and ripe for the conflict. It was
a very hot day, and wonderfully dusty. At the end
of a short half -hour we descended into Gold Hill with
drums beating and colors flying, and enveloped in
imposing clouds of dust. The whole population —
men, women, and children, Chinamen and Indians,
were massed in the main street, all the flags in town
were at the masthead, and the blare of the bands
was drowned in cheers. Gridley stood up and asked
who would make the first bid for the National Sani-
tary Flour-Sack. Gen. W. said:
"The Yellow Jacket silver-mining company offers
a thousand dollars, coin!"
A tempest of applause followed. A telegram car-
ried the news to Virginia, and fifteen minutes after-
ward that city's population was massed in the streets
devouring the tidings — for it was part of the pro-
gram that the bulletin-boards should do a good work
that day. Every few minutes a new despatch was
bulletined from Gold Hill, and still the excitement
grew. Telegrams began to return to us from Vir-
ginia beseeching Gridley to bring back the flour-
sack; but such was not the plan of the campaign.
At the end of an hour Gold Hill's small population
had paid a figure for the flour-sack that awoke all
the enthusiasm of Virginia when the grand total
was displayed upon the bulletin-boards. Then the
Gridley cavalcade moved on, a giant refreshed with
29
MARK TWAIN
new lager beer and plenty of it — for the people
brought it to the carriages without waiting to meas-
ure it — and within three hour? more the expedition
had carried Silver City and Dayton by storm and
was on its way back covered with glory. Every
move had been telegraphed and bulletined, and as
the procession entered Virginia and filed down C
Street at half past eight in the evening the town was
abroad in the thoroughfares, torches were glaring,
flags flying, bands playing, cheer on cheer cleaving
the air, and the city ready to surrender at discretion.
The auction began, every bid was greeted with
bursts of applause, and at the end of two hours and
a half a population of fifteen thousand souls had paid
in coin for a fifty-pound sack of flour a sum equal
to forty thousand dollars in greenbacks! It was at
a rate in the neighborhood of three dollars for each
man, woman, and child of the population. The
grand total would have been twice as large, but the
streets were very narrow, and hundreds who wanted
to bid could not get within a block of the stand, and
could not make themselves heard. These grew tired
of waiting, and many of them went home long before
the auction was over. This was the greatest day
Virginia ever saw, perhaps.
Gridley sold the sack in Carson City and several
California towns; also in San Francisco. Then he
took it East and sold it in one or two Atlantic cities,
I think. I am not sure of that, but I know that he
finally carried it to St. Louis, where a monster
sanitary fair was being held, and after selling it
there for a large sum and helping on the enthusiasm
30
ROUGHING IT
by displaying the portly silver bricks which Nevada's
donation had produced, he had the flour baked up
into small cakes and retailed them at high prices.
It was estimated that when the flour-sack's mis-
sion was ended it had been sold for a grand total of
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in greenbacks!
This is probably the only instance on record where
common family flour brought three thousand dollars
a pound in the public market.
It is due to Mr. Gridley's memory to mention that
the expenses of his Sanitary Flour-Sack expedition
of fifteen thousand miles, going and returning, were
paid in large part, if not entirely, out of his own
pocket. The time he gave to it was not less than
three months. Mr. Gridley was a soldier in the
Mexican War and a pioneer Calif ornian. He died
at Stockton, California, in December, 1870, greatly
regretted.
CHAPTER V
THERE were nabobs in those days — in the
"flush times," I mean. Every rich strike in
the mines created one or two. I call to mind several
of these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as
a general thing, and the community at large was as
much benefited by their riches as they were them-
selves— possibly more, in some cases.
Two cousins, teamsters, did some hauling for a
man and had to take a small segregated portion of
a silver-mine in lieu of three hundred dollars cash.
They gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and
they went on teaming. But not long. Ten months
afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each
owner eight to ten thousand dollars a month — say
one hundred thousand dollars a year.
One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was de-
livered of wore six thousand dollars' worth of dia-
monds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy be-
cause he could not spend his money as fast as he
made it.
Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that
often reached sixteen thousand dollars a month;
and he used to love to tell how he had worked in
the very mine that yielded it, for five dollars a day,
when he first came to the country.
The silver and sage-brush state has knowledge of
32
ROUGHING IT
another of these pets of fortune — lifted from actual
poverty to affluence almost in a single night — who
was able to offer one hundred thousand dollars for
a position of high official distinction, shortly after-
ward, and did offer it — but failed to get it, his poli-
tics not being as sound as his bank-account.
Then there was John Smith. He was a good,
honest, kind-hearted soul, born and reared in the
lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant. He
drove a team, and owned a small ranch — a ranch
that paid him a comfortable living, for although
it yielded but little hay, what little it did yield
was worth from two hundred and fifty to three
hundred dollars in gold per ton in the market.
Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for
a small undeveloped silver-mine in Gold Hill. He
opened the mine and built a little unpretending ten-
stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired
from the hay business, for his mining income had
reached a most comfortable figure. Some people
said it was thirty thousand dollars a month, and
others said it was sixty thousand dollars. Smith
was very rich, at any rate.
And then he went to Europe and traveled. And
when he came back he was never tired of telling
about the fine hogs he had seen in England, and the
gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine
cattle he had noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He
was full of the wonders of the Old World, and advised
everybody to travel. He said a man never imagined
what surprising things there were in the ^orld tii*
he had traveled.
53
MARK TWAIN
One day, on board ship, the passengers madt. a>
a pool of five hundred dollars, which was to be the
property of the man who should come nearest to
guessing the run of the vessel for the next twenty-
four hours. Next day, toward noon, the figures
were all in the purser's hands in sealed env 3lopes.
Smith was serene and happy, for he had been brib-
ing the engineer. But another party won tho prize !
Smith said:
"Here, that won't do! He guessed two miles
wider of the mark than I did."
The purser said, "Mr. Smith, you missed it
further than any man on board. We traveled two
hundred and eight miles yesterday."
"Well, sir," said Smith, "that's just where I've
got you, for I guessed two hundred and nine. If
you'll look at my Aggers again you'll find a 2 and
two o's, which stands for 200, don't it? — and after
'em you'll find a 9 (2009), which stands for two
hundred and nine. I reckon I'll take that money,
if you please."
The Gould & Curry claim comprised twelve hun-
dred feet, and it all belonged originally to the two
men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry owned two-
thirds of it — and he said that he sold it out for
twenty-five hundred dollars in cash, and an old plug
horse that ate up his market value in hay and barley
in seventeen days by the watch. And he said that
Gould sold out for a pair of second-hand govern-
ment blankets and a bottle of whisky that killed
nine men in three hours, and that an unoffending
stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life
34
ROUGHING IT
Four years afterward the mine thus disposed of was
worth in the San Francisco market seven millions
six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin.
In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who
lived in a carion directly back of Virginia City, had
a stream of water as large as a man's wrist trickling
from the hillside on his premises. The Ophir Com-
pany segregated a hundred feet of their mine and
traded it to him for the stream of water. The hun-
dred feet proved to be the richest part of the entire
mine ; four years after the swap, its market value (in-
cluding its mill) was one and a half million dollars.
An individual who owned twenty feet in the Ophir
mine before its great riches were revealed to men,
traded it for a horse, and a very sorry -looking brute
he was, too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir
stock went up to three thousand dollars a foot, this
man, who had not a cent, used to say he was the most
startling example of magnificence and misery the world
had ever seen — because he was able to ride a sixty-
thousand-dollar horse — yet could not scrape up cash
enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to borrow
one or ride bareback. He said if fortune were to give
him another sixty-thousand-dollar horse it would
ruin him.
A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operatoi
in Virginia on a salary of a hundred dollars a month,
and who, when he could not make out German names
in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to
ingeniously select and supply substitutes for them
out of an old Berlin city directory, made himself
rich by watching the mining telegrams that passed
35
MARK TWAIN
through his hands and buying and selling stocks
accordingly, through a friend in San Francisco. Once
when a private despatch was sent from Virginia
announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and
advising that the matter be kept secret till a large
amount of the stock could be secured, he bought
forty "feet" of the stock at twenty dollars a foot,
and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars
a foot and the rest at double that figure. Within
three months he was worth one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars and resigned his telegraphic position.
Another telegraph operator, who had been dis-
charged by the company for divulging the secrets
of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in San
Francisco to furnish him the result of a great Vir-
ginia mining lawsuit within an hour after its private
reception by the parties to it in San Francisco. For
this he was to have a large percentage of the profits
on purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-
conspirator. So he went, disguised as a teamster,
to a little wayside telegraph-office in the mountains,
got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the
office day after day, smoking his pipe, complaining
that his team was fagged out and unable to travel —
and meantime listening to the despatches as they
passed clicking through the machine from Virginia.
Finally the private despatch announcing the result of
the lawsuit sped over the wires, and as soon as he
heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco.
"Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go
home."
It was the signal agreed upon. The word "wait-
36
ROUGHING IT
ing" left out, would have signified that the suit had
gone the other way. The mock teamster's friend
picked up a deal of the mining stock, at low figures,
before the news became public, and a fortune was
the result.
For a long time after one of the great Virginia
mines had been incorporated, about fifty feet of the
original location were still in the hands of a man
who had never signed the incorporation papers.
The stock became very valuable, and every effort
was made to find this man, but he had disappeared.
Once it was heard that he was in New York, and
one or two speculators went East but failed to find
him. Once the news came that he was in the
Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two
hurried East and sailed for Bermuda — but he was
not there. Finally he was heard of in Mexico, and
a friend of his, a barkeeper on a salary, scraped
together a little money and sought him out, bought
his "feet" for a hundred dollars, returned and sold
the property for seventy-five thousand dollars.
But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are
filled with instances like these, and I would never
get through enumerating them were I to attempt to
do it. I only desired to give the reader an idea of a
peculiarity of the "flush times" which I could not
present so strikingly in any other way, and which
some mention of was necessary to a realizing com-
prehension of the time and the country.
I was personally acquainted with the majority of
the nabobs I have referred to, and so, for old ac-
quaintance' sake, I have shifted their occupations
37
MARK TWAIN
and experiences around in such a way as to keep the
Pacific public from recognizing these once notorious
men. No longer notorious, for the majority of them
have drifted back into poverty and obscurity again.
In Nevada there used to be current the story of
an adventure of two of her nabobs, which may or
may not have occurred. I give it for what it is
worth :
Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and
knew more or less of its ways; but Col. Jack was
from the back settlements of the States, had led a
life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city.
These two, blessed with sudden wealth, projected a
visit to New York — Col. Jack to see the sights, and
Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from mis-
fortune. They reached San Francisco in the night,
and sailed in the morning. Arrived in New York,
Col. Jack said :
"I've heard tell of carriages all my life, and now
I mean to have a ride in one; I don't care what it
costs. Come along."
They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim
called a stylish barouche. But Col. Jack said :
"No, sir! None of your cheap- John turnouts for
me. I'm here to have a good time, and money ain't
any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rig that's
going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that
yaller one with the pictures on it — don't you fret —
I'll stand all the expenses myself."
So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they
got in. Said Col. Jack:
"Ain't it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not!
38
ROUGHING IT
Cushions, and windows, and pictures, till you can't
rest. What would the boys say if they could see us
cutting a swell like this in New York? By George,
I wish they could see us."
Then he put his head out of the window, and
shouted to the driver:
"Say, Johnny, this suits me! — suits yours truly,
you bet you! I want this shebang all day. I'm on
it, old man! Let 'em out! Make 'em go! We'll
make it all right with you, sonny!"
The driver passed his hand through the strap-
hole, and tapped for his fare — it was before the gongs
came into common use. Col. Jack took the hand,
and shook it cordially. He said :
"You twig me, old pard! All right between
gents. Smell of that, and see how you like it!"
And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the
driver's hand. After a moment the driver said he
could not make change.
" Bother the change ! Ride it out. Put it in your
pocket."
Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his
thigh :
"Ain't it style, though? Hanged if I don't hire
this thing every day for a week."
The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in.
Coi. Jack stared a moment, then nudged Col. Jim
with his elbow:
"Don't say a word," he whispered. "Let her ride,
if she wants to. Gracious, there's room enough."
The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and
handed her fare to Col. Jack.
39
MARK TWAIN
"What's this for?" said he.
"Give it to the driver, please."
"Take back your money, madam. We can't allow
it. You're welcome to ride here as long as you
please, but this shebang's chartered, and we can't
let you pay a cent."
The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old
lady with a basket climbed in, and proffered her
fare.
"Excuse me," said Col. Jack. "You're perfectly
welcome here, madam, but we can't allow you to
pay. Set right down there, mum, and don't you be
the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if
you was in your own turnout."
Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat
women, and a couple of children, entered.
"Come right along, friends," said Col. Jack;
"don't mind us. This is a free blowout." Then he
whispered to Col. Jim, "New York ain't no sociable
place, I don't reckon — it ain't no name for it!"
He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver,
and made everybody cordially welcome. The situa-
tion dawned on the people, and they pocketed their
money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoy-
ment of the episode. Half a dozen more passengers
entered.
"Oh, there's plenty of room," said Col. Jack.
"Walk right in, and make yourselves at home. A
blowout ain't worth anything as a blowout, unless a
body has company." Then in a whisper to Col.
Jim: "But ain't these New-Yorkers friendly? And
ain't they cool about it, too? Icebergs ain't esq?*
40
ROUGHING IT
where. I reckon they'd tackle a hearse, if it was
going their way."
More passengers got in; more yet, and still more.
Both seats were rilled, and a file of men were standing
up, holding on to the cleats overhead. Parties with
baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof.
Half- suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides.
"Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this
don't bang anything that ever I saw, I'm an Injun!"
whispered Col. Jack.
A Chinaman crowded his way in.
"I weaken!" said Col. Jack. "Hold on, driver!
Keep your seats, ladies and gents. Just make your-
selves free — everything's paid for. Driver, rustle
these folks around as long as they're a mind to go —
friends of ours, you know. Take them everywheres —
and if you want more money, come to the St. Nicho-
las, and we'll make it all right. Pleasant journey
to you, ladies and gents — go it just as long as you
please — it sha'n't cost you a cent!"
The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:
"Jimmy, it's the sociablest place I ever saw. The
Chinaman waltzed in as comfortable as anybody. If
we'd stayed awhile, I reckon we'd had some niggers.
B' George, we'll have to barricade our doors to-night,
or some of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us."
CHAPTER VI
SOMEBODY has said that in order to know a
community, one must observe the style of its
funerals and know what manner of men they bury
with most ceremony. I cannot say which class we
buried with most eclat in our "flush times," the
distinguished public benefactor or the distinguished
rough — possibly the two chief grades or grand
divisions of society honored their illustrious dead
about equally; and hence, no doubt, the philosopher
I have quoted from would have needed to see two
representative funerals in Virginia before forming his
estimate of the people.
There was a grand time over Buck Fanshaw when
he died. He was a representative citizen. He had
"killed his man" — not in his own quarrel, it is true,
but in defense of a stranger unfairly beset by num-
bers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had
been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he
could have discarded without the formality of a
divorce. He had held a high position in the fire
department and been a very Warwick in politics.
When he died there was great lamentation through-
out the town, but especially in the vast bottom-
stratum of society.
On the inquest it was shown that Buck Fanshaw,
42
ROUGHING IT
in the delirium of a wasting typhoid fever, had taken
arsenic, shot himself through the body, cut his throat,
and jumped out of a four-story window and broken
his neck — and after due deliberation, the jury, sad
and tearful, but with intelligence unblinded by its
sorrow, brought in a verdict of death "by the
visitation of God." What could the world do without
]unes
Prodigious preparations were made for the funeral.
All the vehicles in town were hired, all the saloons
put in mourning, all the municipal and fire-company
flags hung at half-mast, and all the firemen ordered
to muster in uniform and bring their machines duly
draped in black. [Now — let us remark in parentheses
— as all the peoples of the earth had representative
adventurers in the Silverland, and as each adventurer
had brought the slang of his nation or his locality
with him, the combination made the slang of Nevada
the richest and the most infinitely varied and copious
that had ever existed anywhere in the world, perhaps,
except in the mines of California in the "early days."
Slang was the language of Nevada. It was hard to
preach a sermon without it, and be understood. Such
phrases as "You bet!" "Oh, no, I reckon not!"
"No Irish need apply," and a hundred others, be-
came so common as to fall from the lips of a speaker
unconsciously — and very often when they did not
touch the subject under discussion and consequently
failed to mean anything. _j
After Buck Fanshaw's inquest, a meeting of the
short-haired brotherhood was held, for nothing can
be done on the Pacific coast without a public meet-
4;;
MARK TWAIN
ing and an expression of sentiment. Regretful reso-
lutions were passed and various committees ap-
pointed; among others, a committee of one was
deputed to call on the minister, a fragile, gentle,
spirituel new fledgling from an Eastern theological
seminary, and as yet unacquainted with the ways of
the mines. The committeeman, "Scotty" Briggs,
made his visit ; and in after days it was worth some-
thing to hear the minister tell about it. Scotty was
a stalwart rough, whose customary suit, when on
weighty official business, like committee work, was
a fire-helmet, flaming red flannel shirt, patent-leather
belt with spanner and revolver attached, coat hung
over arm, and pants stuffed into boot-tops. He
formed something of a contrast to the pale theo-
logical student. It is fair to say of Scotty, however,
in passing, that he had a warm heart, and a strong
love for his friends, and never entered into a quarrel
when he could reasonably keep out of it. Indeed,
it was commonly said that whenever one of Scotty 's
fights was investigated, it always turned out that it
had originally been no affair of his, but that out of
native good-heartedness he had dropped in of his
own accord to help the man who was getting the
worst of it. He and Buck Fanshaw were bosom
friends, for years, and had often taken adventurous
"pot -luck" together. On one occasion, they had
thrown off their coats and taken the weaker side in
a fight among strangers, and after gaining a hard-
earned victory, turned and found that the men they
were helping had deserted early, and not only that,
but had stolen their coats and made off with them!
44
ROUGHING IT
But to return to Scotty's visit to the minister. He
was on a sorrowful mission, now, and his face was
the picture of woe. Being admitted to the presence
he sat down before the clergyman, placed his fire-
hat on an unfinished manuscript sermon under the
minister's nose, took from it a red silk handkerchief,
wiped his brow and heaved a sigh of dismal impres-
siveness, explanatory of his business. He choked,
and even shed tears; but with an effort he mastered
his voice and said in lugubrious tones:
"Are you the duck that runs the gospel-mill next
door?"
"Am I the — pardon me, I believe I do not
understand?"
With another sigh and a half-sob, Scotty rejoined:
"Why you see we are in a bit of trouble, and the
boys thought maybe you would give us a lift, if
we'd tackle you — that is, if I've got the rights of it
and you are the head clerk of the doxology-works
next door."
"I am the shepherd in charge of the flock whose
fold is next door."
"The which?"
"The spiritual adviser of the little company of
believers whose sanctuary adjoins these premises."
Scotty scratched his head, reflected a moment, and
then said:
"You ruther hold over me, pard. I reckon I can't
call that hand. Ante and pass the buck."
"How? I beg pardon. What did I understand
you to say?"
"Well, you've ruther got the bulge on me. Or
45
MARK TWAIN
maybe we've both got the bulge, somehow. You
don't smoke me and I don't smoke you. You see,
one of the boys has passed in his checks, and we
want to give him a good send-off, and so the thing I'm
on now is to roust out somebody to jerk a little
chin -music for us and waltz him through hand-
some."
"My friend, I seem to grow more and more be-
wildered. Your observations are wholly incompre-
hensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some
way? At first I thought perhaps I understood you,
but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if
you restricted yourself to categorical statements of
fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations
of metaphor and allegory?"
Another pause, and more reflection. Then, said
Scotty:
"I'll have to pass, I judge."
"How?"
"You've raised me out, pard."
"I still fail to catch your meaning."
"Why, that last lead of yourn is too many for
me — that's the idea. I can't neither trump nor
follow suit."
The clergyman sank back in his chair perplexed.
Scotty leaned his head on his hand and gave himself
up to thought. Presently his face came up, sorrow-
ful but confident.
"I've got it now, so's you can savvy," he said.
"What we want is a gospel-sharp. See?"
"A what?"
"Gospel-sharp. Parson."
46
ROUGHING IT
"Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a
clergyman — a parson."
"Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle
it like a man. Put it there!" — extending a brawny-
paw, which closed over the minister's small hand
and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy
and fervent gratification.
"Now we're all right, pard. Let's start fresh.
Don't you mind my snuffling a little — becuz we're
in a power of trouble. You see, one of the boys
has gone up the flume — "
"Gone where?"
"Up the flume — throwed up the sponge, you
understand."
"Thrown up the sponge?"
"Yes— kicked the bucket—"
"Ah — has departed to that mysterious country
from whose bourne no traveler returns."
"Return! I reckon not. Why, pard, he's dead!"
"Yes, I understand."
"Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might
be getting tangled some more. Yes, you see he's
dead again — "
"Again! Why, has he ever been dead before?"
"Dead before? No! Do you reckon a man has
got as many lives as a cat? But you bet you he's
awful dead now, poor old boy, and I wish I'd never
seen this day. I don't want no better friend than
Buck Fanshaw. I knowed him by the back; and
when I know a man and like him, I freeze to him —
you hear me. Take him all round, pard, there
never was a bullier man in the mines. No man ever
47
MARK TWAIN
knowed Buck Fanshaw to go back on a friend.
But it's all up, you know, it's all up. It ain't no
use. They've scooped him."
"Scooped him?"
"Yes — death has. Well, well, well, we've got to
give him up. Yes, indeed. It's a kind of a hard
world, after all, aint it? But pard, he was a rustler!
You ought to seen him get started once. He was a
bully boy with a glass eye ! Just spit in his face and
give him room according to his strength, and it was
just beautiful to see him peel and go in. He was the
worst son of a thief that ever drawed breath. Pard,
he was on it! He was on it bigger than an Injun!"
"On it? On what?"
"On the shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight,
you understand. He didn't give a continental for
anybody. Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so
near saying a cuss- word — but you see I'm on an
awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having
to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But
we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting
around that, I don't reckon. Now if we can get
you to help plant him — "
"Preach the funeral discourse? Assist at the
obsequies?"
"Obs'quies is good. Yes. That's it — that's our
little game. We are going to get the thing up
regardless, you know. He was always nifty him-
self, and so you bet you his funeral ain't going to
be no slouch — solid-silver door-plate on his coffin,
six plumes on the hearse, and a nigger on the box
in a biled shirt and a plug hat — how's that for high?
48
ROUGHING IT
And we'll take care of you, pard. We'll fix you all
right. There'll be a kerridge for you; and whatever
you want, you just 'scape out and we'll 'tend to it.
We've got a shebang fixed up for you to stand behind,
in No. i's house, and don't you be afraid. Just go
in and toot your horn, if you don't sell a clam. Put
Buck through as bully as you can, pard, for anybody
that knowed him will tell you that he was one of the
whitest men that was ever in the mines. You can't
draw it too strong. He never could stand it to see
things going wrong. He's done more to make this
town quiet and peaceable than any man in it. I've
seen him lick four Greasers in eleven minutes, myself.
If a thing wanted regulating, he warn't a man to go
browsing around after somebody to do it, but he
would prance in and regulate it himself. He warn't
a Catholic. Scasely. He was down on 'em. His
word was, 'No Irish need apply!' But it didn't
make no difference about that when it came down tf»
what a man's rights was — and so, when some roughs
jumped the Catholic boneyard and started in to
stake out town lots in it he went for 'em! And he
cleaned 'em, too! I was there, pard, and I seen it
myself."
"That was very well indeed — at least the impulse
was — whether the act was strictly defensible or not.
Had deceased any religious convictions? That is to
say, did he feel a dependence upon, or acknowledge
allegiance to a higher power?"
More reflection.
' ' I reckon you've stumped me again, pard. Coulc
you say it over once more, and say it slow?"
4Q
MARK TWAIN
"Well, to simplify it somewhat, was he, or rather
nad he ever been connected with any organization
sequestered from secular concerns and devoted to
self-sacrifice in the interests of morality?"
"All down but nine — set 'em up on the other
alley, pard."
"What did I understand you to say?"
"Why, you're most too many for me, you know.
When you get in with your left I hunt grass every
time. Every time you draw, you fill; but I don't
seem to have any luck. Let's have a new deal."
"How? Begin again?"
"That's it."
"Very well. Was he a good man, and — "
"There — I see that; don't put up another chip
till I look at my hand. A good man, says you?
Pard, it ain't no name for it. He was the best man
that ever — pard, you would have doted on that man.
He could lam any galoot of his inches in America.
It was him that put down the riot last election before
it got a start; and everybody said he was the only
man that could have done it. He waltzed in with a
spanner in one hand and a trumpet in the other, and
sent fourteen men home on a shutter in less than
three minutes. He had that riot all broke up and
prevented nice before anybody ever got a chance to
strike a blow. He was always for peace, and he
would have peace — he could not stand disturbances.
Pard, he was a great loss to this town. It would
please the boys if you could chip in something like
that and do him justice. Here once when the Micks
got to throwing stones through the Methodis'
so
ROUGHING IT
Sunday-school windows, Buck Fanshaw, all of his
own notion, shut up his saloon and took a couple of
six-shooters and mounted guard over the Sunday-
school. Says he, ' No Irish need apply ! ' And they
didn't. He was the bulliest man in the mountains,
pard! He could run faster, jump higher, hit harder,
and hold more tanglefoot whisky without spilling it
than any man in seventeen counties. Put that in,
pard — it '11 please the boys more than anything you
could say. And you can say, pard, that he never
shook his mother."
"Never shook his mother?"
"That's it — any of the boys will tell you so."
"Well, but why should he shake her?"
"That's what i" say — but some people does."
"Not people of any repute?"
"Well, some that averages pretty so-so."
* ' In my opinion the man that would offer personal
violence to his own mother, ought to — "
"Cheese it, pard; you've banked your ball clean
outside the string. What I was a drivin' at, was,
that he never throwed off on his mother — don't you
see? No indeedy. He give her a house to live in,
and town lots, and plenty of money; and he looked
after her and took care of her all the time ; and when
she was down with the smallpox I'm d — d if he
didn't set up nights and nuss her himself! Beg your
pardon for saying it, but it hopped out too quick for
yours truly. You've treated me like a gentleman,
pard, and I ain't the man to hurt your feelings in-
tentional. I think you're white. I think you're a
square man, pard. I like you, and I'll lick any man
MARK TWAIN
that don't. I'll lick him till he can't tell himself
from a last year's corpse! Put it there!" [Another
fraternal hand-shake — and exit.]
The obsequies were all that "the boys" could
desire. Such a marvel of funeral pomp had never
been seen in Virginia. The plumed hearse, the
dirge - breathing brass -bands, the closed marts of
business, the flags drooping at half-mast, the long,
plodding procession of uniformed secret societies,
military battalions and fire companies, draped en-
gines, carriages of officials, and citizens in vehicles
and on foot, attracted multitudes of spectators to the
sidewalks, roofs, and windows; and for years after-
ward, the degree of grandeur attained by any civic
display in Virginia was determined by comparison
with Buck Fanshaw's funeral.
Scotty Briggs, as a pall-bearer and a mourner,
occupied a prominent place at the funeral, and when
the sermon was finished and the last sentence of the
prayer for the dead man's soul ascended, he re-
sponded, in a low voice, but with feeling:
"Amen. No Irish need apply."
As the bulk of the response was without apparent
relevancy, it was probably nothing more than a
humble tribute to the memory of the friend that
was gone; for, as Scotty had once said, it was "his
word."
Scotty Briggs, in after days, achieved the dis-
tinction of becoming the only convert to religion that
was ever gathered from the Virginia roughs; and it
transpired that the man who had it in him to espouse
the quarrel of the weak out of inborn nobility of
52
ROUGHING IT
spirit was no mean timber whereof to construct a
Christian. The making him one did not warp his
generosity or diminish his courage; on the contrary
it gave intelligent direction to the one and a broader
field to the other. If his Sunday-school class pro-
gressed faster than the other classes, was it matter
for wonder? I think not. He talked to his pioneer
small-fry in a language they understood! It was
my large privilege, a month before he died, to hear
him tell the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren
to his class "without looking at the book." I leave
it to the reader to fancy what it was like, as it fell,
riddled with slang, from the lips of that grave, earnest
teacher, and was listened to by his little learners with
a consuming interest that showed that they were as
unconscious as he was that any violence was being
done to the sacred proprieties!
CHAPTER VII
THE first twenty-six graves in the Virginia ceme-
tery were occupied by murdered men. So
everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they
will always say and believe. The reason why there
was so much slaughtering done, was, that in a new
mining district the rough element predominates, and
a person is not respected until he has "killed his
man." That was the very expression used.
If an unknown individual arrived, they did not
inquire if he was capable, honest, industrious, but —
had he killed his man? If he had not, he gravitated
to his natural and proper position, that of a man of
small consequence; if he had, the cordiality of his
reception was graduated according to the number of
his dead. It was tedious work struggling up to a
position of influence with bloodless hands; but when
a man came with the blood of half a dozen men on
his soul, his worth was recognized at once and his
acquaintance sought.
In Nevada, for a time, the lawyer, the editor, the
banker, the chief desperado, the chief gambler, and
the saloon-keeper, occupied the same level in society,
and it was the highest. The cheapest and easiest
way to become an influential man and be looked up
to by the community at large, was to stand behind a
54
ROUGHING IT
bar, wear a cluster-diamond pin, and sell whisky.
I am not sure but that the saloon-keeper held a shade
higher rank than any other member of society. His
opinion had weight. It was his privilege to say how
the elections should go. No great movement could
succeed without the countenance and direction of the
saloon-keepers. It was a high favor when the chief
saloon-keeper consented to serve in the legislature or
the board of aldermen. Youthful ambition hardly
aspired so much to the honors of the law, or the
army and navy as to the dignity of proprietorship in
a saloon. To be a saloon-keeper and kill a man was
to be illustrious. Hence the reader will not be
surprised to learn that more than one man was killed
in Nevada under hardly the pretext of provocation,
so impatient was the slayer to achieve reputation and
throw off the galling sense of being held in indifferent
repute by his associates. I knew two youths who
tried to "kill their men" for no other reason — and
got killed themselves for their pains. "There goes
the man that killed Bill Adams" was higher praise
and a sweeter sound in the ears of this sort of people
than any other speech that admiring lips could utter.
The men who murdered Virginia's original twenty-
six cemetery occupants were never punished. Why?
Because Alfred the Great, when he invented trial by
jury, and knew that he had admirably framed it to
secure justice in his age of the world, was not aware
that in the nineteenth century the condition of things
would be so entirely changed that unless he rose
from the grave and altered the jury plan to meet the
emergency, it would prove the most ingenious and
MARK TWAIN
infallible agency for defeating justice that human
wisdom could contrive. For how could he imagine
that we simpletons would go on using his jury plan
after circumstances had stripped it of its usefulness,
any more than he could imagine that we would go
on using his candle-clock after we had invented
chronometers? In his day news could not travel
fast, and hence he could easily find a jury of honest,
intelligent men who had not heard of the case they
were called to try — but in our day of telegraphs and
newspapers his plan compels us to swear in juries
composed of fools and rascals, because the system
rigidly excludes honest men and men of brains.
I remember one of those sorrowful farces, in
Virginia, which we call a jury trial. A noted des-
perado killed Mr. B., a good citizen, in the most
wanton and cold-blooded way. Of course the papers
were full of it, and all men capable of reading read
about it. And of course all men not deaf and dumb
and idiotic talked about it. A jury list was made
out, and Mr. B. L., a prominent banker and a valued
citizen, was questioned precisely as he would have
been questioned in any court in America:
"Have you heard of this homicide?"
"Yes."
"Have you held conversations upon the subject?"
"Yes."
; ' Have you formed or expressed opinions about it ?"
"Yes."
"Have you read the newspaper accounts of it?"
"Yes."
"We do not want you."
56
ROUGHING IT
A minister, intelligent, esteemed, and greatly re.
spected; a merchant of high character and known
probity; a mining superintendent of intelligence and
unblemished reputation ; a quartz - mill owner of
excellent standing, were all questioned in the same
way, and all set aside. Each said the public talk
and the newspaper reports had not so biased his
mind but that sworn testimony would overthrow his
previously formed opinions and enable him to render
a verdict without prejudice and in accordance with
the facts. But of course such men could not be
trusted with the case. Ignoramuses alone could
mete out unsullied justice.
When the peremptory challenges were all ex-
hausted, a jury of twelve men was impaneled — a
jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked
about, nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder
which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in
the sage-brush, and the stones in the streets were
cognizant of! It was a jury composed of two des-
peradoes, two low beer-house politicians, three bar-
keepers, two ranchmen who could not read, and three
dull, stupid, human donkeys! It actually came out
afterward, that one of these latter thought that
incest and arson were the same thing.
The verdict rendered by this jury was, Not Guilty.
What else could one expect?
The juiy system puts a ban upon intelligence and
honesty, and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity,
and perjury. It is a shame that we must continue
to use a worthless system because it was good a
thousand years ago. In this age, when a gentleman
S7
MARK TWAIN
of high social standing, intelligence, and probity,
swears that testimony given under solemn oath will
outweigh, with him, street talk and newspaper
reports based upon mere hearsay, he is worth a
hundred jurymen who will swear to their own igno-
rance and stupidity, and justice would be far safer
in his hands than in theirs. Why could not the jury
law be so altered as to give men of brains and
honesty an equal chance with fools and miscreants?
Is it right to show the present favoritism to one class
of men and inflict a disability on another, in a land
whose boast is that all its citizens are free and equal ?
I am a candidate for the legislature. I desire to
tamper with the jury law. I wish to so alter it as
to put a premium on intelligence and character, and
close the jury - box against idiots, blacklegs, and
people who do not read newspapers. But no doubt
I shall be defeated — every effort I make to save the
country "misses fire."
My idea, when I began this chapter, was to say
something about desperadoism in the "flush times"
of Nevada. To attempt a portrayal of that era and
that land, and leave out the blood and carnage,
would be like portraying Mormondom and leaving
out polygamy. The desperado stalked the streets
with a swagger graded according to the number of
his homicides, and a nod of recognition from him
was sufficient to make a humble admirer happy for
the rest of the day. The deference that was paid
to a desperado of wide reputation, and who "kept
his private graveyard," as the phrase went, was
marked, and cheerfully accorded. When he moved
58
ROUGHING IT
along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed
frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty
little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry
roughs made room for his majesty; when he entered
the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and
merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious ser-
vice ; when he shouldered his way to a bar, the shoul-
dered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him,
and — apologized. They got a look in return that
froze their marrow, and by that time a curled and
breast - pinned barkeeper was beaming over the
counter, proud of the established acquaintanceship
that permitted such a familiar form of speech as :
"How 're ye, Billy, old fel? Glad to see you.
What '11 you take — the old thing?"
The "old thing" meant his customary drink, of
course.
The best-known names in the territory of Nevada
were those belonging to these long-tailed heroes of
the revolver. Orators, governors, capitalists, and
leaders of the legislature enjoyed a degree of fame,
but it seemed local and meager when contrasted with
the fame of such men as Sam Brown, Jack Williams,
Billy Mulligan, Farmer Pease, Sugarfoot Mike,
Pock-Marked Jake, El Dorado Johnny, Jack Mc-
Nabb, Joe McGee, Jack Harris, Six-fingered Pete,
etc., etc. There was a long list of them. They were
brave, reckless men, and traveled with their lives in
their hands. To give them their due, they did their
killing principally among themselves, and seldom
molested peaceable citizens, for they considered it
small credit to add to their trophies so cheap a bauble-
59
MARK TWAIN
as the death of a man who was "not on the shoot,"
as they phrased it. They killed each other on slight
provocation, and hoped and expected to be killed
themselves — for they held it almost shame to die
otherwise than "with their boots on," as they ex-
pressed it.
I remember an instance of a desperado's contempt
for such small game as a private citizen's life. I
was taking a late supper in a restaurant one night,
with two reporters and a little printer named —
Brown, for instance — any name will do. Presently
a stranger with a long- tailed coat on came in, and
not noticing Brown's hat, which was lying in a chair,
sat down on it. Little Brown sprang up and be-
came abusive in a moment. The stranger smiled,
smoothed out the hat, and offered it to Brown with
profuse apologies couched in caustic sarcasm, and
begged Brown not to destroy him. Brown threw
off his coat and challenged the man to fight —
abused him, threatened him, impeached his courage,
and urged and even implored him to fight; and in
the mean time the smiling stranger placed himself
under our protection in mock distress. But pres-
ently he assumed a serious tone, and said :
"Very well, gentlemen, if we must fight, we must,
I suppose. But don't rush into danger and then
say I gave you no warning. I am more than a
match for all of you when I get started. I will give
you proofs, and then if my friend here still insists*
I will try to accommodate hi:v..'*
The table we were sitting at was about five feet
long, and unusually cumbersome and heavy. He
60
ROUGHING IT
asked us to put our hands on the dishes and hold
them in their places a moment — one of them was a
large oval dish with a portly roast on it. Then he
sat down, tilted up one end of the table, set two of
the legs on his knees, took the end of the table be-
tween his teeth, took his hands away, and pulled
down with his teeth till the table came up to a level
position, dishes and all! He said he could lift a keg
of nails with his teeth. He picked up a common
glass tumbler and bit a semicircle out of it. Then
he opened his bosom and showed us a network of
knife and bullet scars; showed us more on his arms
and face, and said he believed he had bullets enough
in his body to make a pig of lead. He was armed to
the teeth. He closed with the remark that he was
Mr. of Cariboo — a celebrated name whereat we
shook in our shoes. I would publish the name, but
for the suspicion that he might come and carve me.
He finally inquired if Brown still thirsted for blood.
Brown turned the thing over in his mind a moment,
and then — asked him to supper.
With the permission of the reader, I will group
together, in the next chapter, some samples of life
in our small mountain village in the old days of
desperadoism. I was there at the time. The reader
will observe peculiarities in our official society; and
he will observe also, an instance of how, in new
countries, murders breed murders.
CHAPTER VIII
AN extract or two from the newspapers of the day
^ will furnish a photograph that can need no
mbellishment :
Fatal Shooting Affray. — An affray occurred, last evening,
j a a billiard-saloon on C Street, between Deputy Marshal Jack
Williams and Wm. Brown, which resulted in the immediate
death of the latter. There had been some difficulty between
the parties for several months.
An inquest was immediately held, and the following testimony
udduced :
Officer Geo. Birdsall, sworn, says: — I was told Wm. Brown
was drunk and was looking for Jack Williams; so soon as I
heard that I started for the parties to prevent a collision; went
into the billiard-saloon; saw Billy Brown running around, saying
if anybody had anything against him to show cause; he was
talking in a boisterous manner, and officer Perry took him to
the other end of the room to talk to him; Brown came back
to me; remarked to me that he thought he was as good as
anybody, and knew how to take care of himself; he passed by
me and went to the bar; don't know whether he drank or not;
Williams was at the end of the billiard -table, next to the stairway;
^rown, after going to the bar, came back and said he was as
j^ood as any man in the world; he had then walked out to the
»-nd of the first billiard-table from the bar; I moved closer to
:hem, supposing there would be a fight; as Brown drew his
pistol I caught hold of it; he h?d fired one shot at Williams;
cfon't know the effect of it; caught hold of him with one hand,
*.nd took hold of the pistol and turned it up; think he fired once
jvfter I caught hold of the pistol; I wrenched the pistol from him;
talked to the end of the billiard -table and told a party that I
62
ROUGHING IT
had Brown's pistol, and to stop shooting; I think four shots
were fired in all; after walking out, Mr. Foster remarked that
Brown was shot dead.
Oh, there was no excitement about it — he merely
'"remarked" the small circumstance!
Four months later the following item appeared in
the same paper (the Enterprise). In this item the
name of one of the city officers above referred to
(Deputy Marshal Jack Williams) occurs again:
Robbery and Desperate Affray. — On Tuesday night, a
German named Charles Hurtzal, engineer in a mill at Silver
City, came to this place, and visited the hurdy-gurdy house on
B Street. The music, dancing, and Teutonic maidens awakened
memories of Faderland until our German friend was carried
away with rapture. He evidently had money, and was spending
it freely. Late in the evening Jack Williams and Andy Bless-
ington invited him down-stairs to take a cup of coffee. Williams
proposed a game of cards and went up-stairs to procure a deck,
but not finding any returned. On the stairway he met the
German, and drawing his pistol knocked him down and rifled
his pockets of some seventy dollars. Hurtzal dared give no
alarm, as he was told, with a pistol at his head, if he made any
noise or exposed them, they would blow his brains out. So
effectually was he frightened that he made no complaint, until
his friends forced him. Yesterday a warrant was issued, but
the culprits had disappeared.
This efficient city officer, Jack Williams, had the
common reputation of being a burglar, a highway-
man, and a desperado. It was said that he had
several times drawn his revolver and levied money
contributions on citizens at dead of night in the public
streets of Virginia.
Five months after the above item appeared,
Williams was assassinated while sitting at a card-
63
MARK TWAIN
table one night ; a gun was thrust through the crack
of the door and Williams dropped from his chair
riddled with balls. It was said, at the time, that
Williams had been for some time aware that a part}''
of his own sort (desperadoes) had sworn away his
life; and it was generally believed among the people
that Williams's friends and enemies would make the
assassination memorable — and useful, too — by a
wholesale destruction of each other.1
It did not so happen, but still, times were not dull
during the next twenty-four hours, for within that
time a woman was killed by a pistol-shot, a man was
brained with a slung-shot, and a man named Reeder
was also disposed of permanently. Some matters in
1 However, one prophecy was verified, at any rate. It was asserted
by the desperadoes that one of their brethren (Joe McGee, a special
policeman) was known to be the conspirator chosen by lot to assas-
sinate Williams; and they also asserted that doom had been pro-
nounced against McGee, and that he would be assassinated in
exactly the same manner that had been adopted for the destruction
of Williams — a prophecy which came true a year later. After
twelve months of distress (for McGee saw a fancied assassin in every
man that approached him), he made the last of many efforts to get
out of the country unwatched. He went to Carson and sat down in
a saloon to wait for the stage — it would leave at four in the morning.
But as the night waned and the crowd thinned, he grew uneasy,
and told the barkeeper that assassins were on his track. The bar-
keeper told him to stay in the middle of the room, then, and not go
near the door, or the window by the stove. But a fatal fascination
seduced him to the neighborhood of the stove every now and then,
and repeatedly the barkeeper brought him back to the middle of
the room and warned him to remain there. But he could not. At
three in the morning he again returned to the stove and sat down
by a stranger. Before the barkeeper could get to him with another
warning whisper, some one outside fired through the window and
riddled McGee's breast with slugs, killing him almost instant' y.
By the same discharge the stranger at McGee's side also received
attentions which proved fatal in the course of two or three days.
6d
ROUGHING IT
the Enterprise account of the killing of Reeder are
worth noting — especially the accommodating com-
plaisance of a Virginia justice of the peace. The
italics in the following narrative are mine :
More Cutting and Shooting. — The devil seems to have
again broken loose in our town. Pistols and guns explode and
knives gleam in our streets as in early times. When there has
been a long season of quiet, people are slow to wet their hands
in blood; but once blood is spilled, cutting and shooting come
easy. Night before last Jack Williams was assassinated, and
yesterday forenoon we had more bloody work, growing out of
the killing of Williams, and on the same street in which he
met his death. It appears that Tom Reeder, a friend of Williams,
and George Gumbert were talking, at the meat market of the
latter, about the killing of Williams the previous night, when
Reeder said it was a most cowardly act to shoot a man in such
a way, giving him "no show." Gumbert said that Williams had
"as good a show as he gave Billy Brown," meaning the man
killed by Williams last March. Reeder said it was a d — d lie,
that Williams had no show at all. At this, Gumbert drew a
knife and stabbed Reeder, cutting him in two places in the back.
One stroke of the knife cut into the sleeve of Reeder's coat
and passed downward in a slanting direction through his clothing,
and entered his body at the small of the back; another blow
struck more squarely, and made a much more dangerous wound.
Gumbert gave himself up to the officers of justice, and was
shortly after discharged by Justice Atwill, on his own recogni-
zance, to appear for trial at six o'clock in the evening. In the
mean time Reeder had been taken into the office of Dr. Owens,
where his wounds were properly dressed. One of his wounds
was considered quite dangerous, and it was thought by many that
it would prove fatal. But being considerably under the influence
of liquor, Reeder did not feel his wounds as he otherwise would,
and he got up and went into the street. He went to the meat
market and renewed his quarrel with Gumbert, threatening his
life. Friends tried to interfere to put a stop to the quarrel
and get the parties away from each other. In the Fashion
Saloon Reeder made threats against the life of Gumbert, saying
he would kill him, and it is said that he requested the officers not
65
MARK TWAIN
to arrest Gumbert as he intended to kill him. After these threats
Gumbert went off and procured a double-barreled shotgun,
loaded with buck-shot or revolver-balls, and wenc after Reeder.
Two or three persons were assisting him along the street, trying
to get him home, and had him just in front of the store of Klop-
stock & Harris, when Gumbert came across toward him from
the opposite side of the street with his gun. He came up withm
about ten or fifteen feet of Reeder, and called out to those with
him to "look out! get out of the way!" and they had only time
to heed the warning, when he fired. Reeder was at the time
attempting to screen himself behind a large cask, which stood
against the awning-post of Klopstock & Harris's store, but
some of the balls took effect in the lower part of his breast, and
he reeled around forward and fell in front of the cask. Gumbert
then raised his gun and fired the second barrel, which missed
Reeder and entered the ground. At the time that this occurred,
there were a great many persons on the street in the vicinity,
and a number of them called out to Gumbert, when they saw him
raise his gun, to "hold on," and "don't shoot!" The cutting
took place about ten o'clock and the shooting about twelve.
After the shooting the street was instantly crowded with the
inhabitants of that part of the town, some appearing much
excited and laughing — declaring that it looked like the "good
old times of '60." Marshal Perry and officer Birdsall were near
when the shooting occurred, and Gumbert was immediately
arrested and his gun taken from him, when he was marched
off to jail. Many persons who were attracted to the spot where
this bloody work had just taken place, looked bewildered and
seemed to be asking themselves what was to happen next,
appearing in doubt as to whether the killing mania had reached
its climax, or whether we were to turn in and have a grand
killing spell, shooting whoever might have given us offense. It
was whispered around that it was not all over yet — five or six
more were to be killed before night. Reeder was taken to the
Virginia City Hotel, and doctors called in to examine his wounds.
They found that two or three balls had entered his right side;
one of them appeared to have passed through the substance of
the lungs, while another passed into the liver. Two balls were
also found to have struck one of his legs. As some of the balls
struck the cask, the wounds in Reeder's leg were probably from
these, glancing downward, though they might have been caused
66
ROUGHING IT
by the second shot fired. After being shot, Reeder said when he
got on his feet — smiling as he spoke — "It will take better shoot-
ing than that to kill me." The doctors consider it almost
impossible for him to recover, but as he has an excellent con-
stitution he may survive, notwithstanding the number and dan-
gerous character of the wounds he has received. The town
appears to be perfectly quiet at present, as though the late
stormy times had cleared our moral atmosphere; but who can
tell in what quarter clouds are lowering or plots ripening?
Reeder — or at least what was left of him — sur-
vived his wounds two days ! Nothing was ever done
with Gumbert.
Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I
do not know what a palladium is, having never seen
a palladium, but it is a good thing, no doubt, at any
rate. Not less than a hundred men have been
murdered in Nevada — perhaps I would be within
bounds if I said three hundred — and as far as I can
learn, only two persons have suffered the death-
penalty there. However, four or five who had no
money and no political influence have been punished
by imprisonment — one languished in prison as much
as eight months, I think. However, I do not desire
to be extravagant — it may have been less.
CHAPTER IX
THESE murder and jury statistics remind me of
a certain very extraordinary trial and execution
of twenty years ago; it is a scrap of history familiar
to all old Calif ornians, and worthy to be known by
other peoples of the earth that love simple, straight-
forward justice unencumbered with nonsense. I
would apologize for this digression but for the fact
that the information I am about to offer is apology
enough in itself. And since I digress constantly,
anyhow, perhaps it is as well to eschew apologies
altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome.
Capt. Ned Blakely — that name will answer as well
as any other fictitious one (for he was still with the
living at last accounts, and may not desire to be
famous) — sailed ships out of the harbor of San
Francisco for many years. He was a stalwart,
warm-hearted, eagle-eyed veteran, who had been a
sailor nearly fifty years — a sailor from early boy-
hood. He was a rough, honest creature, full of
pluck, and just as full of hard-headed simplicity,
too. He hated trifling conventionalities — ' ' business ' '
was the word, with him. He had all a sailor's vin-
dictiveness against the quips and quirks of the law,
and steadfastly believed that the first and last aim
and object of the law and lawyers was to defeat
justice.
68
ROUGHING IT
He sailed for the Chincha Islands in command of
a guano-ship. He had a fine crew, but his negro
mate was his pet — on him he had for years lavished
his admiration and esteem. It was Capt. Ned's
first voyage to the Chinchas, but his fame had gone
before him — the fame of being a man who would
fight at the dropping of a handkerchief, when im-
posed upon, and would stand no nonsense. It was a
fame well earned. Arrived in the islands, he found
that the staple of conversation was the exploits of one
Bill Noakes, a bully, the mate of a trading-ship.
This man had created a small reign of terror there.
At nine o'clock at night, Capt. Ned, all alone, was
pacing his deck in the starlight. A form ascended
the side, and approached him. Capt. Ned said:
"Who goes there?"
"I'm Bill Noakes, the best man on the islands."
"What do you want aboard this ship?"
"I've heard of Capt. Ned Blakely, and one of us
is a better man than 'tother — I'll know which,
before I go ashore."
"You have come to the right shop — I'm your
man. I'll learn you to come aboard this ship with-
out an invite."
He seized Noakes, backed him against the main-
mast, pounded his face to a pulp, and then threw
him overboard.
Noakes was not convinced. He returned the next
night, got the pulp renewed, and went overboard
head first, as before. He was satisfied.
A week after this, while Noakes was carousing
with a. sailor crowd on shore, at noonday, Capt.
69
MARK TWAIN
Ned's colored mate came along, and Noakes tried c
pick a quarrel with him. The negro evaded the tra>
and tried to get away. Noakes followed him up ; the
negro began to run; Noakes fired on him with s.
revolver and killed him. Half a dozen sea-captains
witnessed the whole affair. Noakes retreated to the
small after-cabin of his ship, with two other bullies,
and gave out that death would be the portion of any
man that intruded there. There was no attempt
made to follow the villains; there was no disposition
to do it, and indeed very little thought of such an
enterprise. There were no courts and no officers;
there was no government; the islands belonged to
Peru, and Peru was far away; she had no official
representative on the ground; and neither had any
other nation.
However, Capt. Ned was not perplexing his head
about such things. They concerned him not. He
was boiling with rage and furious for justice. At
nine o'clock at night he loaded a double-barreled
gun with slugs, fished out a pair of handcuffs, got a
ship's lantern, summoned his quartermaster, and
went ashore. He said:
"Do you see that ship there at the dock?"
"Ay-ay, sir."
"It's the Venus."
"Ay-ay, sir."
"You — you know mc."
"Ay-ay, sir."
"'Very well, then. Take the lantern. Carry it
just under your chin. I'll walk behind you and rest
this gun-barrel on your shoulder, p'inting forward —
ROUGHING IT
so. Keep your lantern well up, so's I can see things
ahead of you good. I'm going to march in on Noakes
— and take him — and jug the other chaps. If you
flinch — well, you know me.1'
"Ay-ay, sir."
In this order they filed aboard softly, arrived at
Noakes's den, the quartermaster pushed the door
open, and the lantern revealed the three desperadoes
sitting on the floor. Capt. Ned said:
"I'm Ned Blakely. I've got you under fire.
Don't you move without orders — any of you. You
two kneel down in the corner; faces to the wall —
now. Bill Noakes, put these handcuffs on; now
come up close. Quartermaster, fasten 'em. All
right. Don't stir, sir. Quartermaster, put the key
in the outside of the door. Now, men, I'm going
to lock you two in; and if you try to burst through
this door — well, you've heard of me. Bill Noakes,
fall in ahead, and march. All set. Quartermaster,
lock the door."
Noakes spent the night on board Blakely's ship,
a prisoner under strict guard. Early in the morning
Capt. Ned called in all the sea-captains in the harbor
and invited them, with nautical ceremony, to be
present on board his ship at nine o'clock to witness
the hanging of Noakes at the yard-arm!
"What! The man has not been tried."
1 ' Of course he hasn't. But didn't he kill the nigger ? ' '
"Certainly he did; but you are not thinking of
hanging him without a trial?"
"Trial! What do I want to try him for, if he
killed the nigger?"
71
MARK TWAIN
"Oh, Capt. Ned, this will never do. Think how
it will sound."
"Sound be hanged! Didn't he kill the nigger?"
"Certainly, certainly, Capt. Ned — nobody denies
that— but— "
"Then I'm going to hang him, that's all. Every-
body I've talked to talks just the same way you do.
Everybody says he killed the nigger, everybody
knows he killed the nigger, and yet every lubber of
you wants him tried for it. I don't understand such
bloody foolishness as that. Tried! Mind you, I
don't object to trying him if it's got to be done to
give satisfaction; and I'll be there, and chip in and
help, too; but put it off till afternoon — put it ofl
till afternoon, for I'll have my hands middling full
till after the burying — "
' ' Why, what do you mean ? Are you going to hang
him anyhow — and try him afterward?"
"Didn't I say I was going to hang him? I never
saw such people as you. What's the difference?
You ask a favor, and then you ain't satisfied when
you get it. Before or after's all one — you know how
the trial will go. He killed the nigger. Say — I
must be going. If your mate would like to come to
the hanging, fetch him along. I like him."
There was a stir in the camp. The captains came
in a body and pleaded with Capt. Ned not to do this
rash thing. They promised that they would creato
a court composed of captains of the best character;
they would impanel a jury; they would conduct
everything in a way becoming the serious nature of
the business in hand, and give the case an impartial
72
ROUGHING IT
hearing and the accused a fair trial. And they said
it would be murder, and punishable by the American
courts if he persisted and hung the accused on his
ship. They pleaded hard. Capt. Ned said:
"Gentlemen, I'm not stubborn and I'm not un-
reasonable. I'm always willing to do just as near
right as I can. I low long will it take?"
"Probably only a little while."
"And can I take him up the shore and hang him
as soon as you are done?"
" If he is proven guilty he shall be hanged without
unnecessary delay."
"If he's proven guilty. Great Neptune, ain't
he guilty? This beats my time. Why you all know
he's guilty."
But at last they satisfied him that they were
projecting nothing underhanded. Then he said :
"Well, all right. You go on and try him and I'll
go down and overhaul his conscience and prepare him
to go — like enough he needs it, and I don't want to
send him off without a show for hereafter."
This wras another obstacle. They finally con-
vinced him that it was necessary to have the accused
in court. Then they said they would send a guard
to bring him.
"No, sir, I prefer to fetch him myself — he don't
get out of my hands. Besides, I've got to go to the
ship to get a rope, anyway."
The court assembled with due ceremony, im-
paneled a jury, and presently Capt. Ned entered,
leading the prisoner with one hand and carrying a
Bible and a rope in the other. He seated himself by
73
MARK TWAIN
the side of his captive and told the court to "up
anchor and make sail." Then he turned a searching
eye on the jury, and detected Noakes's friends, the
two bullies. He strode over and said to them
confidentially :
"You're here to interfere, you see. Now you vote
right, do you hear? — or else there'll be a double-
barreled inquest here when this trial's off, and your
remainders will go home in a couple of baskets."
The caution was not without fruit. The jury was
a unit — the verdict, "Guilty."
Capt. Ned sprung to his feet and said :
1 ' Come along — you're my meat now, my lad, any-
way. Gentlemen, you've done yourselves proud. I
invite you all to come and see that I do it all straight.
Follow me to the canon, a mile above here."
The court informed him that a sheriff had been
appointed to do the hanging, and —
Capt. Ned's patience was at an end. His wrath
was boundless. The subject of a sheriff was judi-
ciously dropped.
When the crowd arrived at the canon, Capt. Ned
climbed a tree and arranged the halter, then came
down and noosed his man. He opened his Bible, and
laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random,
he read it through, in a deep bass voice and with
sincere solemnity. Then he said :
"Lad, you are about to go aloft and give an
account of yourself; and the lighter a man's mani-
fest is, as far as sin's concerned, the better for him.
Make a clean breast, man, and carry a log with
you that '11 bear inspection. You killed the nigger?"
74
ROUGHING IT
No reply. A long pause.
The captain read another chapter, pausing, from
time to time, to impress the effect. Then he talked
an earnest, persuasive sermon to him, and ended by-
repeating the question :
"Did you kill the nigger?"
No reply — other than a malignant scowl. The
captain now read the first and second chapters of
Genesis, with deep feeling, paused a moment, closed
the book reverently, and said with a perceptible
savor of satisfaction :
"There. Four chapters. There's few that would
have took the pains with you that I have."
Then he swung up the condemned, and made the
rope fast ; stood by and timed him half an hour with
his watch, and then delivered the body to the court.
A little after, as he stood contemplating the motion-
less figure, a doubt came into his face; evidently he
felt a twinge of conscience — a misgiving — and he said
with a sigh :
"Well, p'raps I ought to burnt him, maybe. But
I was trying to do for the best."
When the history of this affair reached California
(it was in the "early days") it made a deal of talk,
but did not diminish the captain's popularity in
any degree. It increased it, indeed. California had
a population then that "inflicted" justice after a
fashion that was simplicity and primitiveness itself,
and could therefore admire appreciatively when the
same fashion wras followed elsewhere.
CHAPTER X
VICE flourished luxuriantly during the heyday
of our "flush times." The saloons were over-
burdened with custom; so were the police courts,
the gambling dens, the brothels, and the jails —
unfailing signs of high prosperity in a mining region
— in any region, for that matter. Is it not so? A
crowded police-court docket is the surest of all signs
that trade is brisk and money plenty. Still, there is
one other sign; it comes last, but when it does come
it establishes beyond cavil that the "flush times"
are at the flood. This is the birth of the "literary"
paper. The Weekly Occidental, "devoted to litera-
ture," made its appearance in Virginia. All the
literary people were engaged to write for it. Mr. F.
was to edit it. He was a felicitous skirmisher with
a pen, and a man who could say happy things in a
crisp, neat way. Once, while editor of the Union,
he had disposed of a labored, incoherent, two-column
attack made upon him by a contemporary, with
a single line, which, at first glance, seemed to con-
tain a solemn and tremendous compliment — viz.:
"The logic of our adversary resembles the
peace of God," — and left it to the reader's memory
and afterthought to invest the remark with another
and "more different" meaning by supplying for
76
ROUGHING IT
himself and at his own leisure the rest of the Scrip-
ture— "in that it passe th understanding." He once
said of a little, half-starved, wayside community that
had no subsistence except what they could get by
preying upon chance passengers who stopped over
with them a day when traveling by the Overland
stage, that in their Church service they had altered
the Lord's prayer to read: "Give us this day our
daily stranger!"
We expected great things of the Occidental. Of
course it could not get along without an original
novel, and so we made arrangements to hurl into
the work the full strength of the company. Mrs. F.
was an able romancist of the ineffable school — I
know no other name to apply to a school whose
heroes are all dainty and all perfect. She wrote the
opening chapter, and introduced a lovely blonde
simpleton who talked nothing but pearls and poetry
and who was virtuous to the verge of eccentricity.
She also introduced a young French Duke of aggra-
vated refinement, in love with the blonde. Mr. F.
followed next week, with a brilliant lawyer who set
about getting the Duke's estates into trouble, and a
sparkling young lady of high society who fell to
fascinating the Duke and impairing the appetite of
the blonde. Mr. D., a dark and bloody editor of
one of the dailies, followed Mr. F., the third week,
introducing a mysterious Roscicrucian who trans-
muted metals, held consultations with the devil in a
cave at dead of night, and cast the horoscope of the
several heroes and heroines in such a way as to pro-
vide plenty of trouble for their future careers and
77
MARK TWAIN
breed a solemn and awful public interest in the novel.
He also introduced a cloaked and masked melo-
dramatic miscreant, put him on a salary and set
him on the midnight track of the Duke with a poi-
soned dagger. He also created an Irish coachman
with a rich brogue and placed him in the service of
the society-young-lady with an ulterior mission to
carry billet-doux to the Duke.
About this time there arrived in Virginia a disso-
lute stranger with a literary turn of mind — rather
seedy he was, but very quiet and unassuming;
almost diffident, indeed. He was so gentle, and his
manners were so pleasing and kindly, whether he
was sober or intoxicated, that he made friends of all
who came into contact with him. He applied for
literary work, offered conclusive evidence that he
wielded an easy and practised pen, and so Mr. F.
engaged him at once to help write the novel. His
chapter was to follow Mr. D.'s, and mine was to
come next. Now what does this fellow do but go
off and get drunk and then proceed to his quarters
and set to work with his imagination in a state of
chaos, and that chaos in a condition of extravagant
activity. The result may be guessed. He scanned
the chapters of his predecessors, found plenty of
heroes and heroines already created, and was satis-
fied with them; he decided to introduce no more;
with all the confidence that whisky inspires and all
the easy complacency it gives to its servant, he then
launched himself lovingly into his work: he married
the coachman to the society-young-lady for the sake
2>f scandal; married the Duke to the blonde's step-
78
ROUGHING IT
mother, for the sake of the sensation; stopped the
desperado's salary; created a misunderstanding be-
tween the devil and the Roscicrucian ; threw the
Duke's property into the wicked lawyer's hands;
made the lawyer's upbraiding conscience drive him
to drink, thence to delirium tremens, thence to
suicide; broke the coachman's neck; let his widow
succumb to contumely, neglect, poverty, and con-
sumption; caused the blonde to drown herself, leav-
ing her clothes on the bank with the customary note
pinned to them forgiving the Duke and hoping he
would be happy; revealed to the Duke, by means
of the usual strawberry mark on left arm, that he had
married his own long-lost mother and destroyed his
long-lost sister; instituted the proper and necessary
suicide of the Duke and the Duchess in order to
compass poetical justice; opened the earth and let
the Roscicrucian through, accompanied with the
accustomed smoke and thunder and smell of brim-
stone, and finished with the promise that in the next
chapter, after holding a general inquest, he would
take up the surviving character of the novel and tell
what became of the devil!
It read with singular smoothness, and with a
' ' dead ' ' earnestness that was funny enough to suffo-
cate a body. But there was war when it came in.
The other novelists were furious. The mild stranger,
not yet more than half sober, stood there, under a
scathing fire of vituperation, meek and bewildered,
looking from one to another of his assailants, and
wondering what he could have done to invoke such
a storm. When a lull came at last, he said his say
79
MARK TWAIN
gently and appealingly — said he did not rightly re-
member what he had written, but was sure he had
tried to do the best he could, and knew his object
had been to make the novel not only pleasant and
plausible but instructive and —
The bombardment began again. The novelists
assailed his ill-chosen adjectives and demolished
them with a storm of denunciation and ridicule.
And so the siege went on. Every time the stranger
tried to appease the enemy he only made matters
worse. Finally he offered to rewrite the chapter.
This arrested hostilities. The indignation gradually
quieted down, peace reigned again, and the sufferer
retired in safety and got him to his own citadel.
But on the way thither the evil angel tempted him,
and he got drunk again. And again his imagination
went mad. He led the heroes and heroines a wilder
dance than ever; and yet all through it ran that
same convincing air of honesty and earnestness that
had marked his first work. He got the characters
into the most extraordinary situations, put them
through the most surprising performances, and made
them talk the strangest talk! But the chapter can-
not be described. It was symmetrically crazy; it
was artistically absurd; and it had explanatory foot-
notes that were fully as curious as the text. I
remember one of the "situations," and will offer it
as an example of the whole. He altered the char-
acter of the brilliant lawyer, and made him a great-
hearted, splendid fellow; gave him fame and riches,
and set his age at thirty-three years. Then he made
the blonde discover, through the help of the Rosci-
80
ROUGHING IT
crucian and the melodramatic miscreant, that while
the Duke loved her money ardently and wanted it,
he secretly felt a sort of leaning toward the society-
young-lady. Stung to the quick, she tore her affec-
tions from him and bestowed them with tenfold
power upon the lawyer, who responded with con-
suming zeal. But the parents would none of it.
What they wanted in the family was a. Duke; and a
Duke they were determined to have; though they
confessed that next to the Duke the lawyer had their
preference. Necessarily, the blonde now went into a
decline. The parents were alarmed. They pleaded
with her to marry the Duke, but she steadfastly
refused, and pined on. Then they laid a plan.
They told her to wait a year and a day, and if at
the end of that time she still felt that she could not
marry the Duke, she might marry the lawyer with
their full consent. The result was as they had fore-
seen: gladness came again, and the flush of returning
health. Then the parents took the next step in
their scheme. They had the family physician recom-
mend a long sea voyage and much land travel for
the thorough restoration of the blonde's strength;
and they invited the Duke to be of the party. They
judged that the Duke's constant presence and the
lawyer's protracted absence would do the rest — for
they did not invite the lawyer.
So they set sail in a steamer for America — and the
third day out, when their seasickness called truce
and permitted them to take their first meal at the
public table, behold there sat the lawyer! The
Duke and party made the best of an awkward situa*
81
MARK TWAIN
tion; the voyage progressed, and the vessel neared
America. But, by and by, two hundred miles off
New Bedford, the ship took fire; she burned to the
water's edge; of all her crew and passengers, only
thirty were saved. They floated about the sea half
an afternoon and all night long. Among them were
our friends. The lawyer, by superhuman exertions,
had saved the blonde and her parents, swimming
back and forth two hundred yards and bringing one
each time — (the girl first). The Duke had saved
himself. In the morning two whale-ships arrived on
the scene and sent their boats. The weather was
stormy and the embarkation was attended with
much confusion and excitement. The lawyer did
his duty like a man; helped his exhausted and in-
sensible blonde, her parents and some others into a
boat (the Duke helped himself in) ; then a child fell
overboard at the other end of the raft and the
lawyer rushed thither and helped half a dozen people
fish it out, under the stimulus of its mother's screams.
Then he ran back — a few seconds too late — the
blonde's boat was under way. So he had to take
the other boat, and go to the other ship. The storm
increased and drove the vessels out of sight of each
other — drove them whither it would. When it
calmed, at the end of three days, the blonde's ship
was seven hundred miles north of Boston and the
other about seven hundred south of that port. The
blonde's captain was bound on a whaling cruise in
the North Atlantic and could not go back such a
distance or make a port without orders; such being
nautical i-w. The lawyer's captain was to cruise in
82
ROUGHING IT
the North Pacific, and he could not go back or make
a port without orders. All the lawyer's money and
baggage were in the blonde's boat and went to the
blonde's ship — so his captain made him work his
passage as a common sailor. When both ships had
been cruising nearly a year, the one was off the coast
of Greenland and the other in Bering Strait. The
blonde had long ago been well-nigh persuaded that
her lawyer had been washed overboard and lost just
before the whale-ships reached the raft, and now,
under the pleadings of her parents and the Duke she
was at last beginning to nerve herself for the doom of
the covenant, and prepare for the hated marriage.
But she would not yield a day before the date set.
The weeks dragged on, the time narrowed, orders
were given to deck the ship for the wedding — a wed-
ding at sea among icebergs and walruses. Five days
more, and all would be over. So the blonde re-
flected, with a sigh and a tear. Oh where was her
true love — and why, why did he not come and save
her? At that moment he was lifting his harpoon
to strike a whale in Bering Strait, five thousand
miles away, by the way of the Arctic Ocean, or
twenty thousand by the way of the Horn — that was
the reason. He struck, but not with perfect aim —
his foot slipped and he fell in the whale's mouth
and went down his throat. He was insensible
five days. Then he came to himself and heard
voices; daylight was streaming through a hole cut
in the whale's roof. He climbed out and aston-
ished the sailors who were hoisting blubber up a
ship's side. He recognized the vessel, flew aboard,
83
MARK TWAIN
surprised the wedding party at the altar and ex-
claimed :
"Stop the proceedings — I'm here! Come to my
arms, my own!"
There were footnotes to this extravagant piece of
literature wherein the author endeavored to show
that the whole thing was within the possibilities; he
said he got the incident of the whale traveling from
Bering Strait to the coast of Greenland, five thou-
sand miles in five days, through the Arctic Ocean
from Charles Reade's Love Me Little, Love Me
Long, and considered that that established the fact
that the thing could be done; and he instanced
Jonah's adventure that a man could live in a whale's
belly, and added that if a preacher could stand it
three days a lawyer could surely stand it five!
There was a fiercer storm than ever in the editorial
sanctum now, and the stranger was peremptorily
discharged, and his manuscript flung at his head.
But he had already delayed things so much that there
was not time for some one else to rewrite the chapter,
and so the paper came out without any novel in it.
It was but a feeble, struggling, stupid journal, and
the absence of the novel probably shook public
confidence; at any rate, before the first side of the
next issue went to press, the Weekly Occidental died
as peacefully as an infant.
An effort was made to resurrect it, with the pro-
posed advantage of a telling new title, and Mr. F.
said that The Phenix would be just the name for it,
because it would give the idea of a resurrection from
its dead ashes in a new and undreamed-of condition
84
ROUGHING IT
of splendor; but some low-priced smarty on one of
the dailies suggested that we call it the Lazarus; and
inasmuch as the people were not profound in Scrip-
tural matters, but thought the resurrected Lazarus
and the dilapidated mendicant that begged in the
rich man's gateway were one and the same person,
the name became the laughing-stock of the town, and
killed the paper for good and all.
I was sorry enough, for I was very proud of being
connected with a literary paper — prouder than I
have ever been of anything since, perhaps. I had
written some rhymes for it — poetry I considered it
— and it was a great grief to me that the production
was on the "first side " of the issue that was not com-
pleted, and hence did not see the light. But time
brings its revenges — I can put it in here; it will
answer in place of a tear dropped to the memory of
the lost Occidental. The idea (not the chief idea,
but the vehicle that bears it) was probably suggested
by the old song called "The Raging Canal," but I
cannot remember now. I do remember, though,
that at that time I thought my doggerel was one of
the ablest poems of the age:
THE AGED PILOT MAN
On the Erie Canal, it was,
All on a summer's day,
I sailed forth with my parents
Far away to Albany.
From out the clouds at noon that day
There came a dreadful storm,
That piled the billows high about,
And filled us with alarm.
8-R
MARK TWAIN
A man came rushing from a house,
Saying, "Snub up1 your boat, I pray,
Snub up your boat, snub up, alas,
Snub up while yet you may."
Our captain cast one glance astern,
Then forward glanced he,
And said, "My wife and little ones
I never more shall see."
Said Dollinger the pilot man,
In noble words, but few —
"Fear not, but lean on Dollinger,
And he will fetch you through."
The boat drove on, the frightened mules
Tore through the rain and wind,
And bravely still, in danger's post,
The whip-boy strode behind.
'"Come 'board, come 'board," the captain cried,
"Nor tempt so wild a storm";
But still the raging mules advanced,
And still the boy strode on.
Then said the captain to us all,
"Alas, 'tis plain to me,
The greater danger is not there,
But here upon the sea.
"So let us strive, while life remains,
To save all souls on board,
And then if die at last we must,
Let ... I cannot speak the word!"
Said Dollinger the pilot man,
Tow'ring above the crew,
"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,
And he will fetch you through."
1 The customary canal technicality for "tie up."
86
ROUGHING IT
"Low bridge! low bridge!" all heads went down,
The laboring bark sped on;
A mill we passed, we passed a church,
Hamlets, and fields of corn;
And all the world came out to see,
And chased along the shore
Crying, "Alas, alas, the sheeted rain,
The wind, the tempest's roar!
Alas, the gallant ship and crew,
Can nothing help them more?"
And from our deck sad eyes looked out
Across the stormy scene;
The tossing wake of billows aft,
The bending forests green,
The chickens sheltered under carts,
In lee of barn the cows,
The scurrying swine with straw in mouth;
The wild spray from our bows!
"She balances!
She wavers!
Now let her go about!
If she misses stays and broaches to,
We're all" — [then with a shout]
"Huray! huray!
Avast! belay!
Take in more sail!
Lord, what a gale!
Ho, boy, haul taut on the hind mule's tail!"
"Ho! lighten ship! ho! man the pump!
Ho, hostler, heave the lead!
And count ye all, both great and small,
As numbered with the dead!
For mariner for forty year
On Erie, boy and man,
I never yet saw such a storm,
Or one 't with it began!"
87
MARK TWAIN
So overboard a keg of nails
And anvils three we threw,
Likewise four bales of gunny-sacks,
Two hundred pounds of glue,
Two sacks of corn, four ditto wheat,
A box of books, a cow,
A violin, Lord Byron's works,
A rip-saw and a sow.
A curve! a curve! the dangers grow!
" Labbord ! — stabbord ! — s-t-e-a-d-y ! — so ! —
Hard-a-port, Dol! — hellum-a-lee!
Haw the head mule! — the aft one gee I
Luff! — bring her to the wind!"
*'A quarter-three! — 'tis shoaling fast!
Three feet large! — t-h-r-e-e feet! —
Three feet scant!" I cried in fright.
"Oh, is there no retreat?"
Said Dollinger the pilot man,
As on the vessel flew,
M Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,
And he will fetch you through."
A panic struck the bravest hearts,
The boldest cheek turned pale;
For plain to all, this shoaling said
A leak had burst the ditch's bed!
And, straight as bolt from crossbow sped,
Our ship swept on with shoaling lead,
Before the fearful gale!
"Sever the tow-line! Cripple the mules!"
Too late! . . . There comes a shock!
Another length, and the fated craft
Would have swum in the saving lock'
Then gathered together the shipwrecked crew
And took one last embrace,
ROUGHING IT
While sorrowful tears from despairing eyes
Ran down each hopeless face;
And some did think of their little ones
Whom they never more might sec,
And others of waiting wives at home,
And mothers that grieved would be.
But of all the children of misery there
On that poor sinking frame,
But one spake words of hope and faith.
And I worshiped as they came:
Said Dollinger the pilot man —
(0 brave heart, strong and true!) —
"Fear not, but trust in Dollinger,
For he will fetch you through."
Lo! scarce the words have passed his lips
The dauntless prophet say'th,
When every soul about him seeth
A wonder crown his faith!
For straight a farmer brought a plank —
(Mysteriously inspired) —
And laying it unto the ship,
In silent awe retired.
Then every sufferer stood amazed
That pilot man before;
A moment stood. Then wondering turned,
And speechless walked ashore.
CHAPTER XI
SINCE I desire, in this chapter, to say an instruct-
ive word or two about the silver-mines, the
reader may take this fair warning and skip, if he
chooses. The year 1863 was perhaps the very top
blossom and culmination of the "flush times."
Virginia swarmed with men and vehicles to that
degree that the place looked like a very hive — that
is when one's vision could pierce through the thick
fog of alkali dust that was generally blowing in
summer. I will say, concerning this dust, that if
you drove ten miles through it, you and your horses
would be coated with it a sixteenth of an inch thick
and present an outside appearance that was a uni-
form pale-yellow color, and your buggy would have
three inches of dust in it, thrown there by the
wheels. The delicate scales used by the assayers
were inclosed in glass cases intended to be air-tight,
and yet some of this dust was so impalpable and so
invisibly fine that it would get in, somehow, and
impair the accuracy of those scales.
Speculation ran riot, and yet there was a world
of substantial business going on, too. All freights
were brought over the mountains from California
(one hundred and fifty miles) by pack-train partly,
and partly in huge wagons drawn by such long
90
ROUGHING IT
mule -teams that each team amounted to a pro-
cession, and it did seem, sometimes, that the
grand combined procession of animals stretched
unbroken from Virginia to California. Its long
route was traceable clear across the deserts of
the territory by the writhing serpent of dust it
lifted up. By these wagons, freights over that
hundred and fifty miles were $200 a ton for small
lots (same price for all express matter brought by
stage), and $100 a ton for full loads. One Vir-
ginia firm received one hundred tons of freight a
month, and paid $10,000 a month freightage. In the
winter the freights were much higher. All the bullion
was shipped in bars by stage to San Francisco (a
bar was usually about twice the size of a pig of lead
and contained from $1,500 to $3,000, according to
the amount of gold mixed with the silver), and the
freight on it (when the shipment was large) was one
and a quarter per cent, of its intrinsic value. So, the
freight on these bars probably averaged something
more than $25 each. Small shippers paid two per
cent. There were three stages a day, each way, and
I have seen the outgoing stages carry away a third
of a ton of bullion each, and more than once I saw
them divide a two-ton lot and take it off. However,
these were extraordinary events.1 Two tons of
1 Mr. Valentine, Wells-Fargo's agent, has handled all the bullion
shipped through the Virginia office for many a month. To his
memory — which is excellent — we are indebted for the following
exhibit of the company's business in the Virginia office since the
first of January, 1862: From January 1st to April 1st, about $270,000
worth of bullion passed through that office; during the next quarter,
$570,000; next quarter, $800,000; next quarter, $956,000; next
quarter, $1,275,000; and for the quarter ending on the thirtieth of
01
MARK TWAIN
silver bullion would be in the neighborhood of forty
bars, and the freight on it over $1,000. Each coach
always carried a deal of ordinary express matter be-
sides, and also from fifteen to twenty passengers at
from $25 to $30 a head. With six stages going all the
time, Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Virginia City business
was important and lucrative.
All along under the center of Virginia and Gold
Hill, for a couple of miles, ran the great Comstock
silver-lode — a vein of ore from fifty to eighty feet
thick between its solid walls of rock — a vein as wide
as some of New York's streets. I will remind the
reader that in Pennsylvania a coal vein only eight
feet wide is considered ample.
last June, about $1,600,000. Thus in a year and a half, the Virginia
office only shipped $5,330,000 in bullion. During the year 1862
they shipped $2,615,000, so we perceive the average shipments have
more than doubled in the last six months. This gives us room to
promise for the Virginia office $500,000 a month for the year 1863
(though perhaps, judging by the steady increase in the business,
we are underestimating, somewhat). This gives us $6,000,000 for
the year. Gold Hill and Silver City together can beat us — we will
give them $10,000,000. To Dayton, Empire City, Ophir, and Carson
City, we will allow an aggregate of $8,000,000, which is not over
the mark, perhaps, and may possibly be a little under it. To Esmer-
alda we give $4,000,000. To Reese River and Humboldt $2,000,000,
which is liberal now, but may not be before the year is out. So
we prognosticate that the yield of bullion this year will be about
$30,000,000. Placing the number of mills in the territory at one
hundred, this gives to each the labor of producing $300,000 in bullion
during the twelve months. Allowing them to run three hundred
days in the year (which none of them more than do), this makes their
work average $1,000 a day. Say the mills average twenty tons of
rock a day, and this rock worth $50 as a general thing, and you have
the actual work of our one hundred mills figured down "to a spot"
$1,000 a day each, and $30,000,000 a year in the aggregate.—
Enterprise.
[A considerable overestimate. — M. T.]
ROUGHING IT
Virginia was a busy city of streets and houses
above-ground. Under it was another busy city,
down in the bowels of the earth, where a great popu-
lation of men thronged in and out among an intricate
maze of tunnels and drifts, flitting hither and thither
under a winking sparkle of lights, and over their
heads towered a vast web of interlocking timbers
that held the walls of the gutted Comstock apart.
These timbers were as large as a man's body, and
the framework stretched upward so far that no eye
could pierce to its top through the closing gloom.
It was like peering up through the clean-picked ribs
and bones of some colossal skeleton. Imagine such
a framework two miles long, sixty feet wide, and
higher than any church spire in America. Imagine
this stately lattice-work stretching down Broadway,
from the St. Nicholas to Wall Street, and a Fourth-
of-July procession, reduced to pygmies, parading on
top of it and flaunting their flags, high above the
pinnacle of Trinity steeple. One can imagine that,
but he cannot well imagine what that forest of tim-
bers cost, from the time they were felled in the
pineries beyond Washoe Lake, hauled up and around
Mount Davidson at atrocious rates of freightage,
then squared, let down into the deep maw of the
mine and built up there. Twenty ample fortunes
would not timber one of the greatest of those silver-
mines. The Spanish proverb says it requires a gold-
mine to "run " a silver one, and it is true. A beggar-
with a silver-mine is a pitiable pauper indeed if he
cannot sell.
I spoke of the underground Virginia as a city.
93
MARK TWAIN
The Gould & Curry is only one single mine under
there, among a great many others; yet the Gould
& Curry's streets of dismal drifts and tunnels were
five miles in extent, altogether, and its population
five hundred miners. Taken as a whole, the under-
ground city had some thirty miles of streets and a
population of five or six thousand. In this present
day some of those populations are at work from
twelve to sixteen hundred feet under Virginia and
Gold Hill, and the signal-bells that tell them what
the superintendent above-ground desires them to do
are struck by telegraph as we strike a fire-alarm.
Sometimes men fall down a shaft, there, a thousand
feet deep. In such cases, the usual plan is to hold
an inquest.
If you wish to visit one of those mines, you may
walk through a tunnel about half a mile long if you
prefer it, or you may take the quicker plan of shoot-
ing like a dart down a shaft, on a small platform.
It is like tumbling down through an empty steeple,
feet first. When you reach the bottom, you take a
candle and tramp through drifts and tunnels where
throngs of men are digging and blasting; you watch
them send up tubs full of great lumps of stone —
silver ore; you select choice specimens from the mass,
as souvenirs; you admire the world of skeleton tim-
bering; you reflect frequently that you are buried
under a mountain, a thousand feet below daylight;
being in the bottom of the mine you climb from
"gallery" to "gallery," up endless ladders that stand
straight up and down; when your legs fail you at
last, you lie down in a small box-car in a cramped
Q4
ROUGHING IT
4 'incline" like a half up-ended sewer and are dragged
up to daylight feeling as if you are crawling through
a coffin that has no end to it. Arrived at the top,
you find a busy crowd of men receiving the ascending
cars and tubs and dumping the ore from an elevation
into long rows of bins capable of holding half a
dozen tons each; under the bins are rows of wagons
loading from chutes and trap-doors in the bins, and
down the long street is a procession of these wagons
wending toward the silver - mills with their rich
freight. It is all "done," now, and there you are.
You need never go down again, for you have seen
it all. If you have forgotten the process of reducing
the ore in the mill and making the silver bars, you
can go back and find it again in my Esmeralda
chapters, if so disposed.
Of course these mines cave in, in places, occa-
sionally, and then it is worth one's while to take the
risk of descending into them and observing the
crushing power exerted by the pressing weight of a
settling mountain. I published such an experience
in the Enterprise, once, and from it I will take an
extract :
An Hour in the Caved Mines. — We journeyed down into the
Ophir mine, yesterday, to see the earthquake. We could not
go down the deep incline, because it still has a propensity to
cave in places. Therefore we traveled through the long tunnel
which enters the hill above the Ophir office, and then by means of
a series of long ladders, climbed away down from the first to
the ^ourth gallery. Traversing a drift, we came to the Spanish
line, passed five sets of timbers still uninjured, and found the
earthquake. Here was as complete a chaos as ever was seen —
vast masses of earth and splintered and broken timbers piled
confusedly together, with scarcely an aperture left large enough
95
MARK TWAIN
/or a cat to creep through. Rubbish was still falling at intervals
from above, and one timber v/hich had braced others earlier
in the day, was now crushed down out of its former position,
showing that the caving and settling of the tremendous mass
was still going on. We were in that portion of the Ophir known
as the "north mines." Returning to the surface, we entered
a tunnel leading into the Central, for the purpose of getting
into the main Ophir. Descending a long incline in this tunnel,
we traversed a drift or so, and then went down a deep shaft
from whence we proceeded into the fifth gallery of the Ophir.
From a side-drift we crawled through a small hole and got into
the midst of the earthquake again — earth and broken timbers
mingled together without regard to grace or symmetry. A large
portion of the second, third, and fourth galleries had caved in
and gone to destruction — the two latter at seven o'clock on the
previous evening.
At the turn-table, near the northern extremity of the fifth
gallery, two big piles of rubbish had forced their way through
from the fifth gallery, and from the looks of the timbers, more
was about to come. These beams are solid — eighteen inches
square; first, a great beam is laid on the floor, then upright
ones, five feet high, stand on it, supporting another horizontal
beam, and so on, square above square, like the framework of 8
window. The superincumbent weight was sufficient to mash
the ends of those great upright beams fairly into the solid wood
of the horizontal ones three inches, compressing and bending
the upright beam till it curved like a bow. Before the Spanish
caved in, some of their twelve-inch horizontal timbers were
compressed in this way until they were only five inches thick!
Imagine the power it must take to squeeze a solid log together
in that way. Here, also, was a range of timbers, for a distance
of twenty feet, tilted six inches out of the perpendicular by the
weight resting upon them from the caved galleries above. You
could hear things cracking and giving way, and it was not
pleasant to know that the world overhead was slowly and
silently sinking down upon you. The men down in the mine
do not mind it, however.
Returning along the fifth gallery, we struck the safe part of
the Ophir incline, and went down it to the sixth ; but we found
ten inches of water there, and had to come back. In repairing
the damage done to the incline, the pump had to be stopped
96
ROUGHING IT
for two hours, and in the mean time the water gained about a
foot. However, the pump was at work again, and the flood -water
was decreasing. We climbed up to the fifth gallery again and
sought a deep shaft whereby we might descend to another | tart
of the sixth, out of reach of the water, but suffered disappoint-
ment, as the men had gone to dinner, and there was no one to
man the windlass. So, having seen the earthquake, we climbed
out at the Union incline and tunnel, and adjourned, all dripping
with candle-grease and perspiration, to lunch at the Ophir office.
During the great flush year of 1863, Nevada
[claims to have] produced $25,000,000 in bullion —
almost, if not quite, a round million to each thousand
inhabitants, which is very well, considering that she
was without agriculture and manufactures.1 Silver-
mining was her sole productive industry.
1 Since the above was in type, I learn from an official source that
the above figure is too high, and that the yield for 1863 did not
exceed $20,000,000. However, the day for large figures is approach-
ing; the Sutro Tunnel is to plow through the Comstock lode from
end to end, at a depth of two thousand feet, and then mining will
be easy and comparatively inexpensive; and the momentous matters
of drainage and hoisting and hauling of ore will cease to be burden-
some. This vast work will absorb many years, and millions of
dollars, in its completion; but it will early yield money, for that
desirable epoch will begin as soon as it strikes the first end of the
vein. The tunnel will be some eight miles long, and will develop
astonishing riches. Cars will carry the ore through the tunnel and
dump it in the mills, and thus do away with the present costly
system of double handling and transportation by mule-teams. The
water from the tunnel will furnish the motive power for the mills.
Mr. Sutro, the originator of this prodigious enterprise, is one of the
few men in the world who is gifted with the pluck and perseverance
necessary to follow up and hound such an undertaking to its com-
pletion. He has converted several obstinate Congresses to a deserved
friendliness toward his important work, and has gone up and down
and to and fro in Europe until he has enlisted a great moneyed
interest in it there.
CHAPTER XII
■■'\
EVERY now and then, in these days, the boys
used to tell me I ought to get one Jim Blaine
to tell me the stirring story of his grandfather's old
ram — but they always added that I must not men-
tion the matter unless Jim was drunk at the time —
just comfortably and sociably drunk. They kept
this up until my curiosity was on the rack to hear
the story. I got to haunting Blaine; but it was of
no use, the boys always found fault with his condi-
tion; he was often moderately but never satisfac-
torily drunk. I never watched a man's condition
with such absorbing interest, such anxious solici-
tude; I never so pined to see a man uncompromis-
ingly drunk before. At last, one evening I hurried
to his cabin, for I learned that this time his situation
was such that even the most fastidious could find no
fault with it — he was tranquilly, serenely, sym-
metrically drunk — not a hiccup to mar his voice,
not a cloud upon his brain thick enough to obscure
his memory. As I entered, he was sitting upon an
empty powder-keg, with a clay pipe in one hand
and the other raised to command silence. His face
was round, red, and very serious; his throat was
bare and his hair tumbled ; in general appearance and
costume he was a stalwart miner of the period. On
98
ROUGHING IT
the pine table stood a candle, and its dim light
revealed "the boys" sitting here and there on bunks,
candle-boxes, powder-kegs, etc. They said:
"Sh — ! Don't speak — he's going to commence."
THE STORY OF THE OLD RAM
I found a seat at once, and Blaine said:
"I don't reckon them times will ever come again.
There never was a more bullier old ram than what
he was. Grandfather fetched him from Illinois —
got him of a man by the name of Yates — Bill Yates
— maybe you might have heard of him; his father
was a deacon — Baptist — and he was a rustler, too;
a man had to get up ruther early to get the start of
old Thankful Yates; it was him that put the Greens
up to j'ining teams with my grandfather when he
moved west. Seth Green was prob'ly the pick of the
flock; he married a Wilkerson — Sarah Wilkerson —
good cretur, she was — one of the likeliest heifers that
was ever raised in old Stoddard, everybody said that
knowed her. She could heft a bar'l of flour as easy
as I can flirt a flapjack. And spin? Don't mention
it! Independent? Humph! When Sile Hawkins
come a-browsing around her, she let him know that
for all his tin he couldn't trot in harness alongside
of her. You see, Sile Hawkins was — no, it warn't
Sile Hawkins, after all — it was a galoot by the name
of Filkins — I disremember his first name; but he
was a stump — come into pra'r-meeting drunk, one
night, hooraying for Nixon, becuz he thought it was
a primary; and old Deacon Ferguson up and scooted
90
MARK TWAIN
him through the window and he lit on old Miss
Jefferson's head, poor old filly. She was a good soul
— had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss
Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive company in; it
warn't big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn't
noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket,
and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every
which way, while t'other one was looking as straight
ahead as a spy-glass. Grown people didn't mind it,
but it 'most always made the children cry, it was so
sort of scary. She tried packing it in raw cotton,
but it wouldn't work, somehow — the cotton would get
loose and stick out and look so kind of aw'ful that the
children couldn't stand it no way. She was always
dropping it out, and turning up her old deadlight on
the company empty, and making them oncomfort-
able, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out,
being blind on that side, you see. So somebody
would have to hunch her and say, 'Your game eye
has fetched loose, Miss Wagner, dear' — and then all
of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed
it in again — wrong side before, as a general thing,
and green as a bird's egg, being a bashful cretur and
easy sot back before company. But being wrong
side before warn't much difference, anyway, becuz
her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was
yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned
it it didn't match nohow. Old Miss Wagner was
considerable on the borrow, she was. When she had
a quilting, or Dorcas S'iety at her house she gen'ally
borrowed Miss Higgins's wooden leg to stump around
on; it was considerable shorter than her other pin,
ioo
ROUGHING IT
but much she minded that. She said she couldn't
abide crutches when she had company, becuz they
were so slow ; said when she had company and things
had to be done, she wanted to get up and hump her-
self. She was as bald as a jug, and so she used to
borrow Miss Jacops's wig — Miss Jacops was the
coffin-peddler's wife — a ratty old buzzard, he was,
that used to go roosting around where people was
sick, waiting for 'em; and there that old rip would
sit all day, in the shade, on a coffin that he judged
would fit the can'idate ; and if it was a slow customer
and kind of uncertain, he'd fetch his rations and a
blanket along and sleep in the coffin nights. He was
anchored out that way, in frosty weather, for about
three weeks, once, before old Robbins's place, wait-
ing for him; and after that, for as much as two
years, Jacops was not on speaking terms with the
old man, on account of his disapp'inting him. He
got one of his feet froze, and lost money, too, becuz
old Robbins took a favorable turn and got well.
The next time Robbins got sick, Jacops tried to make
up with him, and varnished up the same old coffin
and fetched it along ; but old Robbins was too many
for him; he had him in, and 'peared to be powerful
weak ; he bought the coffin for ten dollars and Jacops
was to pay it back and twenty-five more besides if
Robbins didn't like the coffin after he'd tried it.
And then Robbins died, and at the funeral he bursted
off the lid and riz up in his shroud and told the
parson to let up on the performances, becuz he could
not stand such a coffin as that. You see he had been
in a trance once before, when he was young, and he
IOI
MARK TWAIN
took the chances on another, cal'lating that if he
made the trip it was money in his pocket, and if he
missed fire he couldn't lose a cent. And, by George,
he sued Jacops for the rhino and got judgment; and
he set up the coffin in his back parlor and said he
'lowed to take his time, now. It was always an
aggravation to Jacops, the way that miserable old
thing acted. He moved back to Indiany pretty soon
— went to Wellsville — Wellsville was the place the
Hogadorns was from. Mighty fine family. Old
Maryland stock. Old Squire Hogadorn could carry
around more mixed licker, and cuss better than 'most
any man I ever see. His second wife was the Widder
Billings — she that was Becky Martin; her dam was
Deacon Dunlap's first wife. Her oldest child, Maria,
married a missionary and died in grace — et up by
the savages. They et him, too, poor feller — biled
him. It warn't the custom, so they say, but they
explained to friends of his'n that went down there to
bring away his things, that they'd tried missionaries
every other way and never could get any good out
of 'em — and so it annoyed all his relations to find
out that that man's life was fooled away just out of
a dern'd experiment, so to speak. But mind you,
there ain't anything ever reely lost; everything that
people can't understand and don't see the reason of
does good if you only hold on and give it a fair shake;
Prov'dence don't fire no blank ca'tridges, boys.
That there missionary's substance, unbeknowns to
himself, actu'ly converted every last one of them
heathens that took a chance at the barbecue. Noth-
ing ever fetched them but that. Don't tell me it
ROUGHING IT
was an accident that he was biled. There ain't no
such a thing as an accident. When my Uncle Lem
was leaning up agin a scaffolding once, sick, or drunk,
or suthin, an Irishman with a hod full of bricks fell
on him out of the third story and broke the old man's
back in two places. People said it was an accident.
Much accident there was about that. He didn't
know what he was there for, but he was there for a
good object. If he hadn't been there the Irishman
would have been killed. Nobody can ever make me
believe anything different from that. Uncle Lem's
dog was there. Why didn't the Irishman fall on the
dog? Becuz the dog would 'a' seen him a-coming and
stood from under. That's the reason the dog warn't
app'inted. A dog can't be depended on to carry out
a special prov'dence. Mark my words, it was a put-
up thing. Accidents don't happen, boys. Uncle
Lem's dog — I wish you could 'a' seen that dog. He
was a reg'lar shepherd — or ruther he was part bull
and part shepherd — splendid animal; belonged to
Parson Hagar before Uncle Lem got him. Parson
Hagar belonged to the Western Reserve Hagars;
prime family; his mother was a Watson; one of his
sisters married a Wheeler; they settled in Morgan
County, and he got nipped by the machinery in a
carpet factory and went through in less than a
quarter of a minute; his widder bought the piece of
carpet that had his remains wove in, and people come
a hundred mile to 'tend the funeral. There was
fourteen yards in the piece. She wouldn't let them
roll him up, but planted him just so — full length.
The church was middling small where they preached
133
MARK TWAIN
the funeral, and they had to let one end of the
coffin stick out of the window. They didn't bury
him — they planted one end, and let him stand up,
same as a monument. And they nailed a sign on
it and put — put on — put on it — sacred to — the
m-e-m-o-r-y — of fourteen y-a-r-d-s — of three-ply —
car - - - pet — containing all that was — m-o-r-t-a-1
-of— of— W-i-1-l-i-a-m— W-h-e— "
Jim Blaine had been growing gradually drowsy
and drowsier — his head nodded, once, twice, three
times — dropped peacefully upon his breast, and he
fell tranquilly asleep. The tears were running down
the boys' cheeks — they were suffocating with sup-
pressed laughter — and had been from the start,
though I had never noticed it. I perceived that I
was "sold." I learned then that Jim Blaine's
peculiarity was that whenever he reached a certain
stage of intoxication, no human power could keep
him from setting out, with impressive unction, to
tell about a wonderful adventure which he had once
had with his grandfather's old ram — and the men-
tion of the ram in the first sentence was as far as
any man had ever heard him get, concerning it.
He always maundered off, interminably, from one
thing to another, till his whisky got the best of him,
and he feel asleep. What the thing was that hap-
pened to him and his grandfather's old ram is a
dark mystery to this day, for nobody has ever yet
found out.
CHAPTER XIII
OF course there was a large Chinese population in.
Virginia — it is the case with every town and
city on the Pacific coast. They are a harmless race
when white men either let them alone or treat them
no worse than dogs; in fact, they are almost entirely
harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting
the vilest insults or the crudest injuries. They are
quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness,
and they are as industrious as the day is long. A
disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does
not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to
use his hands he needs no support from anybody;
white men often complain of want of work, but a
Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always
manages to find something to do. He is a great
convenience to everybody — even to the worst class
of white men, for he bears the most of their sins,
suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment
for their robberies, and death for their murders.
Any white man can swear a Chinaman's life away
in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a
white man. Ours is the "land of the free" — nobody
denies that — nobody challenges it. [Maybe it is
because we won't let other people testify.] As I
write, news comes that in broad daylight in San
105
MARK TWAIN
Francisco, some boys have stoned an inoffensive
Chinaman to death, and that although a large crowd
witnessed the shameful deed, no one interfered.
There are seventy thousand (and possibly one
hundred thousand) Chinamen on the Pacific coast.
There were about a thousand in Virginia. They
were penned into a "Chinese quarter" — a thing
which they do not particularly object to, as they are
fond of herding together. Their buildings were of
wood; usually only one story high, and set thickly
together along streets scarcely wide enough for a
wagon to pass through. Their quarter was a little
removed from the rest of the town. The chief em-
ployment of Chinamen in towns is to wash clothing.
They always send a bill pinned to the clothes. It
is mere ceremony, for it does not enlighten the cus-
tomer much. Their price for washing was $2.50 per
dozen — rather cheaper than white people could afford
to wash for at that time. A very common sign on
the Chinese houses was: "See Yup, Washer and
Ironer"; "Hong Wo, Washer"; "Sam Sing & Ah
Hop, Washing." The house-servants, cooks, etc., in
California and Nevada, were chiefly Chinamen.
There were few white servants and no Chinawomen
so employed. Chinamen make good house-servants,
being quick, obedient, patient, quick to learn, and
tirelessly industrious. They do not need to be
taught a thing twice, as a general thing. They are
imitative. If a Chinaman were to see his master
break up a center- table, in a passion, and kindle a
fire with it, that Chinaman would be likely to resort
to the furniture for fuel forever afterward.
106
ROUGHING IT
All Chinamen can read, write, and cipher with
easy facility — pity but all our petted voters could.
In California they rent little patches of ground and
do a deal of gardening. They will raise surprising
crops of vegetables on a sand-pile. They waste noth-
ing. What is rubbish to a Christian, a Chinaman
carefully preserves and makes useful in one way or
another. He gathers up all the old oyster and
sardine cans that white people throw away, and
procures marketable tin and solder from them by
melting. He gathers up old bones and turns them
into manure. In California he gets a living out of
old mining claims that white men have abandoned as
exhausted and worthless — and then the officers come
down on him once a month with an exorbitant
swindle to which the legislature has given the broad,
general name of "foreign" mining tax, but it is
usually inflicted on no foreigners but Chinamen.
This swindle has in some cases been repeated once
or twice on the same victim in the course of the
same month — but the public treasury was not ad-
ditionally enriched by it, probably.
Chinamen hold their dead in great reverence —
they worship their departed ancestors, in fact.
Hence, in China, a man's front yard, back yard, or
any other part of his premises, is made his family
burying-ground, in order that he may visit the graves
at any and all times. Therefore that huge empire
is one mighty cemetery; it is ridged and wrinkled
from its center to its circumference with graves — and
inasmuch as every foot of ground must be made to
do its utmost, in China, lest the swarming popu-
107
MARK TWAIN
fation suffer for food, the very graves are cultivated
and yield a harvest, custom holding this to be no
dishonor to the dead. Since the departed are held
in such worshipful reverence, a Chinaman cannot
bear that any indignity be offered the places where
they sleep. Mr. Burlingame said that herein lay
China's bitter opposition to railroads; a road could
not be built anywhere in the empire without dis-
turbing the graves of their ancestors or friends.
A Chinaman hardly believes he could enjoy the
hereafter except his body lay in his beloved China;
also, he desires to receive, himself, after death, that
worship with which he has honored his dead that
preceded him. Therefore, if he visits a foreign
country, he makes arrangements to have his bones
returned to China in case he dies; if he hires to go
to a foreign country on a labor contract, there is
always a stipulation that his body shall be taken
back to China if he dies; if the government sells a
gang of coolies to a foreigner for the usual five-year
term, it is specified in the contract that their bodies
shall be restored to China in case of death. On the
Pacific coast the Chinamen all belong to one or
another of several great companies or organizations,
and these companies keep track of their members,
register their names, and ship their bodies home
when they die. The See Yup Company is held to
be the largest of these. The Ning Yeong Company
is next, and numbers eighteen thousand members
on the coast. Its headquarters are at San Francisco,
where it has a costly temple, several great officers
(one of whom keeps regal state in seclusion and
108
ROUGHING IT
cannot be approached by common humanity), and
a numerous priesthood. In it I was shown a register
of its members, with the dead and the date of their
shipment to China duly marked. Every ship that
sails from San Francisco carries away a heavy
freight of Chinese corpses — or did, at least, until the
legislature, with an ingenious refinement of Christian
cruelty, lorbade the shipments, as a neat under-
handed way of deterring Chinese immigration. The
bill was offered, whether it passed or not. It is my
impression that it passed. There was another bill —
it became a law — compelling every incoming China-
man to be vaccinated on the wharf and pay a duly-
appointed quack (no decent doctor would defile him-
self with such legalized robbery) ten dollars for it.
As few importers of Chinese would want to go to an
expense like that, the lawmakers thought this would
be another heavy blow to Chinese immigration.
What the Chinese quarter of Virginia was like —
or, indeed, what the Chinese quarter of any Pacific
coast town was and is like — may be gathered from
this item which I printed in the Enterprise while
reporting for that paper:
Chinatown. — Accompanied by a fellow-reporter, we made a
trip through our Chinese quarter the other night. The Chinese
have built their portion of the city to suit themselves; and as
they keep neither carriages nor wagons, their streets are not
wide enough, as a general thing, to admit of the passage of
vehicles. At ten o'clock at night the Chinaman may be seen
in all his glory. In every little cooped-up, dingy cavern of a
hut, faint with the odor of burning Josh-lights and with nothing
to see the gloom by save the sickly, guttering tallow candle,
were two or three yellow, long-tailed vagabonds, coiled up on a
IOQ
MARK TWAIN
sort of short truckle-bed, smoking opium, motionless and with
their lusterless eyes turned inward from excess of satisfaction —
or rather the recent smoker looks thus, immediately after having
passed the pipe to his neighbor — for opium-smoking is a com-
fortless operation, and requires constant attention. A lamp
sits on the bed, the length of the long pipe-stem from the smoker's
mouth; he puts a pellet of opium on the end of a wire, sets it
on fire, and plasters it into the pipe much as a Christian would
fill a hole with putty; then he applies the bowl to the lamp and
proceeds to smoke — and the stewing and frying of the drug and
the gurgling of the juices in the stem would well-nigh turn the
stomach of a statue. John likes it, though; it soothes him;
he takes about two dozen whiffs, and then rolls over to dream,
Heaven only knows what, for we could not imagine by looking
at the soggy creature. Possibly in his visions he travels far
away from the gross world and his regular washing, and feasts
on succulent rats and birds'-nests in Paradise.
Mr. Ah Sing keeps a general grocery and provision store at
No. 13 Wang Street. He lavished his hospitality upon our party
in the friendliest way. He had various kinds of colored and color-
less wines and brandies, with unpronounceable names, imported
from China in little crockery jugs, and which he offered to us
in dainty little miniature wash-basins of porcelain. He offered
us a mess of birds'-nests; also, small, neat sausages, of which we
could have swallowed several yards if we had chosen to try,
but we suspected that each link contained the corpse of a mouse,
and therefore refrained. Mr. Sing had in his store a thousand
articles of merchandise, curious to behold, impossible to imagine
the uses of, and beyond our ability to describe.
His ducks, however, and his eggs, we could understand; the
former were split open and flattened out like codfish, and came
from China in that shape, and the latter were plastered over
with some kind of paste which kept them fresh and palatable
through the long voyage.
We found Mr. Hong Wo, No. 37 Chow-chow Street, making
up a lottery scheme — in fact, we found a dozen others occupied
in the same way in various parts of the quarter, for about every
third Chinaman runs a lottery, and the balance of the tribe
"buck" at it. "Tom," who speaks faultless English, and used
to be chief and only cook to the Territorial Enterprise, when the
establishment kept bachelor's hall two years ago, said that
ROUGHING IT
"Sometime Chinaman buy ticket one dollar hap, ketch urn two
tree hundred, sometime no ketch um any ting; lottery like one
man fight um seventy — maybe he whip, maybe he get whip
heself, welly good." However, the percentage being sixty-nine
against him, the chances are, as a general thing, that "he get
whip heself." We could not see that these lotteries differed in
any respect from our own, save that the figures being Chinese,
no ignorant white man might ever hope to succeed in telling
"t'other from which"; the manner of drawing is similar to
ours.
Mr. See Yup keeps a fancy store on Live Fox Street. He sold
us fans of white feathers, gorgeously ornamented; perfumery
that smelled like Limburger cheese, Chinese pens, and watch-
charms made of a stone unscratchable with steel instruments,
yet polished and tinted like the inner coat of a sea-shell.1 As
tokens of his esteem, See Yup presented the party with gaudy
plumes made of gold tinsel and trimmed with peacocks'
feathers.
We ate chow-chow with chop-sticks in the celestial restaurants;
our comrade chided the moon-eyed damsels in front of the houses
for their want of feminine reserve; we received protecting Josh-
lights from our hosts and "dickered" for a pagan god or two.
Finally, we were impressed with the genius of a Chinese book-
keeper; he figured up his accounts on a machine like a gridiron
with buttons strung on its bars; the different rows represented
units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. He fingered them with
incredible rapidity — in fact, he pushed them from place to place
as fast as a musical professor's fingers travel over the keys of a
piano.
They are a kindly-disposed, well-meaning race,
and are respected and well treated by the upper
classes, all over the Pacific coast. No Californian
gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a China-
man, under any circumstances, an explanation that
seems to be much needed in the East. Only the
1 A peculiar species of the "jade-stone" — to a Chinaman peculiarly
precious.
in
MARK TWAIN
scum of the population do it — they and their chil-
dren; they, and, naturally and consistently, the
policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the
dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as
well as elsewhere in America.
CHAPTER XIV
I BEGAN to get tired of staying in one place so
long. There was no longer satisfying variety in
going down to Carson to report the proceedings of
the legislature once a year, and horse-races and
pumpkin-shows once in three months (they had got
to raising pumpkins and potatoes in Washoe Valley,
and of course one of the first achievements of the
legislature was to institute a ten-thousand-dollar
agricultural fair to show off forty dollars' worth of
those pumpkins in — however, the territorial legis-
lature was usually spoken of as the "asylum"). I
wanted to see San Francisco. I wanted to go some-
where. I wanted — I did not know what I wanted.
I had the "spring fever" and wanted a change,
principally, no doubt. Besides, a convention had
framed a state constitution; nine men out of every
ten wanted an office ; I believed that these gentlemen
would "treat" the moneyless and the irresponsible
among the population into adopting the constitution
and thus well-nigh killing the country (it could not
well carry such a load as a state government, since
it had nothing to tax that could stand a tax, for
undeveloped mines could not, and there were not
fifty developed ones in the land, there was but little
realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody was ever
113
MARK TWAIN
going to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a
money penalty on murder). I believed that a state
government would destroy the "flush times," and I
wanted to get away. I believed that the mining
stocks I had on hand would soon be worth one hun-
dred thousand dollars, and thought if they reached
that before the constitution was adopted, I would
sell out and make myself secure from the crash
the change of government was going to bring. I
considered one hundred thousand dollars sufficient
to go home with decently, though it was but a small
amount compared to what I had been expecting to
return with. I felt rather downhearted about it, but
I tried to comfort myself with the reflection that
with such a sum I could not fall into want. About
this time a schoolmate of mine, whom I had not seen
since boyhood, came tramping in on foot from Reese
River, a very allegory of Poverty. The son of
wealthy parents, here he was, in a strange land,
hungry, bootless, mantled in an ancient horse-
blanket, roofed with a brimless hat, and so generally
and so extravagantly dilapidated that he could have
"taken the shine out of the Prodigal Son himself,"
as he pleasantly remarked. He wanted to borrow
forty-six dollars — twenty-six to take him to San
Francisco, and twenty for something else; to buy
some soap with, maybe, for he needed it. I found
I had but little more than the amount wanted, in
my pocket; so I stepped in and borrowed forty-six
dollars of a banker (on twenty days' time, without
the formality of a note), and gave it him, rather than
walk half a block to the office, where I had some
114
ROUGHING IT
specie laid up. If anybody had told me that it would
take me two years to pay back that forty-six dollars
to the banker (for I did not expect it of the Prodigal,
and was not disappointed), I would have felt injured.
And so would the banker.
I wanted a change. I wanted variety of some
kind. It came. Mr. Goodman went away for a
week and left me the post of chief editor. It de-
stroyed me. The first day, I wrote my "leader" in
the forenoon. The second day, I had no subject and
put it off till the afternoon. The third day I put it
off till evening, and then copied an elaborate editorial
out of the American Cyclopedia, that steadfast
friend of the editor, all over this land. The fourth
day I "fooled around" till midnight, and then fell
back on the Cyclopaedia again. The fifth day I
cudgeled my brain till midnight, and then kept the
press waiting while I penned some bitter personalities
on six different people. The sixth day I labored in
anguish till far into the night and brought forth —
nothing. The paper went to press without an
editorial. The seventh day I resigned. On the
eighth, Mr. Goodman returned and found six
duels on his hands — my personalities had borne
fruit.
Nobody, except he has tried it, knows what it is
to be an editor. It is easy to scribble local rubbish,
with the facts all before you; it is easy to clip selec-
tions from other papers; it is easy to string out a
correspondence from any locality; but it is unspeak-
able hardship to write editorials. Subjects are the
trouble — the dreary lack of them, I mean. Every
"5
MARK TWAIN
day, it is drag, drag, drag — think, and worry, and
suffer — all the world is a dull blank, and yet the
editorial columns must be filled. Only give the editor
a subject, and his work is done — it is no trouble to
write it up; but fancy how you would feel if you
had to pump your brains dry every day in the week,
fifty-two weeks in the year. It makes one low-
spirited simply to think of it. The matter that each
editor of a daily paper in America writes in the course
of a year would fill from four to eight bulky volumes
like this book! Fancy what a library an editor's
work would make, after twenty or thirty years'
service. Yet people often marvel that Dickens,
Scott, Bulwer, Dumas, etc., have been able to pro-
duce so many books. If these authors had wrought
as voluminously as newspaper editors do, the result
would be something to marvel at, indeed. How
editors can continue this tremendous labor, this
exhausting consumption of brain -fiber (for their
work is creative, and not a mere mechanical laying-
up of facts, like reporting), day after day and year
after year, is incomprehensible. Preachers take two
months' holiday in midsummer, for they find that
to produce two sermons a week is wearing, in the
long run. In truth it must be so, and is so; and
therefore, how an editor can take from ten to twenty
texts and build upon them from ten to twenty pains-
taking editorials a week and keep it up all the year
round, is farther beyond comprehension than ever.
Ever since I survived my week as editor, I have
found at least one pleasure in any newspaper that
comes to my hand ; it is in admiring the long columns
116
ROUGHING IT
of editorial, and wondering to myself how in the
mischief he did it !
Mr. Goodman's return relieved me of employ-
ment, unless I chose to become a reporter again. I
could not do that; I could not serve in the ranks
after being general of the army. So I thought I
would depart and go abroad into the world some-
where. Just at this juncture, Dan, my associate in
the reportorial department, told me, casually, that
two citizens had been trying to persuade him to go
with them to New York and aid in selling a rich
silver-mine which they had discovered and secured
in a new mining district in our neighborhood. He
said they offered to pay his expenses and give him
one-third of the proceeds of the sale. He had
refused to go. It was the very opportunity I wanted.
I abused him for keeping so quiet about it, and not
mentioning it sooner. He said it had not occurred
to him that I would like to go, and so he had recom-
mended them to apply to Marshall, the reporter of
the other paper. I asked Dan if it was a good,
honest mine, and no swindle. He said the men had
shown him nine tons of the rock, which they had got
cut to take to New York, and he could cheerfully say
that he had seen but little rock in Nevada that was
richer; and, moreover, he said that they had secured
a tract of valuable timber and a mill-site, near the
mine. My first idea was to kill Dan. But I changed
my mind, notwithstanding I was so angry, for I
thought maybe the chance was not yet lost. Dan
said it was by no means lost; that the men were
absent at the mine again, and would not be in Vir-
117
MARK TWAIN
ginia to leave for the East for some ten days; that
they had requested him to do the talking to Marshall,
and he had promised that he would either secure
Marshall or somebody else for them by the time they
got back; he would now say nothing to anybody till
they returned, and then fulfil his promise by fur-
nishing me to them.
It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with
excitement; for nobody had yet gone East to sell a
Nevada silver-mine, and the field was white for the
sickle. I felt that such a mine as the one described
by Dan would bring a princely sum in New York,
and sell without delay or difficulty. I could not
sleep, my fancy so rioted through its castles in the
air. It was the "blind lead" come again.
Next day I got away, on the coach, with the
usual eclat attending departures of old citizens — for
if you have only half a dozen friends out there they
will make noise for a hundred rather than let you
seem to go away neglected and unregretted — and
Dan promised to keep strict watch for the men that
had the mine to sell.
The trip was signalized but by one little incident,
and that occurred just as we were about to start.
A very seedy-looking vagabond passenger got out
of the stage a moment to wait till the usual ballast
of silver bricks was thrown in. He was standing on
the pavement, when an awkward express employee,
carrying a brick weighing a hundred pounds, stum-
bled and let it fall on the bummer's foot. He in-
stantly dropped on the ground and began to howl
in the most heartbreaking way. A sympathizing
1x8
ROUGHING IT
crowd gathered around and were going to pull his
boot off; but he screamed louder than ever and they
desisted; then he fell to gasping, and between the
gasps ejaculated "Brandy! for Heaven's sake,
brandy!" They poured half a pint down him, and
it wonderfully restored and comforted him. Then
he begged the people to assist him to the stage,
which was done. The express people urged him to
have a doctor at their expense, but he declined, and
said that if he only had a little brandy to take along
with him, to soothe his paroxysms of pain when they
came on, he would be grateful and content. He was
quickly supplied with two bottles, and we drove off.
He was so smiling and happy after that, that I could
not refrain from asking him how he could possibly
be so comfortable with a crushed foot.
"Well," said he, "I hadn't had a drink for twelve
hours, and hadn't a cent to my name. I was most
perishing — and so, when that duffer dropped that
hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance. Got
a cork leg, you know!" and he pulled up his panta-
loons and proved it.
He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full
of chucklings over his timely ingenuity.
One drunken man necessarily reminds one of
another. I once heard a gentleman tell about an
incident which he witnessed in a California bar-
room. He entitled it "Ye Modest Man Taketh a
Drink." It was nothing but a bit of acting, but it
seemed to me a perfect rendering, and worthy oi
Toodles himself. The modest man, tolerably far
gone with beer and other matters, enters a saloon
no
MARK TWAIN
(twenty-five cents is the price for anything and
everything, and specie the only money used) and
lays down a half-dollar; calls for whisky and drinks
it ; the barkeeper makes change and lays the quarter
in a wet place on the counter; the modest man
fumbles at it with nerveless fingers, but it slips and
the water holds it; he contemplates it, and tries
again; same result; observes that people are inter-
ested in what he is at, blushes; fumbles at the
quarter again — blushes — puts his forefinger care-
fully, slowly down, to make sure of his aim — pushes
the coin toward the barkeeper, and says with a sigh :
"('ic!) Gimme a cigar!"
Naturally, another gentleman present told about
another drunken man. He said he reeled toward
home late at night; made a mistake and entered the
wrong gate ; thought he saw a dog on the stoop ; and
it was — an iron one. He stopped and considered;
wondered if it was a dangerous dog; ventured to say
"Be (hie !) begone!" No effect. Then he approached
warily, and adopted conciliation; pursed up his lips
and tried to whistle, but failed; still approached,
saying, "Poor dog!— doggy, doggy, doggy!— poor
doggy-dog!" Got up on the stoop, still petting with
fond names, till master of the advantages; then ex-
claimed, "Leave, you thief!" — planted a vindictive
kick in his ribs, and went head-over-heels overboard,
of course. A pause; a sigh or two of pain, and then
a remark in a reflective voice:
"Awful solid dog. What could he b'en eating?
('ic!) Rocks, p'raps. Such animals is dangerous.
'At's what I say — they're dangerous. If a mar —
120
ROUGHING IT
('ic!) — if a man wants to feed a dog on rocks, let
him feed him on rocks; 'at's all right; but let him
keep him at home — not have him lay in' round pro-
miscuous, where ('ic!) where people's liable to
stumble over him when they ain't noticin'!"
It was not without regret that I took a last lock
at the tiny flag (it was thirty-five feet long and ten
feet wide) fluttering like a lady's handkerchief from
the topmost peak of Mount Davidson, two thousand
feet above Virginia's roofs, and felt that doubtless
I was bidding a permanent farewell to a city which
had afforded me the most vigorous enjoyment of
life I had ever experienced. And this reminds me
of an incident which the dullest memory Virginia
could boast at the time it happened must vividly
recall, at times, till its possessor dies. Late one
summer afternoon we had a rain shower. That was
astonishing enough, in itself, to set the whole town
buzzing, for it only rains (during a week or two
weeks) in the winter in Nevada, and even then not
enough at a time to make it worth while for any
merchant to keep umbrellas for sale. But the rain
was not the chief wonder. It only lasted five or ten
minutes; while the people were still talking about
it all the heavens gathered to themselves a dense
blackness as of midnight. All the vast eastern front
of Mount Davidson, overlooking the city, put on
such a funereal gloom that only the nearness and
solidity of the mountain made its outlines even
faintly distinguishable from the dead blackness of
the heavens they rested against. This unaccus-
tomed sight turned all eyes toward the mountain;
121
MARK TWAIN
and as they looked, a little tongue of rich golden
flame was seen waving and quivering in the heart of
the midnight, away up on the extreme summit ! In
a few minutes the streets were packed with people,
gazing with hardly an uttered word, at the one
brilliant mote in the brooding world of darkness. It
flickered like a candle-flame, and looked no larger;
but with such a background it was wonderfully
bright, small as it was. It was the flag! — though
no one suspected it at first, it seemed so like a
supernatural visitor of some kind — a mysterious
messenger of good tidings, some were fain to be-
lieve. It was the nation's emblem transfigured by
the departing rays of a sun that was entirely palled
from view; and on no other object did the glory
fall, in all the broad panorama of mountain ranges
and deserts. Not even upon the staff of the flag —
for that, a needle in the distance at any time, was
now untouched by the light and undistinguishable
in the gloom. For a whole hour the weird visitor
winked and burned in its lofty solitude, and still the
thousands of uplifted eyes watched it with fascinated
interest. How the people were wrought up! The
superstition grew apace that this was a mystic courier
come with great news from the war — the poetry of
the idea excusing and commending it — and on it
spread, from heart to heart, from lip to lip, and from
street to street, till there was a general impulse to
have out the military and welcome the bright waif
with a salvo of artillery!
And all that time one sorely tried man, the tele-
graph-operator, sworn to official secrecy, had to lock
122
ROUGHING IT
his lips and chain his tongue with a silence that was
like to rend them; for he, and he only, of all the
speculating multitude, knew the great things this
sinking sun had seen that day in the East — Vicks-
burg fallen, and the Union arms victorious at
Gettysburg !
But for the journalistic monopoly that forbade the
slightest revealment of Eastern news till a day after
its publication in the California papers, the glorified
flag on Mount Davidson would have been saluted
and re-saluted, that memorable evening, as long as
there was a charge of powder to thunder with; the
city would have been illuminated, and every man
that had any respect for himself would have got
drunk — as was the custom of the country on all
occasions of public moment. Even at this distant
day 1 cannot think of this needlessly marred supreme
opportunity without regret. What a time we might
have had!
CHAPTER XV
WE rumbled over the plains and valleys, climbed
the Sierras to the clouds, and looked down
upon summer-clad California. And I will remark
here, in passing, that all scenery in California re-
quires distance to give it its highest charm. The
mountains are imposing in their sublimity and their
majesty of form and altitude, from any point of
view — but one must have distance to soften their
ruggedness and enrich their tintings; a Calif ornian
forest is best at a little distance, for there is a sad
poverty of variety in species, the trees being chiefly
of one monotonous family — redwood, pine, spruce,
fir — and so, at a near view there is a wearisome same-
ness of attitude in their rigid arms, stretched down-
ward and outward in one continued and reiterated
appeal to all men to '"Sh! — don't say a word! — you
might disturb somebody!" Close at hand, too, there
is a reliefless and relentless smell of pitch and tur-
pentine; there is a ceaseless melancholy in their
sighing and complaining foliage; one walks over a
soundless carpet of beaten yellow bark and dead
spines of the foliage till he feels like a wandering
spirit bereft of a footfall; he tires of the endless
tufts of needles and yearns for substantial, shapely
leaves; he looks for moss and grass to loll upon, and
124
ROUGHING IT
finds none, for where there is no bark there is naked
clay and dirt, enemies to pensive musing and clean
apparel. Often a grassy plain in California is what it
should be, but often, too, it is best contemplated at
a distance, because although its grass-blades are tall,
they stand up vindictively straight and self-sufficient,
and are unsociably wide apart, with uncomely spots
of barren sand between.
One of the queerest things I know of, is to hear
tourists from "the States" go into ecstasies over
the loveliness of "ever-blooming California." And
they always do go into that sort of ecstasies. But
perhaps they would modify them if they knew how
old Californians, with the memory full upon them of
dust-covered and questionable summer greens of
Calif ornian "verdure," stand astonished, and filled
with worshiping admiration, in the presence of the
lavish richness, the brilliant green, the infinite fresh-
ness, the spendthrift variety of form and species
and foliage that make an Eastern landscape a vision
of Paradise itself. The idea of a man falling into
raptures over grave and somber California, when
that man has seen New England's meadow-expanses
and her maples, oaks, and cathedral-windowed elms
decked in summer attire, or the opaline splendors of
autumn descending upon her forests, comes very near
being funny — would be, in fact, but that it is so
pathetic. No land with an unvarying climate can
be very beautiful. The tropics are not, for all the
sentiment that is wasted on them. They seem
beautiful at first, but sameness impairs the charm
by and by. Change is the handmaiden Nature re^
125
MARK TWAIN
quires to do her miracles with. The land that has
four well-defined seasons cannot lack beauty, or
pall with monotony. Each season brings a world of
enjoyment and interest in the watching of its un-
folding, its gradual, harmonious development, its
culminating graces — and just as one begins to tire
of it, it passes away and a radical change comes,
with new witcheries and new glories in its train.
And I think that to one in sympathy with nature,
each season, in its turn, seems the loveliest.
San Francisco, a truly fascinating city to live in,
is stately and handsome at a fair distance, but close
at hand one notes that the architecture is mostly
old-fashioned, many streets are made up of decaying,
smoke-grimed, wooden houses, and the barren sand-
hills toward the outskirts obtrude themselves too
prominently. Even the kindly climate is sometimes
pleasanter when read about than personally experi-
enced, for a lovely, cloudless sky wears out its wel-
come by and by, and then when the longed-for rain
does come it stays. Even the playful earthquake is
better contemplated at a dis —
However, there are varying opinions about that,
The climate of San Francisco is mild and singu-
larly equable. The thermometer stands at about
seventy degrees the year round. It hardly changes
at all. You sleep under one or two light blankets
summer and winter, and never use a mosquito-bar.
Nobody ever wears summer clothing. You wear
black broadcloth — if you have it — in August and
January, just the same. It is no colder, and no
warmer, in the one month than the other. You do
126
ROUGHING IT
not use overcoats and you do not use fans. Ic is
as pleasant a climate as could well be contrived, take
it all around, and is doubtless the most unvarying in
the whole world. The wind blows there a good deal
in the summer months, but then you can go over to
Oakland, if you choose — three or four miles away —
it does not blow there. It has only snowed twice in
San Francisco in nineteen years, and then it only
remained on the ground long enough to astonish the
children, and set them to wondering what the
feathery stuff was.
During eight months of the year, straight along,
the skies are bright and cloudless, and never a drop
of rain falls. But when the other four months come
along, you will need to go and steal an umbrella.
Because you will require it. Not just one day, but
one hundred and twenty days in hardly varying
succession. When you want to go visiting, or attend
church, or the theater, you never look up at the
clouds to see whether it is likely to rain or not — you
look at the almanac. If it is winter, it will rain —
and if it is summer, it won't rain, and you cannot
help it. You never need a lightning-rod, because it
never thunders and it never lightnings. And after
you have listened for six or eight weeks, every night,
to the dismal monotony of those quiet rains, you
will wish in you/ heart the thunder would leap and
crash and roar along those drowsy skies once, and
make everything alive — you will wish the prisoned
lightnings would cleave the dull firmament asunder
and light it with a blinding glare for one little in-
stant. You would give anything to hear the old
127
MARK TWAIN
familiar thunder again and see the lightning strike
somebody. And along in the summer, when you
have suffered about four months of lustrous, pitiless
sunshine, you are ready to go down on your knees
and plead for rain — hail — snow — thunder and light-
ning— anything to break the monotony — you will
take an earthquake, if you cannot do any better.
And the chances are that you'll get it, too.
San Francisco is built on sand-hills, but they are
prolific sand-hills. They yield a generous vegeta-
tion. All the rare flowers which people in "the
States" rear with such patient care in parlor flower-
pots and greenhouses, flourish luxuriantly in the open
air there all the year round. Calla lilies, all sorts of
geraniums, passion-flowers, moss-roses — I do not
know the names of a tenth part of them. I only
know that while New-Yorkers are burdened with
banks and drifts of snow, Californians are burdened
with banks and drifts of flowers, if they only keep
their hands off and let them grow. And I have
heard that they have also that rarest and most
curious of all flowers, the beautiful Espiritu Santo, as
the Spaniards call it — or flower of the Holy Spirit —
though I thought it grew only in Central America —
down on the Isthmus. In its cup is the daintiest
little facsimile of a dove, as pure as snow. The
Spaniards have a superstitious reverence for it. The
blossom has been conveyed to the States, submerged
in ether; and the bulb has been taken thither also,
but every attempt to make it bloom after it arrived,
has failed.
I have elsewhere spoken of the endless winter of
128
ROUGHING IT
Mono, California, and but this moment of the eternal
spring of San Francisco. Now, if we travel a hun-
dred miles in a straight line, we come to the eternal
summer of Sacramento. One never sees summer-
clothing or mosquitoes in San Francisco — but they
can be found in Sacramento. Not always and un-
varyingly, but about one hundred and forty-three
months out of twelve years, perhaps. Flowers bloom
there, always, the reader can easily believe — people
suffer and sweat, and swear, morning, noon, and
night, and wear out their stanchest energies fanning
themselves. It gets hot there, but if you go down
to Fort Yuma you will find it hotter. Fort Yuma is
probably the hottest place on earth. The ther-
mometer stays at one hundred and twenty in the
shade there all the time — except when it varies and
goes higher. It is a U. S. military post, and its
occupants get so used to the terrific heat that they
suffer without it. There is a tradition (attributed to
John Phenix *) that a very, very wicked soldier died
there, once, and of course, went straight to the
hottest corner of perdition — and the next day he
telegraphed back for his blankets. There is no doubt
about the truth of this statement. There can be no
doubt about it. I have seen the place where that
soldier used to board. In Sacramento it is fiery
summer always, and you can gather roses, and eat
strawberries and ice-cream, and wear white linen
clothes, and pant and perspire, at eight or nine
o'clock in the morning, and then take the cars, and
1 It has been purloined by fifty different scribblers who were too
poor to invent a fancy but not ashamed to steal one. — M. T.
129
MARK TWAIN
at noon put on your furs and your skates, and go
skimming over frozen Donner Lake, seven thousand
feet above the valley, among snow-banks fifteen feet
deep, and in the shadow of grand mountain peaks
that lift their frosty crags ten thousand feet above
the level of the sea. There is a transition for you!
Where will you find another like it in the western
hemisphere? And some of us have swept around
snow-walled curves of the Pacific Railroad in that
vicinity, six thousand feet above the sea, and looked
down as the birds do, upon the deathless summer of
the Sacramento Valley, with its fruitful fields, its
feathery foliage, its silver streams, all slumbering in
the mellow haze of its enchanted atmosphere, and all
infinitely softened and spiritualized by distance — a
dreamy, exquisite glimpse of fairyland, made all the
more charming and striking that it was caught
through a forbidden gateway of ice and snow, and
savage crags and precipices.
CHAPTER XVI
IT was in this Sacramento Valley, just referred to,
that a deal of the most lucrative of the early
gold -mining was done, and you may still see, in
places, its grassy slopes and levels torn and guttered
and disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of fifteen
and twenty years ago. You may see such dis-
figurements far and wide over California — and in
some such places, where only meadows and forests
are visible — not a living creature, not a house, no
stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, and not a sound,
not even a whisper to disturb the Sabbath stillness —
you will find it hard to believe that there stood at
one time a fiercely flourishing little city, of two
thousand or three thousand souls, with its news-
paper, fire company, brass-band, volunteer militia,
bank, hotels, noisy Fourth-of-July processions and
speeches, gambling - hells crammed with tobacco-
smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded men of all
nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold-dust
sufficient for the revenues of a German principality
— streets crowded and rife with business — town lot?
worth four hundred dollars a front foot — labor,
laughter, music, dancing, swearing, fighting, shoot-
ing, stabbing — a bloody inquest and a man for
breakfast every morning — everything that delights
131
MARK TWAIN
and adorns existence — all the appointments and ap-
purtenances of a thriving and prosperous and prom-
ising young city — and now nothing is left of it all
but a lifeless, homeless solitude. The men are gone,
the houses have vanished, even the name of the place
is forgotten. In no other land, in modern times, have
towns so absolutely died and disappeared, as in the
old mining regions of California.
It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in
those days. It was a curious population. It was
the only population of the kind that the world has
ever seen gathered together, and it is not likely that
the world will ever see its like again. For, observe,
it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young
men — not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings,
but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves,
brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed
with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless
and magnificent manhood — the very pick and choice
of the world's glorious ones. No women, no chil-
dren, no gray and stooping veterans — none but
erect, bright - eyed, quick - moving, strong - handed
young giants — the strangest population, the finest
population, the most gallant host that ever trooped
down the startled solitudes of an unpeopled land.
And where are they now? Scattered to the ends of
the earth — or prematurely aged and decrepit — or
shot or stabbed in street affrays — or dead of disap-
pointed hopes and broken hearts — all gone, or neany
all — victims devoted upon the altar of the golden calf
— the noblest holocaust that ever wafted its sacrificial
incense heavenward. It is pitiful to think upon.
132
ROUGHING IT
It was a splendid population — for all the slow,!
sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home — you
never find that sort of people among pioneers — you
cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material.
It was that population that gave to California a
iiame for getting up astounding enterprises and
rushing them through with a magnificent dash and
daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences,
which she bears unto this day — and when she pro-
jects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual,
and says "Well, that is California all over."
But they were rough in those times ! They fairly
reveled in gold, whisky, fights, and fandangoes, and
were unspeakably happy. The honest miner raked
from a hundred to a thousand dollars out of his
claim a day, and what with the gambling-dens and
the other entertainments, he hadn't a cent the next
morning, if he had any sort of luck. They cooked
their own bacon and beans, sewed on their own
buttons, washed their own shirts — blue woolen
ones; and if a man wanted a fight on his hands
without any annoying delay, all he had to do was to
appear in public in a white shirt or a stove-pipe hat,
and he would be accommodated. For those people
hated aristocrats. They had a particular and ma-
lignant animosity toward what they called a "biled
shirt."
It was a wild, free, disorderly, grotesque society!
Men — only swarming hosts of stalwart men — nothing
juvenile, nothing feminine, visible anywhere!
In those days miners would flock in crowds to
catch a glimpse of that rare and blessed spectacle, a
M3
MARK TWAIN
woman ! Old inhabitants tell how, in a certain camp,
the news went abroad early in the morning that a
woman was come! They had seen a calico dress
hanging out of a wagon down at the camping-ground
— sign of emigrants from over the great plains.
Everybody went down there, and a shout went up
when an actual, bona fide dress was discovered
fluttering in the wind! The male emigrant was
visible. The miners said:
"Fetch her out!"
He said: "It is my wife, gentlemen — she is sick —
we have been robbed of money, provisions, every-
thing, by the Indians — we want to rest."
"Fetch her out! We've got to see her!"
"But, gentlemen, the poor thing, she — "
"Fetch her out!"
He "fetched her out," and they swung their hats
and sent up three rousing cheers and a tiger; and
they crowded around and gazed at her, and touched
her dress, and listened to her voice with the look of
men who listened to a memory rather than a present
reality — and then they collected twenty-five hundred
dollars in gold and gave it to the man, and swung
their hats again and gave three more cheers, and
went home satisfied.
Once I dined in San Francisco with the family of
a pioneer, and talked with his daughter, a young
lady whose first experience in San Francisco was an
adventure, though she herself did not remember it,
as she was only two or three years old at the time.
Her father said that, after landing from the ship,
they were walking up the street, a servant leading
T.-4
ROUGHING IT
the party with the little girl in her arms. And
presently a huge miner, bearded, belted, spurred,
and bristling with deadly weapons — just down from
a long campaign in the mountains, evidently —
barred the way, stopped the servant, and stood
gazing, with a face all alive with gratification and
astonishment. Then he said, reverently:
"Well, if it ain't a child!" And then he snatched
a little leather sack out of his pocket and said to
the servant:
"There's a hundred and fifty dollars in dust, there,
and I'll give it to you to let me kiss the child!"
That anecdote is true.
But see how things change. Sitting at that
dinner-table, listening to that anecdote, if I had
offered double the money for the privilege of kissing
the same child, I would have been refused. Seven-
teen added years have far more than doubled the price.
And while upon this subject I will remark that
once in Star City, in the Humboldt Mountains, I
took my place in a sort of long, post-office single
file of miners, to patiently await my chance to peep
through a crack in the cabin and get a sight of the
splendid new sensation — a genuine, live Woman!
And at the end of half of an hour my turn came,
and I put my eye to the crack, and there she was,
with one arm akimbo, and tossing flapjacks in a
frying-pan with the other. And she was one hun-
dred and sixty-five1 years old, and hadn't a tooth
in her head.
1 Being in calmer mood, now, I voluntarily knock off a hundred
from that.— M. T.
135
CHAPTER XVII
FOR a few months I enjoyed what to me was an
entirely new phase of existence — a butterfly
idleness; nothing to do, nobody to be responsible
to, and untroubled with financial uneasiness. I fell
in love with the most cordial and sociable city in
the Union. After the sage-brush and alkali deserts
of Washoe, San Francisco was Paradise to me. I
lived at the best hotel, exhibited my clothes in the
most conspicuous places, infested the opera, and
learned to seem enraptured with music which oftener
afBicted my ignorant ear than enchanted it, if I had
had the vulgar honesty to confess it. However, I
suppose I was not greatly worse than the most of
my countrymen in that. I had longed to be a
butterfly, and I was one at last. I attended private
parties in sumptuous evening dress, simpered and
aired my graces like a born beau, and polked and
schottisched with a step peculiar to myself — and
the kangaroo. In a word, I kept the due state of
a man worth a hundred thousand dollars (prospec-
tively), and likely to reach absolute affluence when
that silver-mine sale should be ultimately achieved
in the East. I spent money with a free hand, and
meantime watched the stock sales with an interested
eye and looked to see what might happen in Nevada.
136
ROUGHING IT
Something very important happened. The prop-
erty-holders of Nevada voted against the state con-
stitution; but the folks who had nothing to lose
were in the majority, and carried the measure over
their heads. But after all it did not immediately
look like a disaster, though unquestionably it was
one. I hesitated, calculated the chances, and then
concluded not to sell. Stocks went on rising;
speculation went mad; bankers, merchants, lawyers,
doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the very washer-
women and servant - girls, were putting up their
earnings on silver stocks, and every sun that rose in
the morning went down on paupers enriched and
rich men beggared. What a gambling carnival it
was! Gould & Curry soared to six thousand
dollars a foot! And then — all of a sudden, out
went the bottom and everything and everybody
went to ruin and destruction! The wreck was com-
plete. The bubble scarcely left a microscopic mois-
ture behind it. I was an early beggar and a thorough
one. My hoarded stocks were not worth the paper
they were printed on. I threw them all away. I,
the cheerful idiot that had been squandering money
like water, and thought myself beyond the reach of
misfortune, had not now as much as fifty dollars
when I gathered together my various debts and paid
them. I removed from the hotel to a very private
boarding-house. I took a reporter's berth and went
to work. I was not entirely broken in spirit, for I
was building confidently on the sale of the silver-mine
in the East. But I could not hear from Dan. , My
letters miscarried or were not answered.
137
MARK TWAIN
One day I did not feel vigorous and remained
away from the office. The next day I went down
toward noon as usual, and found a note on my desk
which had been there twenty-four hours. It was
signed ' ' Marshall ' ' — the Virginia reporter — and con-
tained a request that I should call at the hotel and
see him and a friend or two that night, as they would
sail for the East in the morning. A postscript added
that their errand was a big mining speculation! I
was hardly ever so sick in my life. I abused myself
for leaving Virginia and intrusting to another man
a matter I ought to have attended to myself; I
abused myself for remaining away from the office on
the one day of all the year that I should have been
there. And thus berating myself I trotted a mile to
the steamer wharf and arrived just in time to be
too late. The ship was in the stream and under way.
I comforted myself with the thought that maybe
the speculation would amount to nothing — poor
comfort at best — and then went back to my slavery,
resolved to put up with my thirty-five dollars a
week and forget all about it.
A month afterward I enjoyed my first earthquake.
It was one which was long called the ' ' great ' ' earth-
quake, and is doubtless so distinguished till this day.
It was just after noon, on a bright October day. I
was coming down Third Street. The only objects
in motion anywhere in sight in that thickly built and
populous quarter, were a man in a buggy behind
me, and a street-car wending slowly up the cross-
streejt. Otherwise, all was solitude and a Sabbath
stillness. As I turned the corner, around a frame
138
ROUGHING IT
house, there was a great rattle and jar, and it oc-
curred to me that here was an item! — no doubt a
fight in that house. Before I could turn and seek
the door, there came a really terrific shock; the
ground seemed to roll under me in waves, interrupted
by a violent joggling up and down, and there was
a heavy grinding noise as of brick houses rubbing
together. I fell up against the frame house and hurt
my elbow. I knew what it was, now, and from mere
reportorial instinct, nothing else, took out my watch
and noted the time of day; at that moment a third
and still severer shock came, and as I reeled about
on the pavement trying to keep my footing, I saw
a sight! The entire front of a tall four-story brick
building in Third Street sprung outward like a door
and fell sprawling across the street, raising a dust
like a great volume of smoke! And here came the
buggy — overboard went the man, and in less time
than I can tell it the vehicle was distributed in small
fragments along three hundred yards of street. One
could have fancied that somebody had fired a charge
of chair-rounds and rags down the thoroughfare.
The street-car had stopped, the horses were rearing
and plunging, the passengers were pouring out at
both ends, and one fat man had crashed half-way
through a glass window on one side of the car, got
wedged fast and was squirming and screaming like
an impaled madman. Every door of every house,
as far as the eye could reach, was vomiting a stream of
human beings; and almost before one could execute
a wink and begin another, there was a massed multi-
tude of people stretching in endless procession down
i39
MARK TWAIN
every street my position commanded. Never was
solemn solitude turned into teeming life quicker.
Of the wonders wrought by "the great earth-
quake," these were all that came under my eye;
but the tricks it did, elsewhere, and far and wide
over the town, made toothsome gossip for nine days.
The destruction of property was trifling — the injury
to it was wide-spread and somewhat serious.
The "curiosities" of the earthquake were simply
endless. Gentlemen and ladies who were sick, or
were taking a siesta, or had dissipated till a late hour
and were making up lost sleep, thronged into the
public streets in all sorts of queer apparel, and some
without any at all. One woman who had been
washing a naked child, ran down the street holding
it by the ankles as if it were a dressed turkey.
Prominent citizens who were supposed to keep the
Sabbath strictly, rushed out of saloons in their shirt-
sleeves, with billiard-cues in their hands. Dozens
of men with necks swathed in napkins rushed from
barber shops, lathered to the eyes or with one cheek
clean - shaved and the other still bearing a hairy
stubble. Horses broke from stables, and a fright-
ened dog rushed up a short attic ladder and out on-
to a roof, and when his scare was over had not the
nerve to go down again the same way he had gone
up. A prominent editor flew down - stairs, in the
principal hotel, with nothing on but one brief
undergarment — met a chambermaid, and ex-
claimed :
"Oh, what shall I do! Where shall I go!"
She responded with naive serenity :
140
ROUGHING IT
''If you have no choice, you might try a clothing
store!"
A certain foreign consul's lady was the acknowl-
edged leader of fashion, and every time she appeared
in anything new or extraordinary, the ladies in the
vicinity made a raid on their husbands' purses and
arrayed themselves similarly. One man, who had
suffered considerably and growled accordingly, was
standing at the window when the shocks came, and
the next instant the consul's wife, just out of the
bath, fled by with no other apology for clothing
than — a bath-towel! The sufferer rose superior to
the terrors of the earthquake, and said to his wife:
"Now that is something like! Get out your
towel, my dear!"
The plastering that fell from ceilings in San Fran-
cisco that day would have covered several acres of
ground. For some days afterward, groups of ey-
ing and pointing men stood about many a building,
looking at long zigzag cracks that extended from
the eaves to the ground. Four feet of the tops of
three chimneys on one house were broken square off
and turned around in such a way as to completely
stop the draught. A crack a hundred feet long gaped
open six inches wide in the middle of one street and
then shut together again with such force as to ridge
up the meeting earth like a slender grave. A lady,
sitting in her rocking and quaking parlor, saw the
wall part at the ceiling, open and shut twice, like a
mouth, and then drop the end of a brick on the
floor like a tooth. She was a woman easily disgusted
with foolishness, and she arose and went out of there.
141
MARK TWAIN
One lady who was coming down-stairs was aston-
ished to see a bronze Hercules lean forward on its
pedestal as if to strike her with its club. They both
reached the bottom of the flight at the same time —
the woman insensible from the fright. Her child,
born some little time afterward, was club-footed.
However — on second thought — if the reader sees any
coincidence in this, he must do it at his own risk.
The first shock brought down two or three huge
organ-pipes in one of the churches. The minister,
with uplifted hands, was just closing the services.
He glanced up, hesitated, and said:
"However, we will omit the benediction!" — and
the next instant there was a vacancy in the atmos-
phere where he had stood.
After the first shock, an Oakland minister said :
"Keep your seats! There is no better place to
die than this ' ' —
And added, after the third :
"But outside is good enough!" He then skipped
out at the back door.
Such another destruction of mantel ornaments
and toilet bottles as the earthquake created, San
Francisco never saw before. There was hardly a
girl or a matron in the city but suffered losses of
this kind. Suspended pictures were thrown down,
but oftener still, by a curious freak of the earth-
quake's humor, they were whirled completely around
with their faces to the wall ! There was great differ-
ence of opinion, at first, as to the course or direc-
tion the earthquake traveled, but water that splashed
out of various tanks and buckets settled that
142
ROUGHING IT
Thousands of people were made so seasick by the
rolling and pitching of floors and streets that they
were weak and bedridden for hours, and some few
for even days afterward. Hardly an individual
escaped nausea entirely.
The queer earthquake episodes that formed the
staple of San Francisco gossip for the next week
would fill a much larger book than this, and so I
will diverge from the subject.
By and by, in the due course of things, I picked
up a copy of the Enterprise one day, and fell under
this cruel blow :
Nevada Mines in New York. — G. M. Marshall, Sheba
Hurst, and Amos H. Rose, who left San Francisco last July
for New York City, with ores from mines in Pine Wood District,
Humboldt County, and on the Reese River range, have disposed
of a mine containing six thousand feet and called the Pine Moun-
tains Consolidated, for the sum of $3,000,000. The stamps on
the deed, which is now on its way to Humboldt County, from
New York, for record, amounted to $3,000, which is -said to be
the largest amount of stamps ever placed on one document. A
working capital of $1,000,000 has been paid into the treasury,
and machinery has already been purchased for a large quartz-
mill, which will be put up as soon as possible. The stock of this
company is all full paid and entirely unassessable. The ores of
the mines in this district somewhat resemble those of the Sheba
mine in Humboldt. Sheba Hurst, the discoverer of the mines,
with his friends corralled all the best leads and all the land and
timber they desired before making public their whereabouts.
Ores from there, assayed in this city, showed them to be exceed-
ingly rich in silver and gold — silver predominating. There is an
abundance of wood and water in the District. We are glad
to know that New York capital has been enlisted in the develop-
ment of the mines of this region. Having seen the ores and
assays, we are satisfied that the mines of the District are very
valuable — anything but wildcat.
143
MARK TWAIN
Once more native imbecility had carried the day,
and I had lost a million! It was the "blind lead"
over again.
Let us not dwell on this miserable matter. If I
were inventing these things, I could be wonderfully
humorous over them; but they are too true to be
talked of with hearty levity, even at this distant
day.1 Suffice it that I so lost heart, and so yielded
myself up to repinings and sighings and foolish re-
grets, that I neglected my duties and became about
worthless, as a reporter for a brisk newspaper. And
at last one of the proprietors took me aside, with a
charity I still remember with considerable respect,
and gave me an opportunity to resign my berth and
so save myself the disgrace of a dismissal.
1 True, and yet not exactly as given in the above figures, possibly.
I saw Marshall, months afterward, and although he had plenty of
money he did not claim to have captured an entire million. In fact,
I gathered that he had not then received $50,000. Beyond that
figure his fortune appeared to consist of uncertain vast expectations,
rather than prodigious certainties. However, when the above item
appeared in print I put full faith in it, and incontinently wilted and
went to seed under it.
CHAPTER XVIII
FOR a time I wrote literary screeds for the Golden
Era. C. H. Webb had established a very excel-
lent literary weekly called the Californian, but high
merit was no guaranty of success ; it languished, and
he sold out to three printers, and Bret Harte became
editor at twenty dollars a week, and I was employed
to contribute an article a week at twelve dollars. But
the journal still languished, and the printers sold out to
Captain Ogden, a rich man and a pleasant gentleman
who chose to amuse himself with such an expensive
luxury without much caring about the cost of it.
When he grew tired of the novelty, he resold to
the printers, the paper presently died a peaceful
death, and I was out of work again. I would not
mention these things but for the fact that they so
aptly illustrate the ups and downs that characterize
life on the Pacific coast. A man could hardly
stumble into such a variety of queer vicissitudes in
any other country.
For two months my sole occupation was avoiding
acquaintances; for during that time I did not earn
a penny, or buy an article of any kind, or pay my
board. I became a very adept at "slinking." I
slunk from back street, I slunk away from approach-
ing faces that looked familiar, I slunk to my meals,
145
MARK TWAIN
ate them humbly and with a mute apology for every
mouthful I robbed my generous landlady of, and at
midnight, after wanderings that were but slinkings
away from cheerful. xess and light, I slunk to my bed.
I felt meaner, and lowlier, and more despicable than
the worms. During all this time I had but one
piece of money — a silver ten-cent piece — and I held
to it and would not spend it on any account, lest the
consciousness coming strong upon me that I was
entirely penniless, might suggest suicide. I had
pawned everything but the clothes I had on; so I
clung to my dime desperately, till it was smooth
with handling.
However, I am forgetting. I did have one other
occupation besides that of "slinking." It was the
entertaining of a collector (and being entertained by
him), who had in his hands the Virginia banker's bill
for the forty-six dollars which I had loaned my
schoolmate, the " prodigal." This man used to call
regularly once a week and dun me, and sometimes
oftener. He did it from sheer force of habit, for he
knew he could get nothing. He would get out his
bill, calculate the interest for me, at five per cent, a
month, and show me clearly that there was no
attempt at fraud in it and no mistakes; and then
plead, and argue and dun with all his might for any
sum — any little trifle — even a dollar — even half a
dollar, on account. Then his duty was accomplished
and his conscience free. He immediately dropped
the subject there always; got out a couple of cigars
and divided, put his feet in the window, and then
we would have a long, luxurious talk about every-
146
ROUGHING IT
thing and everybody, and he would furnish me a
world of curious dunning adventures out of the
ample store in his memory. By and by he would
clap his hat on his head, shake hands and say briskly :
"Well, business is business — can't stay with you
always!" — and was off in a second.
The idea of pining for a dun ! And yet I used to
long for him to come, and would get as uneasy as
any mother if the day went by without his visit,
when I was expecting him. But he never collected
that bill, at last, nor any part of it. I lived to pay
it to the banker myself.
Misery loves company. Now and then at night,
in out-of-the-way, dimly lighted places, I found
myself happening on another child of misfortune.
He looked so seedy and forlorn, so homeless and
friendless and forsaken, that I yearned toward him
as a brother. I wanted to claim kinship with him
and go about and enjoy our wretchedness together
The drawing toward each other must have been
mutual; at any rate we got to falling together
oftener, though still seemingly by accident; and
although we did not speak or evince any recog-
nition, I think the dull anxiety passed out of both
of us when we saw each other, and then for several
hours we would idle along contentedly, wide apart,
and glancing furtively in at home lights and fireside
gatherings, out of the night shadows, and very much
enjoying our dumb companionship.
Finally we spoke, and were inseparable after that.
For our woes were identical, almost. He had been
a reporter too, and lost his berth, and this was his
T47
MARK TWAIN
experience, as nearly as I can recollect it. After
losing his berth, he had gone down, down, down,
with never a halt; from a boarding-house on Rus-
sian Hill to a boarding-house in Kearney Street,
from thence to Dupont ; from thence to a low sailor
den; and from thence to lodgings in goods-boxes
and empty hogsheads near the wharves. Then, for
a while, he had gained a meager living by sewing up
bursted sacks of grain on the piers; when that failed
he had found food here and there as chance threw
it in his way. He had ceased to show his face in
daylight, now, for a reporter knows everybody, rich
and poor, high and low, and cannot well avoid
familiar faces in the broad light of day.
This mendicant Blucher — I call him that for con-
venience— was a splendid creature. He was full of
hope, pluck, and philosophy; he was well read and
a man of cultivated taste; he had a bright wit and
was a master of satire; his kindliness and his gener-
ous spirit made him royal in my eyes and changed
his curbstone seat to a throne and his damaged hat
to a crown.
He had an adventure once, which sticks fast in
my memory as the most pleasantly grotesque that
ever touched my sympathies. He had been without
a penny for two months. He had shirked about
obscure streets, among friendly dim lights, till the
thing had become second nature to him. But at
last he was driven abroad in daylight. The cause
was sufficient ; he had not tasted food for forty-eight
hours, and he could not endure the misery of his
hunger in idle hiding. He came along a back street,
148
ROUGHING IT
glowering at the loaves in bake-shop windows, and
feeling that he could trade his life away for a morsel
to eat. The sight of the bread doubled his hunger;
but it was good to look at it, anyhow, and imagine
what one might do if one only had it. Presently,
in the middle of the street, he saw a shining spot —
looked again — did not, and could not, believe his
eyes — turned away, to try them, then looked again.
It was a verity — no vain, hunger-inspired delusion —
it was a silver dime! He snatched it — gloated over
it; doubted it — bit it — found it genuine — choked
his heart down, and smothered a halleluiah. Then he
looked around — saw that nobody was looking at him
— threw the dime down where it was before — walked
away a few steps, and approached again, pretending
he did not know it was there, so that he could re-enjoy
the luxury of finding it. He walked around it, view-
ing it from different points; then sauntered about
with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the signs
and now and then glancing at it and feeling the old
thrill again. Finally he took it up, and went away,
fondling it in his pocket. He idled through unfre-
quented streets, stopping in doorways and corners
to take it out and look at it. By and by, he went
home to his lodgings — an empty queensware hogs-
head— and employed himself till night trying to
make up his mind what to buy with it. But it was
hard to do. To get the most for it was the idea.
He knew that at the Miner's Restaurant he could get
a plate of beans and a piece of bread for ten cents;
or a fish-ball and some few trifles, but they gave
"no bread with one fish-ball " there. At French
149
MARK TWAIN
Pete's he could get a veal cutlet, plain, and some
radishes and bread, for ten cents; or a cup of
coffee — a pint at least — and a slice of bread; but
the slice was not thick enough by the eighth of an
inch, and sometimes they were still more criminal
than that in the cutting of it. At seven o'clock his
hunger was wolfish; and still his mind was not made
up. He turned out and went up Merchant Street,
still ciphering; and chewing a bit of stick, as is the
way of starving men. He passed before the lights
of Martin's restaurant, the most aristocratic in the
city, and stopped. It was a place where he had
often dined, in better days, and Martin knew him
well. Standing aside, just out of the range of the
light, he worshiped the quails and steaks in the
show-window, and imagined that maybe the fairy
times were not gone yet and some prince in disguise
would come along presently and tell him to go in
there and take whatever he wanted. He chewed his
stick with a hungry interest as he warmed to his
subject. Just at this juncture he was conscious of
some one at his side, sure enough; and then a ringer
touched his arm. He looked up, over his shoulder,
and saw an apparition — a very allegory of Hunger!
It was a man six feet high, gaunt, unshaven, hung
with rags; with a haggard face and sunken cheeks,
and eyes that pleaded piteously. This phantom said :
"Come with me — please."
He locked his arm in Blucher's and walked up
the street to where the passengers were few and the
light not strong, and then facing about, put out his
hands in a neseeching way, and said:
150
ROUGHING IT
"Friend — stranger — look at me! Life is easy to
you — you go about, placid and content, as I did
once, in my day — you have been in there, and eaten
your sumptuous supper, and picked your teeth, and
hummed your tune, and thought your pleasant
thoughts, and said to yourself it is a good world —
but you've never suffered! You don't know what
trouble is — you don't know what misery is — nor
hunger! Look at me! Stranger, have pity on a
poor, friendless, homeless dog ! As God is my judge,
I have not tasted food for eight and forty hours! —
look in my eyes and see if I lie! Give me the least
trifle in the world to keep me from starving — any-
thing— twenty-five cents! Do it, stranger — do it,
please. It will be nothing to you, but life to me.
Do it, and I will go down on my knees and lick the
dust before you! I will kiss your footprints — I will
worship the very ground you walk on ! Only twenty-
five cents ! I am famishing — perishing — starving by
inches! For God's sake don't desert me!"
Blucher was bewildered — and touched, too —
stirred to the depths. He reflected. Thought
again. Then an idea struck him, and he said :
"Come with me."
He took the outcast's arm, walked him down to
Martin's restaurant, seated him at a marble table,
placed the bill of fare before him, and said :
"Order what you want, friend. Charge it to me,
Mr. Martin."
"All right, Mr. Blucher," said Martin.
Then Blucher stepped back and leaned against the
counter and watched the man stow away cargo after
MARK TWAIN
cargo of buckwheat cakes at seventy-five cents a
plate; cup after cup of coffee, and porter-house
steaks worth two dollars apiece; and when six dol-
lars and a half's worth of destruction had been
accomplished, and the stranger's hunger appeased,
Blucher went down to French Pete's, bought a veal
cutlet plain, a slice of bread, and three radishes, with
his dime, and set to and feasted like a king!
Take the episode all around, it was as odd as any
that can be culled from the myriad curiosities of
Calif ornian life, perhaps.
CHAPTER XIX
BY and by, an old friend of mine, a miner, came
down from one of the decayed mining-camps
of Tuolumne, California, and I went back with him.
We lived in a small cabin on a verdant hillside, and
there were not five other cabins in view over the
wide expanse of hill and forest. Yet a flourishing
city of two or three thousand population had occu-
pied this grassy dead solitude during the flush times
of twelve or fifteen years before, and where our
cabin stood had once been the heart of the teeming
hive, the center of the city. When the mines gave
out the town fell into decay, and in a few years
wholly disappeared — streets, dwellings, shops, every-
thing— and left no sign. The grassy slopes were as
green and smooth and desolate of life as if they had
never been disturbed. The mere handful of miners
still remaining had seen the town spring up, spread,
grow, and flourish in its pride; and they had seen it
sicken and die, and pass away like a dream. With
it their hopes had died, and their zest of life. They
had long ago resigned themselves to their exile, and
ceased to correspond with their distant friends or
turn longing eyes toward their early homes. They
had accepted banishment, forgotten the world and
been forgotten of the world. They were far from
153
MARK TWAIN
telegraphs and railroads, and they stood, as it were,
in a living grave, dead to the events that stirred the
globe's great populations, dead to the common inter-
ests of men, isolated and outcast from brotherhood
with their kind. It was the most singular, and
almost the most touching and melancholy, exile that
fancy can imagine. One of my associates in this
locality, for two or three months, was a man who had
had a university education; but now for eighteen
years he had decayed there by inches, a bearded,
rough-clad, clay-stained miner, and at times, among
his sighings and soliloquizings, he unconsciously
interjected vaguely remembered Latin and Greek
sentences — dead and musty tongues, meet vehicles
for the thoughts of one whose dreams were all of the
past, whose life was a failure; a tired man, burdened
with the present, and indifferent to the future; a
man without ties, hopes, interests, waiting for rest
and the end.
In that one little corner of California is found a
species of mining which is seldom or never men-
tioned in print. It is called "pocket-mining," and
I am not aware that any of it is done outside of that
little corner. The gold is not evenly distributed
through the surface dirt, as in ordinary placer-mines,
but is collected in little spots, and they are very
wide apart and exceedingly hard to find, but when
you do find one you reap a rich and sudden harvest.
There are not now more than twenty pocket-miners
in that entire little region. I think I know every
one of them personally. I have known one of them
to hunt patiently about the hillsides every day for
154
ROUGHING IT
eight months without finding gold enough to make
a snuff-box — his grocery bill running up relentlessly
all the time — and then find a pocket and take out of
it two thousand dollars in two dips of his shovel.
I have known him to take out three thousand dollars
in two hours, and go and pay up every cent of his
indebtedness, then enter on a dazzling spree that
finished the last of his treasure before the night
was gone. And the next day he bought his groceries
on credit as usual, and shouldered his pan and shovel
and went off to the hills hunting pockets again happy
and content. This is the most fascinating of all the
different kinds of mining, and furnishes a very hand-
some percentage of victims to the lunatic asylum.
Pocket-hunting is an ingenious process. You take
a spadeful of earth from the hillside and put it in
a large tin pan and dissolve and wash it gradually
away till nothing is left but a teaspoonful of fine
sediment. Whatever gold was in that earth has
remained, because, being the heaviest, it has sought
the bottom. Among the sediment you will find
half a dozen yellow particles no larger than pin-
heads. You are delighted. You move off to one
side and wash another pan. If you find gold again,
you move to one side further, and wash a third pan.
If you find no gold this time, you are delighted
again, because you know you are on the right scent.
You lay an imaginary plan, shaped like a fan, with
its handle up the hill — for just where the end of
the handle is, you argue that the rich deposit lies
hidden, whose vagrant grains of gold have escaped
and been washed down the hill, spreading farther
MARK TWAIN
and farther apart as they wandered. And so you
proceed up the hill, washing the earth and narrow-
ing your lines every time the absence of gold in the
pan shows that you are outside the spread of the
fan; and at last, twenty yards up the hill your lines
have converged to a point — a single foot from that
point you cannot find any gold. Your breath comes
short and quick, you are feverish with excitement;
the dinner-bell may ring its clapper off, you pay no
attention; friends may die, weddings transpire,
houses burn down, they are nothing to you; you
sweat and dig and delve with a frantic interest — and
all at once you strike it! Up comes a spadeful of
earth and quartz that is all lovely with soiled lumps
and leaves and sprays of gold. Sometimes that one
spadeful is all — $500. Sometimes the nest contains
$10,000, and it takes you three or four days to get
it all out. The pocket-miners tell of one nest that
yielded $60,000 and two men exhausted it in two
weeks, and then sold the ground for $10,000 to a
party who never got $300 out of it afterward.
The hogs are good pocket-hunters. All the sum-
mer they root around the bushes, and turn up a
thousand little piles of dirt, and then the miners long
for the rains; for the rains beat upon these little
piles and wash them down and expose the gold,
possibly right over a pocket. Two pockets were
found in this way by the same man in one day.
One had $5,000 in it and the other $8,000. That
man could appreciate it, for he hadn't had a cent
for about a year.
In Tuolumne lived two miners who used to go to
156
ROUGHING IT
fche neighboring village in the afternoon and return
every night with household supplies. Part of the
distance they traversed a trail, and nearly always sat
down to rest on a great boulder that lay beside the
path. In the course of thirteen years they had worn
that boulder tolerably smooth, sitting on it. By and
by two vagrant Mexicans came along and occupied
the seat. They began to amuse themselves by
chipping off flakes from the boulder with a sledge-
hammer. They examined one of these flakes and
found it rich with gold. That boulder paid them
eight hundred dollars afterward. But the aggra-
vating circumstance was that these "Greasers" knew
that there must be more gold where that boulder
came from, and so they went panning up the hill and
found what was probably the richest pocket that
region has yet produced. It took three months to
exhaust it, and it yielded one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars. The two American miners who
used to sit on the boulder are poor yet, and they take
turn about in getting up early in the morning to
curse those Mexicans — and when it comes down to
pure ornamental cursing, the native American is
gifted above the sons of men.
I have dwelt at some length upon this matter of
pocket-mining because it is a subject that is seldom
referred to in print, and therefore I judged that it
would have for the reader that interest which
naturally attaches to novelty.
CHAPTER XX
ONE of my comrades there — another of those
victims of eighteen years of unrequited toil and
blighted hopes — was one of the gentlest spirits that
ever bore its patient cross in a weary exile: grave
and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead-
Horse Gulch. He was forty-six, gray as a rat,
earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily
dressed, and clay-soiled, but his heart was finer
metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light
— than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.
Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-
hearted, he would fall to mourning over the loss of
a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women
and children are not, men of kindly impulses take
up with pets, for they must love something). And
he always spoke of the strange sagacity of that cat
with the air of a man who believed in his secret
heart that there was something human about it —
maybe even supernatural.
I heard him talking about this animal once. He
said :
"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here, by the
name of Tom Quartz, which you'd 'a' took an inter-
est in, I reckon — most anybody would. I had him
here eight year — and he was the remarkablest cat
253
ROUGHING IT
I ever see. He was a large gray one of the Tom
specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense than
any man in this camp — 'n' a power of dignity — he
wouldn't let the Gov'ner of Californy be familiar
with him. He never ketched a rat in his life —
'peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing
but mining. He knowed more about mining, that
cat did, than any man I ever, ever see. You couldn't
tell him noth'n' 'bout placer-diggin's — 'n' as for
pocket-mining, why he was just born for it. He
would dig out after me an' Jim when we went over
the hills prospect'n', and he would trot along behind
us for as much as five mile, if we went so fur. An'
he had the best judgment about mining-ground —
why you never see anything like it. When we went
to work, he'd scatter a glance around, 'n' if he didn't
think much of the indications, he would give a look
as much as to say, 'Well, I'll have to get you to
excuse me,' 'n' without another word he'd hyste his
nose into the air 'n' shove for home. But if the
ground suited him, he would lay low 'n' keep dark
till the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would sidle
up 'n' take a look, an' if there was about six or seven
grains of gold he was satisfied — he didn't want no
better prospect 'n' that — 'n' then he would lay down
on our coats and snore like a steamboat till we'd
struck the pocket, an' then get up 'n' superintend.
He was nearly lightnin' on superintending.
"Well, by an' by, up comes this yer quartz excite-
ment. Everybody was into it — everybody was
pick'n' 'n' blast'n' instead of shovelin' dirt on the
hillside — everybody was put'n' down a shaft instead
MARK TWAIN
of scrapin' the surface. Noth'n' would do Jim, but
we must tackle the ledges, too, 'n' so we did. We
commenced putt'n' down a shaft, 'n' Tom Quartz he
begin to wonder what in the Dickens it was all
about. He hadn't ever seen any mining like that
before, 'n' he was all upset, as you may say — he
couldn't come to a right understanding of it no way
— it was too many for him. He was down on it,
too, you bet you — he was down on it powerful — 'n'
always appeared to consider it the cussedest fool-
ishness out. But that cat, you know, was always
agin new-fangled arrangements — somehow he never
could abide 'em. You know how it is with old
habits. But by an' by Tom Quartz begin to git
sort of reconciled a little, though he never could
altogether understand that eternal sinkin' of a shaft
an' never pannin' out anything. At last he got to
comin' down in the shaft, hisself, to try to cipher it
out. An' when he'd git the blues, 'n' feel kind o'
scruffy, 'n' aggravated 'n' disgusted — knowin' as
he did, that the bills was runnin' up all the time an'
we warn't makin' a cent — he would curl up on a
gunny-sack in the corner an' go to sleep. Well,
one day when the shaft was down about eight foot,
the rock got so hard that we had to put in a blast —
the first blast'n' we'd ever done since Tom Quartz
was born. An' then we lit the fuse 'n' dumb out
'n' got off 'bout fifty yards— 'n' forgot 'n' left Tom
Quartz sound asleep on the gunny-sack. In 'bout
a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the
hole, 'n' then everything let go with an awful crash,
'n' about four million ton of rocks 'n' dirt 'n' smoke
1 60
ROUGHING IT
'n' splinters shot up 'bout a mile an' a half into the
air, an' by George, right in the dead center of it
was old Tom Quartz a-goin' end over end, an' a-
snortin' an' a-sneez'n', an' a-clawin' an' a-reachin'
for things like all possessed. But it warn't no use,
you know, it warn't no use. An' that was the last
we see of him for about two minutes 'n' a half, an'
then all of a sudden it begin to rain rocks and rub-
bage, an' directly he come down ker-whop about
ten foot off f'm where we stood. Well, I reckon
he was p'raps the orneriest-lookin' beast you ever
see. One ear was sot back on his neck, 'n' his tail
was stove up, 'n' his eye-winkers was swinged off,
'n' he was all blacked up with powder an' smoke,
an' all sloppy with mud 'n' slush f'm one end to the
other. Well, sir, it warn't no use to try to apolo-
gize— we couldn't say a word. He took a sort of
a disgusted look at hisself, 'n' then he looked at
us — an' it was just exactly the same as if he had
said — 'Gents, maybe you think it's smart to take
advantage of a cat that ain't had no experience of
quartz-minin', but I think different' — an' then he
turned on his heel 'n' marched off home without
ever saying another word.
"That was jest his style. An' maybe you won't
believe it, but after that you never see a cat so prej-
udiced agin quartz-mining as what he was. An' by
an' by when he did get to goin' down in the shaft
ag'in, you'd 'a' been astonished at his sagacity. The
minute we'd tetch off a blast 'n' the fuse'd begin to
sizzle, he'd give a look as much as to say, 'Well,
I'll have to git you to excuse me' an' it was sur-
161
MARK TWAIN
pris'n' the way he'd shin out of that hole 'n' go
f 'r a tree. Sagacity? It ain't no name for it. 'Twas
inspiration!"
I said, "Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against
quartz-mining was remarkable, considering how he
came by it. Couldn't you ever cure him of it?"
"Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot
once, he was always sot — and you might 'a' blowed
him up as much as three million times 'n' you'd
never 'a' broken him of his cussed prejudice agin
quartz-mining."
The affection and the pride that lit up Baker's face
when he delivered this tribute to the firmness of his
humble friend of other days, will always be a vivid
memory with me.
At the end of two months we had never "struck"
a pocket. We had panned up and down the hill-
sides till they looked plowed like a field; we could
have put in a crop of grain, then, but there would
have been no way to get it to market. We got
many good "prospects," but when the gold gave out
in the pan and we dug down, hoping and longing,
we found only emptiness — the pocket that should
have been there was as barren as our own. At last
we shouldered our pans and shovels and struck out
over the hills to try new localities. We prospected
around Angel's Camp, in Calaveras County, during
three weeks, but had no success. Then we wan-
dered on foot among the mountains, sleeping under
the trees at night, for the weather was mild, but still
we remained as centless as the last rose of summer.
That is a poor joke, but it is in pathetic harmony
162
ROUGHING IT
with the circumstances, since we were so poor our-
selves. In accordance with the custom of the
country, our door had always stood open and our
board welcome to tramping miners — they drifted
along nearly every day, dumped their paust shovels
by the threshold and took "pot-luck" with us —
and now on our own tramp we never found cold
hospitality.
Our wanderings were wide and in many direc-
tions; and now I could give the reader a vivid de-
scription of the big trees and the marvels of the Yo
Semite — but what has this reader done to me that
I should persecute him? I will deliver him into the
hands of less conscientious tourists and take his
blessing. Let me be charitable, though I fail in all
virtues else.
Some of the phrases in the above are mining technicalities,
purely, and may be a little obscure to the general reader. In
"placer-diggings" the gold is scattered all through the surface
dirt; in "pocket "-diggings it is concentrated in one little spot;
in "quartz" the gold is in a solid, continuous vein of rock, in-
closed between distinct walls of some other kind of stone — and
this is the most laborious and expensive of all the different kinds
of mining. "Prospecting" is hunting for a "placer"; "indica-
tions" are signs of its presence; "panning out" refers to the
washing process by which the grains of gold are separated from
the dirt; a "prospect" is what one finds in the first panful of
dirt — and its value determines whether it is a good or a bad
prospect, and whether it is worth while to tarry there or seek
further.
CHAPTER XXI
AFTER a three months' absence, I found myseli
in San Francisco again, without a cent. When
my credit was about exhausted (for I had become
too mean and lazy, now, to work on a morning
paper, and there were no vacancies on the evening
journals), I was created San Francisco correspond-
ent of the Enterprise, and at the end of five months
I was out of debt, but my interest in my work was
gone; for, my correspondence being a daily one,
without rest or respite, I got unspeakably tired of
it. I wanted another change. The vagabond in-
stinct was strong upon me. Fortune favored, and
I got a new berth and a delightful one. It was to
go down to the Sandwich Islands and write some
letters for the Sacramento Union, an excellent jour-
nal and liberal with employees.
We sailed in the propeller Ajax, in the middle
of winter. The almanac called it winter, distinctly
enough, but the weather was a compromise between
spring and summer. Six days out of port, it became
summer altogether. We had some thirty passen-
gers; among them a cheerful soul by the name of
Williams, and three sea- worn old whale-ship cap-
tains going down to join their vessels. These latter
played euchre in the smoking-room day and night,
164
ROUGHING IT
drank astonishing quantities of raw whisky without
being in the least affected by it, and were the hap-
piest people I think I ever saw. And then there
was "the old Admiral" — a retired whaleman. He
was a roaring, terrific combination of wind and
lightning and thunder, and earnest, whole-souled
profanity. But nevertheless he was tender-hearted
as a girl. He was a raving, deafening, devastating
typhoon, laying waste the cowering seas, but with
an unvexed refuge in the center where all comers
were safe and at rest. Nobody could know the
"Admiral" without liking him; and in a sudden
and dire emergency I think no friend of his would
know which to choose — to be cursed by him or
prayed for by a less efficient person.
His title of "Admiral" was more strictly "offi-
cial" than any ever worn by a naval officer before
or since, perhaps — for it was the voluntary offering
of a whole nation, and came direct from the people
themselves without any intermediate red tape — the
people of the Sandwich Islands. It was a title that
came to him freighted with affection, and honor,
and appreciation of his unpretending merit. And
in testimony of the genuineness of the title it was
publicly ordained that an exclusive flag should be
devised for him and used solely to welcome his
coming and wave him god-speed in his going.
From that time forth, whenever his ship was sig-
naled in the offing, or he catted his anchor and stood
out to sea, that ensign streamed from the royal
halliards on the parliament house, and the nation
lifted their hats to it with spontaneous accord.
165
MARK TWAIN
Yet he had never fired a gun or fought a battle in
his life. When I knew him on board the Ajax, he
was seventy-two years old and had plowed the salt-
water sixty-one of them. For sixteen years he had
gone in and out of the harbor of Honolulu in com-
mand of a whale-ship, and for sixteen more had been
captain of a San Francisco and Sandwich Island
passenger-packet and had never had an accident or
lost a vessel. The simple natives knew him for a
friend who never failed them, and regarded him as
children regard a father. It was a dangerous thing
to oppress them when the roaring Admiral was
around.
Two years before I knew the Admiral, he had re-
tired from the sea on a competence, and had sworn
a colossal nine-jointed oath that he would "never go
within smelling distance of the salt-water again as
long as he lived." And he had conscientiously
kept it. That is to say, he considered he had kept
it, and it would have been more than dangerous to
suggest to him, even in the gentlest way, that
making eleven long sea-voyages, as a passenger,
during the two years that had transpired since he
"retired," was only keeping the general spirit of it
and not the strict letter.
The Admiral knew only one narrow line of con-
duct to pursue in any and all cases where there was
a fight, and that was to shoulder his way straight in
without an inquiry as to the rights or the merits of
it, and take the part of the weaker side. And this
was the reason why he was always sure to be present
at the trial of any universally execrated criminal to
166
ROUGHING IT
oppress and intimidate the jury with a vindictive
pantomime of what he would do to them if he ever
caught them out of the box. And this was why
harried cats and outlawed dogs that knew him con-
fidently took sanctuary under his chair in time of
trouble. In the beginning he was the most frantic
and bloodthirsty Union man that drew breath in the
shadow of the flag; but the instant the Southerners
began to go down before the sweep of the Northern
armies, he ran up the Confederate colors, and from
that time till the end was a rampant and inexorable
secessionist.
He hated intemperance with a more uncompro-
mising animosity than any individual I have ever
met, of either sex; and he was never tired of storming
against it and beseeching friends and strangers alike
to be wary and drink with moderation. And yet if
any creature had been guileless enough to intimate
that his absorbing nine gallons of "straight" whisky
during our voyage was any fraction short of rigid or
inflexible abstemiousness, in that self -same moment
the old man would have spun him to the uttermost
parts of the earth in the whirlwind of his wrath.
Mind, I am not saying his whisky ever affected his
head or his legs, for it did not, in even the slightest
degree. He was a capacious container, but he did
not hold enough for that. He took a level tumbler-
ful of whisky every morning before he put his
clothes on — "to sweeten his bilge water," he said.
He took another after he got the most of his clothes
on, "to settle his mind and give him his bearings."
He then shaved, and put on a clean shirt; after
167
MARK TWAIN
which he recited the Lord's Prayer in a fervent,
thundering bass that shook the ship to her kelson
and suspended all conversation in the main cabin.
Then, at this stage, being invariably "by the head,"
or "by the stern," or "listed to port or starboard,"
he took one more to "put him on an even keel so
that he would mind his helium and not miss stays
and go about, every time he came up in the wind."
And now, his stateroom door swung open and the
sun of his benignant face beamed redly out upon
men and women and children, and he roared his
"Shipmets ahoy!" in a way that was calculated to
wake the dead and precipitate the final resur-
rection; and forth he strode, a picture to look at
and a presence to enforce attention. Stalwart
and portly; not a gray hair; broad-brimmed slouch
hat; semi-sailor toggery of blue navy flannel —
roomy and ample; a stately expanse of shirt-front
and a liberal amount of black-silk neck-cloth tied
with a sailor-knot; large chain and imposing seals
impending from his fob; awe-inspiring feet, and "a
hand like the hand of Providence," as his whaling
brethren expressed it ; wristbands and sleeves pushed
back half-way to the elbow, out of respect for the
warm weather, and exposing hairy arms, gaudy with
red and blue anchors, ships, and goddesses of liberty
tattooed in India ink. But these details were only
secondary matters — his face was the lodestone that
chained the eye. It was a sultry disk, glowing
determinedly out through a weather-beaten mask of
mahogany, and studded with warts, seamed with
scars, "blazed" all over with unfailing fresh slips
168
ROUGHING IT
of the razor; and with cheery eyes, under shaggy
brows, contemplating the world from over the back
of a gnarled crag of a nose that loomed vast and
lonely out of the undulating immensity that spread
away from its foundations. At his heels frisked the
darling of his bachelor estate, his terrier "Fan," a
creature no larger than a squirrel. The main part
of his daily life was occupied in looking after "Fan,"
in a motherly way, and doctoring her for a hundred
ailments which existed only in his imagination.
The Admiral seldom read newspapers; and when
he did he never believed anything they said. He
read nothing, and believed in nothing, but The
Old Guard, a secession periodical published in New
York. He carried a dozen copies of it with him,
always, and referred to them for all required in-
formation. If it was not there, he supplied it him-
self, out of a bountiful fancy, inventing history,
names, dates, and everything else necessary to make
his point good in an argument. Consequently, he
was a formidable antagonist in a dispute. When-
ever he swung clear of the record and began to
create history, the enemy was helpless and had to
surrender. Indeed, the enemy could not keep from
betraying some little spark of indignation at his
manufactured history — and when it came to in-
dignation, that was the Admiral's very "best hold."
He was always ready for a political argument, and
if nobody started one he would do it himself. With
his third retort his temper would begin to rise, and
within five minutes he would be blowing a gale, and
within fifteen his smoking-room audience would be
MARK TWAIN
utterly stormed away and the old man left solitary
and alone, banging the table with his fist, kicking
the chairs, and roaring a hurricane of profanity. It
got so, after a while, that whenever the Admiral ap-
proached, with politics in his eye, the passengers
would drop out with quiet accord, afraid to meet
him; and he would camp on a deserted field.
But he found his match at last, and before a full
company. At one time or another, everybody had
entered the lists against him and been routed, ex-
cept the quiet passenger Williams. He had never
been able to get an expression of opinion out of him
on politics. But now, just as the Admiral drew near
the door and the company were about to slip out,
Williams said:
"Admiral, are you certain about that circum-
stance concerning the clergyman you mentioned the
other day?" — referring to a piece of the Admiral's
manufactured history.
Every one was amazed at the man's rashness.
The idea of deliberately inviting annihilation was a
thing incomprehensible. The retreat came to a halt ;
then everybody sat down again wondering, to await
the upshot of it. The Admiral himself was as sur-
prised as any one. He paused in the door, with
his red handkerchief half raised to his sweating face,
and contemplated the daring reptile in the corner.
"Certain of it? Am I certain of it? Do you
think I've been lying about it? What do you
take me for? Anybody that don't know that
circumstance, don't know anything; a child ought
to know it. Read up your history! Read it
T70
ROUGHING IT
up , and don't come asking
a man if he's certain about a bit of A B C stuff that
the very Southern niggers know all about."
Here the Admiral's fires began to wax hot, the
atmosphere thickened, the coming earthquake rum-
bled, he began to thunder and lighten. Within
three minutes his volcano was in full irruption and
he was discharging flames and ashes of indignation,
belching black volumes of foul history aloft, and
vomiting red-hot torrents of profanity from his
crater. Meantime Williams sat silent, and appar-
ently deeply and earnestly interested in what the old
man was saying. By and by, when the lull came,
he said in the most deferential way, and with the
gratified air of a man who has had a mystery cleared
up which had been puzzling him uncomfortably:
"Now, I understand it. I always thought I knew
that piece of history well enough, but was still
afraid to trust it, because there was not that con-
vincing particularity about it that one likes to have
in history; but when you mentioned every name,
the other day, and every date, and every little cir-
cumstance, in their just order and sequence, I said
to myself, this sounds something like — this is history
— this is putting it in a shape that gives a man con-
fidence; and I said to myself afterward, I will just
ask the Admiral if he is perfectly certain about the
details, and if he is I will come out and thank him
for clearing this matter up for me. And that is
what I want to do now — for until you set that
matter right it was nothing but just a confusion in
my mind, without head or tail to it."
-71
MARK TWAIN
Nobody ever saw the Admiral look so mollified
before, and so pleased. Nobody had ever received
his bogus history as gospel before; its genuineness
had always been called in question either by words
or looks; but here was a man that not only swal-
lowed it all down, but was grateful for the dose.
He was taken aback; he hardly knew what to say;
even his profanity failed him. Now, Williams con-
tinued, modestly and earnestly:
"But, Admiral, in saying that this was the first
stone thrown, and that this precipitated the war,
you have overlooked a circumstance which you are
perfectly familiar with, but which has escaped your
memory. Now I grant you that what you have
stated is correct in every detail — to wit : that on the
1 6th of October, i860, two Massachusetts clergy-
men, named Waite and Granger, went in disguise to
the house of John Moody, in Rockport, at dead of
night, and dragged forth two Southern women and
their two little children, and after tarring and
feathering them conveyed them to Boston and
burned them alive in the State House square ; and I
also grant your proposition that this deed is what
led to the secession of South Carolina on the 20th
of December following. Very well." [Here the
company were pleasantly surprised to hear Williams
proceed to come back at the Admiral with his own
invincible weapon — clean, pure, manufactured his-
tory, without a word of truth in it.] "Very well,
I say. But, Admiral, why overlook the Willis and
Morgan case in South Carolina? You are too well
informed a man not to know all about that circum-
172
ROUGHING IT
stance. Your arguments and your conversations
have shown you to be intimately conversant with
every detail of this national quarrel. You develop
matters of history every day that show plainly that
you are no smatterer in it, content to nibble about
the surface, but a man who has searched the depths
and possessed yourself of everything that has a
bearing upon the great question. Therefore, let me
just recall to your mind that Willis and Morgan case
— though I see by your face that the whole thing is
already passing through your memory at this mo-
ment. On the 12th of August, i860, two months
before the Waite and Granger affair, two South
Carolina clergymen, named John H. Morgan and
Winthrop L. Willis, one a Methodist and the other
an Old School Baptist, disguised themselves, and
went at midnight to the house of a planter named
Thompson — Archibald F. Thompson, vice-presi-
dent under Thomas Jefferson — and took thence, at
midnight, his widowed aunt (a Northern woman),
and her adopted child, an orphan named Mortimer
Highie, afflicted with epilepsy and suffering at the
time from white swelling on one of his legs, and
compelled to walk on crutches in consequence; and
the two ministers, in spite of the pleadings of the
victims, dragged them to the bush, tarred and
feathered them, and afterward burned them at the
stake in the city of Charleston. You remember
perfectly well what a stir it made; you remember
perfectly well that even the Charleston Courier stig-
matized the act as being unpleasant, of questionable
propriety, and scarcely justifiable, and likewise that
173
MARK TWAIN
it would not be matter of surprise if retaliation
ensued. And you remember also, that this thing
was the cause of the Massachusetts outrage. Who,
indeed, were the two Massachusetts ministers? and
who were the two Southern women they burned ? I
do not need to remind you, Admiral, with your inti-
mate knowledge of history, that Waite was the
nephew of the woman burned in Charleston; that
Granger was her cousin in the second degree, and
that the women they burned in Boston were the wife
of John H. Morgan, and the still loved but divorced
wife of Winthrop L. Willis. Now, Admiral, it is
only fair that you should acknowledge that the first
provocation came from the Southern preachers and
that the Northern ones were justified in retaliating.
In your arguments you never yet have shown the
least disposition to withhold a just verdict or be
in anywise unfair, when authoritative history con-
demned your position, and therefore I have no hesi-
tation in asking you to take the original blame from
the Massachusetts ministers, in this matter, and
transfer it to the South Carolina clergymen where
it justly belongs."
The Admiral was conquered. This sweet-spoken
creature who swallowed his fraudulent history as if
it were the bread of life; basked in his furious
blasphemy as if it were generous sunshine; found
only calm, even-handed justice in his rampant
partisanship; and flooded him with invented history
so sugar-coated with flattery and deference that
there was no rejecting it, was "too many" for him.
He stammered some awkward, profane sentences
i74
ROUGHING IT
about the Willis and Morgan
business having escaped his memory, but that he
"remembered it now," and then, under pretense of
giving Fan some medicine for an imaginary cough,
drew out of the battle and went away, a vanquished
man. Then cheers and laughter went up, and
Williams, the ship's benefactor, was a hero. The
news went about the vessel, champagne was ordered,
an enthusiastic reception instituted in the smoking-
room, and everybody flocked thither to shake hands
with the conqueror. The wheelsman said after-
ward, that the Admiral stood up behind the pilot-
house and "ripped and cursed all to himself" till he
loosened the smoke-stack guys and becalmed the
mainsail.
The Admiral's power was broken. After that, if
he began an argument, somebody would bring
Williams, and the old man would grow weak and
begin to quiet down at once. And as soon as he
was done, Williams in his dulcet, insinuating way,
would invent some history (referring for proof, to
the old man's own excellent memory and to copies
of The Old Guard known not to be in his pos-
session) that would turn the tables completely and
leave the Admiral all abroad and helpless. By and
by he came to so dread Williams and his gilded
tongue that he would stop talking when he saw him
approach, and finally ceased to mention politics
altogether, and from that time forward there was
entire peace and serenity in the ship.
CHAPTER XXII
ON a certain bright morning the Islands hove in
sight, lying low on the lonely sea, and every-
body climbed to the upper deck to look. After two
thousand miles of watery solitude the vision was a
welcome one. As we approached, the imposing
promontory of Diamond Head rose up out of the
ocean, its rugged front softened by the hazy distance,
and presently the details of the land began to make
themselves manifest; first the line of beach; then
the plumed cocoanut trees of the tropics; then
cabins of the natives ; then the white town of Hono-
lulu, said to contain between twelve and fifteen thou-
sand inhabitants, spread over a dead level; with
streets from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and
level as a floor, most of them straight as a line and
few as crooked as a corkscrew.
The further I traveled through the town the better
I liked it. Every step revealed a new contrast —
disclosed something I was unaccustomed to. In
place of the grand mud-colored brown fronts of San
Francisco, I saw dwellings built of straw, adobes, and
cream-colored pebble-and-shell-conglomerated coral,
cut into oblong blocks and laid in cement; also a
great number of neat white cottages, with green
window-shutters; in place of front yards like bil-
176
ROUGHING IT
liard-tables with iron fences around them, I saw these
homes surrounded by ample yards, thickly clad with
green grass, and shaded by tall trees, through whose
dense foliage the sun could scarcely penetrate; in
place of the customary geranium, calla lily, etc.,
languishing in dust and general debility, I saw lux-
urious banks and thickets of flowers, fresh as a
meadow after a rain, and glowing with the richest
dyes; in place of the dingy horrors of San Fran-
cisco's pleasure grove, the "Willows," I saw huge-
bodied, wide-spreading forest trees, with strange
names and stranger appearance — trees that cast a
shadow like a thunder-cloud, and were able to stand
alone without being tied to green poles; in place of
gold-fish, wiggling around in glass globes, assuming
countless shades and degrees of distortion through
the magnifying and diminishing qualities of their
transparent prison-house, I saw cats — Tom cats,
Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats,
blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed
cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats,
striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats,
singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons
of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies
of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all
of them sleek, fat, lazy, and sound asleep.
I looked on a multitude of people, some white,
in white coats, vests, pantaloons, even white cloth
shoes, made snowy with chalk duly laid on every
morning; but the majority of the people were almost
as dark as negroes — women with comely features,
fine black eyes, rounded forms, inclining to the
177
MARK TWAIN
voluptuous, clad in a single bright red or whit^
garment that fell free and unconfined from shoulde*
to heel, long black hair falling loose, gypsy hats»,
encircled with wreaths of natural flowers of a bril
liant carmine tint; plenty of dark men in various
costumes, and some with nothing on but a battered
stove-pipe hat tilted on the nose, and a very scant
breech - clout ; certain smoke - dried children were
clothed in nothing but sunshine — a very neat fit-
ting and picturesque apparel indeed.
In place of roughs and rowdies staring and black-
guarding on the corners, I saw long-haired, saddle-
colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the
ground in the shade of corner houses, gazing indo-
lently at whatever or whoever happened along; in-
stead of wretched cobblestone pavements I walked
on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bot-
tom of the sea by the absurd but persevering insect
of that name, with a light layer of lava and cinders
overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless
perdition long ago through the seared and blackened
crater that stands dead and harmless in the distance
now; instead of cramped and crowded street-cars,
I met dusky native women sweeping by, free as the
wind, on fleet horses and astride, with gaudy riding-
sashes, streaming like banners behind them; instead
of the combined stenches of Chinadom and Bran-
nan Street slaughter-houses, I breathed the balmy
fragrance of jasmine, oleander, and the Pride of
India; in place of the hurry and bustle and noisy
confusion of San Francisco, I moved in the midst
of a summer calm as tranquil as dawn in the Garden
178
ROUGHING IT
of Eden; in place of the Golden City's skirting sand-
hills and the placid bay, I saw on the one side a
framework of tall, precipitous mountains close at
hand, clad in refreshing green, and cleft by deep,
cool, chasm-like valleys — and in front the grand
sweep of the ocean: a brilliant, transparent green
near the shore, bound and bordered by a long white
line of foamy spray dashing against the reef, and
further out the dead blue water of the deep sea,
flecked with "white caps," and in the far horizon
a single, lonely sail — a mere accent-mark to em-
phasize a slumberous calm and a solitude that were
without sound or limit. When the sun sunk down
— the one intruder from other realms and persistent
in suggestions of them — it was tranced luxury to
sit in the perfumed air and forget that there was any
world but these enchanted islands.
It was such ecstasy to dream and dream — till you
got a bite. A scorpion bite. Then the first duty
was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion;
and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol
or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of
the grass in the future. Then came an adjourn-
ment to the bedchamber and the pastime of writing
up the day's journal with one hand and the destruc-
tion of mosquitoes with the other — a whole com-
munity of them at a slap. Then, observing an
enemy approaching — a hairy tarantula on stilts —
why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and
the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea
of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and be-
come a promenade for a centipede with forty-two
179
MARK TWAIN
legs on a side and every foot hot enough to bum
a hole through a rawhide. More soaking with alco-
hol, and a resolution to examine the bed before
entering it, in future. Then wait, and suffer, till all
the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in
under the bar, then slip out quickly, and shut them
in and sleep peacefully on the floor till morning.
Meantime it is comforting to curse the tropics in
occasional wakeful intervals.
We had an abundance of fruit in Honolulu, of
course. Oranges, pineapples, bananas, strawberries,
lemons, limes, mangoes, guavas, melons, and a rare
and curious luxury called the chirimoya, which is
deliciousness itself. Then there is the tamarind. I
thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was
probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed
to me that they were rather sour that year. They
pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end
of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance
through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharp-
ened my teeth till I could have shaved with them,
and gave them a "wire edge" that I was afraid
would stay; but a citizen said "no, it will come off
when the enamel does" — which was comforting,
at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers
eat tamarinds — but they only eat them once.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN my diary of our third day in Honolulu, x find
this:
I am probably the most sensitive man in Hawaii to-
night— especially about sitting down in the presence
of my betters. I have ridden fifteen or twenty miles
on horseback since 5 p.m., and to tell the honest
truth, I have a delicacy about sitting down at all.
An excursion to Diamond Head and the King's
Cocoanut Grove was planned to-day — time 4.30 p.m.
— the party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen and
three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour
except myself. I was at the government prison
(with Captain Fish and another whale-ship skipper,
Captain Phillips), and got so interested in its exam-
ination that I did not notice how quickly the time
was passing. Somebody remarked that it was
twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that woke me
up. It was a fortunate circumstance that Captain
Phillips was along with his "turn out," as he calls
a top-buggy that Captain Cook brought here in
1778, and a horse that was here when Captain Cook
came. Captain Phillips takes a just pride in his
driving and in the speed of his horse, and to his pas-
sion for displaying them I owe it that we were only
sixteen minutes coming from the prison to the
181
MARK TWAIN
American Hotel — a distance which has been esti-
mated to be over half a mile. But it took some
fearful driving. The Captain's whip came down
fast, and the blows started so much dust out of the
horse's hide that during the last half of the journey
we rode through an impenetrable fog, and ran by
a pocket-compass in the hands of Captain Fish, a
whaler of twenty-six years' experience, who sat
there through the perilous voyage as self-possessed
as if he had been on the euchre-deck of his own ship,
and calmly said, "Port your helm — port," from
time to time, and "Hold her a little free — steady
— so-o," and "Luff — hard down to starboard!" and
never once lost his presence of mind or betrayed
the least anxiety by voice or manner. When we
came to anchor at last, and Captain Phillips looked
at his watch and said, "Sixteen minutes — I told
you it was in her! that's over three miles an hour!"
I could see he felt entitled to a compliment, and
so I said I had never seen lightning go like that
horse. And I never had.
The landlord of the American said the party had
been gone nearly an hour, but that he could give
me my choice of several horses that could overtake
them. I said, never mind — I preferred a safe
horse to a fast one — I would like to have an exces-
sively gentle horse — a horse with no spirit whatever
— a lame one, if he had such a thing. Inside of five
minutes I was mounted, and perfectly satisfied with
my outfit. I had no time to label him "This is a
horse," and so if the public took him for a sheep I
cannot help it. I was satisfied, and that was the
ROUGHING IT
main thing. I could see that he had as many fine
points as any man's horse, and so I hung my hat
on one of them, behind the saddle, and swabbed the
perspiration from my face and started. I named
him after this island, "Oahu" (pronounced O-waw-
hee). The first gate he came to he started in; I
had neither whip nor spur, and so I simply argued
the case with him. He resisted argument, but ulti-
mately yielded to insult and abuse. He backed out
of that gate and steered for another one on the other
side of the street. I triumphed by my former proc-
ess. Within the next six hundred yards he crossed
the street fourteen times and attempted thirteen
gates, and in the mean time the tropical sun was
beating down and threatening to cave the top of my
head in, and I was literally dripping with perspira-
tion. He abandoned the gate business after that
and went along peaceably enough, but absorbed in
meditation. I noticed this latter circumstance, and
it soon began to fill me with apprehension. I said to
myself, this creature is planning some new outrage,
some fresh deviltry or other — no horse ever thought
over a subject so profoundly as this one is doing
just for nothing. The more this thing preyed upon
my mind the more uneasy I became, until the sus-
pense became almost unbearable, and I dismounted
to see if there was anything wild in his eye — for I
had heard that the eye of this noblest of our domes-
tic animals is very expressive. I cannot describe
what a load of anxiety was lifted from my mind
when I found that he was only asleep. I woke him
up and started him into a faster walk, and then the
183
MARK TWAIN
villainy of his nature came out again. He tried to
climb over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I
saw that I must apply force to this horse, and that
I might as well begin first as last. I plucked a stout
switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he
saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convulsive
sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it
and one long one, and reminded me alternately of
the clattering shake of the great earthquake, and
the sweeping plunge of the Ajax in a storm.
And now there can be no fitter occasion than the
present to pronounce a left-handed blessing upon
the man who invented the American saddle. There
is no seat to speak of about it — one might as well
sit in a shovel — and the stirrups are nothing but an
ornamental nuisance. If I were to write down here
all the abuse I expended on those stirrups, it would
make a large book, even without pictures. Some-
times I got one foot so far through, that the stirrup
partook of the nature of an anklet; sometimes both
feet were through, and I was handcuffed by the
legs; and sometimes my feet got clear out and left
the stirrups wildly dangling about my shins. Even
when I was in proper position and carefully bal-
anced upon the balls of my feet, there was no com-
fort in it, on account of my nervous dread that
they were going to slip one way or the other in a
moment. But the subject is too exasperating to
write about.
A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove
of tall cocoanut trees, with clean, branchless stems
reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped
184
ROUGHING IT
with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of
cocoanuts — not more picturesque than a forest of
colossal ragged parasols, with bunches of magnified
grapes under them, would be. I once heard a
grouty Northern invalid say that a cocoanut tree
might be poetical, possibly it was; but it looked
like a feather-duster struck by lightning. I think
that describes it better than a picture — and yet,
without any question, there is something fasci-
nating about a cocoanut tree — and graceful, too.
About a dozen cottages, some frame and the others
of native grass, nestled sleepily in the shade here
and there. The grass cabins are of a grayish color,
are shaped much like our own cottages, only with
higher and steeper roofs, usually, and are made of
some kind of weed strongly bound together in
bundles. The roofs are very thick, and so are the
walls; the latter have square holes in them for win-
dows. At a little distance these cabins have a furry
appearance, as if they might be made of bearskins.
They are very cool and pleasant inside. The King's
flag was flying from the roof of one of the cottages,
and his Majesty was probably within. He owns
the whole concern thereabouts, and passes his time
there frequently on sultry days "laying off." The
spot is called "The King's Grove."
Near by is an interesting ruin — the meager re-
mains of an ancient temple — a place where human
sacrifices were offered up in those old bygone days
when the simple child of nature, yielding momen-
tarily to sin when sorely tempted, acknowledged his
error when calm reflection had shown it to him, and
185
MARK TWAIN
came forward with noble frankness and offered up
his grandmother as an atoning sacrifice — in those
old days when the luckless sinner could keep on
cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical
happiness as long as his relations held out ; long, long
before the missionaries braved a thousand privations
to come and make them permanently miserable by
telling them how beautiful and how blissful a place
heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get
there; and showed the poor native how dreary a
place perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal
facilities there are for going to it; showed him how,
in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all
his kinsfolk to no purpose; showed him what rap-
ture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy
food for next day with, as compared with fishing for
a pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal
summer, and eating of the bounty that nobody la-
bored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to think
of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in
this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell.
This ancient temple was built of rough blocks of
lava, and was simply a roofless inclosure a hundred
and thirty feet long and seventy wide — nothing but
naked walls, very thick, but not much higher than a
man's head. They will last for ages, no doubt, if
left unmolested. Its three altars and other sacred
appurtenances have crumbled and passed away
years ago. It is said that in the old times thousands
of human beings were slaughtered here, in the pres-
ence of naked and howling savages. If these mute
stones could speak, what tales they could tell, what
186
ROUGHING IT
pictures they could describe, of fettered victims
writhing under the knife; of massed forms straining
forward out of the gloom, with ferocious faces lit up
by the sacrificial fires; of the background of ghostly
trees; of the dark pyramid of Diamond Head stand-
ing sentinel over the uncanny scene, and the peace-
ful moon looking down upon it through rifts in the
cloud-rack !
When Kamehameha (pronounced Ka-may-ha-
may-ah) the Great — who was a sort of a Napoleon
in military genius and uniform success — invaded this
island of Oahu three-quarters of a century ago, and
exterminated the army sent to oppose him, and took
full and final possession of the country, he searched
out the dead body of the King of Oahu, and those
of the principal chiefs, and impaled their heads on
the walls of this temple.
Those were savage times when this old slaughter-
house was in its prime. The King and the chiefs
ruled the common herd with a rod of iron; made
them gather all the provisions the masters needed;
build all the houses and temples; stand all the ex-
penses, of whatever kind; take kicks and cuffs for
thanks ; drag out lives well flavored with misery, and
then suffer death for trifling offenses or yield up
their lives on the sacrificial altars to purchase favors
from the gods for their hard rulers. The mission-
aries have clothed them, educated them, broken up
the tyrannous authority of their chiefs, and given
them freedom and the right to enjoy whatever their
hands and brains produce, with equal laws for all,
and punishment for all alike who transgress them.
187
MARK TWAIN
The contrast is so strong — the benefit conferred upon
this people by the missionaries is so prominent, so
palpable, and so unquestionable, that the frankest
compliment I can pay them, and the best, is simply
to point to the condition of the Sandwich-Islanders
of Captain Cook's time, and their condition to-day.
Their work speaks for itself.
CHAPTER XXIV
BY and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on
the summit of a hill which commanded a far-
reaching view. The moon rose and flooded moun-
tain and valley and ocean with a mellow radiance,
and out of the shadows of the foliage the distant
lights of Honolulu glinted like an encampment of
fireflies. The air was heavy with the fragrance of
flowers. The halt was brief. Gaily laughing and
talking, the party galloped on, and I clung to the
pommel and cantered after. Presently we came to
a place where no grass grew — a wide expanse of
deep sand. They said it was an old battle-ground.
All around everywhere, not three feet apart, the
bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moon-
light. We picked up a lot of them for mementoes.
I got quite a number of arm-bones and leg-bones
— of great chiefs, maybe, who had fought savagely
in that fearful battle in the old days, when blood
flowed like wine where we now stood — and wore
the choicest of them out on Oahu afterward, trying
to make him go. All sorts of bones could be found
except skulls; but a citizen said, irreverently, that
there had been an unusual number of "skull-
hunters" there lately — a species of sportsmen I had
never heard of before.
189
MARK TWAIN
Nothing whatever is known about this place — its
story is a secret that will never be revealed. The
oldest natives make no pretense of being possessed
of its history. They say these bones were here
when they were children. They were here when
their grandfathers were children — but how they
came here, they can only conjecture. Many people
believe this spot to be an ancient battle-ground, and
it is usual to call it so; and they believe that these
skeletons have lain for ages just where their proprie-
tors fell in the great fight. Other people believe that
Kamehameha I. fought his first battle here. On
this point, I have heard a story, which may have
been taken from one of the numerous books which
have been written concerning these islands — I do
not know where the narrator got it. He said that
when Kamehameha (who was at first merely a sub-
ordinate chief on the island of Hawaii) landed here,
he brought a large army with him, and encamped
at Waikiki. The Oahuans marched against him,
and so confident were they of success that they
readily acceded to a demand of their priests that
they should draw a line where these bones now lie,
and take an oath that, if forced to retreat at all, they
would never retreat beyond this boundary. The
priests told them that death and everlasting punish-
ment would overtake any who violated the oath, and
the march was resumed. Kamehameha drove them
back step by step; the priests fought in the front
rank and exhorted them both by voice and inspirit-
ing example to remember their oath— to die, if need
be, but never cross the fatal line. The struggle was
i go
ROUGHING IT
manfully maintained, but at last the chief priest fell,
pierced to the heart with a spear, and the unlucky
omen fell like a blight upon the brave souls at his
back; with a triumphant shout the invaders pressed
forward — the line was crossed — the offended gods
deserted the despairing army, and, accepting the
doom their perjury had brought upon them, they
broke and fled over the plain where Honolulu stands
now — up the beautiful Nuuana Valley — paused a
moment, hemmed in by precipitous mountains on
either hand and the frightful precipice of the Pari in
front, and then were driven over — a sheer plunge
of six hundred feet !
The story is pretty enough, but Mr. Jarves's ex-
cellent history says the Oahuans were intrenched in
Nuuanu Valley; that Kamehameha ousted them,
routed them, pursued them up the valley and drove
them over the precipice. He makes no mention of
our bone-yard at all in his book.
Impressed by the profound silence and repose that
rested over the beautiful landscape, and being, as
usual, in the rear, I gave voice to my thoughts. I
said:
"What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn
glory of the moon ! How strong the rugged outlines
of the dead volcano stand out against the clear sky!
What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf
over the long curved reef! How calmly the dim
city sleeps yonder in the plain! How soft the
shadows lie upon the stately mountains that border
the dream-haunted Mauoa Valley! What a grand
pyramid of billowy clouds towers above the storied
IQI
MARK TWAIN
Pari ! How the grim warriors of the past seem flock-
ing in ghostly squadrons to their ancient battle-field
again — how the wails of the dying well up from
the—"
At this point the horse called Oahu sat down in the
sand. Sat down to listen, I suppose. Never mind
what he heard, I stopped apostrophizing and con-
vinced him that I was not a man to allow ^contempt
of court on the part of a horse. I broke the back-
bone of a chief over his rump and set out to join the
cavalcade again.
Very considerably fagged out we arrived in town
at nine o'clock at night, myself in the lead — for when
my horse finally came to understand that he was
homeward bound and hadn't far to go, he turned
his attention strictly to business.
This is a good time to drop in a paragraph of in-
formation. There is no regular livery-stable in
Honolulu, or, indeed, in any part of the kingdom of
Hawaii; therefore unless you are acquainted with
wealthy residents (who all have good horses), you
must hire animals of the wretchedest description
from the Kanakas (i.e., natives). Any horse you
hire, even though it be from a white man, is not
often of much account, because it will be brought
in for you from some ranch, and has necessarily been
leading a hard life. If the Kanakas who have been
caring for him (inveterate riders they are) have not
ridden him half to death every day themselves, you
can depend upon it they have been doing the same
thing by proxy, by clandestinely hiring him out.
At least, so I am informed. The result is, that no
192
ROUGHING IT
horse has a chance to eat, drink, rest, recuperate, or
look well or feel well, and so strangers go about the
Islands mounted as I was to-day.
In hiring a horse from a Kanaka, you must have
all your eyes about you, because you can rest satis-
fied that you are dealing with a shrewd, unprin-
cipled rascal. You may leave your door open and
your trunk unlocked as long as you please, and he
will not meddle with your property, he has no im-
portant vices and no inclination to commit robbery
on a large scale; but if he can get ahead of you in
the horse business, he will take a genuine delight in
doing it. This trait is characteristic of horse-jockeys,
the world over, is it not? He will overcharge you
if he can: he will hire you a fine-looking horse at
night (anybody's — maybe the King's, if the royal
steed be in convenient view) , and bring you the mate
to my Oahu in the morning, and contend that it is
the same animal. If you make trouble, he will get
out by saying it was not himself who made the
bargain with you, but his brother, "who went out in
the country this morning." They have always got
a "brother" to shift the responsibility upon. A
victim said to one of these fellows one day:
"But I know I hired the horse of you, because I
noticed that scar on your cheek."
The reply was not bad: "Oh, yes — yes — my
brother all same — we twins!"
A friend of mine, J. Smith, hired a horse yester-
day, the Kanaka warranting him to be in excellent
condition. Smith had a saddle and blanket of his
own, and he ordered the Kanaka to put these on
i93
MARK TWAIN
the horse. The Kanaka protested that he was per-
fectly willing to trust the gentleman with the saddle
that was already on the animal, but Smith refused
to use it. The change was made: then Smith
noticed that the Kanaka had only changed the sad-
dles, and had left the original blanket on the horse;
he said he forgot to change the blankets, and so, to
cut the bother short, Smith mounted and rode
away. The horse went lame a mile from town, and
afterward got to cutting up some extraordinary
capers. Smith got down and took off the saddle,
but the blanket stuck fast to the horse — glued to a
procession of raw places. The Kanaka's mysterious
conduct stood explained.
Another friend of mine bought a pretty good
horse from a native, a day or two ago, after a toler-
ably thorough examination of the animal. He dis-
covered to-day that the horse was as blind as a bat,
in one eye. He meant to have examined that eye,
and came home with a general notion that he had
done it ; but he remembered now that every time he
made the attempt his attention was called to some-
thing else by his victimizer.
One more instance, and then I will pass to some-
thing else. I am informed that when a certain Mr.
L., a visiting stranger, was here, he bought a pair
of very respectable-looking match horses from a
native. They were in a little stable with a partition
through the middle of it — one horse in each apart-
ment. Mr. L. examined one of them critically
through a window (the Kanaka's "brother" having
gone to the country with the key), and then went
194.
ROUGHING IT
around the house and examined the other through
a window on the other side. He said it was the
neatest match he had ever seen, and paid for the
horses on the spot. Whereupon the Kanaka de-
parted to join his brother in the country. The fel-
low had shamefully swindled L. There was only
one "match" horse, and he had examined his star-
board side through one window and his port side
through another! I decline to believe this story, but
I give it because it is worth something as a fanciful
illustration of a fixed fact — namely, that the Kan-
aka horse- jockey is fertile in invention and elastic
in conscience.
You can buy a pretty good horse for forty or fifty
dollars, and a good enough horse for all practical
purposes for two dollars and a half. I estimate
Oahu to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood
of thirty-five cents. A good deal better animal than
he is was sold here day before yesterday for a dollar
and seventy-five cents, and sold again to-day for two
dollars and twenty-five cents; Williams bought a
handsome and lively little pony yesterday for ten
dollars; and about the best common horse on the
island (and he is a really good one) sold yesterday,
with Mexican saddle and bridle, for seventy dollars
— a horse which is well and widely known, and
greatly respected for his speed, good disposition, and
everlasting bottom. You give your horse a little
grain once a day; it comes from San Francisco, and
is worth about two cents a pound ; and you give him
as much hay as he wants; it is cut and brought to
the market by natives, and is not very good; it is
i95
MARK TWAIN
baled into long, round bundles, about the size oi a
large man; one of them is stuck by the middle on
each end of a six-foot pole, and the Kanaka shoul-
ders the pole and walks about the streets between
the upright bales in search of customers. These hay-
bales, thus carried, have a general resemblance to a
colossal capital H.
The hay-bundles cost twenty-five cents apiece, and
one will last a horse about a day. You can get a
horse for a song, a week's hay for another song, and
you can turn your animal loose among the luxuriant
grass in your neighbor's broad front yard without a
song at all — you do it at midnight, and stable the
beast again before morning. You have been at no
expense thus far, but when you come to buy a sad-
dle and bridle they will cost you from twenty to
thirty-five dollars. You can hire a horse, saddle,
and bridle at from seven to ten dollars a week, and
the owner will take care of them at his own expense.
It is time to close this day's record — bedtime.
As I prepare for sleep, a rich voice rises out of the
still night, and, far as this ocean rock is toward the
ends of the earth, I recognize a familiar home air.
But the words seem somewhat out of joint:
"Waikiki lantoni ce Kaa hooly hooly wawhoo."
Translated, that means, "When we were marching
through Georgia.'*
CHAPTER XXV
PASSING through the market-place we saw that
feature of Honolulu under its most favorable
auspices — that is, in the full glory of Saturday
afternoon, which is a festive day with the natives.
The native girls, by twos and threes and parties of a
dozen, and sometimes in whole platoons and com-
panies, went cantering up and down the neighboring
streets astride of fleet but homely horses, and with
their gaudy riding-habits streaming like banners be-
hind them. Such a troop of free and easy riders, in
their natural home, the saddle, makes a gay and
graceful spectacle. The riding-habit I speak of is
simply a long broad scarf, like a tavern table-cloth,
brilliantly colored, wrapped around the loins once,
then apparently passed between the limbs and each
end thrown backward over the same, and floating
and flapping behind on both sides beyond the
horse's tail like a couple of fancy flags; then, slipping
the stirrup-irons between her toes, the girl throws
her chest forward, sits up like a major-general, and
goes sweeping by like the wind.
The girls put on all the finery they can on Satur-
day afternoon — fine black-silk robes ; flowing red ones
that nearly put your eyes out; others as white as
snow; still others that discount the rainbow; and
197
MARK TWAIN
they wear their hair in nets, and trim their jaunty
hats with fresh flowers, and encircle their dusky
throats with home-made necklaces of the brilliant
vermilion-tinted blossom of the ohia; and they fill
the markets and the adjacent streets with their
bright presences, and smell like a rag factory on fire
with their offensive cocoanut oil.
Occasionally, you see a heathen from the sunny
isles away down in the South Seas, with his face and
neck tattooed till he looks like the customary mendi-
cant from Washoe who has been blown up in a
mine. Some are tattooed a dead blue color down to
the upper lip — masked, as it were — leaving the
natural light -yellow skin of Micronesia unstained
from thence down; some with broad marks drawn
down from hair to neck, on both sides of the face,
and a strip of the original yellow skin, two inches
wide, down the center — a gridiron with a spoke
broken out; and some with the entire face discolored
with the popular mortification tint, relieved only by
one or two thin, wavy threads of natural yellow
running across the face from ear to ear, and eyes
twinkling out of this darkness, from under shad-
owing hat - brims, like stars in the dark of the
moon.
Moving among the stirring crowds, you come to the
poi-merchants, squatting in the shade on their hams,
in true native fashion, and surrounded by purchasers.
(The Sandwich - Islanders always squat on their
hams, and who knows but they may be the original
"ham sandwiches"? The thought is pregnant with
interest.) The poi looks like common flour paste,
108
ROUGHING IT
and is kept in large bowls formed of a species of
gourd, and capable of holding from one to three or
four gallons. Poi is the chief article of food among
the natives, and is prepared from the taro plant.
The taro root looks like a thick, or, if you please, a
corpulent sweet-potato, in shape, but is of a light-
purple color when boiled. When boiled it answers
as a passable substitute for bread. The buck
Kanakas bake it underground, then mash it up
well with a heavy lava pestle, mix water with it
until it becomes a paste, set it aside and let it fer-
ment, and then it is poi — and an unseductive mixture
it is, almost tasteless before it ferments and too sour
for a luxury afterward. But nothing is more nutri-
tious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid
humors, a fact which sufficiently accounts for the
humorous character of the Kanakas. I think there
must be as much of a knack in handling poi as there
is in eating with chopsticks. The forefinger is thrust
into the mess and stirred quickly round several times
and drawn as quickly out, thickly coated, just as if it
were poulticed; the head is thrown back, the finger
inserted in the mouth and the delicacy stripped off
and swallowed — the eye closing gently, meanwhile,
in a languid sort of ecstasy. Many a different
finger goes into the same bowl and many a different
kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added
to the virtues of its contents.
Around a small shanty was collected a crowd of
natives buying the awa root. It is said that but for
the use of this root the destruction of the people in
former times by certain imported diseases would
ioc
MARK TWAIN
have been far greater than it was, and by others it is
said that this is merely a fancy. All agree that poi
will rejuvenate a man who is used up and his vitality
almost annihilated by hard drinking, and that in
some kinds of diseases it will restore health after all
medicines have failed ; but all are not willing to allow
to the awa the virtues claimed for it. The natives
manufacture an intoxicating drink from it which is
fearful in its effects when persistently indulged in.
It covers the body with dry, white scales, inflames
the eyes, and causes premature decrepitude. Al-
though the man before whose establishment we
stopped has to pay a government license of eight
hundred dollars a year for the exclusive right to sell
awa root, it is said that he makes a small fortune
every twelvemonth; while saloon-keepers, who pay
a thousand dollars a year for the privilege of retail-
ing whisky, etc., only make a bare living.
We found the fish market crowded ; for the native
is very fond of fish, and eats the article raw and alive!
Let us change the subject.
In old times here Saturday was a grand gala day
indeed. All the native population of the town for-
sook their labors, and those of the surrounding
country journeyed to the city. Then the white folks
had to stay indoors, for every street was so packed
with charging cavaliers and cavalieresses that it was
next to impossible to thread one's way through the
cavalcades without getting crippled.
At night they feasted and the girls danced the las-
civious hula hula — a dance that is said to exhibit
the very perfection of educated motion of limb and
200
ROUGHING IT
arm, hand, head, and body, and the exactest uni-
formity of movement and accuracy of "time." It
was performed by a circle of girls with no raiment
on them to speak of, who went through an infinite
variety of motions and figures without prompting,
and yet so true was their "time," and in such perfect
concert did they move that when they were placed
in a straight line, hands, arms, bodies, limbs, and
heads waved, swayed, gesticulated, bowed, stooped,
whirled, squirmed, twisted, and undulated as if they
were part and parcel of a single individual; and it
was difficult to believe they were not moved in a
body by some exquisite piece of mechanism.
Of late years, however, Saturday has lost most of
its quondam gala features. This weekly stampede
of the natives interfered too much with labor and
the interests of the white folks, and by sticking
in a law here, and preaching a sermon there,
and by various other means, they gradually broke
it up.
The demoralizing hula hula was forbidden to be
performed, save at night, with closed doors, in pres-
ence of few spectators, and only by permission duly
procured from the authorities and the payment of
ten dollars for the same. There are few girls now-
adays able to dance this ancient national dance in
the highest perfection of the art.
The missionaries have christianized and educated
all the natives. They all belong to the church, and
there is not one of them, above the age of eight
years, but can read and write with facility in the
native tongue. It is the most universally educated
MARK TWAIN
race of people outside of China. They have any
quantity of books, printed in the Kanaka language,
and all the natives are fond of reading. They are
inveterate church-goers — nothing can keep them
away. All this ameliorating cultivation has at last
built up in the native women a profound respect for
chastity — in other people. Perhaps that is enough
to say on that head. The national sin will die out
when the race does, but perhaps not earlier. But
doubtless this purifying is not far off, when we re-
flect that contact with civilization and the whites has
reduced the native population from four hundred
thousand (Captain Cook's estimate) to fifty-five
thousand in something over eighty years!
Society is a queer medley in this notable mission-
ary, whaling, and governmental center. If you get
into conversation with a stranger and experience
that natural desire to know what sort of ground you
are treading on by finding out what manner of man
your stranger is, strike out boldly and address him
as "Captain." Watch him narrowly, and if you see
by his countenance that you are on the wrong track,
ask him where he preaches. It is a safe bet that
he is either a missionary or captain of a whaler. I
am now personally acquainted with seventy-two cap-
tains and ninety-six missionaries. The captains and
ministers form one-half of the population ; the third
fourth is composed of common Kanakas and mer-
cantile foreigners and their families, and the final
fourth is made up of high officers of the Hawaiian
government. And there are just about cats enough
for three apiece all around.
202
ROUGHING IT
A solemn stranger met me in the suburbs the
other day, and said :
"Good morning, your reverence. Preach in the
stone church yonder, no doubt?"
"No, I don't. I'm not a preacher."
"Really, I beg your pardon, Captain. I trust
you had a good season. How much oil — "
"Oil? What do you take me for? I'm not a
whaler."
"Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, your Excellency.
Major- General in the household troops, no doubt?
Minister of the Interior, likely? Secretary of War?
First Gentleman of the Bedchamber? Commis-
sioner of the Royal — "
"Stuff! I'm no official. I'm not connected in
any way with the government."
"Bless my life! Then who the mischief are you?
what the mischief are you? and how the mischief
did you get here, and where in thunder did you
come from?"
"I'm only a private personage — an unassuming
stranger — lately arrived from America."
"No? Not a missionary! Not a whaler! not a
member of his Majesty's government! not even
Secretary of the Navy! Ah, Heaven! it is too
blissful to be true; alas, I do but dream. And yet
that noble, honest countenance — those oblique, in-
genuous eyes — that massive head, incapable of —
of— anything; your hand; give me your hand,
bright waif. Excuse these tears. For sixteen weary
years I have yearned for a moment like this,
and—"
201
MARK TWAIN
Here his feelings were too much for him, and he
swooned away. I pitied this poor creature from
the bottom of my heart. I was deeply moved. I
shed a few tears on him and kissed him for his
mother. I then took what small change he had and
"shoved."
CHAPTER XXVI
I STILL quote from my journal:
I found the national legislature to consist of
half a dozen white men and some thirty or forty
natives. It was a dark assemblage. The nobles
and ministers (about a dozen of them altogether)
occupied the extreme left of the hall, with David
Kalakaua (the King's Chamberlain) and Prince Wil-
liam at the head. The President of the Assembly,
his Royal Highness M. Kekuanaoa,1 and the vice-
president (the latter a white man) sat in the pulpit,
if I may so term it.
The President is the King's father. He is an
erect, strongly built, massive-featured, white-haired,
tawny old gentleman of eighty years of age or there-
abouts. He was simply but well dressed, in a blue
cloth coat and white vest, and white pantaloons,
without spot, dust, or blemish upon them. He bears
himself with a calm, stately dignity, and is a man of
noble presence. He was a young man and a dis-
tinguished warrior under that terrific fighter, Ka-
mchameha I., more than half a century ago. A
knowledge of his career suggested some such thought
as this: "This man, naked as the day he was born,
and war-club and spear in hand, has charged at the
1 Since dead.
205
MARK TWAIN
head of a horde of savages against other hordes of
savages more than a generation and a half ago, and
reveled in slaughter and carnage; has worshiped
wooden images on his devout knees; has seen
hundreds of his race offered up in heathen temples
as sacrifices to wooden idols, at a time when no
missionary's foot had ever pressed this soil, and
he had never heard of the white man's God; has
believed his enemy could secretly pray him to death ;
has seen the day, in his childhood, when it was a
crime punishable by death for a man to eat with his
wife, or for a plebeian to let his shadow fall upon
the king — and now look at him: an educated
Christian; neatly and handsomely dressed; a high-
minded, elegant gentleman; a traveler, in some de-
gree, and one who has been the honored guest of
royalty in Europe; a man practised in holding the
reins of an enlightened government, and well versed
in the politics of his country and in general, prac-
tical information. Look at him, sitting there pre-
siding over the deliberations of a legislative body,
among whom are white men — a grave, dignified,
statesmanlike personage, and as seemingly natural
and fitted to the place as if he had been born in it
and had never been out of it in his lifetime. How
the experiences of this old man's eventful life shame
the cheap inventions of romance!"
Kekuanaoa is not of the blood royal. He derives
his princely rank from his wife, who was a daughter
of Kamehameha the Great. Under other monarch-
ies the male line takes precedence of the female in
tracing genealogies, but here the opposite is the case
206
ROUGHING IT
— the female line takes precedence. Their reason
for this is exceedingly sensible, and I recommend
it to the aristocracy of Europe: They say it is
easy to know who a man's mother was, but, etc., etc.
The christianizing of the natives has hardly even
weakened some of their barbarian superstitions,
much less destroyed them. I have just referred to
one of these. It is still a popular belief that if your
enemy can get hold of any article belonging to you
he can get down on his knees over it and pray you
to death. Therefore many a native gives up and
dies merely because he imagines that some enemy is
putting him through a course of damaging prayer.
This praying an individual to death seems absurd
enough at a first glance, but then when we call to
mind some of the pulpit efforts of certain of our
own ministers the thing looks plausible.
In former times, among the Islanders, not only a
plurality of wives was customary, but a plurality oj
husbands likewise. Some native women of noble
rank had as many as six husbands. A woman thus
supplied did not reside with all her husbands at
once, but lived several months with each in turn.
An understood sign hung at her door during these
months. When the sign was taken down, it meant
"Next."
In those days woman was rigidly taught to "know
her place." Her place was to do all the work, take
all the cuffs, provide all the food, and content her-
self with what was left after her lord had finished his
dinner. She was not only forbidden, by ancient
law, and under penalty of death, to eat with her
?07
MARK TWAIN
husband or enter a canoe, but was debarred, under
the same penalty, from eating bananas, pineapples,
oranges, and other choice fruits at any time or in
any place. She had to confine herself pretty strictly
to "poi" and hard work. These poor ignorant
heathen seem to have had a sort of groping idea of
what came of woman eating fruit in the garden of
Eden, and they did not choose to take any more
chances. But the missionaries broke up this sat-
isfactory arrangement of things. They liberated
woman and made her the equal of man.
The natives had a romantic fashion of burying
some of their children alive when the family became
larger than necessary. The missionaries interfered
in this matter too, and stopped it.
To this day the natives are able to lie down and
die whenever they want to, whether there is anything
the matter with them or not. If a Kanaka takes a
notion to die, that is the end of him; nobody can
persuade him to hold on ; all the doctors in the world
could not save him.
A luxury which they enjoy more than anything
else is a large funeral. If a person wants to get
rid of a troublesome native, it is only necessary to
promise him a fine funeral and name the hour, and
he will be on hand to the minute — at least his
remains will.
All the natives are Christians, now, but many of
them still desert to the Great Shark God for tempo-
rary succor in time of trouble. An irruption of the
great volcano of Kilauea, or an earthquake, always
brings a deal of latent loyalty to the Great Shark
208
ROUGHING IT
God to the surface. It is common report that the
king, educated, cultivated, and refined Christian
gentleman as he undoubtedly is, still turns to the
idols of his fathers for help when disaster threatens.
A planter caught a shark, and one of his christian-
ized natives testified his emancipation from the thrall
of ancient superstition by assisting to dissect the
shark after a fashion forbidden by his abandoned
creed. But remorse shortly began to torture him.
He grew moody and sought solitude; brooded over
his sin, refused food, and finally said he must die
and ought to die, for he had sinned against the Great
Shark God and could never know peace any more.
He was proof against persuasion and ridicule, and in
the course of a day or two took to his bed and died,
although he showed no symptom of disease. His
young daughter followed his lead and suffered a like
fate within the week. Superstition is ingrained in
the native blood and bone, and it is only natural
that it should crop out in time of distress. Wherever
one goes in the Islands, he will find small piles of
stones by the wayside, covered with leafy offerings,
placed there by the natives to appease evil spirits
or honor local deities belonging to the mythology of
former days.
In the rural districts of any of the Islands, the
traveler hourly comes upon parties of dusky maidens
bathing in the streams or in the sea without any
clothing on and exhibiting no very intemperate zeal
in the matter of hiding their nakedness. When the
missionaries first took up their residence in Hono-
lulu, the native women would pay their families fre-
209
MARK TWAIN
quent friendly visits, day by day, not even clothed
with a blush. It was found a hard matter to con-
vince them that this was rather indelicate. Finally,
the missionaries provided them with long, loose
calico robes, and that ended the difficulty — for the
women would troop through the town, stark naked,
with their robes folded under their arms, march to
the missionary houses and then proceed to dress!
The natives soon manifested a strong proclivity for
clothing, but it was shortly apparent that they only
wanted it for grandeur. The missionaries imported
a quantity of hats, bonnets, and other male and
female wearing-apparel, instituted a general distribu-
tion, and begged the people not to come to church
naked, next Sunday, as usual. And they did not;
but the national spirit of unselfishness led them to
divide up with neighbors who were not at the distri-
bution, and next Sabbath the poor preachers could
hardly keep countenance before their vast congrega-
tions. In the midst of the reading of a hymn a
brown, stately dame would sweep up the aisle with
a world of airs, with nothing in the world on but a
1 ' stovepipe ' ' hat and a pair of cheap gloves ; another
dame would follow, tricked out in a man's shirt, and
nothing else ; another one would enter with a flourish,
with simply the sleeves of a bright calico dress tied
around her waist and the rest of the garment drag-
ging behind like a peacock's tail off duty; a stately
"buck" Kanaka would stalk in with a woman's
bonnet on, wrong side before — only this, and noth-
ing more; after him would stride his fellow, with
the legs of a pair of pantaloons tied around his neck,
2IO
ROUGHING IT
the rest of his person untrammeled ; in his rear
would come another gentleman simply gotten up in
a fiery necktie and a striped vest. The poor crea-
tures were beaming with complacency and wholly
unconscious of any absurdity in their appearance.
They gazed at each other with happy admiration,
and it was plain to see that the young girls were
taking note of what each other had on, as naturally
as if they had always lived in a land of Bibles and
knew what churches were made for; here was the
evidence of a dawning civilization. The spectacle
which the congregation presented was so extraordi-
nary and withal so moving, that the missionaries
found it difficult to keep to the text and go on
with the services; and by and by when the simple
children of the sun began a general swapping of
garments in open meeting and produced some irre-
sistibly grotesque effects in the course of re-dress-
ing, there was nothing for it but to cut the thing
short with the benediction and dismiss the fantastic
assemblage.
In our country, children play "keep house"; and
in the same high-sounding but miniature way the
grown folk here, with the poor little material of
slender territory and meager population, play "em-
pire." There is his Royal Majesty, the King, with
a New York detective's income of thirty or thirty-
five thousand dollars a year from the "royal civil
list" and the "royal domain." He lives in a two-
story frame "palace."
And there is the "royal family" — the customary
hive of royal brothers, sisters, cousins, and other
211
MARK TWAIN
noble drones and vagrants usual to monarchy — all
with a spoon in the national pap-dish, and all bear-
ing such titles as his or her Royal Highness the
Prince or Princess So-and-so. Few of them can
carry their royal splendors far enough to ride in
carriages, however; they sport the economical Kan-
aka horse or "hoof it" 1 with the plebeians.
Then there is his Excellency the "Royal Cham-
berlain"— a sinecure, for his Majesty dresses himself
with his own hands, except when he is ruralizing at
Waikiki, and then he requires no dressing.
Next we have his Excellency the Commander-in-
chief of the Household Troops, whose forces consist
of about the number of soldiers usually placed under
a corporal in other lands.
Next come the Royal Steward and the Grand
Equerry in Waiting — high dignitaries with modest
salaries and little to do.
Then we have his Excellency the First Gentle-
man of the Bedchamber — an office as easy as it is
magnificent.
Next we come to his Excellency the Prime Minis-
ter, a renegade American from New Hampshire, all
jaw, vanity, bombast, and ignorance, a lawyer of
"shyster" caliber, a fraud by nature, a humble
worshiper of the scepter above him, a reptile never
tired of sneering at the land of his birth or glorify-
ing the ten-acre kingdom that has adopted him —
salary, four thousand dollars a year, vast con-
sequence, and no perquisites.
Then we have his Excellency the Imperial Min-
1 Missionary phrase.
212
ROJGHING IT
ister of Finance, who handles a million dollars of
public money a year, sends in his annual "budget"
with great ceremony, talks prodigiously of "finance,"
suggests imposing schemes for paying off the "na-
tional debt" (of $150,000), and does it all for $4,000
a year and unimaginable glory.
Next we have his Excellency the Minister of War,
who holds sway over the royal armies — they consist
of two hundred and thirty uniformed Kanakas,
mostly Brigadier-Generals, and if the country ever
gets into trouble with a foreign power we shall
probably hear from them. I knew an American
whose copper-plate visiting-card bore this impressive
legend: " Lieutenant - Colonel in the Royal In-
fantry." To say that he was proud of this dis-
tinction is stating it but tamely. The Minister
of War has also in his charge some venerable swiv-
els on Punch - Bowl Hill wherewith royal salutes
are fired when foreign vessels of war enter the
port.
Next comes his Excellency the Minister of the
Navy — a nabob who rules the "royal fleet" (a steam
tug and a sixty-ton schooner).
And next comes his Grace the Lord Bishop of
Honolulu, the chief dignitary of the "Established
Church" — for when the American Presbyterian
missionaries had completed the reduction of the
nation to a compact condition of Christianity, native
royalty stepped in and erected the grand dignity of
an "Established (Episcopal) Church" over it, and
imported a cheap ready-made bishop from England
to take charge. The chagrin of the missionaries has
213
MARK TWAIN
never been comprehensively expressed, to this day,
profanity not being admissible.
Next comes his Excellency the Minister of Public
Instruction.
Next, their Excellencies the Governors of Oahu,
Hawaii, etc., and after them a string of High Sheriffs
and other small fry too numerous for computation.
Then there are their Excellencies the Envoy Extra-
ordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Imperial
Majesty the Emperor of the French; her British
Majesty's Minister; the Minister Resident of the
United States; and some six or eight representa-
tives of other foreign nations, all with sounding
titles, imposing dignity, and prodigious but econom-
ical state.
Imagine all this grandeur in a playhouse "king-
dom" whose population falls absolutely short of
sixty thousand souls!
The people are so accustomed to nine-jointed
titles and colossal magnates that a foreign prince
makes very little more stir in Honolulu than a
Western Congressman does in New York.
And let it be borne in mind that there is a strictly
defined "court costume" of so "stunning" a nature
that it would make the clown in a circus look tame
and commonplace by comparison; and each Ha-
waiian official dignitary has a gorgeous vari-colored,
gold-laced uniform peculiar to his office — no two of
them are alike, and it is hard to tell which one is
the "loudest." The king has a "drawing-room"
at stated intervals, like other monarchs, and when
these varied uniforms congregate there weak-eyed
214
ROUGHING IT
people have to contemplate the spectacle through
smoked glass. Is there not a gratifying contrast
between this latter-day exhibition and the one the
ancestors of some of these magnates afforded the
missionaries the Sunday after the old-time distri-
bution of clothing? Behold v*>°t religion and
civilization have wrought!
CHAPTER XXVII
WHILE I was in Honolulu I witnessed the cere-
monious funeral of the King's sister, her
Royal Highness the Princess Victoria. According to
the royal custom, the remains had lain in state at the
palace thirty days, watched day and night by a
guard of honor. And during all that time a great
multitude of natives from the several islands had
kept the palace grounds well crowded and had made
the place a pandemonium every night with their
howlings and wailings, beating of tom-toms and
dancing of the (at other times) forbidden "hula
hula" by half-clad maidens to the music of songs of
questionable decency chanted in honor of the de-
ceased. The printed program of the funeral pro-
cession interested me at the time; and after what
I have just said of Hawaiian grandiloquence in the
matter of "playing empire," I am persuaded that a
perusal of it may interest the reader:
After reading the long list of dignitaries, etc., and remembering
the sparseness of the population, one is almost inclined to wonder
where the material for that portion of the procession devoted
to "Hawaiian Population Generally" is going to be procured:
Undertaker.
Royal School. Kawaiahao School. Roman Catholic School.
Miaema? School.
216
ROUGHING IT
Honolulu Fire Department.
Mechanics' Benefit Union.
Attending Physicians.
Konohikis (Superintendents) of the Crown Lands, Konohikis of
the Private Lands of his Majesty, Konohikis of Private
Lands of her late Royal Highness.
Governor of Oahu and Staff.
Hulumanu (Military Company).
Household Troops.
The Prince of Hawaii's Own (Military Company).
The King's household servants.
Servants of her late Royal Highness.
Protestant Clergy. The Clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
His Lordship Louis Maigret, the Right Rev. Bishop of Arathea,
Vicar- Apostolic of the Hawaiian Islands.
The Clergy of the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church.
His Lordship the Right Rev. Bishop of Honolulu.
§ 8
cl O
& a a • *n & tT i
| MM 8 [HEARSE.] S*«WB.
5^|2 Hfg
w *
Her Majesty Queen Emma's Carriage.
His Majesty's Staff.
Carriage of her late Royal Highness.
Carriage of her Majesty the Queen Dowager.
The King's Chancellor.
Cabinet Ministers.
His Excellency the Minister Resident of the United States.
H. I. M's Commissioner.
H. B. M's Acting Commissioner.
1 Ranks of long-handled mops made of gaudy feathers — sacred to
royalty. They are stuck in the ground around the tomb and left
there.
217
.MARK TWAIN
Judges of Supreme Court.
Privy Councilors.
Members of Legislative Assembly.
Consular Corps.
Circuit Judges.
Clerks of Government Departments.
Members of the Bar.
'ollector General, Custom-house Officers and Officers of the
Customs.
Marshal and Sheriffs of the different Islands.
King's Yeomanry.
Foreign Residents.
Ahahui Kaahumanu.
Hawaiian Population Generally.
Hawaiian Cavalry.
Police Force.
I resume my journal at the point where the pro-
cession arrived at the royal mausoleum:
As the procession filed through the gate, the military deployed
handsomely to the right and left and formed an avenue through
which the long column of mourners passed to the tomb. The
coffin was borne through the door of the mausoleum, followed
by the King and his chiefs, the great officers of the kingdom,
foreign Consuls, Embassadors, and distinguished guests (Bur-
lingame and General Van Valkenburgh). Several of the kahilis
were then fastened to a framework in front of the tomb, there
to remain until they decay and fall to pieces, or, forestalling
this, until another scion of royalty dies. At this point of the
proceedings the multitude set up such a heartbroken wailing
as I hope never to hear again. The soldiers fired three volleys
of musketry — the wailing being previously silenced to permit
of the guns being heard. His Highness Prince William, in a
showy military uniform (the "true prince," this — scion of the
house overthrown by the present dynasty — he was formerly
betrothed to the Princess but was not allowed to marry her),
stood guard and paced back and forth within the door. The
privileged few who followed the coffin into the mausoleum re-
mained some time, but the King soon came out and stood in
-2J.S,
ROUGHING IT
the door and near one side of it. A stranger could have guessed
his rank (although he was so simply and unpretentiously dressed)
by the profound deference paid him by all persons in his vicinity;
by seeing his high officers receive his quiet orders and suggestions
with bowed and uncovered heads; and by observing how careful
those persons who came out of the mausoleum were to avoid
"crowding" him (although there was room enough in the
doorway for a wagon to pass, for that matter) ; how respectfully
they edged out sideways, scraping their backs against the wall
and always presenting a front view of their persons to his
Majesty, and never putting their hats on until they were well
out of the royal presence.
He was dressed entirely in black — dress-coat and silk hat —
and looked rather democratic in the midst of the showy uni-
forms about him. On his breast he wore a large gold star,
which was half hidden by the lapel of his coat. He remained
at the door a half -hour, and occasionally gave an order to the
men who were erecting the kahilis before the tomb. He had the
good taste to make one of them substitute black crape for the
ordinary hempen rope he was about to tie one of them to the
framework with. Finally he entered his carriage and drove
away, and the populace shortly began to drop into his wake.
While he was in view there was but one man who attracted more
attention than himself, and that was Harris (the Yankee Prime
Minister). This feeble personage had crape enough around his
hat to express the grief of an entire nation, and as usual he
neglected no opportunity of making himself conspicuous and
exciting the admiration of the simple Kanakas. Oh! noble
ambition of this modern Richelieu!
It is interesting to contrast the funeral ceremonies
of the Princess Victoria with those of her noted
ancestor Kamehameha the Conqueror, who died
fifty years ago — in 1819, the year before the first
missionaries came.
On the 8th of May, t8iq, at the age of sixty-six, he died, as
he had lived, in the faith of his country. It was his misfortune
not to have come in contact with men who could have rightly
influenced his religious aspirations. Judged by his advantages
210
MARK TvVAIN
and compared with the most eminent of his countrymen, he
may be justly styled not only great, but good. To this day his
memory warms the heart and elevates the national feelings of
Hawaiians. They are proud of their old warrior King; they
love his name; his deeds form their historical age; and an
enthusiasm everywhere prevails, shared even by foreigners, who
knew his worth, that constitutes the firmest pillar of the throne
of his dynasty.
In lieu of human victims (the custom of that age), a sacrifice
of three hundred dogs attended his obsequies — no mean holo-
caust when their national value and the estimation in which
they were held are considered. The bones of Kamehameha,
after being kept for a while, were so carefully concealed that all
knowledge of their final resting-place is now lost. There was
a proverb current among the common people that the bones of a
cruel King could not be hid; they made fish-hooks and arrows
of them, upon which, in using them, they vented their abhorrence
of his memory in bitter execrations.
The account of the circumstances of his death, as
written by the native historians, is full of minute
detail, but there is scarcely a line of it which does
not mention or illustrate some bygone custom of
the country. In this respect it is the most compre-
hensive document I have yet met with. I will quote
it entire:
When Kamehameha was dangerously sick, and the priests
were unable to cure him, they said: "Be of good courage and
build a house for the god (his own private god or idol), that
thou may est recover." The chiefs corroborated this advice ot
the priests, and a place of worship was prepared for Kukailimoku,
and consecrated in the evening. They proposed also to the King,
with a view to prolong his life, that human victims should be
sacrificed to his deity; upon which the greater part of the
people absconded through fear of death, and concealed them-
selves in hiding-places till the tabu1 in which destruction im-
1 Tabu (pronounced tah-boo) means prohibition (we have bor-
rowed it), or sacred. The tabu was sometimes permanent, sometimes
200
ROUGHING IT
pended, was past. It is doubtful whether Kamehameha approved
of the plan of the chiefs and priests to sacrifice men, as he was
known to say, "The men are sacred for the King"; meaning
that they were for the service of his successor. This information
was derived from Liholiho, his son.
After this, his sickness increased to such a degree that he
had not strength to turn himself in his bed. When another
season, consecrated for worship at the new temple (heiau)
arrived, he said to his son, Liholiho, "Go thou and make suppli-
cation to thy god; I am not able to go, and will offer my prayers
at home." When his devotions to his feathered god, Kukaili-
moku, were concluded, a certain religiously disposed individual,
who had a bird god, suggested to the King that through its
influence his sickness might be removed. The name of this
god was Pua; its body was made of a bird, now eaten by the
Hawaiians, and called in their language alac. Kamehameha was
willing that a trial should be made, and two houses were con-
structed to facilitate the experiment; but while dwelling in
them he became so very weak as not to receive food. After
lying there three days, his wives, children, and chiefs, perceiving
that he was very low, returned him to his own house. In the
evening he was carried to the eating-house,1 where he took a
little food in his mouth which he did not swallow; also a cup
of water. The chiefs requested him to give them his counsel;
but he made no reply, and was carried back to the dwelling-
house; but when near midnight — ten o'clock, perhaps — he was
carried again to the place to eat; but, as before, he merely
tasted of what was presented to him. Then Kaikioewa addressed
him thus: "Here we all are, your younger brethren, your son
Liholiho and your foreigner; impart to us your dying charge,
that Liholiho and Kaahumanu may hear." Then Kamehameha
inquired, "What do you say?" Kaikioewa repeated, "Your
counsels for us." He then said, "Move on in my good way
temporary; and the person or thing placed under tabu was for the
time being sacred to the purpose for which it was set apart. In the
above case the victims selected under the tabu would be sacred to
the sacrifice.
1 It was deemed pollution to eat in the same hut a person slept in —
the fact that the patient was dying could not modify the rigid
etiquette.
221
MARK TWAIN
and — " He could proceed no further. The foreigner, Mr.
Young, embraced and kissed him. Hoapili also embraced him,
whispering something in his ear, after which he was taken back
to the house. About twelve he was carried once more to the
house for eating, into which his head entered, while his body-
was in the dwelling-house immediately adjoining. It should
be remarked that this frequent carrying of a sick chief from one
house to another resulted from the tabu system, then in force.
There were at that time six houses (huts) connected with an
establishment — one was for worship, one for the men to eat
in, an eating-house for the women, a house to sleep in, a house
in which to manufacture kapa (native cloth), and one where,
at certain intervals, the women might dwell in seclusion.
. The sick was once more taken to his house, when he expired;
this was at two o'clock, a circumstance from which Leleiohoku
derived his name. As he breathed his last, Kalaimoku came to
the eating-house to order those in it to go out. There were two
aged persons thus directed to depart; one went, the other re-
mained on account of love to the King, by whom he had formerly
been kindly sustained. The children also were sent away.
Then Kalaimoku came to the house, and the chiefs had a con-
sultation. One of them spoke thus: "This is my thought — we
will eat him raw."1 Kaahumanu (one of the dead King's
widows) replied, "Perhaps his body is not at our disposal; that
is more properly with his successor. Our part in him — his breath
— has departed; his remains will be disposed of by Liholiho."
After this conversation the body was taken into the conse-
crated house for the performance of the proper rites by the priest
and the new King. The name of this ceremony is uko; and when
the sacred hog was baked the priest offered it to the dead body,
and it became a god, the King at the same time repeating the
customary prayers.
Then the priest, addressing himself to the King and chiefs,
said: "I will now make known to you the rules to be observed
respecting persons to be sacrificed on the burial of this body.
1 This sounds suspicious, in view of the fact that all Sandwich
Island historians, white and black, protest that cannibalism never
existed in the islands. However, since they only proposed to "eat
him raw" we "won't count that." But it would certainly have
been cannibalism if they had cooked him. — [M. T.]
222
ROUGHING IT
If you obtain one man before the corpse is removed, one will
be sufficient; but after it leaves this house four will be required.
If delayed until we carry the corpse to the grave there must be
ten; but after it is deposited in the grave there must be fifteen.
To-morrow morning there will be a tabu, and, if the sacrifice
be delayed until that time, forty men must die."
Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs,
"Where shall be the residence of King Liholiho?" They replied,
"Where, indeed? You, of all men, ought to know." Then the
priest observed, "There are two suitable places; one is Kau,
the other is Kohala." The chiefs preferred the latter, as it was
more thickly inhabited. The priest added, "These are proper
places for the King's residence; but he must not remain in
Kona, for it is polluted." This was agreed to. It was now
break of day. As he was being carried to the place of burial
the people perceived that their King was dead, and they wailed.
When the corpse was removed from the house to the tomb, a
distance of one chain, the procession was met by a certain man
who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped upon
the chiefs who were carrying the King's body; he desired to
die with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away.
He persisted in making numerous attempts, which were unavail-
ing. Kalaimoku also had it in his heart to die with him, but
was prevented by Hookio.
The morning following Kamehameha's death, Liholiho and
his train departed for Kohala, according to the suggestions of
the priest, to avoid the defilement occasioned by the dead. At
this time if a chief died the land was polluted, and the heirs
sought a residence in another part of the country until the
corpse was dissected and the bones tied in a bundle, which being
done, the season of defilement terminated. If the deceased
were not a chief, the house only was defiled, which became pure
again on the burial of the body. Such were the laws on this
subject.
On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for
Kohala, the chiefs and people mourned after their manner on
occasion of a chief's death, conducting themselves like mad-
men and like beasts. Their conduct was such as to forbid descrip-
tion. The priests, also, put into action the sorcery apparatus,
that the person who had prayed the King to death might die;
223
MARK TWAIN
for it was not believed that Kamehameha's departure was the
effect either of sickness or old age. When the sorcerers set up
by their fireplaces a stick with a strip of kapa flying at the top,
the chief Keeaumoku, Kaahumanu's brother, came in a state
of intoxication and broke the flagstaff of the sorcerers, from which
it was inferred that Kaahumanu and her friends had been instru-
mental in the King's death. On this account they were subjected
to abuse.
You have the contrast, now, and a strange one it
is. This great queen, Kaahumanu, who was "sub-
jected to abuse" during the frightful orgies that
followed the King's death, in accordance with ancient
custom, afterward became a devout Christian and a
steadfast and powerful friend of the missionaries.
Dogs were, and still are, reared and fattened for
food, by the natives — hence the reference to their
value in one of the above paragraphs.
Forty years ago it was the custom in the Islands
to suspend all law for a certain number of days after
the death of a royal personage; and then a satur-
nalia ensued which one may picture to himself after
a fashion, but not in the full horror of the reality.
The people shaved their heads, knocked out a tooth
or two, plucked out an eye sometimes, cut, bruised,
mutilated or burned their flesh, got drunk, burned
each other's huts, maimed or murdered one another
according to the caprice of the moment, and both
sexes gave themselves up to brutal and unbridled
licentiousness. And after it all, came a torpor from
which the nation slowly emerged bewildered and
dazed, as if from a hideous half-remembered night-
mare. They were not the salt of the earth, those
"gentle children of the sun."
224
ROUGHING IT
The natives still keep up an old custom of theirs
which cannot be comforting to an invalid. When
they think a sick friend is going to die, a couple of
dozen neighbors surround his hut and keep up a
deafening wailing night and day till he either dies or
gets well. No doubt this arrangement has helped
many a subject to a shroud before his appointed
time.
They surround a hut and wail in the same heart-
broken way when its occupant returns from a
journey. This is their dismal idea of a welcome. A
very little of it would go a great way with most of us.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BOUND for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles
distant), to visit the great volcano and behold
the other notable things which distinguish that
island above the remainder of the group, we sailed
from Honolulu on a certain Saturday afternoon, in
the good schooner Boomerang.
The Boomerang was about as long as two street-
cars, and about as wide as one. She was so small
(though she was larger than the majority of the
inter-island coasters) that when I stood on her deck
I felt but little smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes
must have felt when he had a man-of-war under
him. I could reach the water when she lay over
under a strong breeze. When the captain and my
comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself and four other
persons were all assembled on the little after portion
of the deck which is sacred to the cabin passengers,
it was full — there was not room for any more quality
folks. Another section of the deck, twice as large
as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with their
customary dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, calabashes
of poi, fleas, and other luxuries and baggage of minor
importance. As soon as we set sail the natives all
lay down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-
pen, and smoked, conversed, and spit on each other,
and were truly sociable.
226
ROUGHING IT
The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger
than a hearse, and as dark as a vault. It had two
coffins on each side — I mean two bunks. A small
table, capable of accommodating three persons at
dinner, stood against the forward bulkhead, and
over it hung the dingiest whale-oil lantern that ever
peopled the obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly
shapes. The floor -room unoccupied was not ex-
tensive. One might swing a cat in it, perhaps, but
not a long cat. The hold forward of the bulkhead
had but little freight in it, and from morning till
night a portly old rooster, with a voice like Baalam's
ass, and the same disposition to use it, strutted up
and down in that part of the vessel and crowed. He
usually took dinner at six o'clock, and then, after
an hour devoted to meditation, he mounted a barrel
and crowed a good part of the night. He got
hoarser and hoarser all the time, but he scorned to
allow any personal consideration to interfere with
his duty, and kept up his labors in defiance of
threatened diphtheria.
Sleeping was out of the question when he was on
watch. He was a source of genuine aggravation
and annoyance. It was worse than useless to shout
at him or apply offensive epithets to him — he only
took these things for applause, and strained himself
to make more noise. Occasionally, during the day, I
threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the
bulkhead, but he only dodged and went on crowing.
The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watch-
ing the dim lamp swinging to the rolling of the ship,
and snuffing the nauseous odors of bilge-water, I
227
MARK TWAIN
felt something gallop over me. I turned out
promptly. However, I turned in again when I
found it was only a rat. Presently something gal-
loped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat
this time, and I thought it might be a centipede,
because the captain had killed one on deck in the
afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the
pillow showed me a repulsive sentinel perched upon
each end of it — cockroaches as large as peach leaves
— fellows with long, quivering antennae and fiery,
malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like
tobacco- worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about
something. I had often heard that these reptiles
were in the habit of eating off sleeping sailors' toe-
nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the
bunk any more. I lay down on the floor. But a
rat came and bothered me, and shortly afterward a
procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in
my hair. In a few moments the rooster was crow-
ing with uncommon spirit, and a party of fleas were
throwing double somersaults about my person in the
wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they
struck. I was beginning to feel really annoyed.
I got up and put my clothes on and went on
deck.
The above is not overdrawn ; it is a truthful sketch
of inter-island schooner life. There is no such thing
as keeping a vessel in elegant condition, when she
carries molasses and Kanakas.
It was compensation for my sufferings to come
unexpectedly upon so beautiful a scene as met my
'*ye — to step suddenly out of the sepulchral gloom
228
ROUGHING IT
of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the
moon — in the center, as it were, of a glittering sea
of liquid silver — to see the broad sails straining in
the gale, the ship keeled over on her side, the angry
foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling
sheets of spray dashing high over her bows and rain-
ing upon her decks; to brace myself and hang fast
to the first object that presented itself, with hat
jammed down and coat-tails whipping in the breeze,
and feel that exhilaration that thrills in one's hair
and quivers down his backbone when he knows that
every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel
cleaving through the waves at her utmost speed.
There was no darkness, no dimness, no obscurity
there. All was brightness, every object was vividly
defined. Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of
rope; every calabash of poi; every7 puppy; every
seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object,
however minute, showed sharp and distinct in its
every outline; and the shadow of the broad mainsail
lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving Billings's
white upturned face glorified and his body in a total
eclipse.
Monday morning we were close to the island of
Hawaii. Two of its high mountains were in view
— Mauna Loa and Hualaiai. The latter is an im-
posing peak, but being only ten thousand feet high
is seldom mentioned or heard of. Mauna Loa is
said to be sixteen thousand feet high. The rays of
glittering snow and ice, that clasped its summit like
a claw, looked refreshing when viewed from the
blistering climate we were in. One could stand on
229
MARK TWAIN
that mountain (wrapped up in blankets and furs to
keep warm), and while he nibbled a snowball or an
icicle to quench his thirst he could look down the
long sweep of its sides and see spots where plants
are growing that grow only where the bitter cold of
winter prevails; lower down he could see sections
devoted to productions that thrive in the temperate
zone alone; and at the bottom of the mountain he
could see the home of the tufted cocoa-palms and
other species of vegetation that grow only in the
sultry atmosphere of eternal summer. He could see
all the climes of the world at a single glance of the
eye, and that glance would only pass over a dis-
tance of four or five miles as the bird flies !
By and by we took boat and went ashore at
Kailua, designing to ride horseback through the
pleasant orange and coffee region of Kona, and
rejoin the vessel at a point some leagues distant.
This journey is well worth taking. The trail passes
along on high ground — say a thousand feet above
sea-level — and usually about a mile distant from the
ocean, which is always in sight, save that occasion-
ally you find yourself buried in the forest in the
midst of a rank tropical vegetation and a dense
growth of trees, whose great boughs overarch the road
and shut out sun and sea and everything, and leave
you in a dim, shady tunnel, haunted with invisible
singing birds and fragrant with the odor of flowers.
It was pleasant to ride occasionally in the warm sun,
and feast the eye upon the ever-changing panorama
of the forest (beyond and below us), with its many
tints, its softened lights and shadows, its billowy
230
ROUGHING IT
undulations sweeping gently down from the moun-
tain to the sea. It was pleasant also, at intervals,
to leave the sultry sun and pass into the cool, green
depths of this forest and indulge in sentimental re-
flections under the inspiration of its brooding twilight
and its whispering foliage.
We rode through one orange grove that had ten
thousand trees in it! They were all laden with
fruit.
At one farm-house we got some large peaches of
excellent flavor. This fruit, as a general thing, does
not do well in the Sandwich Islands. It takes a sort
of almond shape, and is small and bitter. It needs
frost, they say, and perhaps it does; if this be so, it
will have a good opportunity to go on needing it, as
it will not be likely to get it. The trees from which
the fine fruit I have spoken of came had been
planted and replanted sixteen times, and to this
treatment the proprietor of the orchard attributed
his success.
We passed several sugar plantations — new ones
and not very extensive. The crops were, in most
cases, third rattoons. [Note. — The first crop is
called "plant cane"; subsequent crops which spring
from the original roots, without replanting, are called
"rattoons."] Almost everywhere on the island of
Hawaii sugar-cane matures in twelve months, both
rattoons and plant, and although it ought to be
taken off as soon as it tassels, no doubt, it is not
absolutely necessary to do it until about four months
afterward. In Kona, the average yield of an acre
of ground is two tons of sugar, they say. This is
231
MARK TWAIN
only a moderate yield for these islands, but would
be astounding for Louisiana and most other sugar-
growing countries. The plantations in Kona being
on pretty high ground — up among the light and
frequent rains — no irrigation whatever is required.
CHAPTER XXIX
WE stopped some time at one of the plantations,
to rest ourselves and refresh the horses. We
had a chatty conversation with several gentlemen
present; but there was one person, a middle-aged
man, with an absent look in his face, who simply
glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into
the meditations which our coming had interrupted.
The planters whispered us not to mind him — crazy.
They said he was in the Islands for his health; was
a preacher; his home, Michigan. They said that if
he woke up presently and fell to talking about a
correspondence which he had some time held with
Mr. Greeley about a trifle of some kind, we must
humor him and listen with interest; and we must
humor his fancy that this correspondence was the
talk of the world.
It was easy to see that he was a gentle creature
and that his madness had nothing vicious in it. He
looked pale, and a little worn, as if with perplexing
thought and anxiety of mind. He sat a long time,
looking at the floor, and at intervals muttering to
himself and nodding his head acquiescingly or
shaking it in mild protest. He was lost in his
thought, or in his memories. We continued our
talk with the planters, branching from subject to
233
MARK TWAIN
subject. But at last the word "circumstance,"
casually dropped, in the course of conversation,
attracted his attention and brought an eager look
into his countenance. He faced about in his chair
and said:
"Circumstance? What circumstance? Ah, I
know — I know too well. So you have heard of it
too." [With a sigh.] "Well, no matter— all the
world has heard of it. All the world. The whole
world. It is a large world, too, for a thing to travel
so far in — now, isn't it? Yes, yes — the Greeley
correspondence with Erickson has created the
saddest and bitterest controversy on both sides of
the ocean — and still they keep it up! It makes us
famous, but at what a sorrowful sacrifice! I was
so sorry when I heard that it had caused that bloody
and distressful war over there in Italy. It was little
comfort to me, after so much bloodshed, to know
that the victors sided with me, and the vanquished
with Greeley. It is little comfort to know that
Horace Greeley is responsible for the battle of
Sadowa, and not me. Queen Victoria wrote me
that she felt just as I did about it — she said that as
much as she was opposed to Greeley and the spirit
he showed in the correspondence with me, she would
not have had Sadowa happen for hundreds of dol-
lars. I can show you her letter, if you would like
to see it. But, gentlemen, much as you may think
you know about that unhappy correspondence, you
cannot know the straight of it till you hear it from
my lips. It has always been garbled in the jour-
nals, and even in history. Yes, even in history —
234
ROUGHING IT
think of it! Let me — please let me, give you the
matter, exactly as it occurred. I truly will not
abuse your confidence."
Then he leaned forward, all interest, all earnest-
ness, and told his story — and told it appealingly,
too, and yet in the simplest and most unpretentious
way; indeed, in such a way as to suggest to one,
all the time, that this was a faithful, honorable wit-
ness, giving evidence in the sacred interest of justice,
and under oath. He said:
" Mrs. Beazeley — Mrs. Jackson Beazeley, widow
of the village of Campbellton, Kansas — wrote me
about a matter which was near her heart — a matter
which many might think trivial, but to her it was a
thing of deep concern. I was living in Michigan,
then — serving in the ministry. She was, and is,
an estimable woman — a woman to whom poverty
and hardship have proven incentives to industry, in
place of discouragements. Her only treasure was
her son William, a youth just verging upon man-
hood; religious, amiable, and sincerely attached to
agriculture. He was the widow's comfort and her
pride. And so, moved by her love for him, she
wrote me about a matter, as I have said before,
which lay near her heart — because it lay near her
boy's. She desired me to confer with Mr. Greeley
about turnips. Turnips were the dream of her
child's young ambition. While other youths were
frittering away in frivolous amusements the precious
years of budding vigor which God had given them
for useful preparation, this boy was patiently en-
riching his mind with information concerning turnips.
MARK TWAIN
The sentiment which he felt toward the turnip was
akin to adoration. He could not think of the turnip
without emotion; he could not speak of it calmly;
he could not contemplate it without exaltation; he
could not eat it without shedding tears. All the
poetry in his sensitive nature was in sympathy with
the gracious vegetable. With the earliest pipe of
dawn he sought his patch, and when the curtaining
night drove him from it he shut himself up with his
books and garnered statistics till sleep overcame
him. On rainy days he sat and talked hours to-
gether with his mother about turnips. When com-
pany came, he made it his loving duty to put aside
everything else and converse with them all the day
long of his great joy in the turnip! And yet, was
this joy rounded and complete? Was there no
secret alloy of unhappiness in it? Alas, there was.
There was a canker gnawing at his heart ; the noblest
inspiration of his soul eluded his endeavor — viz.,
he could not make of the turnip a climbing vine.
Months went by; the bloom forsook his cheek, the
fire faded out of his eye; sighings and abstraction
usurped the place of smiles and cheerful converse.
But a watchful eye noted these things, and in time a
motherly sympathy unsealed the secret. Hence the
letter to me. She pleaded for attention — she said
her boy was dying by inches.
"I was a stranger to Mr. Greeley, but what
of that? The matter was urgent. I wrote and
begged him to solve the difficult problem if pos-
sible, and save the student's life. My interest
grew, until it partook of the anxiety of the mother.
ROUGHING IT
I waited in much suspense. At last the answer
came.
"I found that I could not read it readily, the
handwriting being unfamiliar and my emotions some-
what wrought up. It seemed to refer in part to the
boy's case, but chiefly to other and irrelevant mat-
ters— such as paving-stones, electricity, oysters,
and something which I took to be 'absolution' or
'agrarianism,' I could not be certain which; still,
these appeared to be simply casual mentions, noth-
ing more; friendly in spirit, without doubt, but
lacking the connection or coherence necessary to
make them useful. I judged that my understanding
was affected by my feelings, and so laid the letter
away till morning.
"In the morning I read it again, but with diffi-
culty and uncertainty still, for I had lost some little
rest and my mental vision seemed clouded. The
note was more connected, now, but did not meet
the emergency it was expected to meet. It was too
discursive. It appeared to read as follows, though
I was not certain of some of the words :
"Polygamy dissembles majesty; extracts redeem polarity;
causes hitherto exist. Ovations pursue wisdom, or warts inherit
and condemn. Boston, botany, cakes, folony undertakes, but
who shall allay? We fear not. Yrxwly,
"Hevace Eveeloj.
"But there did not seem to be a word about
turnips. There seemed to be no suggestion as to
how they might be made to grow like vines. There
was not even a reference to the Beazeleys. I slepi
237
MARK TWAIN
upon the matter; I ate no supper, neither any
breakfast next morning. So I resumed my work
with a brain refreshed, and was very hopeful. Now
the letter took a different aspect — all save the sig-
nature, which latter I judged to be only a harmless
affectation of Hebrew. The epistle was necessarily
from Mr. Greeley, for it bore the printed heading of
The Tribune, and I had written to no one else there.
The letter, I say, had taken a different aspect, but
still its language was eccentric and avoided the issue.
It now appeared to say:
"Bolivia extemporizes mackerel; borax esteems polygamy;
sausages wither in the east. Creation perdu, is done; for woes
inherent one can damn. Buttons, buttons, corks, geology under-
rates but we shall allay. My beer's out. Yrxwly,
"Hevace Eveeloj.
' - 1 was evidently overworked. My comprehension
was impaired. Therefore I gave two days to recrea-
tion, and then returned to my task greatly refreshed.
The letter now took this form :
" Poultices do sometimes choke swine; tulips reduce posterity;
causes leather to resist. Our notions empower wisdom, her
let's afford while we can. Butter but any cakes, fill any under-
taker, we'll wean him from his filly. We feel hot. Yrxwly,
"Hevace Eveeloj.
"I was still not satisfied. These generalities did
not meet the question. They were crisp, and vigoi
ous, and delivered with a confidence that almost
compelled conviction; but at such a time as this,
with a human life at stake, they seemed inappro-
priate, worldly, and in bad taste. At any other
238
ROUGHING IT
a*¥
PAS** "£** ^^"^-^^^
MARK TWAIN
time I would have been not only glad, but proud,
to receive from a man like Mr. Greeley a letter of
this kind, and would have studied it earnestly and
tried to improve myself all I could; but now, with
that poor boy in his far home languishing for relief,
I had no heart for learning.
"Three days passed by, and I read the note
again. Again its tenor had changed. It now ap-
peared to say:
" Potations do sometimes wake wines; turnips restrain passion;
causes necessary to state. Infest the poor widow; her lord's
effects will be void. But dirt, bathing, -etc., etc., followed
unfairly, will worm him from his folly — so swear not. Yrxwly,
"Hevace Eveeloj.
"This was more like it. But I was unable to
proceed. I was too much worn. The word 'tur-
nips' brought temporary joy and encouragement,
but my strength was so much impaired, and the
delay might be so perilous for the boy, that I re-
linquished the idea of pursuing the translation
further, and resolved to do what I ought to have
done at first. I sat down and wrote Mr. Greeley as
follows :
" Dear Sir: I fear I do not entirely comprehend your kind
note. It cannot be possible, Sir, that ' turnips restrain passion ' —
at least the study or contemplation of turnips cannot — for it is
this very employment that has scorched our poor friend's mind
and sapped his bodily strength. — But if they do restrain it,
will you bear with us a little further and explain how they
should be prepared? I observe that you say 'causes necessary
to state,' but you have omitted to state them.
" Under a misapprehension, you seem to attribute to me inter-
ested motives in this matter — to call it by no harsher term.
But I assure you, dear sir, that if I seem to be "infesting the
240
ROUGHING IT
widow/ it is all seeming, and void of reality. It is from no seek-
ing of mine that I am in this position. She asked me, herself,
to write you. I never have infested her — indeed I scarcely
know her. I do not infest anybody. I try to go along, in my
humble way, doing as near right as I can, never harming any-
body, and never throwing out insinuations. As for 'her lord
and his effects,' they are of no interest to me. I trust I have
effects enough of my own — shall endeavor to get along with
them, at any rate, and not go mousing around to get hold of
somebody's that are 'void.' But do you not see? — this woman
is ? vndow — she has no 'lord.' He is dead — or pretended
to be, when they buried him. Therefore, no amount of 'dirt,
bathing, etc., etc.,' howsoever 'unfairly followed' will be
likely to 'worm him from his folly' — if being dead and a ghost
is 'folly.' Your closing remark is as unkind as it was uncalled
for; and if report says true you might have applied it to yourself,
sir, with more point and less impropriety.
" Very Truly Yours,
" Simon Erickson.
"In the course of a few days, Mr. Greeley did
what would have saved a world of trouble and much
mental and bodily suffering and misunderstanding,
if he had done it sooner. To wit, he sent an intelli-
gible rescript or translation of his original note,
made in a plain hand by his clerk. Then the mys-
tery cleared, and I saw that his heart had been
right, all the time. I will recite the note in its
clarified form:
" [Translation]
" Potatoes do sometimes make vines; turnips remain passive:
cause unnecessary to state. Inform the poor widow her lad's
efforts will be vain. But diet, bathing, etc., etc., followed uni-
formly, will wean him from his folly — so fear not. Yours,
" Horace Greeley.
"But alas, it was too late, gentlemen — too late.
The criminal delay had done its work — young
241
MARK TWAIN
Beazeley was no more. His spirit had taken its flight
to a land where all anxieties shall be charmed away,
all desires gratified, all ambitions realized. Poor
lad, they laid him to his rest with a turnip in each
hand."
So ended Erickson, and lapsed again into nod-
ding, mumbling, and abstraction. The company
broke up, and left him so. . . . But they did not
say what drove him crazy. In the momentary con-
fusion, I forgot to ask.
CHAPTER XXX
AT four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding
down a mountain of dreary and desolate lava
to the sea, and closing our pleasant land journey.
This lava is the accumulation of ages; one torrent
of fire after another has rolled down here in old
times, and built up the island structure higher and
higher. Underneath, it is honeycombed with caves.
It would be of no use to dig wells in such a place;
they would not hold water — you would not find
any for them to hold, for that matter. Conse-
quently, the planters depend upon cisterns.
The last lava-flow occurred here so long ago that
there are none now living who witnessed it. In one
place it inclosed and burned down a grove of cocoa-
nut trees, and the holes in the lava where the trunks
stood are still visible: their sides retain the impres-
sion of the bark: the trees fell upon the burning
river, and becoming partly submerged, left in it the
perfect counterpart of every knot and branch and
leaf, and even nut, for curiosity-seekers of a long-
distant day to gaze upon and wonder at.
There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels
on guard hereabouts at that time, but they did not
leave casts of their figures in the lava as the Roman
sentinels at Herculaneum and Pompeii did. It is
243
MARK TWAIN
a pity it is so, because such things are so interesting;
but so it is. They probably went away. They
went away early, perhaps. However, they had their
merits; the Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but
the Kanakas showed the sounder judgment.
Shortly, we came in sight of that spot whose his-
tory is so familiar to every school-boy in the wide
world — Kealakekua Bay — the place where Captain
Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the
natives, nearly a hundred years ago. The setting
sun was flaming upon it, a summer shower was
falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent rain-
bows. Two men who were in advance of us rode
through one of these and for a moment their gar-
ments shone with a more than regal splendor. Why
did not Captain Cook have taste enough to call his
great discovery the Rainbow Islands ? These charm-
ing spectacles are present to you at every turn;
they are common in all the Islands; they are visible
every day, and frequently at night also — not the
silvery bow we see once in an age in the States, by
moonlight, but barred with all bright and beautiful
colors, like the children of the sun and rain. I saw
one of them a few nights ago. What the sailors call
"rain-dogs" — little patches of rainbow — are often
seen drifting about the heavens in these latitudes,
like stained cathedral windows.
Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink
of a snail-shell, winding deep into the land, seem-
ingly not more than a mile wide from shore to shore.
It is bounded on one side — where the murder was
done — by a little flat plain, on which stands a
244
ROUGHING IT
cocoanut grove and some ruined houses; a steep
wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end
and three or four hundred at the lower, comes down
from the mountain and bounds the inner extremity
of it. From this wall the place takes its name,
Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signifies
"The Pathway of the Gods." They say (and still
believe, in spite of their liberal education in Chris-
tianity), that the great god Lono, who used to live
upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway
when urgent business connected with heavenly affairs
called him down to the seashore in a hurry.
As the red sun looked across the placid ocean
through the tall, clean stems of the cocoanut trees,
like a blooming whisky bloat through the bars of a
city prison, I went and stood in the edge of the
water on the flat rock pressed by Captain Cook's
feet when the blow was dealt which took away his
life, and tried to picture in my mind the doomed
man struggling in the midst of the multitude of
exasperated savages — the men in the ship crowding
to the vessel's side and gazing in anxious dismay
toward the shore — the — but I discovered that I
could not do it.
It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we
could see that the distant Boomerang was helplessly
becalmed at sea, and so I adjourned to the cheerless
little box of a warehouse and sat down to smoke and
think, and wish the ship would make the land — for
we had not eaten much for ten hours and were
viciously hungry.
Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out
24s
MARK TWAIN
of Captain Cook's assassination, and renders a de-
liberate verdict of justifiable homicide. Wherever
he went among the islands, he was cordially received
and welcomed by the inhabitants, and his ships
lavishly supplied with all manner of food. He re-
turned these kindnesses with insult and ill treatment.
Perceiving that the people took him for the long-
vanished and lamented god Lono, he encouraged
them in the delusion for the sake of the limitless
power it gave him; but during the famous disturb-
ance at this spot, and while he and his comrades
were surrounded by fifteen thousand maddened sav-
ages, he received a hurt and betrayed his earthly
origin with a groan. It was his death-warrant.
Instantly a shout went up: "He groans! — he is not
a god!" So they closed in upon him and de-
spatched him.
His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned
(except nine pounds of it which were sent on board
the ships). The heart was hung up in a native hut,
where it was found and eaten by three children, who
mistook it for the heart of a dog. One of these
children grew to be a very old man, and died in
Honolulu a few years ago. Some of Cook's bones
were recovered and consigned to the deep by the
officers of the ships.
Small blame should attach to the natives for the
killing of Cook. They treated him well. In re-
turn, he abused them. He and his men inflicted
bodily injury upon many of them at different times,
and killed at least three of them before they offered
any proportionate retaliation.
246
ROUGHING IT
Near the shore we found "Cook's monument" —
only a cocoanut stump, four feet high and about a
foot in diameter at the butt. It had lava boulders
piled around its base to hold it up and keep it in its
place, and it was entirely sheathed over, from top
to bottom, with rough, discolored sheets of copper,
such as ships' bottoms are coppered with. Each
sheet had a rude inscription scratched upon it — with
a nail, apparently — and in every case the execution
was wretched. Most of these merely recorded the
visits of British naval commanders to the spot, but
one of them bore this legend :
' ' Near this spot fell
"CAPTAIN JAMES COOK,
"The Distinguished Circumnavigator, who Dis-
covered these Islands A. D. 1778."
After Cook's murder, his second in command, on
board the ship, opened fire upon the swarms of
natives on the beach, and one of his cannon-balls
cut this cocoanut tree short off and left this monu-
mental stump standing. It looked sad and lonely
enough to us, out there in the rainy twilight. But
there is no other monument to Captain Cook.
True, up on the mountainside we had passed by a
large inclosure like an ample hog-pen, built of lava
blocks, which marks the spot where Cook's flesh
was stripped from his bones and burned; but this is
not properly a monument, since it was erected by
the natives themselves, and less to do honor to the
circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in
roasting him. A thing like a guideboard was ele-
247
MARK TWAIN
vated above this pen on a tall pole, and formerly
there was an inscription upon it describing the
memorable occurrence that had there taken place;
but the sun and the wind have long ago so defaced
it as to render it illegible.
Toward midnight a fine breeze sprang up and the
schooner soon worked herself into the bay and cast
anchor. The boat came ashore for us, and in a little
while the clouds and the rain were all gone. The
moon was beaming tranquilly down on land and sea,
and we two were stretched upon the deck sleeping
the refreshing sleep and dreaming the happy dreams
that are only vouchsafed to the weary and the
innocent.
CHAPTER XXXI
IN the breezy morning we went ashore and visited
the ruined temple of the last god Lono. The
high chief cook of this temple — the priest who
presided over it and roasted the human sacrifices —
was uncle to Obookia, and at one time that youth
was an apprentice-priest under him. Obookia was
a young native of fine mind, who, together with
three other native boys, was taken to New England
by the captain of a whale-ship during the reign of
Kamehameha I., and they were the means of attract-
ing the attention of the religious world to their
country. This resulted in the sending of mission-
aries there. And this Obookia was the very same
sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps
and wept because his people did not have the Bible.
That incident has been very elaborately painted in
many a charming Sunday-school book — aye, and
told so plaintively and so tenderly that I have cried
over it in Sunday-school myself, on general princi-
ples, although at a time when I did not know much
and could not understand why the people of the
Sandwich Islands needed to worry so much about it
as long as they did not know there was a Bible at all.
Obookia was converted and educated, and was to
have returned to his native land with the first mis-
249
MARK TWAIN
sionaries, had he lived. The other native youths
made the voyage, and two of them did good service,
but the third, William Kanui, fell from grace after-
ward, for a time, and when the gold excitement
broke out in California he journeyed thither and
went to mining, although he was fifty years old. He
succeeded pretty well, but the failure of Page, Bacon
& Co. relieved him of six thousand dollars, and
then, to all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt
in his old age and he resumed service in the pulpit
again. He died in Honolulu in 1864.
Quite a broad tract of land near the temple, ex-
tending from the sea to the mountain-top, was sacred
to the god Lono in olden times — so sacred that if a
common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it, it
was judicious for him to make his will, because his
time had come. He might go around it by water,
but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled
with pagan temples and stocked with awkward,
homely idols carved out of logs of wood. There
was a temple devoted to prayers for rain — and with
fine sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on
the mountainside that if you prayed there twenty-
four times a day for rain you would be likely to get
it every time. You would seldom get to your Amen
before you would have to hoist your umbrella.
And there was a large temple near at hand which
was built in a single night, in the midst of storm and
thunder and rain, by the ghastly hands of dead men !
Tradition says that by the weird glare of the lightning
a noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at their
strange labor far up the mountainside at dead of
250
ROUGHING IT
night — flitting hither and thither and bearing great
lava-blocks clasped in their nerveless fingers — appear-
ing and disappearing as the pallid luster fell upon
their forms and faded away again. Even to this
day, it is said, the natives hold this dread structure
in awe and reverence, and will not pass by it in the
night.
At noon I observed a bevy of nude native young
ladies bathing in the sea, and went and sat down on
their clothes to keep them from being stolen. I
begged them to come out, for the sea was rising, and
I was satisfied that they were running some risk.
But they were not afraid, and presently went on
with their sport. They were finished swimmers and
divers, and enjoyed themselves to the last degree.
They swam races, splashed and ducked and tumbled
each other about, and filled the air with their laugh-
ter. It is said that the first thing an Islander learns
is how to swim; learning to walk, being a matter of
smaller consequence, comes afterward. One hears
tales of native men and women swimming ashore
from vessels many miles at sea — more miles, in-
deed, than I dare vouch for or even mention. And
they tell of a native diver who went down in thirty
or forty foot waters and brought up an anvil! I
think he swallowed the anvil afterward, if my mem-
ory serves me. However, I will not urge this point.
I have spoken several times of the god Lono — I may
as well furnish two or three sentences concerning
him.
The idol the natives worshiped for him was a
sWder, unornamented staff twelve feet long. Tra-
2.<5I
MARK TWAIN
dition says he was a favorite god on the island
of Hawaii — a great king who had been deified for
meritorious services — just our own fashion of re-
warding heroes, with the difference that we would
have made him a postmaster instead of a god, no
doubt. In an angry moment he slew his wife, a
goddess named Kaikilani Aiii. Remorse of con-
science drove him mad, and tradition presents us the
singular spectacle of a god traveling "on the shoul-
der"; for in his gnawing grief he wandered about
from place to place boxing and wrestling with all
whom he met. Of course, this pastime soon lost its
novelty, inasmuch as it must necessarily have been
the case that when so powerful a deity sent a frail
human opponent "to grass" he never came back
any more. Therefore, he instituted games called
makahiki, and ordered that they should be held in
his honor, and then sailed for foreign lands on a
three-cornered raft, stating that he would return
some day — and that was the last of Lono. He
was never seen any more; his raft got swamped,
perhaps. But the people always expected his re-
turn, and thus they were easily led to accept Captain
Cook as the restored god.
Some of the old natives believed Cook was Lono
to the day of their death; but many did not, for
they could not understand how he could die if he
was a god.
Only a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot
of historic interest — the place where the last battle
was fought for idolatry. Of course, we visited it,
and came away as wise as most people do who go
2H2
ROUGHING IT
and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in
an unreflective mood.
While the first missionaries were on their way
around the Horn, the idolatrous customs which had
obtained in the Island, as far back as tradition
reached, were suddenly broken up. Old Kameha-
meha I. was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new
king, was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow,
and hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His
assistant in the government, Kaahumanu, the queen
dowager, was proud and high-spirited, and hated the
tabu because it restricted the privileges of her sex
and degraded all women very nearly to the level of
brutes. So the case stood. Liholiho had half a
mind to put his foot down, and Kaahumanu had a
whole mind to badger him into doing it, and whisky
did the rest. It was probably the first time whisky
ever prominently figured as an aid to civilization.
Liholiho came up to Kailua as drunk as a piper, and
attended a great feast ; the determined queen spurred
his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and then,
while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he
moved deliberately forward and sat down with the
women! They saw him eat from the same vessel
with them, and were appalled! Terrible moments
drifted slowly by, and still the king ate, still he
lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods were
withheld! Then conviction came like a revelation
— the superstitions of a hundred generations passed
from before the people like a cloud, and a shout went
up, "The tabu is broken! The tabu is broken!"
Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whisky
253
MARK TWAIN
preach the first sermon and prepare the way for the
new gospel that was speeding southward over the
waves of the Atlantic.
The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow
the awful sacrilege, the people, with that childlike
precipitancy which has always characterized them,
jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a
weak and wretched swindle, just as they formerly
jumped to the conclusion that Captain Cook was no
god, merely because he groaned, and promptly
killed him without stopping to inquire whether a
god might not groan as well as a man if it suited his
convenience to do it; and satisfied that the idols
were powerless to protect themselves they went to
work at once and pulled them down — hacked them
to pieces — applied the torch — annihilated them!
The pagan priests were furious. And well they
might be; they had held the fattest offices in the
land, and now they were beggared; they had been
great — they had stood above the chiefs — and now
they were vagabonds. They raised a revolt; they
scared a number of people into joining their stand-
ard, and Bekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of
royalty, was easily persuaded to become their leader.
In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over
the royal army sent against them, and full of confi-
dence they resolved to march upon Kailua. The
king sent an envoy to try and conciliate them, and
came very near being an envoy short by the opera-
tion; the savages not only refused to listen to him,
but wanted to kill him. So the king sent his men
forth under Major-General Kalaimoku and the two
254
ROUGHING IT
hosts met at Kuamoo. The battle was long and
fierce — men and women fighting side by side, as
was the custom — and when the day was done the
rebels were flying in every direction in hopeless
panic, and idolatry and the tabu were dead in the
land!
The royalists marched gaily home to Kailua
glorifying the new dispensation. "There is no
power in the gods," said they; "they are a vanity
and a lie. The army with idols was weak ; the army
without idols was strong and victorious!"
The nation was without a religion.
The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly
afterward, timed by providential exactness to meet
the emergency, and the gospel was planted as in a
virgin soil.
CHAPTER XXXII
AT noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to
/\ the ancient ruins at Honaunau in his canoe —
price two dollars — reasonable enough, for a sea-
voyage of eight miles, counting both ways.
The native canoe is an irresponsible-looking con-
trivance. I cannot think of anything to liken it to
but a boy's sled-runner hollowed out, and that does
not quite convey the correct idea. It is about fifteen
feet long, high and pointed at both ends, is a foot
and a half or two feet deep, and so narrow that if
you wedged a fat man into it you might not get him
out again. It sits on top of the water like a duck,
but it has an outrigger and does not upset easily, if
you keep still. This outrigger is formed of two long
bent sticks like plow-handles, which project from
one side, and to their outer ends is bound a curved
beam composed of an extremely light wood, which
skims along the surface of the water, and thus saves
you from an upset on that side, while the outrigger's
weight is not so easily lifted as to make an upset on
the other side a thing to be greatly feared. Still,
until one gets used to sitting perched upon this
knife-blade, he is apt to reason within himself that it
would be more comfortable if there were just an
outrigger or so on the other side also.
?-6
ROUGHING IT
I had the bow-seat, and Billings sat amidships and
faced the Kanaka, who occupied the stern of the
craft and did the paddling. With the first stroke
the trim shell of a thing shot out from the shore
like an arrow. There was not much to see. While
we were on the shallow water of the reef, it was
pastime to look down into the limpid depths at the
large bunches of branching coral — the unique shrub-
bery of the sea. We lost that, though, when we
got out into the dead blue water of the deep. But
we had the picture of the surf, then, dashing angrily
against the crag-bound shore and sending a foaming
spray high into the air. There was interest in this
beetling border, too, for it was honeycombed with
quaint caves and arches and tunnels, and had a
rude semblance of the dilapidated architecture of
ruined keeps and castles rising out of the restless
sea. When this novelty ceased to be a novelty, we
turned our eyes shoreward and gazed at the long
mountain with its rich green forests stretching up
into the curtaining clouds, and at the specks of
houses in the rearward distance and the diminished
schooner riding sleepily at anchor. And when these
grew tiresome we dashed boldly into the midst of a
school of huge, beastly porpoises engaged at their
eternal game of arching over a wave and disappear-
ing, and then doing it over again and keeping it up
— always circling over, in that way, like so many
well-submerged wheels. But the porpoises wheeled
themselves away, and then we were thrown upon
our own resources. It did not take many minutes
to discover that the sun was blazing like a bonfire,
257
MARK TWAIN
and that the weather was of a melting temperature.
It had a drowsing effect, too.
In one place we came upon a large company of
naked natives, of both sexes and all ages, amusing
themselves with the national pastime of surf -bathing.
Each heathen would paddle three or four hundred
yards out to sea (taking a short board with him),
then face the shore and wait for a particularly pro-
digious billow to come along; at the right moment
he would fling his board upon its foamy crest and
himself upon the board, and here he would come
whizzing by like a bombshell ! It did not seem that
a lightning express-train could shoot along at a more
hair-lifting speed. I tried surf-bathing once, subse-
quently, but made a failure of it. I got the board
placed right, and at the right moment, too; but
missed the connection myself. The board struck
the shore in three-quarters of a second, without any
cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time,
with a couple of barrels of water in me. None but
natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thor-
oughly.
At the end of an hour, we had made the four
miles, and landed on a level point of land, upon
which was a wide extent of old ruins, with many a
tall cocoanut tree growing among them. Here was
the ancient City of Refuge — a vast inclosure, whose
stone walls were twenty feet thick at the base, and
fifteen feet high; an oblong square, a thousand and
forty feet one way and a fraction under seven hun-
dred the other. Within this inclosure, in early
times, have been three rude temples, each two
258
ROUGHING IT
hundred and ten feet long by one hundred wide,
and thirteen high.
In those days, if a man killed another anywhere
on the Island the relatives were privileged to take the
murderer's life; and then a chase for life and liberty
began — the outlawed criminal flying through path-
less forests and over mountain and plain, with his
hopes fixed upon the protecting walls of the City of
Refuge, and the avenger of blood following hotly
after him! Sometimes the race was kept up to the
very gates of the temple, and the panting pair sped
through long files of excited natives, who watched
the contest with flashing eye and dilated nostril,
encouraging the hunted refugee with sharp, inspirit-
ing ejaculations, and sending up a ringing shout of
exultation when the saving gates closed upon him
and the cheated pursuer sank exhausted at the
threshold. But sometimes the flying criminal fell
under the hand of the avenger at the very door,
when one more brave stride, one more brief sec-
ond of time would have brought his feet upon
the sacred ground and barred him against all
harm. Where did these isolated pagans get this
idea of a City of Refuge — this ancient Oriental
custom ?
This old sanctuary was sacred to all — even to
rebels in arms and invading armies. Once within
its walls, and confession made to the priest and
absolution obtained, the wretch with a price upon
his head could go forth without fear and without
danger — he was tabu, and to harm him was death.
The routed rebels in the lost battle for idolatry fled
259
MARK TWAIN
to this place to claim sanctuary, and many were
thus saved.
, Close to the corner of the great inclosure is a
round structure of stone, some six or eight feet
high, with a level top about ten or twelve in diameter.
This was the place of execution. A high palisade
of cocoanut piles shut out the cruel scenes from the
vulgar multitude. Here criminals were killed, the
flesh stripped from the bones and burned, and the
bones secreted in holes in the body of the structure.
If the man had been guilty of a high crime, the entire
corpse was burned.
The walls of the temple are a study. The same
food for speculation that is offered the visitor to the
Pyramids of Egypt he will find here — the mystery
of how they were constructed by a people unac-
quainted with science and mechanics. The natives
have no invention of their own for hoisting heavy
weights, they had no beasts of burden, and they
have never even shown any knowledge of the prop-
erties of the lever. Yet some of the lava blocks
quarried out, brought over rough, broken ground,
and built into this wall, six or seven feet from the
ground, are of prodigious size and would weigh tons.
How did they transport and how raise them?
Both the inner and outer surfaces of the walls
present a smooth front and are very creditable
specimens of masonry. The blocks are of all man-
ner of shapes and sizes, but yet are fitted together
with the neatest exactness. The gradual narrowing
of the wall from the base upward is accurately
preserved.
260
ROUGHING IT
No cement was used, but the edifice is firm and
compact and is capable of resisting storm and decay
for centuries. Who built this temple, and how was
it built, and when, are mysteries that may never be
unraveled.
Outside of these ancient walls lies a sort of coffin-
shaped stone eleven feet four inches long and three
feet square at the small end (it would weigh a few
thousand pounds), which the high chief who held
sway over this district many centuries ago brought
thither on his shoulder one day to use as a lounge!
This circumstance is established by the most reliable
traditions. He used to lie down on it, in his indo-
lent way, and keep an eye on his subjects at work
for him and see that there was no "soldiering"
done. And no doubt there was not any done to
speak of, because he was a man of that sort of build
that incites to attention to business on the part of
an employee. He was fourteen or fifteen feet high.
When he stretched himself at full length on his
lounge, his legs hung down over the end, and when
he snored he woke the dead. These facts are all
attested by irrefragable tradition.
On the other side of the temple is a monstrous
seven-ton rock, eleven feet long, seven feet wide,
and three feet thick. It is raised a foot or a foot and
a half above the ground, and rests upon half-a-dozen
little stony pedestals. The same old fourteen-footer
brought it down from the mountain, merely for fun
(he had his own notions about fun), and propped it
up as we find it now and as others may find it a
century hence, for it would take a score of horses
261
MARK TWAIN
to budge it from its position. They say that fifty or
sixty years ago the proud Queen Kaahumanu used
to fly to this rock for safety, whenever she had been
making trouble with her fierce husband, and hide
under it until his wrath was appeased. But these
Kanakas will lie, and this statement is one of their
ablest efforts — for Kaahumanu was six feet high —
she was bulky — she was built like an ox — and she
could no more have squeezed herself under that rock
than she could have passed between the cylinders of
a sugar-mill. What could she gain by it, even if she
succeeded? To be chased and abused by a savage
husband could not be otherwise than humiliating to
her high spirit, yet it could never make her feel so
flat as an hour's repose under that rock would.
We walked a mile over a raised macadamized road
of uniform width; a road paved with flat stones and
exhibiting in its every detail a considerable degree
of engineering skill. Some say that that wise old
pagan, Kamehameha L, planned and built it, but
others say it was built so long before his time that
the knowledge of who constructed it has passed out
of the traditions. In either case, however, as the
handiwork of an untaught and degraded race it is a
thing of pleasing interest. The stones are worn and
smooth, and pushed apart in places, so that the road
has the exact appearance of those ancient paved high*
ways leading out of Rome which one sees in pictures.
The object of our tramp was to visit a great
natural curiosity at the base of the foothills — a
congealed cascade of lava. Some old forgotten
volcanic eruption sent its broad river of fire down
262
ROUGHING IT
the mountainside here, and it poured down in a
great torrent from an overhanging bluff some fifty
feet high to the ground below. The flaming torrent
cooled in the winds from the sea, and remains there
to-day, all seamed, and frothed, and rippled, a petri-
fied Niagara. It is very picturesque, and withal so
natural that one might almost imagine it still flowed.
A smaller stream trickled over the cliff and built up
an isolated pyramid about thirty feet high, which
has the semblance of a mass of large gnarled and
knotted vines and roots and stems intricately twisted
and woven together.
We passed in behind the cascade and the pyramid,
and found the bluff pierced by several cavernous
tunnels, whose crooked courses we followed a long
distance.
Two of these winding tunnels stand as proof of
nature's mining abilities. Their floors are level,
they are seven feet wide, and their roofs are gently
arched. Their height is not uniform, however. We
passed through one a hundred feet long, which leads
through a spur of the hill and opens out well up in
the sheer wall of a precipice whose foot rests in the
waves of the sea. It is a commodious tunnel, ex-
cept that there are occasional places in it where one
must stoop to pass under. The roof is lava, of
course, and is thickly studded with little lava-pointed
icicles an inch long, which hardened as they dripped.
They project as closely together as the iron teeth of
a corn-sheller, and if one will stand up straight and
walk any distance there, he can get his hair combed
free of charge.
263
CHAPTER XXXIII
WE got back to the schooner in good time, and
then sailed down to Kau, where we disem-
barked and took final leave of the vessel. Next
day we bought horses and bent our way over the
summer-clad mountain terraces, toward the great
volcano of Kilauea (Ke-low-way-ah). We made
nearly a two days' journey of it, but that was on
account of laziness. Toward sunset on the second
day, we reached an elevation of some four thousand
feet above sea-level, and as we picked our careful
way through billowy wastes of lava long generations
ago stricken dead and cold in the climax of its toss-
ing fury, we began to come upon signs of the near
presence of the volcano — signs in the nature of
ragged fissures that discharged jets of sulphurous
vapor into the air, hot from the molten ocean down
in the bowels of the mountain.
Shortly the crater came into view. I have seen
Vesuvius since, but it was a mere toy, a child's
volcano, a soup-kettle, compared to this. Mount
Vesuvius is a shapely cone thirty-six hundred feet
high; its crater an inverted cone only three hundred
feet deep, and not more than a thousand feet in
diameter, if as much as that; its fires meager,
modest, and docile. But here was a vast, peroen-
264
ROUGHING IT
dicular, walled cellar, nine hundred feet deep in
some places, thirteen hundred in others, level-
floored, and ten miles in circumference! Here was
a yawning pit upon whose floor the armies of Russia
could camp, and have room to spare.
Perched upon the edge of the crater, at the oppo-
site end from where we stood, was a small lookout-
house — say three miles away. It assisted us, by
comparison, to comprehend and appreciate the great
depth of the basin — it looked like a tiny martin-box
clinging at the eaves of a cathedral. After some
little time spent in resting and looking and cipher-
ing, we hurried on to the hotel.
By the path it is half a mile from the Volcano
House to the lookout-house. After a hearty supper
we waited until it was thoroughly dark and then
started to the crater. The first glance in that direc-
tion revealed a scene of wild beauty. There was a
heavy fog over the crater and it was splendidly illu-
minated by the glare from the fires below. The
illumination was two miles wide and a mile high,
perhaps; and if you ever, on a dark night and at a
distance, beheld the light from thirty or forty blocks
of distant buildings all on fire at once, reflected
strongly against overhanging clouds, you can form a
fair idea of what this looked like.
A colossal column of cloud towered to a great
height in the air immediately above the crater, and
the outer swell of every one of its vast folds was
dyed with a rich crimson luster, which was subdued
to a pale rose tint in the depressions between. It
glowed like a muffled torch and stretched upward to
265
MARK TWAIN
a dizzy height toward the zenith. I thought it just
possible that its like had not been seen since the
children of Israel wandered on their long march
through the desert so many centuries ago over a
path illuminated by the mysterious "pillar of fire."
And I was sure that I now had a vivid conception
of what the majestic "pillar of fire" was like, which
almost amounted to a revelation.
Arrived at the little thatched lookout-house, we
rested our elbows on the railing in front and looked
abroad over the wide crater and down over the sheer
precipice at the seething fires beneath us. The view
was a startling improvement on my daylight experi-
ence. I turned to see the effect on the balance of
the company, and found the reddest-faced set of men
I almost ever saw. In the strong light every coun-
tenance glowed like red-hot iron, every shoulder
was suffused with crimson and shaded rearward into
dingy, shapeless obscurity ! The place below looked
like the infernal regions and these men like half-
cooled devils just come up on a furlough.
I turned my eyes upon the volcano again. The
"cellar" was tolerably well lighted up. For a mile
and a half in front of us and half a mile on either
side, the floor of the abyss was magnificently illu-
minated; beyond these limits the mists hung down
their gauzy curtains and cast a deceptive gloom over
all that made the twinkling fires in the remote
corners of the crater seem countless leagues removed
— made them seem like the camp-fires of a great
army far away. Here was room for the imagination
to work! You could imagine those lights the width
266
ROUGHING IT
of a continent away — and that hidden under the
intervening darkness were hills, and winding rivers,
and weary wastes of plain and desert — and even
then the tremendous vista stretched on, and on, and
on! — to the fires and far beyond! You could not
compass it — it was the idea of eternity made tangible
— and the longest end of it made visible to the naked
eye!
The greater part of the vast floor of the desert
under us was as black as ink, and apparently smooth
and level; but over a mile square of it was ringed
and streaked and striped with a thousand branching
streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It
looked like a colossal railroad map of the state of
Massachusetts done in chain-lightning on a midnight
sky. Imagine it — imagine a coal-black sky shivered
into a tangled network of angry fire !
Here and there were gleaming holes a hundred
feet in diameter, broken in the dark crust, and in
them the melted lava — the color a dazzling white
just tinged with yellow — was boiling and surging
furiously ; and from these holes branched numberless
bright torrents in many directions, like the spokes of
a wheel, and kept a tolerably straight course for a
while and then swept round in huge rainbow curves,
or made a long succession of sharp worm-fence
angles, which looked precisely like the fiercest jagged
lightning. These streams met other streams, and
they mingled with and crossed and recrossed each
other in every conceivable direction, like skate
tracks on a popular skating-ground. Sometimes
streams twenty or thirty feet wide flowed from the
267
MARK TWAIN
holes to some distance without dividing — and
through the opera-glasses we could see that they ran
down small, steep hills and were genuine cataracts
of fire, white at their source, but soon cooling and
turning to the richest red, grained with alternate
lines of black and gold. Every now and then masses
of the dark crust broke away and floated slowly
down these streams like rafts down a river. Occa-
sionally, the molten lava flowing under the super-
incumbent crust broke through — split a dazzling
streak, from five hundred to a thousand feet long,
like a sudden flash of lightning, and then acre after
acre of the cold lava parted into fragments, turned
up edgewise like cakes of ice when a great river
breaks up, plunged downward and were swallowed
in the crimson caldron. Then the wide expanse of
the "thaw" maintained a ruddy glow for a while,
but shortly cooled and became black and level again.
During a "thaw" every dismembered cake was
marked by a glittering white border which was
superbly shaded inward by aurora borealis rays,
which were a flaming yellow where they joined the
white border, and from thence toward their points
tapered into glowing crimson, then into a rich, pale
carmine, and finally into a faint blush that held its
own a moment and then dimmed and turned black.
Some of the streams preferred to mingle together in
a tangle of fantastic circles, and then they looked
something like the confusion of ropes one sees on a
ship's deck when she has just taken in sail and
dropped anchor — provided one can imagine those
ropes on fire.
268
ROUGHING IT
Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered
about looked very beautiful. They boiled, and
coughed, and spluttered, and discharged sprays of
stringy red fire — of about the consistency of mush,
for instance — from ten to fifteen feet into the air,
along with a shower of brilliant white sparks — a
quaint and unnatural mingling of gouts of blood and
snowflakes !
We had circles and serpents and streaks of light-
ning all twined and wreathed and tied together,
without a break throughout an area more than a mile
square (that amount of ground was covered, though
it was not strictly "square"), and it was with a
feeling of placid exultation that we reflected that
many years had elapsed since any visitor had seen
such a splendid display — since any visitor had seen
anything more than the now snubbed and insignifi-
cant "North" and "South" lakes in action. We
had been reading old files of Hawaiian newspapers
and the "Record Book" at the Volcano House, and
were posted.
I could see the North Lake lying out on the black
floor away off in the outer edge of our panorama,
and knitted to it by a web-work of lava streams. In
its individual capacity it looked very little more re-
spectable than a school-house on fire. True, it was
about nine hundred feet long and two or three hun-
dred wide, but then, under the present circum-
stances, it necessarily appeared rather insignificant,
and besides it was so distant from us.
I forgot to say that the noise made by the bub-
bling lava is not great, heard as we heard it from
260
MARK TWAIN
our lofty perch. It makes three distinct sounds — a
rushing, a hissing, and a coughing or puffing sound;
and if you stand on the brink and close your eyes,
it is no trick at all to imagine that you are sweeping
down a river on a large low-pressure steamer, and
that you hear the hissing of the steam about her
boilers, the puffing from her escape-pipes and the
churning rush of the water abaft her wheels. The
smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to
a sinner.
We left the lookout-house at ten o'clock in a half-
cooked condition, because of the heat from Pele's
furnaces, and, wrapping up in blankets, for the night
was cold, we returned to our hotel.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE next night was appointed for a visit to the
bottom of the crater, for we desired to traverse
its floor and see the "North Lake" (of fire) which
lay two miles away, toward the further wall. After
dark half a dozen of us set out, with lanterns and
native guides, and climbed down a crazy, thousand-
foot pathway in a crevice fractured in the crater
wall, and reached the bottom in safety.
The irruption of the previous evening had spent
its force and the floor looked black and cold; but
when we ran out upon it we found it hot yet, to the
feet, and it was likewise riven with crevices which
revealed the underlying fires gleaming vindictively.
A neighboring caldron was threatening to overflow,
and this added to the dubiousness of the situation.
So the native guides refused to continue the venture,
and then everybody deserted except a stranger
named Marlette. He said he had been in the crater
a dozen times in daylight and believed he could find
his way through it at night. He thought that a run
of three hundred yards would carry us over the
hottest part of the floor and leave us our shoe-soles.
His pluck gave me backbone. We took one lantern
and instructed the guides to hang the other to the
foof of the lookout-house to serve as a beacon for
271
MARK TWAIN
us in case we got lost, and then the party started
back up the precipice and Marlette and I made our
run. We skipped over the hot floor and over the
red crevices with brisk despatch and reached the cold
lava safe but with pretty warm feet. Then we took
things leisurely and comfortably, jumping tolerably
wide and probably bottomless chasms, and thread-
ing our way through picturesque lava upheavals with
considerable confidence. When we got fairly away
from the caldrons of boiling fire, we seemed to be
in a gloomy desert, and a suffocatingly dark one,
surrounded by dim walls that seemed to tower to the
sky. The only cheerful objects were the glinting
stars high overhead.
By and by Marlette shouted "Stop!" I never
stopped quicker in my life. I asked what the matter
was. He said we were out of the path. He said
we must not try to go on till we found it again,
for we were surrounded with beds of rotten lava
through which we could easily break and plunge
down a thousand feet. I thought eight hundred
would answer for me, and was about to say so when
Marlette partly proved his statement by accidentally
crushing through and disappearing to his armpits.
He got out and we hunted for the path with the
lantern. He said there was only one path, and that
it was but vaguely defined. We could not find it.
The lava surface was all alike in the lantern-light.
But he was an ingenious man. He said it was not
the lantern that had informed him that we were out
of the path, but his feet. He had noticed a crisp
grinding of fine lava-needles under his feet, and
272
ROUGHING IT
some instinct reminded him that in the path these
were all worn away. So he put the lantern behind
him, and began to search with his boots instead of
his eyes. It was good sagacity. The first time his
foot touched a surface that did not grind under it he
announced that the trail was found again; and after
that we kept up a sharp listening for the rasping
sound, and it always warned us in time.
It was a long tramp, but an exciting one. We
reached the North Lake between ten and eleven
o'clock, and sat down on a huge overhanging lava
shelf, tired but satisfied. The spectacle presented
was worth coming double the distance to see. Under
us, and stretching away before us, was a heaving
sea of molten fire of seemingly limitless extent.
The glare from it was so blinding that it was some
time before we could bear to look upon it steadily.
It was like gazing at the sun at noonday, except
that the glare was not quite so white. At unequal
distances all around the shores of the lake were
nearly white-hot chimneys or hollow drums of lava,
four or five feet high, and up through them were
bursting gorgeous sprays of lava gouts and gem
spangles, some white, some red, and some golden —
a ceaseless bombardment, and one that fascinated
the eye with its unapproachable splendor. The
more distant jets, sparkling up through an inter-
vening gossamer veil of vapor, seemed miles away;
and the further the curving ranks of fiery fountains
receded, the more fairy-like and beautiful they
appeared.
Now and then the surging bosom of the lakp
-73
MARK TWAIN
under our noses would calm down ominously and
seem to be gathering strength for an enterprise; and
then all of a sudden a red dome of lava of the bulk
of an ordinary dwelling would heave itself aloft like
an escaping balloon, then burst asunder, and out of
its heart would flit a pale-green film of vapor, and
float upward and vanish in the darkness — a released
soul soaring homeward from captivity with the
damned, no doubt. The crashing plunge of the
ruined dome into the lake again would send a world
of seething billows lashing against the shores and
shaking the foundations of our perch. By and by,
a loosened mass of the hanging shelf we sat on
tumbled into the lake, jarring the surroundings like
an earthquake and delivering a suggestion that may
have been intended for a hint, and may not. We
did not wait to see.
We got lost again on our way back, and were
more than an hour hunting for the path. We were
where we could see the beacon lantern at the lookout-
house at the time, but thought it was a star, and paid
no attention to it. We reached the hotel at two
o'clock in the morning, pretty well fagged out.
Kilauea never overflows its vast crater, but bursts
a passage for its lava through the mountainside
when relief is necessary, and then the destruction
is fearful. About 1840 it rent its overburdened
stomach and sent a broad river of fire careering
down to the sea, which swept away forests, huts,
plantations, and everything else that lay in its path.
The stream was five miles broad, in places, and two
hundred jeet deep, and the distance it traveled was
274
ROUGHING IT
forty miles. It tore up and bore away acre-patches
of land on its bosom like rafts — rocks, trees, and
all intact. At night the red glare was visible a hun-
dred miles at sea; and at a distance of forty miles
fine print could be read at midnight. The atmos-
phere was poisoned with sulphurous vapors and
choked with falling ashes, pumice-stones, and
cinders; countless columns of smoke rose up and
blended together in a tumbled canopy that hid the
heavens and glowed with a ruddy flush reflected
from the fires below; here and there jets of lava
sprung hundreds of feet into the air and burst into
rocket-sprays that returned to earth in a crimson
rain; and all the while the laboring mountain shook
with nature's great palsy, and voiced its distress in
moanings and the muffled booming of subterranean
thunders.
Fishes were killed for twenty miles along the
shore, where the lava entered the sea. The earth-
quakes caused some loss of human life, and a pro-
digious tidal-wave swept inland, carrying everything
before it and drowning a number of natives. The
devastation consummated along the route traversed
by the river of lava was complete and incalculable.
Only a Pompeii and a Herculaneum were needed
at the foot of Kilauea to make the story of the
irruption immortal.
CHAPTER XXXV
WE rode horseback all around the island of
Hawaii (the crooked road making the dis-
tance two hundred miles), and enjoyed the journey
very much. We were more than a week making
the trip, because our Kanaka horses would not go
by a house or a hut without stopping — whip and
spur could not alter their minds about it, and so we
finally found that it economized time to let them
have their way. Upon inquiry the mystery was
explained ; the natives are such thoroughgoing gos-
sips that they never pass a house without stop-
ping to swap news, and consequently their horses
learn to regard that sort of thing as an essential part
of the whole duty of man, and his salvation not to
be compassed without it. However, at a former
crisis of my life I had once taken an aristocratic
young lady out driving, behind a horse that had just
retired from a long and honorable career as the
moving impulse of a milk- wagon, and so this present
experience awoke a reminiscent sadness in me in
place of the exasperation more natural to the occa-
sion. I remembered how helpless I was that day,
and how humiliated; how ashamed I was of having
intimated to the girl that I had always owned the
horse and was accustomed to grandeur; how hard
276
ROUGHING IT
I tried to appear easy, and even vivacious, under
suffering that was consuming my vitals ; how placidly
and maliciously the girl smiled, and kept on smiling,
while my hot blushes baked themselves into a per-
manent blood-pudding in my face; how the horse
ambled from one side of the street to the other and
waited complacently before every third house two
minutes and a quarter while I belabored his back
and reviled him in my heart; how I tried to keep
him from turning corners, and failed; how I moved
heaven and earth to get him out of town, and did
not succeed; how he traversed the entire settlement
and delivered imaginary milk at a hundred and
sixty-two different domiciles, and how he finally
brought up at a dairy depot and refused to budge
further, thus rounding and completing the reveal-
ment of what the plebeian service of his life had
been; how, in eloquent silence, I walked the girl
home, and how, when I took leave of her, her part-
ing remark scorched my soul and appeared to blister
me all over; she said that my horse was a fine,
capable animal, and I must have taken great com-
fort in him in my time — but that if I would take
along some milk-tickets next time, and appear to
deliver them at the various halting-places, it might
expedite his movements a little. There was a cool-
ness between us after that.
In one place in the island of Hawaii, we saw a
laced and ruffled cataract of limpid water leaping
from a sheer precipice fifteen hundred feet high;
but that sort of scenery finds its stanchest ally in the
arithmetic rather than in spectacular effect. If one
277
MARK TWAIN
desires to be so stirred by a poem of nature wrought
in the happily commingled graces of picturesque
rocks, glimpsed distances, foliage, color, shifting
lights and shadows, and falling water, that the tears
almost come into his eyes so potent is the charm
exerted, he need not go away from America to enjoy
such an experience. The Rainbow Fall, in Watkins
Glen (N. Y.), on the Erie railway, is an example.
It would recede into pitiable insignificance if the
callous tourist drew an arithmetic on it; but left to
compete for the honors simply on scenic grace and
beauty — the grand, the august, and the sublime
being barred the contest — it could challenge the
Old World and the New to produce its peer.
In one locality, on our journey, we saw some
horses that had been born and reared on top of the
mountains, above the range of running water, and
consequently they had never drunk that fluid in their
lives, but had been always accustomed to quenching
their thirst by eating dew-laden or shower-wetted
leaves. And now it was destructively funny to see
them sniff suspiciously at a pail of water, and then
put in their noses and try to take a bite out of the
fluid, as if it were a solid. Finding it liquid, they
would snatch away their heads and fall to trembling,
snorting, and showing other evidences of fright.
When they became convinced at last that the water
was friendly and harmless, they thrust in their noses
up to their eyes, brought out a mouthful of the
water, and proceeded to chew it complacently. We
saw a man coax, kick, and spur one of them five or
ten minutes before he could make it cross a running
278
ROUGHING IT
stream. It spread its nostrils, distended its eyes,
and trembled all over, just as horses customarily do
in the presence of a serpent — and for aught I know
it thought the crawling stream was a serpent.
In due course of time our journey came to an end
at Kawaihae (usually pronounced To-a-/w — and
before we find fault with this elaborate ortho-
graphical method of arriving at such an unosten-
tatious result, let us lop off the ugh from our word
"though"). I made this horseback trip on a mule.
I paid ten dollars for him at Kau (Kah-oo), added
four to get him shod, rode him two hundred miles,
and then sold him for fifteen dollars. I mark the
circumstance with a white stone (in the absence of
chalk — for I never saw a white stone that a body
could mark anything with, though out of respect
for the ancients I have tried it often enough) ; for
up to that day and date it was the first strictly com-
mercial transaction I had ever entered into, and
come out winner. We returned to Honolulu, and
from thence sailed to the island of Maui, and spent
several weeks there very pleasantly. I still remem-
ber, with a sense of indolent luxury, a picnicking
excursion up a romantic gorge there, called the Iao
Valley. The trail lay along the edge of a brawling
stream in the bottom of the gorge — a shady route,
for it was well roofed with the verdant domes of
forest trees. Through openings in the foliage we
glimpsed picturesque scenery that revealed ceaseless
changes and new charms with every step of our
progress. Perpendicular walls from one to three
thousand feet high guarded the way, and were
279
MARK TWAIN
sumptuously plumed with varied foliage in places,
and in places swathed in waving ferns. Passing
shreds of cloud trailed their shadows across these
shining fronts, mottling them with blots; billowy-
masses of white vapor hid the turreted summits, and
far above the vapor swelled a background of gleam-
ing green crags and cones that came and went,
through the veiling mists, like islands drifting in a
fog; sometimes the cloudy curtain descended till half
the canon wall was hidden, then shredded grad-
ually away till only airy glimpses of the ferny front
appeared through it — then swept aloft and left it
glorified in the sun again. Now and then, as our
position changed, rocky bastions swung out from the
wall, a mimic ruin of castellated ramparts and crum-
bling towers clothed with mosses and hung with
garlands of swaying vines, and as we moved on they
swung back again and hid themselves once more
in the foliage. Presently, a verdure-clad needle of
stone, a thousand feet high, stepped out from be-
hind a corner, and mounted guard over the mys-
teries of the valley. It seemed to me that if Captain
Cook needed a monument, here was one ready-made
— therefore, why not put up his sign here, and sell
out the venerable cocoanut stump?
But the chief pride of Maui is her dead volcano of
Haleakala — which means, translated, "the house of
the sun." We climbed a thousand feet up the side
of this isolated colossus one afternoon; then camped,
and next day climbed the remaining nine thousand
feet, and anchored on the summit, where we built
a fire and froze and roasted by turns, all night.
280
ROUGHING IT
With the first pallor of dawn we got up and saw
things that were new to us. Mounted on a com-
manding pinnacle, we watched Nature work her silent
wonders. The sea was spread abroad on every hand,
its tumbled surface seeming only wrinkled and
dimpled in the distance. A broad valley below ap-
peared like an ample checker-board, its velvety
green sugar-plantations alternating with dun squares
of barrenness and groves of trees diminished to
mossy tufts. Beyond the valley were mountains
picturesquely grouped together; but, bear in mind,
we fancied that we were looking up at these things
— not down. We seemed to sit in the bottom of a
symmetrical bowl ten thousand feet deep, with the
valley and the skirting sea lifted away into the sky
above us! It was curious; and not only curious,
but aggravating; for it was having our trouble all
for nothing, to climb ten thousand feet toward
heaven and then have to look up at our scenery.
However, we had to be content with it and make the
best of it; for, all we could do we could not coax
our landscape down out of the clouds. Formerly,
when I had read an article in which Poe treated of
this singular fraud perpetrated upon the eye by
isolated great altitudes, I had looked upon the matter
as an invention of his own fancy.
I have spoken of the outside view — but we had
an inside one, too. That was the yawning dead
crater, into which we now and then tumbled rocks,
half as large as a barrel, from our perch, and saw
them go careering down the almost perpendicular
sides, bounding three hundred feet at a jump; kick-
281
MARK TWAIN
ing up dust-clouds wherever they struck; diminish-
ing to our view as they sped farther into distance:
growing invisible, finally, and only betraying their
course by faint little puffs of dust ; and coming to a
halt at last in the bottom of the abyss, two thousand
five hundred feet down from where they started ! It
was magnificent sport. We wore ourselves out at it.
The crater of Vesuvius, as I have before remarked,
is a modest pit about a thousand feet deep and three
thousand in circumference ; that of Kilauea is some-
what deeper, and ten miles in circumference. But
what is either of them compared to the vacant
stomach of Haleakala? I will not offer any figures
of my own, but give official ones — those of Com-
mander Wilkes, U. S. N., who surveyed it and testi-
fies that it is twenty-seven miles in circumference! If
it had a level bottom it would make a fine site for
a city like London. It must have afforded a spec-
tacle worth contemplating in the old days when its
furnaces gave full rein to their anger.
Presently, vagrant white clouds came drifting
along, high over the sea and the valley; then they
came in couples and groups; then in imposing
squadrons; gradually joining their forces, they
banked themselves solidly together, a thousand feet
under us, and totally shut out land and ocean — not
a vestige of anything was left in view, but just a
little of the rim of the crater, circling away from the
pinnacle whereon we sat (for a ghostly procession
of wanderers from the filmy hosts without had drifted
through a chasm in the crater wall and filed round
and round, and gathered and sunk and blended
ROUGHING IT
together till the abyss was stored to the brim
with a fleecy fog). Thus banked, motion ceased,
and silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on
league, the snowy floor stretched without a break —
not level, but in rounded folds, with shallow creases
between, and with here and there stately piles of
vapory architecture lifting themselves aloft out of
the common plain — some near at hand, some in the
middle distances, and others relieving the monotony
of the remote solitudes. There was little conversa-
tion, for the impressive scene overawed speech. I
felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment,
and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic
of a vanished world.
While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of
the coming resurrection appeared in the east. A
growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon the
sun emerged and looked out over the cloud-waste,
flinging bars of ruddy light across it, staining its
folds and billow-caps with blushes, purpling the
shaded troughs between, and glorifying the massy
vapor-palaces and cathedrals with a wasteful splen-
dor of all blendings and combinations of rich coloring .
It was the sublimest spectacle I ever witnessed,
and I think the memory of it will remain with me
always
CHAPTER XXXVI
1 STUMBLED upon one curious character in the
island of Maui. He became a sore annoyance
to me in the course of time. My first glimpse of
him was in a sort of public room in the town of
Lahaina. He occupied a chair at the opposite side
of the apartment, and sat eying our party with
interest for some minutes, and listening as critically
to what we were saying as if he fancied we were
talking to him and expecting him to reply. I thought
it very sociable in a stranger. Presently, in the
course of conversation, I made a statement bearing
upon the subject under discussion — and I made
it with due modesty, for there was nothing extraor-
dinary about it, and it was only put forth in illus-
tration of a point at issue. I had barely finished
when this person spoke out with rapid utterance and
feverish anxiety:
"Oh, that was certainly remarkable, after a
fashion, but you ought to have seen my chimney —
you ought to have seen my chimney, sir! Smoke!
I wish I may hang if — Mr. Jones, you remember
that chimney — you must remember that chimney!
No, no — I recollect, now, you warn't living on this
side of the island then. But I am telling you noth-
ing h'lt the truth, and I wish I may never draw
284
ROUGHING IT
another breath if that chimney didn't smoke so that
the smoke actually got caked in it and I had to dig
it out with a pickax! You may smile, gentlemen,
but the high sheriff's got a hunk of it which I dug
out before his eyes, and so it's perfectly easy for
you to go and examine for yourselves."
The interruption broke up the conversation, which
had already begun to lag, and we presently hired
some natives and an outrigger canoe or two, and
went out to overlook a grand surf -bathing contest.
Two weeks after this, while talking in a company,
I looked up and detected this same man boring
through and through me with his intense eye, and
noted again his twitching muscles and his feverish
anxiety to speak. The moment I paused, he said:
ilBeg your pardon, sir, beg your pardon, but it
can only be considered remarkable when brought
into strong outline by isolation. Sir, contrasted
with a circumstance which occurred in my own ex-
perience, it instantly becomes commonplace. No,
not that — for I will not speak so discourteously of
any experience in the career of a stranger and a
gentleman — but I am obliged to say that you could
not, and you would not ever again refer to this tree
as a large one, if you could behold, as I have, the
great Yakmatack tree, in the island of Ounaska, sea
of Kamtchatka — a tree, sir, not one inch less than
four hundred and fifteen feet in solid diameter! —
and I wish I may die in a minute if it isn't so! Oh,
you needn't look so questioning, gentlemen; here's
old Cap Saltmarsh can say whether I know what
I'm talking about or not. I showed him the tree."
28c
MARK TWAIN
Captain Saltmarsh. — ' ' Come, now, cat your anchor,
lad — you're heaving too taut. You promised to
show me that stunner, and I walked more than
eleven mile with you through the cussedest jungle
/ ever see, a-hunting for it; but the tree you showed
me finally warn't as big around as a beer- cask,
and you know that your own self, Markiss."
"Hear the man talk! Of course the tree was re-
duced that way, but didn't I explain it? Answer
me, didn't I? Didn't I say I wished you could
have seen it when I first saw it? When you got up
on your ear and called me names, and said I had
brought you eleven miles to look at a sapling, didn't
I explain to you that all the whale-ships in the
North Seas had been wooding off of it for more
than twenty-seven years? And did you s'pose the
tree could last forever, confound it? I don't see
why you want to keep back things that way, and try
to injure a person that's never done you any harm."
Somehow this man's presence made me uncom-
fortable, and I was glad when a native arrived at
chat moment to say that Muckawow, the most com-
panionable and luxurious among the rude war-chiefs
of the Islands, desired us to come over and help
him enjoy a missionary whom he had found tres-
passing on his grounds.
I think it was about ten days afterward that, as I
finished a statement I was making for the instruc-
tion of a group of friends and acquaintances, and
which made no pretense of being extraordinary, a
familiar voice chimed instantly in on the heels of
my last word, and said:
286
ROUGHING IT
"But, my dear sir, there was nothing remarkable
about that horse, or the circumstance either — noth-
ing in the world ! I mean no sort of offense when I
say it, sir, but you really do not know anything
whatever about speed. Bless your heart, if you
could only have seen my rnare Margaretta ; there
was a beast! — there was lightning for you! Trot!
Trot is no name for it — she flew! How she could
whirl a buggy along! I started her out once, sir —
Colonel Bilgewater, you recollect that animal per-
fectly well — I started her out about thirty or thirty-
five yards ahead of the awfulest storm I ever saw
in my life, and it chased us upward of eighteen miles!
It did, by the everlasting hills! And I'm telling you
nothing but the unvarnished truth when I say that
not one single drop of rain fell on me — not a single
drop, sir! And I swear to it! But my dog was
a-swimming behind the wagon all the way!"
For a week or two I stayed mostly within doors,
for I seemed to meet this person everywhere, and he
had become utterly hateful to me. But one evening
I dropped in on Captain Perkins and his friends,
and we had a sociable time. About ten o'clock I
chanced to be talking about a merchant friend of
mine, and without really intending it, the remark
slipped out that he was a little mean and parsimoni-
ous about paying his workmen. Instantly, through
the steam of a hot whisky punch on the opposite
side of the room, a remembered voice shot — and for
a moment I trembled on the imminent verge of
profanity :
"Oh, my dear sir, really you expose yourself
2R?
MARK TWAIN
when you parade that as a surprising circumstance.
Bless your heart and hide, you are ignorant of the
very A B C of meanness! ignorant as the unborn
babe! ignorant as unborn twins! You don't know
anything about it! It is pitiable to see you, sir, a
well-spoken and prepossessing stranger, making such
an enormous pow-wow here about a subject con-
cerning which your ignorance is perfectly humili-
ating! Look me in the eye, if you please; look me
in the eye. John James Godfrey was the son of
poor but honest parents in the state of Mississippi
— boyhood friend of mine — bosom comrade in later
years. Heaven rest his noble spirit, he is gone
from us now. John James Godfrey was hired by
the Hayblossom Mining Company in California to
do some blasting for them — the 'Incorporated Com-
pany of Mean Men,' the boys used to call it. Well,
one day he drilled a hole about four feet deep and
put in an awful blast of powder, and was standing
over it ramming it down with an iron crowbar about
nine foot long, when the cussed thing struck a spark
and fired the powder, and scat! away John Godfrey
whizzed like a sky-rocket, him and his crowbar!
Well, sir, he kept on going up in the air higher
and higher, till he didn't look any bigger than a
boy — and he kept going on up higher and higher,
till he didn't look any bigger than a doll — and he
kept on going up higher and higher, till he didn't
look any bigger than a little small bee — and then
he went out of sight! Presently he came in sight
again, looking like a little small bee — and he came
along down further and further, till he looked a?
288
ROUGHING IT
big as a doll again — and down further and further,
till he was as big as a boy again — and further and
further, till he was a full-sized man once more; and
then him and his crowbar came a -whizzing down
and lit right exactly in the same old tracks and
went to r-ramming down, and r-ramming down, and
r-ramming down again, just the same as if nothing
had happened! Now, do you know, that poor cuss
warn't gone only sixteen minutes, and yet that
incorporated company of mean men docked him
FOR THE LOST TIME !"
I said I had the headache, and so excused myself
and went home. And on my diary I entered
"another night spoiled" by this offensive loafer.
And a fervent curse was set down with it to keep
the item company. And the very next day I packed
up, out of all patience, and left the island.
Almost from the very beginning, I regarded that
man as a liar.
The line of points represents an interval of years.
At the end of which time the opinion hazarded in
that last sentence came to be gratifyingly and
remarkably indorsed, and by wholly disinterested
persons. The man Markiss was found one morning
hanging to a beam of his own bedroom (the doors
and windows securely fastened on the inside), dead;
and on his breast was pinned a paper in his own
handwriting begging his friends to suspect no inno-
cent person of having anything to do with his death,
for that it was the work of his own hands entirely.
Yet the jury brought in the astounding verdict that
289
marp: twain
deceased came to his death "by the hands of some
person or persons unknown"! They explained that
the perfectly undeviating consistency of Markiss's
character for thirty years towered aloft as colossal
and indestructible testimony, that whatever state-
ment he chose to make was entitled to instant and
unquestioning acceptance as a lie. And they
furthermore stated their belief that he was not
dead, and instanced the strong circumstantial evi-
dence of his own word that he was dead — and
beseeched the coroner to delay the funeral as long
as possible, which was done. And so in the tropical
climate of Lahaina the coffin stood open for seven
days, and then even the loyal jury gave him up.
But they sat on him again, and changed their verdict
to "suicide induced by mental aberration" — be-
cause, said they, with penetration, "he said he was
dead, and he was dead; and would he have told the
truth if he had been in his right mind? No, sir."
CHAPTER XXXVII
AFTER half a year's luxurious vagrancy in the
£\ Islands, I took shipping in a sailing-vessel, and
regretfully returned to San Francisco — a voyage in
every way delightful, but without an incident; un-
less lying two long weeks in a dead calm, eighteen
hundred miles from the nearest land, may rank as
an incident. Schools of whales grew so tame that
day after day they played about the ship among the
porpoises and the sharks without the least apparent
fear of us, and we pelted them with empty bottles
for lack of better sport. Twenty-four hours after-
ward these bottles would be still lying on the glassy
water under our noses, showing that the ship had
not moved out of her place in all that time. The
calm was absolutely breathless, and the surface of
the sea absolutely without a wrinkle. For a whole
day and part of a night we lay so close to another
ship that had drifted to our vicinity, that we carried
on conversations with her passengers, introduced
each other by name, and became pretty intimately
acquainted with people we had never heard of be-
fore, and have never heard of since. This was the
only vessel we saw during the whole lonely voyage.
We had fifteen passengers, and to show how hard
pressed thev were at last for occupation and amuse-
291
MARK TWAIN
ment, I will mention that the gentlemen gave a good
part of their time every day, during the calm, to
trying to sit on an empty champagne-bottle (lying
on its side) and thread a needle without touching
their heels to the deck, or falling over; and the
ladies sat in the shade of the mainsail, and watched
the enterprise with absorbing interest. We were at
sea five Sundays; and yet, but for the almanac, we
never would have known but that all the other days
were Sundays too.
I was home again, in San Francisco, without
means and without employment. I tortured my
brain for a saving scheme of some kind, and at last
a public lecture occurred to me! I sat down and
wrote one, in a fever of hopeful anticipation. I
showed it to several friends, but they all shook their
heads. They said nobody would come to hear me,
and I would make a humiliating failure of it. They
said that as I had never spoken in public, I would
break down in the delivery, anyhow. I was discon-
solate now. But at last an editor slapped me on the
back and told me to "go ahead." He said, "Take
the largest house in town, and charge a dollar a
ticket." The audacity of the proposition was charm-
ing; it seemed fraught with practical worldly wis-
dom, however. The proprietor of the several
theaters indorsed the advice, and said I might have
his handsome new opera-house at half price — fifty
dollars. In sheer desperation I took it — on credit,
for sufficient reasons. In three days I did a hun-
dred and fifty dollars' worth of printing and adver-
tising, and was the most distressed and frightened
292
ROUGHING IT
creature on the Pacific coast. I could not sleep —
who could, under such circumstances? For other
people there was facetiousness in the last line of my
posters, but to me it was plaintive with a pang when
I wrote it:
Doors open at j}4. The trouble will begin at 8.
That line has done good service since. Showmen
have borrowed it frequently. I have even seen it
appended to a newspaper advertisement reminding
school-pupils in vacation what time next term would
begin. As those three days of suspense dragged
by, I grew more and more unhappy. I had sold
two hundred tickets among my personal friends, but
I feared they might not come. My lecture, which
had seemed "humorous" to me, at first, grew
steadily more and more dreary, till not a vestige of
fun seemed left, and I grieved that I could not bring
a coffin on the stage and turn the thing into a
funeral. I was so panic-stricken, at last, that I
went to three old friends, giants in stature, cordial
by nature, and stormy- voiced, and said:
"This thing is going to be a failure; the jokes in
it are so dim that nobody will ever see them; I
would like to have you sit in the parquette, and
help me through."
They said they would. Then I went to the wife
of a popular citizen, and said that if she was willing
to do me a very great kindness, I would be glad if
she and her husband would sit prominently in the
left-hand stage-box, where the whole house could
see them. I explained that I should need help, and
202
MARK TWAIN
would turn toward her and smile, as a signal, when
I had been delivered of an obscure joke — "and
then" I added, "don't wait to investigate, but
respond!"
She promised. Down the street I met a man I
never had seen before. He had been drinking, and
was beaming with smiles and good nature. He
said:
"My name's Sawyer. You don't know me, but
that don't matter. I haven't got a cent, but if you
knew how bad I wanted to laugh, you'd give me a
ticket. Come, now, what do you say?"
"Is your laugh hung on a hair-trigger? — that is,
is it critical, or can you get it off easy?"
My drawling infirmity of speech so affected him
that he laughed a specimen or two that struck me
as being about the article I wanted, and I gave
him a ticket, and appointed him to sit in the second
circle, in the center, and be responsible for that
division of the house. I gave him minute instruc-
tions about how to detect indistinct jokes, and then
went away, and left him chuckling placidly over the
novelty of the idea.
I ate nothing on the last of the three eventful days
— I only suffered. I had advertised that on this
third day the box-office would be opened for the
sale of reserved seats. I crept down to the theater
at four in the afternoon to see if any sales had been
made. The ticket-seller was gone, the box-office
was locked up. I had to swallow suddenly, or my
heart would have got out. "No sales," I said to
myself; "I might have known it." I thought of
294
ROUGHING IT
suicide, pretended illness, flight. I thought of these
things in earnest, for I was very miserable and
scared. But of course I had to drive them away,
and prepare to meet my fate. I could not wait for
half past seven — I wanted to face the horror, and
end it — the feeling of many a man doomed to hang,
no doubt. I went down back streets at six o'clock,
and entered the theater by the back door. I stum-
bled my way in the dark among the ranks of canvas
scenery, and stood on the stage. The house was
gloomy and silent, and its emptiness depressing. I
went into the dark among the scenes again, and for
an hour and a half gave myself up to the horrors,
wholly unconscious of everything else. Then I
heard a murmur; it rose higher and higher, and
ended in a crash, mingled with cheers. It made my
hair raise, it was so close to me, and so loud. There
was a pause, and then another; presently came a
third, and before I well knew what I was about, I
was in the middle of the stage, staring at a sea of
faces, bewildered by the fierce glare of the lights,
and quaking in every limb with a terror that seemed
like to take my life away. The house was full, aisles
and all!
The tumult in my heart and brain and legs con-
tinued a full minute before I could gain any com-
mand over myself. Then I recognized the charity
and the friendliness in the faces before me, and little
by little my fright melted away, and I began to talk.
Within three or four minutes I was comfortable, and
even content. My three chief allies, with three
auxiliaries, were on hand, in the parquette, all sit-
295
MARK TWAIN
ting together, all armed with bludgeons, and all
ready to make an onslaught upon the feeblest joke
that might show its head. And whenever a joke
did fall, their bludgeons came down and their faces
seemed to split from ear to ear; Sawyer, whose
hearty countenance was seen looming redly in the
center of the second circle, took it up, and the house
was carried handsomely. Inferior jokes never fared
so royally before. Presently, I delivered a bit of
serious matter with impressive unction (it was my
pet), and the audience listened with an absorbed
hush that gratified me more than any applause; and
as I dropped the last word of the clause, I happened
to turn and catch Mrs. 's intent and waiting
eye; my conversation with her flashed upon me,
and in spite of all I could do I smiled. She took it
for the signal, and promptly delivered a mellow
laugh that touched off the whole audience; and the
explosion that followed was the triumph of the
evening. I thought that that honest man Sawyer
would choke himself; and as for the bludgeons,
they performed like pile-drivers. But my poor
little morsel of pathos was ruined. It was taken in
good faith as an intentional joke, and the prize one
of the entertainment, and I wisely let it go at that.
All the papers were kind in the morning; my ap-
petite returned; I had abundance of money. All's
well that ends well.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
I LAUNCHED out as a lecturer, now, with great
boldness. I had the field all to myself, for
public lectures were almost an unknown commodity
in the Pacific market. They are not so rare, now,
I suppose. I took an old personal friend along to
play agent for me, and for two or three weeks we
roamed through Nevada and California and had a
very cheerful time of it. Two days before I lec-
tured in Virginia City, two stage-coaches were
robbed within two miles of the town. The daring
act was committed just at dawn, by six masked men,
who sprang up alongside the coaches, presented
revolvers at the heads of the drivers and passengers,
and commanded a general dismount. Everybody
climbed down, and the robbers took their watches
and every cent they had. Then they took gun-
powder and blew up the express specie-boxes and
got their contents. The leader of the robbers was a
small, quick-spoken man, and the fame of his vigor-
ous manner and his intrepidity was in everybody's
mouth when we arrived.
The night after instructing Virginia, I walked over
the desolate "divide" and down to Gold Hill, and
lectured there. The lecture done, I stopped to talk
with a friend, and did not start back till eleven.
297
MARK TWAIN
The "divide" was high, unoccupied ground, between
the towns, the scene of twenty midnight murders
and a hundred robberies. As we climbed up and
stepped out on this eminence, the Gold Hill lights
dropped out of sight at our backs, and the night
closed down gloomy and dismal. A sharp wind
swept the place, too, and chilled our perspiring bod-
ies through.
"I tell you I don't like this place at night," said
Mike, the agent.
"Well, don't speak so loud," I said. "You
needn't remind anybody that we are here."
Just then a dim figure approached me from the
direction of Virginia— a man, evidently. He came
straight at me, and I stepped aside to let him pass;
he stepped in the way and confronted me again.
Then I saw that he had a mask on and was holding
something in my face — I heard a click-click and
recognized a revolver in dim outline. I pushed the
barrel aside with my hand and said :
"Don't!"
He ejaculated sharply:
"Your watch! Your money!"
I said:
"You can have them with pleasure — but take
the pistol away from my face, please. It makes me
shiver."
"No remarks! Hand out your money!"
"Certainly— I—"
' ' Put up your hands ! Don't you go for a weapon !
Put 'em up! Higher!"
I held them above my head.
298
ROUGHING IT
A pause. Then:
"Are you going to hand out your money or not?"
I dropped my hands to my pockets and said:
"Certainly! I— "
"Put up your hands! Do you want your head
blown off? Higher!"
I put them above my head again.
Another pause.
"Are you going to hand out your money or not?
Ah-ah — again? Put up your hands! By George,
you want the head shot off you awful bad!"
"Well, friend, I'm trying my best to please you.
You tell me to give up my money, and when I reach
for it you tell me to put up my hands. If you
would only — Oh, now — don't! All six of you at
me! That other man will get away while — Now,
please take some of those revolvers out of my face —
do, if you please! Every time one of them clicks my
liver comes up into my throat! If you have a
mother — any of you — or if any of you have ever had
a mother — or a — grandmother — or a — "
"Cheese it! Will you give up your money, or
have we got to — There — there — none of that!
Put up your hands!'1
"Gentlemen — I know you are gentlemen by
your — "
"Silence! If you want to be facetious, young
man, there are times and places more fitting. This
is a serious business."
"You prick the marrow of my opinion. The
funerals I have attended in my time were comedies
compared to it. Now, I think — "
299
MARK TWAIN
''Curse your palaver! Your money! — your mon-
ey!— your money! Hold! — put up your hands!"
"Gentlemen, listen to reason. You see how I am
situated — now don't put those pistols so close — I
smell the powder. You see how I am situated. If
I had four hands — so that I could hold up two and — "
"Throttle him! Gag him! Kill him!"
' ' Gentlemen, don't! Nobody's watching the other
fellow. Why don't some of you — Ouch ! Take it
away, please! Gentlemen, you see that I've got to
hold up my hands; and so I can't take out my
money — but if you'll be so kind as to take it out for
me, I will do as much for you some — "
"Search him, Beauregard — and stop his jaw with
a bullet, quick, if he wags it again. Help, Beaure-
gard, Stonewall."
Then three of them, with the small, spry leader,
adjourned to Mike and fell to searching him. I was
so excited that my lawless fancy tortured me to ask
my two men all manner of facetious questions about
their rebel brother-generals of the South, but, con-
sidering the order they had received, it was but
common prudence to keep still. When everything
had been taken from me — watch, money, and a
multitude of trifles of small value — I supposed I
was free, and forthwith put my cold hands into my
empty pockets and began an inoffensive jig to warm
my feet and stir up some latent courage — but in-
stantly all pistols were at my head, and the order
came again:
"Be still! Put up your hands! And keep them
up!'
300
ROUGHING IT
They stood Mike up alongside of me, with strict
orders to keep his hands above his head, too, and
then the chief highwayman said:
"Beauregard, hide behind that boulder; Phil
Sheridan, you hide behind that other one; Stone-
wall Jackson, put yourself behind that sage-bush
there. Keep your pistols bearing on these fel-
lows, and if they take down their hands within
ten minutes, or move a single peg, let them have
it!"
Then three disappeared in the gloom toward the
several ambushes, and the other three disappeared
down the road toward Virginia.
It was depressingly still, and miserably cold.
Now, this whole thing was a practical joke, and the
robbers were personal friends of ours in disguise,
and twenty more lay hidden within ten feet of us
during the whole operation, listening. Mike knew
all of this, and was in the joke, but I suspected
nothing of it. To me it was most uncomfortably
genuine.
When we had stood there in the middle of the
road five minutes, like a couple of idiots, with our
hands aloft, freezing to death by inches, Mike's
interest in the joke began to wane. He said:
"The time's up, now, ain't it?"
"No, you keep still. Do you want to take any
chances with those bloody savages?"
Presently Mike said:
"Now the time's up, anyway. I'm freezing."
"Well, freeze. Better freeze than carry your
brains home in a basket. Maybe the time is up,
301
MARK TWAIN
but how do we know? — got no watch to tell by. I
mean to give them good measure. I calculate to
stand here fifteen minutes or die. Don't you
move."
So, without knowing it, I was making one joker
very sick of his contract. When we took our arms
down at last, they were aching with cold and fatigue,
and when we went sneaking off, the dread I was in
that the time might not yet be up and that we would
feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient to draw
all my attention from the misery that racked my
stiffened body.
The joke of these highwayman friends of ours was
mainly a joke upon themselves; for they had waited
for me on the cold hilltop two full hours before I
came, and there was very little fun in that; they
were so chilled that it took them a couple of weeks
to get warm again. Moreover, I never had a
thought that they would kill me to get money which
it was so perfectly easy to get without any such
folly, and so they did not really frighten me bad
enough to make their enjoyment worth the trouble
they had taken. I was only afraid that their
weapons would go off accidentally. Their very num-
bers inspired me with confidence that no blood would
be intentionally spilled. They were not smart ; they
ought to have sent only one highwayman, with a
double-barreled bhotgun, if they desired to see the
author of this volume climb a tree.
However, I suppose that in the long run I got the
largest share of the joke at last; and in a shape not
foreseen by the highwaymen; for the chilly expo-
302
ROUGHING IT
sure on the "divide" while I was in a perspiration
gave me a cold which developed itself into a trouble-
some disease and kept my hands idle some three
months, besides costing me quite a sum in doctors'
bills. Since then I play no practical jokes on peo-
ple and generally lose my temper when one is played
upon me.
When I returned to San Francisco I projected a
pleasure journey to Japan and thence westward
around the world; but a desire to see home again
changed my mind, and I took a berth in the steam-
ship, bade good-by to the friendliest land and
livest, heartiest community on our continent, and
came by the way of the Isthmus to New York — a
trip that was not much of a picnic excursion, for
the cholera broke out among us on the passage, and
we buried two or three bodies at sea every day. I
found home a dreary place after my long absence;
for half the children I had known were now wearing
whiskers or waterfalls, and few of the grown people
I had been acquainted with remained at their hearth-
stones prosperous and happy — some of them had
wandered to other scenes, some were in jail, and the
rest had been hanged. These changes touched me
deeply, and I went away and joined the famous
Quaker City European Excursion and carried my
tears to foreign lands.
Thus, after seven years of vicissitudes, ended a
pleasure trip ' ' to the silver-mines of Nevada which
had originally been intended to occupy only three
months. However, I usually miss my calculations
further than that.
303
MARK TWAIN
MORAL
If the reader thinks he is done, now, and that this
book has no moral to it, he is in error. The moral
of it is this: If you are of any account, stay at
home and make your way by faithful diligence; but
if you are "no account," go away from home, and
then you will have to work, whether you want to or
not. Thus you become a blessing to your friends
by ceasing to be a nuisance to them — if the people
you go among suffer by the operation.
APPENDIX
BRIEF SKETCH OF MORMON HISTORY
Mormonism is only about forty years old, but its career has
been full of stir and adventure from the beginning, and is likely
to remain so to the end. Its adherents have been hunted and
hounded from one end of the country to the other, and the
result is that for years they have hated all "Gentiles" indis-
criminately and with all their might. Joseph Smith, the finder
of the Book of Mormon and founder of the religion, was driven
from state to state with his mysterious copper plates and the
miraculous stones he read their inscriptions with. Finally he
instituted his "church" in Ohio, and Brigham Young joined it.
The neighbors began to persecute, and apostasy commenced.
Brigham held to the faith and worked hard. He arrested de-
sertion. He did more — he added converts in the midst of the
trouble. He rose in favor and importance with the brethren.
He was made one of the Twelve Apostles of the Church. He
shortly fought his way to a higher post and a more powerful
— President of the Twelve. The neighbors rose up and drove
the Mormons out of Ohio, and they settled in Missouri. Brig-
ham went with them. The Missourians drove them out, and
they retreated to Nauvoo, Illinois. They prospered there, and
built a temple which made some pretensions to architectural
grace and achieved some celebrity in a section of country where
a brick court-house with a tin dome and a cupola on it was
contemplated with reverential awe. But the Mormons were
badgered and harried again by their neighbors. All the
proclamations Joseph Smith could issue denouncing polygamy
and repudiating it as utterly anti-Mormon were of no avail;
3°5
MARK TWAIN
the people of the neighborhood, on both sides of the Mississippi,
claimed that polygamy was practised by the Mormons, and not-
only polygamy but a little of everything that was bad. Brigham
returned from a mission to England, where he had established
a Mormon newspaper, and he brought back with him several
hundred converts to his preaching. His influence among the
brethren augmented with every move he made. Finally,
Nauvoo was invaded by the Missouri and Illinois Gentiles, and
Joseph Smith killed. A Mormon named Rigdon assumed the
presidency of the Mormon church and government, in Smith's
place, and even tried his hand at a prophecy or two. But a
greater than he was at hand. Brigham seized the advantage of
the hour and without other authority than superior brain and
nerve and will, hurled Rigdon from his high place and occupied
it himself. He did more. He launched an elaborate curse at
Rigdon and his disciples; and he pronounced Rigdon's "proph-
ecies" emanations from the devil, and ended by "handing the
false prophet over to the bufferings of Satan for a thousand
years" — probably the longest term ever inflicted in Illinois.
The people recognized their master. They straightway elected
Brigham Young President, by a prodigious majority, and have
never faltered in their devotion to him from that day to this.
Brigham had forecast — a quality which no other prominent
Mormon has probably ever possessed. He recognized that it
was better to move to the wilderness than be moved. By his
command the people gathered together their meager effects,
turned their backs upon their homes, and their faces toward the
wilderness, and on a bitter night in February filed in sorrowful
procession across the frozen Mississippi, lighted on their way
by the glare from their burning temple, whose sacred furniture
their own hands had fired! They camped, several days after-
ward, on the western verge of Iowa, and poverty, want, hunger,
cold, sickness, grief, and persecution did their work, and many
succumbed and died — martyrs, fair and true, whatever else
they might have been. Two years the remnant remained there,
while Brigham and a small party crossed the country and
founded Great Salt Lake City, purposely choosing a land which
was outside the ownership and jurisdiction of the hated American
nation. Note that. This was in 1847. Brigham moved his
people there and got them settled just in time to see disaster
fall again. For the war closed and Mexico ceded Brigham's
306
ROUGHING IT
refuge to the enemy — the United States! In 1849 the Mor-
mons organized a "free and independent" government and
erected the "state of Deseret," with Brigham Young as its head.
But the very next year Congress deliberately snubbed it and
created the "territory of Utah" out of the same accumulation
of mountains, sage-brush, alkali, and general desolation — but
made Brigham Governor of it. Then for years the enormous
migration across the plains to California poured through the
land of the Mormons, and yet the church remained stanch and
true to its lord and master. Neither hunger, thirst, poverty,
grief, hatred, contempt, nor persecution could drive the Mor-
mons from their faith or their allegiance; and even the thirst
for gold, which gleaned the flower of the youth and strength of
many nations, was not able to entice them! That was the final
test. An experiment that could survive that was an experi-
ment with some substance to it somewhere.
Great Salt Lake City throve finely, and so did Utah. One
of the last things which Brigham Young had done before leaving
Iowa, was to appear in the pulpit dressed to personate the
worshiped and lamented prophet Smith, and confer the prophetic
succession, with all its dignities, emoluments, and authorities,
upon "President Brigham Young"! The people accepted the
pious fraud with the maddest enthusiasm, and Brigham's power
was sealed and secured for all time. Within five years after-
ward he openly added polygamy to the tenets of the church by
authority of a "revelation" which he pretended had been
received nine years before by Joseph Smith, albeit Joseph is
amply on record as denouncing polygamy to the day of his death.
Now was Brigham become a second Andrew Johnson in the
small beginning and steady progress in his official grandeur.
He had served successively as a disciple in the ranks; home
missionary; foreign missionary; editor and publisher; Apostle;
President of the Board of Apostles ; President of all Mormondom,
civil and ecclesiastical ; successor to the great Joseph by the will
of Heaven; "prophet," "seer," "revelator." There was but one
dignity higher which he could aspire to, and he reached out
modestly and took that — he proclaimed himself a God!
He claims that he is to have a heaven of his own hereafter, and
that he will be its God, and his wives and children its goddesses,
princes and princesses. Into it all faithful Mormons will be
admitted, with their families, and will take rank and consequence
307
MARK TWAIN
according to the number of their wives and children. If a
disciple dies before he has had time to accumulate enough
wives and children to enable him to be respectable in the next
world any friend can marry a few wives and raise a few children
for him after he is dead, and they are duly credited to his account
and his heavenly status advanced accordingly.
Let it be borne in mind that the majority of the Mormons
have always been ignorant, simple, of an inferior order of
intellect, unacquainted with the world and its ways; and let it
be borne in mind that the wives of these Mormons are neces-
sarily after the same pattern, and their children likely to be fit
representatives of such a conjunction; and then let it be remem-
bered that for forty years these creatures have been driven,
driven, driven, relentlessly! and mobbed, beaten, and shot down;
cursed, despised, expatriated; banished to a remote desert,
whither they journeyed gaunt with famine and disease, dis-
turbing the ancient solitudes with their lamentations and mark-
ing the long way with graves of their dead — and all because they
were simply trying to live and worship God in the way which
they believed with all their hearts and souls to be the true one.
Let all these things be borne in mind, and then it will not be
hard to account for the deathless hatred which the Mormons
bear our people and our government.
That hatred has "fed fat its ancient grudge" ever since
Mormon Utah developed into a self-supporting realm and the
church waxed rich and strong. Brigham as Territorial Governor
made it plain that Mormondom was for the Mormons. The
United States tried to rectify all that by appointing territorial
officers from New England and other anti-Mormon localities,
but Brigham prepared to make their entrance into his do-
minions difficult. Three thousand United States troops had to
go across the plains and put these gentlemen in office. And
after they were in office they were as helpless as so many stone
images. They made laws which nobody minded and which
could not be executed. The federal judges opened court in a
land filled with crime and violence and sat as holiday spectacles
for insolent crowds to gape at — for there was nothing to try,
nothing to do, nothing on the dockets! And if a Gentile brought
a suit, the Mormon jury would do just as it pleased about
bringing in a verdict, and when the judgment of the court was
rendered no Mormon cared for it and no officer could execute it.
308
ROUGHING IT
Our Presidents shipped one cargo of officials after another to
Utah, but the result was always the same — they sat in a blight
for a while, they fairly feasted on scowls and insults day by day,
they saw every attempt to do their official duties find its reward
in darker and darker looks, and in secret threats and warnings
of a more and more dismal nature — and at last they either
succumbed and became despised tools and toys of the Mormons,
or got scared and discomforted beyond all endurance and left
the territory. If a brave officer kept on courageously till his
pluck was proven, some pliant Buchanan or Pierce would remove
him and appoint a stick in his place. In 1857 General Harney
came very near being appointed Governor of Utah. And so it
came very near being Harney governor and Cradlebaugh judge!
— two men who never had any idea of fear further than the sort
of murky comprehension of it which they were enabled to gather
from the dictionary. Simply (if for nothing else) for the variety
they would have made in a rather monotonous history of federal
servility and helplessness, it is a pity they were not fated to
hold office together in Utah.
Up to the date of our visit to Utah, such had been the terri-
torial record. The territorial government established there had
been a hopeless failure, and Brigham Young was the only real
power in the land. He was an absolute monarch — a monarch
who defied our President — a monarch who laughed at our armies
when they camped about his capital — a monarch who received
without emotion the news that the august Congress of the
United States had enacted a solemn law against polygamy, and
then went forth calmly and married twenty-five or thirty
more wives.
B
THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE
The persecutions which the Mormons suffered so long — and
which they consider they still suffer in not being allowed to
govern themselves — they have endeavored and are still endeavor-
ing to repay. The now almost forgotten " Mountain Meadows
massacre " was their work. It was very famous in its day. The
whole United States lang with its horrors. A few items will re-
fresh the reader's memory. A great emigrant-train from Mis-
souri and Arkansas passed through Salt Lake City, and a few
disaffected Mormons joined it for the sake of the strong protec-
tion it afforded for their escape. In that matter lay sufficient
cause for hot retaliation by the Mormon chiefs. Besides, these
one hundred and forty-five or one hundred and fifty unsuspecting
emigrants being in part from Arkansas, where a noted Mormon
missionary had lately been killed, and in part from Missouri, a
state remembered with execrations as a bitter persecutor of the
saints when they were few and poor and friendless, here were
substantial additional grounds for lack of love for these way-
farers. And finally, this train was rich, very rich in cattle,
horses, mules, and other property — and how could the Mormons
consistently keep up their coveted resemblance to the Israelitish
tribes and not seize the "spoil" of an enemy when the Lord had
so manifestly "delivered it into their hand"?
Wherefore, according to Mrs. C. V. Waite's entertaining book,
The Mormon Prophet, it transpired that —
"A 'revelation' from Brigham Young, as Great Grand Archee
or God, was despatched to President J. C. Haight, Bishop
Higbee, and J. D. Lee (adopted son of Brigham), commanding
them to raise all the forces they could muster and trust, follow
those cursed Gentiles (so read the revelation), attack them
disguised as Indians, and with the arrows of the Almighty make
a clean sweep of them, and leave none to tell the tale; and if
31c
ROUGHING IT
they needed any assistance they were commanded to hire the
Indians as their allies, promising them a share of the booty.
They were to be neither slothful nor negligent in their duty,
and to be punctual in sending the teams back to him before
winter set in, for this was the mandate of Almighty God."
The command of the "revelation" was faithfully obeyed. A
large party of Mormons, painted and tricked out as Indians,
overtook the train of emigrant-wagons some three hundred miles
south of Salt Lake City, and made an attack. But the emi-
grants threw up earthworks, made fortresses of their wagons,
and defended themselves gallantly and successfully for five days!
Your Missouri or Arkansas gentleman is not much afraid of the
sort of scurvy apologies for "Indians" which the southern part
of Utah affords. He would stand up and fight five hundred
of them.
At the end of the five days the Mormons tried military
strategy. They retired to the upper end of the "Meadows,"
resumed civilized apparel, washed off their paint, and then,
heavily armed, drove down in wagons to the beleaguered
emigrants, bearing a flag of truce! When the emigrants saw
white men coming they threw down their guns and welcomed
them with cheer after cheer! And, all unconscious of the poetry
of it, no doubt, they lifted a little child aloft, dressed in white,
in answer to the flag of truce!
The leaders of the timely white "deliverers" were President
Haight and Bishop John D. Lee, of the Mormon Church. Mr.
Cradlebaugh, who served a term as a federal judge in Utah
and afterward was sent to Congress from Nevada, tells in a
speech delivered in Congress how these leaders next pro-
ceeded :
"They professed to be on good terms with the Indians, and
represented them as being very mad. They also proposed to
intercede and settle the matter with the Indians. After several
hours' parley they, having (apparently) visited the Indians, gave
the ultimatum of the savages; which was, that the emigrants
should march out of their camp, leaving everything behind them,
even their guns. It was promised by the Mormon bishops that
they would bring a force and guard the emigrants back to the
settlements. The terms were agreed to, the emigrants being
desirous of saving the lives of their families. The Mormons
retired, and subsequently appeared with thirty or forty armed
3ii
MARK TWAIN
men. The emigrants were marched out, the women and children
in front and the men behind, the Mormon guard being in the
rear. When they had marched in this way about a mile, at a
given signal the slaughter commenced. The men were almost all
shot down at the first fire from the guard. Two only escaped,
who fled to the desert, and were followed one hundred and fifty
miles before they were overtaken and slaughtered. The women
and children ran on, two or three hundred yards further, when
they were overtaken and with the aid of the Indians they were
slaughtered. Seventeen individuals only, of all the emigrant
party, were spared, and they were little children, the eldest of
them being only seven years old. Thus, on the ioth day of
September, 1857, was consummated one of the most cruel,
cowardly, and bloody murders known in our history."
The number of persons butchered by the Mormons on this
occasion was one hundred and twenty.
With unheard-of temerity Judge Cradlebaugh opened his court
and proceeded to make Mormondom answer for the massacre.
And what a spectacle it must have been to see this grim
veteran, solitary and alone in his pride and his pluck, glower-
ing down on his Mormon jury and Mormon auditory, deriding
them by turns, and by turns "breathing threatenings and
-slaughter"!
An editorial in the Territorial Enterprise of that day says of
him and of the occasion:
"He spoke and acted with the fearlessness and resolution of a
Jackson; but the jury failed to indict, or even report on the
charges, while threats of violence were heard in every quarter,
and an attack on the U. S. troops intimated, if he persisted in
his course.
"Finding that nothing could be done with the juries, they were
discharged, with a scathing rebuke from the judge. And then,
sitting as a committing magistrate, he commenced his task alone.
He examined witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and
created a consternation in the camps of the saints greater than
any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom was
born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were de-
camping to save their necks; and developments of the most
startling character were being made, implicating the highest
Church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies com-
mitted upon the Gentiles during the past eight years."
312
ROUGHING IT
Had Harney been Governor, Cradlebaugh would have been
supported in his work, and the absolute proofs adduced by him
of Mormon guilt in this massacre and in a number of previous
murders, would have conferred gratuitous coffins upon certain
citizens, together with occasion to use them. But Cumming was
the federal Governor, and he, under a curious pretense of
impartiality, sought to screen the Mormons from the demands
of justice. On one occasion he even went so far as to publish
his protest against the use of the U. S. troops in aid of Cradle-
baugh's proceedings.
Mrs. C. V. Waite closes her interesting detail of the great
massacre with the following remark and accompanying summary
of the testimony — and the summary is concise, accurate, and
reliable:
" For the benefit of those who may still be disposed to doubt
the guilt of Young and his Mormons in this transaction, the
testimony is here collated and circumstances given which go not
merely to implicate but to fasten conviction upon them by ' con-
firmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ':
"i. The evidence of Mormons themselves, engaged in the
affair, as shown by the statements of Judge Cradlebaugh and
Deputy U. S. Marshal Rodgers.
" 2. The failure of Brigham Young to embody any account of
it in his Report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Also his
failure to make any allusion to it whatever from the pulpit, until
several years after the occurrence.
"3. The flight to the mountains of men high in authority in
the Mormon Church and state, when this affair was brought to
the ordeal of a judicial investigation.
"4. The failure of the Deseret News, the Church organ, and the
only paper then published in the territory, to notice the massacre
until several months afterward, and then only to deny that
Mormons were engaged in it.
" 5. The testimony of the children saved from the massacre.
"6. The children and the property of the emigrants found in
possession of the Mormons, and that possession traced back
to the very day after the massacre.
"7. The statements of Indians in the neighborhood of the
scene of the massacre; these statements are shown, not only by
Cradlebaugh and Rodgers, but by a number of military officers,
and by J. Forney, who was, in 1850, Superintendent of Indian
313
MARK TWAIN
Affairs for the territory. To all these were such statements
freely and frequently made by the Indians.
"8. The testimony of R. P. Campbell, Capt. 2d Dragoons,
who was sent in the spring of 1859 to Santa Clara, to protect
travelers on the road to California and to inquire into Indian
depredations."
CONCERNING A FRIGHTFUL ASSASSINATION THAT
WAS NEVER CONSUMMATED
[If ever there was a harmless man, it is Conrad Wiegand, of Gold
Hill, Nevada. If ever there was a gentle spirit that thought it-
self unfired gunpowder and latent ruin, it is Conrad Wiegand.
If ever there was an oyster that fancied itself a whale; or a jack-
o'-lantern, confined to a swamp, that fancied itself a planet with
a billion-mile orbit; or a summer zephyr that deemed itself a
hurricane, it is Conrad Wiegand. Therefore, what wonder is it
that when he says a thing, he thinks the world listens; that when
he does a thing the world stands still to look ; and that when he
suffers, there is a convulsion of nature? When I met Conrad,
he was "Superintendent of the Gold Hill Assay Office" — and he
was not only its Superintendent, but its entire force. And he
was a street preacher, too, with a mongrel religion of his own
invention, whereby he expected to regenerate the universe.
This was years ago. Here latterly he has entered journalism;
and his journalism is what it might be expected to be: colossal
to ear, but pygmy to the eye. It is extravagant grandiloquence
confined to a newspaper about the size of a double letter-sheet-
He doubtless edits, sets the type, and prints his paper, all alone;
but he delights to speak of the concern as if it occupies a block
and employs a thousand men.
[Something less than two years ago, Conrad assailed several
people mercilessly in his little People's Tribune, and got him-
self into trouble. Straightway he airs the affair in the Terri-
torial Enterprise, in a communication over his own signature,
and I propose to reproduce it here, in all its native simplicity
and more than human candor. Long as it is, it is well worth
reading, for it is the richest specimen of journalistic literature
the history of America can furnish, perhaps:]
315
MARK TWAIN
From the Territorial Enterprise, January 20, 1870.
A SEEMING PLOT FOR ASSASSINATION MISCARRIED
To the Editor of the Enterprise: Months ago, when Mr.
Sutro incidentally exposed mining management on the Comstock,
and among others roused me to protest against its continuance,
in great kindness you warned me that any attempt by publica-
tions, by public meetings, and by legislative action, aimed at
the correction of chronic mining evils in Storey County, must
entail upon me (a) business ruin, (b) the burden of all its costs,
(c) personal violence, and if my purpose were persisted in, then
(d) assassination, and after all nothing would be effected.
YOUR PROPHECY FULFILLING
In large part at least your prophecies have been fulfilled, for
(a) assaying, which was well attended to in the Gold Hill Assay
Office (of which I am superintendent), in consequence of my
publications, has been taken elsewhere, so the President of one
of the companies assures me. With no reason assigned, other
work has been taken away. With but one or two important
exceptions, our assay business now consists simply of the glean-
ings of the vicinity, (b) Though my own personal donations to
the People's Tribune Association have already exceeded $1,500,
outside of our own numbers we have received (in money) less
than $300 as contributions and subscriptions for the journal.
(c) On Thursday last, on the main street in Gold Hill, near noon,
with neither warning nor cause assigned, by a powerful blow I
was felled to the ground, and while down I was kicked by a man
who it would seem had been led to believe that I had spoken
derogatorily of him. By whom he was so induced to believe
I am as yet unable to say. On Saturday last I was again assailed
and beaten by a man who first informed me why he did so, and
who persisted in making his assault even after the erroneous
impression under which he also was at first laboring had been
clearly and repeatedly pointed out. This same man, after failing
through intimidation to elicit from me the names of our editorial
contributors, against giving which he knew me to be pledged,
beat himself weary upon me with a rawhide, I not resisting, and
then pantingly threatened me with permanent disfiguring may-
hem, if ever again I should introduce his name into print, and
who but a few minutes before his attack upon me assured me
316
ROUGHING IT
that the only reason I was "permitted" to reach home alive on
Wednesday evening last (at which time the People's Tribune
was issued) was, that he deems me only half-witted, and be it
remembered the very next morning I was knocked down and
kicked by a man who seemed to be prepared for flight.
[He sees doom impending:]
WHEN WILL THE CIRCLE JOIN?
How long before the whole of your prophecy will be fulfilled
I cannot say, but under the shadow of so much fulfilment in so
short a time, and with such threats from a man who is one of
the most prominent exponents of the San Francisco mining-ring
staring me and this whole community defiantly in the face and
pointing to a completion of your augury, do you blame me for
feeling that this communication is the last I shall ever write
for the Press, especially when a sense alike of personal self-
respect, of duty to this money-oppressed and fear-ridden com-
munity, and of American fealty to the spirit of true Liberty
all command me, and each more loudly than love of life itself,
to declare the name of that prominent man to be JOHN B.
WINTERS, President of the Yellow Jacket Company, a political
aspirant and a military General? The name of his partially
duped accomplice and abettor in this last marvelous assault,
is no other than PHILIP LYNCH, Editor and Proprietor of
the Gold Hill News.
Despite the insult and wrong heaped upon me by John B.
Winters, on Saturday afternoon, only a glimpse of which I shall
be able to afford your readers, so much do I deplore clinching
(by publicity) a serious mistake of any one, man or woman,
committed under natural and not self -wrought passion, in view
of his great apparent excitement at the time and in view of the
almost perfect privacy of the assault, I am far from sure that I
should not have given him space for repentance before exposing
him, were it not that he himself has so far exposed the matter
as to make it the common talk of the town that he has horse-
whipped me. That fact having been made public, all the facts
in connection need to be also, or silence on my part would seem
more than singular, and with many would be proof either that
I was conscious of some unworthy aim in publishing the article,
or else that my "non-combatant" principles are but a convenient
cloak alike of physical and moral cowardice. I therefore shall
317
MARK TWAIN
try to present a graphic but truthful picture of this whole affair,
but shall forbear all comments, presuming that the editors
of our own journal, if others do not, will speak freely and fittingly
upon this subject in our next number, whether I shall then be
dead or living, for my death will not stop, though it may suspend,
the publication of the People's Tribune.
[The "non-combatcuit" sticks to principle, but takes along a
friend or two of a conveniently different stripe:]
THE TRAP SET
On Saturday morning John B. Winters sent verbal word to the
Gold Hill Assay Office that he desired to see me at the Yellow
Jacket office. Though such a request struck me as decidedly
cool in view of his own recent discourtesies to rne there alike as a
publisher and as a stockholder in the Yellow Jacket mine, and
though it seemed to me more like a summons than the courteous
request by one gentleman to another for a favor, hoping that
some conference with Sharon looking to the betterment of min-
ing matters in Nevada might arise from it, I felt strongly inclined
to overlook what possibly was simply an oversight in courtesy.
But as then it had only been two days since I had been bruised
and beaten under a hasty and false apprehension of facts, my
caution was somewhat aroused. Moreover I remembered
sensitively his contemptuousness of manner to me at my last
interview in his office. I therefore felt it needful, if I went at
all, to go accompanied by a friend whom he would not dare to
treat with incivility, and whose presence with me might secure
exemption from insult. Accordingly I asked a neighbor to
accompany me.
THE TRAP ALMOST DETECTED
Although I was not then aware of this fact, it would seem that
previous to my request this same neighbor had heard Dr.
Zabriskie state publicly in a saloon, that Mr. Winters had told
him he had decided either to kill or to horsewhip me, but had
not finally decided on which. My neighbor, therefore, felt
unwilling to go down with me until he had first called on Mr.
Winters alone. He therefore paid him a visit. From that
interview he assured me that he gathered the impression that
3i8
ROUGHING IT
he did not believe I would have any difficulty with Mr. Winters,
and that he (Winters) would call on me at four o'clock in my
own office.
MY OWN PRECAUTIONS
As Sheriff Cummings was in Gold Hill that afternoon, and as I
desired to converse with him about the previous assault, I in-
vited him to my office, and he came. Although a half-hour had
passed beyond four o'clock, Mr. Winters had not called, and we
both of us began preparing to go home. Just then, Philip
Lynch, publisher of the Gold Hill News, came in and said,
blandly and cheerily, as if bringing good news:
"Hello, John B. Winters wants to see you."
I replied, "Indeed! Why, he sent me word that he would
call on me here this afternoon at four o'clock!"
"Oh, well, it don't do to be too ceremonious just now,
he's in my office, and that will do as well — come on in, Winters
wants to consult with you alone. He's got something to say to
you."
Though slightly uneasy at this change of program, yet be-
lieving that in an editor's house I ought to be safe, and anyhow
that I would be within hail of the street, I hurriedly, and but
partially whispered my dim apprehensions to Mr. Cummings,
and asked him if he would not keep near enough to hear my voice
in case I should call. He consented to do so while waiting for
some other parties, and to come in if he heard my voice or
thought I had need of protection.
On reaching the editorial part of the News office, which viewed
from the street is dark, I did not see Mr. Winters, and again my
misgivings arose. Had I paused long enough to consider the case
I should have invited Sheriff Cummings in, but as Lynch went
down-stairs, he said: "This way, Wiegand — it's best to be
private," or some such remark.
[I do not desire to strain the reader's fancy hurtfully, and yet
it would be a favor to me if he would try to fancy this lamb
in battle, or the dueling-ground or at the head of a vigilance
committee. — M. T.:]
I followed, and without Mr. Cummings, and without arms,
which I never do or will carry, unless as a soldier in war, or unless
I should yet come to feel I must fight a duel, or to join and aid
in the ranks of a necessary Vigilance Committee. But by fol-
319
MARK TWAIN
lowing I made a fatal mistake. Following was entering a trap,
and whatever animal suffers itself to be caught should expect
the common fate of a caged rat, as I fear events to come will
prove.
Traps commonly are not set for benevolence.
[His body-guard is shtit out.]
THE TRAP INSIDE
I followed Lynch down-stairs. At their foot a door to the left
opened into a small room. From that room another door opened
into yet another room, and once entered I found myself inveigled
into what many will ever henceforth regard as a private sub-
terranean Gold Hill den, admirably adapted in proper hands to
the purposes of murder, raw or disguised, for from it, with both
or even one door closed, when too late, I saw that I could not be
heard by Sheriff Cummings, and from it, BY VIOLENCE AND
BY FORCE, I was prevented from making a peaceable exit,
when I thought I saw the studious object of this "consultation"
was no other than to compass my killing, in the presence of Philip
Lynch as a witness, as soon as by insult a proverbially excitable
man should be exasperated to the point of assailing Mr. Winters,
so that Mr. Lynch, by his conscience and by his well-known
tenderness of heart toward the rich and potent would be com-
pelled to testify that he saw Gen. John B. Winters kill Conrad
Wiegand in "self-defense." But I am going too fast.
OUR HOST
Mr. Lynch was present during the most of the time (say a
little short of an hour), but three times he left the room. His
testimony, therefore, would be available only as to the bulk of
what transpired. On entering this carpeted den I was invited
to a seat near one corner of the room. Mr. Lynch took a seat
near the window. J. B. Winters sat (at first) near the door, and
began his remarks essentially as follows:
"I have come here to exact of you a retraction, in black and
white, of those damnably false charges which you have preferred
against me in that infamous lying sheet of yours, and
you must declare yourself their author, that you published
them knowing them to be false, and that your motives were
malicious."
"Hold, Mr. Winters. Your language is insulting and your
320
ROUGHING IT
demand an enormity. I trust I was not invited here either to
be insulted or coerced. I supposed myself here by invitation of
Mr. Lynch, at your request."
"Nor did I come here to insult you. I have already told you
that I am here for a very different purpose."
"Yet your language has been offensive, and even now shows
strong excitement. If insult is repeated I shall either leave the
room or call in Sheriff Cummings, whom I just left standing
and waiting for me outside the door."
"No, you won't, sir. You may just as well understand it at
once as not. Here you are my man, and I'll tell you why!
Months ago you put your property out of your hands, boasting
that you did so to escape losing it on prosecution for libel."
"It is true that I did convert all my immovable property into
personal property, such as I could trust safely to others, and
chiefly to escape ruin through possible libel suits."
"Very good, sir. Having placed yourself beyond the pale of
the law, may God help your soul if you DON'T make precisely
such a retraction as I have demanded. I've got you now, and
by before you can get out of this room you've got to both
write and sign precisely the retraction I have demanded, and
before you go, anyhow — you low-lived lying
I'll teach you what personal responsibility is outside of the
law; and, by , Sheriff Cummings and all the friends you've
got in the world besides, can't save you, you , etc!
No, sir. I'm alone now, and I'm prepared to be shot down
just here and now rather than be vilified by you as I have been,
and suffer you to escape me after publishing those charges, not
only here where I am known and universally respected, but
where I am not personally known and may be injured."
I confess this speech, with its terrible and but too plainly
implied threat of killing me if I did not sign the paper he de-
manded, terrified me, especially as I saw he was working himself
up to the highest possible pitch of passion, and instinct told me
that any reply other than one of seeming concession to his
demands would only be fuel to a raging fire, so I replied :
"Well, if I've got to sign ," and then I paused some time.
Resuming, I said, "But, Mr. Winters, you are greatly excited.
Besides, I see you are laboring under a total misapprehension.
It is your duty not to inflame but to calm yourself. I am pre-
pared to show you, if you will only point out the article that you
321
MARK TWAIN
allude to, that you regard as 'charges' what no calm and logical
mind has any right to regard as such. Show me the charges,
and I will try, at all events; and if it becomes plain that no
charges have been preferred, then plainly there can be nothing
to retract, and no one could rightly urge you to demand a re-
traction. You should beware of making so serious a mistake,
for however honest a man may be, every one is liable to mis-
apprehend. Besides you assume that / am the author of some
certain article which you have not pointed out. It is hasty
to do so."
He then pointed to some numbered paragraphs in a Tribune
article, headed "What's the Matter with Yellow Jacket?" saying
"That's what I refer to."
To gain time for general reflection and resolution, I took
up the paper and looked it over for a while, he remaining silent,
and as I hoped, cooling. I then resumed, saying, "As I sup-
posed. I do not admit having written that article, nor have you
any right to assume so important a point, and then base im-
portant action upon your assumption. You might deeply
regret it afterward. In my published Address to the People
I notified the world that no information as to the authorship of
any article would be given without the consent of the writer.
I therefore cannot honorably tell you who wrote that article,
nor can you exact it."
" If you are not the author, then I do demand to know who is?"
"I must decline to say."
"Then, by , I brand you as its author, and shall treat
you accordingly."
"Passing that point, the most important misapprehension
which I notice is, that you regard them as 'charges' at all,
when their context, both at their beginning and end, show they
are not. These words introduce them: 'Such an investigation
[just before indicated] we think MIGHT result in showing some
of the following points' Then follow eleven specifications, and
the succeeding paragraph shows that the suggested investigation
'might EXONERATE those who are generally believed guilty.'
You see, therefore, the context proves they are not preferred
as charges, and this you seem to have overlooked."
While making those comments, Mr. Winters frequently
interrupted me in such a way as to convince me that he was
resolved not to consider candidly the thoughts contained in my
322
ROUGHING IT
words. He insisted upon it that they were charges, and "By
," he would make me take them back as charges, and he
referred the question to Philip Lynch, to whom I then appealed
as a literary man, as a logician, and as an editor, calling his
attention especially to the introductory paragraph just before
quoted.
He replied, "If they are not charges, they certainly are in-
sinuations," whereupon Mr. Winters renewed his demands for
retraction precisely such as he had before named, except that
he would allow me to state who did write the article if I did not
myself, and this time shaking his fist in my face with more
cursings and epithets.
When he threatened me with his clenched fist, instinctively
I tried to rise from my chair, but Winters then forcibly thrust
me down, as he did every other time (at least seven or eight),
when under similar imminent danger of bruising by his fist
(or for aught I could know worse than that after the first stun-
ning blow), which he could easily and safely to himself have
dealt me so long as he kept me down and stood over me.
This fact it was, which more than anything else, convinced me
that by plan and plot I was purposely made powerless in Mr.
Winters's hands, and that he did not mean to allow me that
advantage of being afoot, which he possessed. Moreover, I
then became convinced that Philip Lynch (and for what reason
I wondered) would do absolutely nothing to protect me in his
own house. I realized then the situation thoroughly. I had
found it equally vain to protest or argue, and I would make no
unmanly appeal for pity, still less apologize. Yet my life had
been by the plainest possible implication threatened. I was a
weak man. I was unarmed. I was helplessly down, and Win-
ters was afoot and probably armed. Lynch was the only
"witness." The statements demanded, if given and not ex-
plained, would utterly sink me in my own self-respect, in my
family's eyes, and in the eyes of the community. On the other
hand, should I give the author's name how could I ever expect
that confidence of the People which I should no longer deserve,
and how much dearer to me and to my family was my life than
the life of the real author to his friends. Yet life seemed dear
and each minute that remained seemed precious, if not solemn.
I sincerely trust that neither you nor any of your readers, and
especially none with families, may ever be placed in such seem-
MARK TWAIN
ing direct proximity to death while obliged to decide the on*
question I was compelled to — viz. : What should I do — I, a man
of family, and not as Mr. Winters is, "alone."
[The reader is requested not to skip the following. — M. T.:]
STRATEGY AND MESMERISM
To gain time for further reflection, and hoping that by a
seeming acquiescence I might regain my personal liberty, at least
till I could give an alarm, or take advantage of some momentary
inadvertence of Winters, and then without a cowardly flight
escape, I resolved to write a certain kind of retraction, but
previously had inwardly decided
First. — That I would studiously avoid every action which
might be construed into the drawing of a weapon, even by a self-
infuriated man, no matter what amount of insult might be heaped
upon me, for it seemed to me that this great excess of compound
profanity, foulness and epithet must be more than a mere in-
dulgence, and therefore must have some object. "Surely in vain
the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Therefore, as before
without thought, I thereafter by intent kept my hands away
from my pockets, and generally in sight and spread upon my
knees.
Second. — I resolved to make no motion with my arms or hands
which could possibly be construed into aggression.
Third. — I resolved completely to govern my outward manner
and suppress indignation. To do this, I must govern my spirit.
To do that, by force of imagination I was obliged like actors on
the boards to resolve myself into an unnatural mental state and
see all things through the eyes of an assumed character.
Fourth. — I resolved to try on Winters, silently, and uncon-
sciously to himself, a mesmeric power which I possess over
certain kinds of people, and which at times I have found to
work even in the dark over the lower animals.
Does any one smile at these last counts? God save you from
ever being obliged to beat in a game of chess, whose stake is your
life, you having but four poor pawns and pieces and your ad-
versary with his full force unshorn. But if you are, provided
you have any strength with breadth of will, do not despair.
Though mesmeric power may not save you, it may help you;
try it at all events. In this instance I was conscious of power
coming into me, and by a law of nature, I know Winters was
324
ROUGHING IT
correspondingly weakened. If I could have gained more time
I am sure he would not even have struck me.
It takes time both to form such resolutions and to recite
them. That time, however, I gained while thinking of my
retraction, which I first wrote in pencil, altering it from time to
time till I got it to suit me, my aim being to make it look like a
concession to demands, while in fact it should tersely speak the
truth into Mr. Winters 's mind. When it was finished, I copied it
in ink, and if correctly copied from my first draft it should read
as follows. In copying I do not think I made any material
change.
COPY
To Philip Lynch, Editor of the Gold Hill News: I learn that
Gen. John B. Winters believes the following (pasted on) clipping
from the People's Tribune of January to contain distinct
charges of mine against him personally, and that as such he
desires me to retract them unqualifiedly.
In compliance with his request, permit me to say that, al-
though Mr. Winters and I see this matter differently, in view of
his strong feelings in the premises, I hereby declare that I do
not know those "charges" (if such they are) to be true, and I
hope that a critical examination would altogether disprove them.
Gold Hill, January 15, 1870. CONRAD WIEGAND.
I then read what I had written and handed it to Mr. Lynch,
whereupon Mr. Winters said:
" That's not satisfactory, and it won't do "; and then addressing
himself to Mr. Lynch, he further said: "How does it strike you?"
"Well, I confess I don't see that it retracts anything."
"Nor do I," said Winters; "in fact, I regard it as adding
insult to injury. Mr. Wiegand, you've got to do better than
that. You are not the man who can pull wool over my eyes."
"That, sir, is the only retraction I can write."
" No, it isn't, sir, and if you so much as say so again you do it at
your peril, for I'll thrash you to within an inch of your life, and
by , sir, I don't pledge myself to spare you even that inch
either. I want you to understand I have asked you for a very
different paper, and that paper you've got to sign."
"Mr. Winters, I assure you that I do not wish to irritate you,
but, at the same time, it is utterly impossible for me to write any
325
MARK TWAIN
other paper than that which I have written. If you are resolved
to compel me to sign something, Philip Lynch 's hand must write
at your dictation, and if, when written, I can sign it I will do so,
but such a document as you say you must have from me, I
never can sign. I mean what I say."
"Well, sir, what's to be done must be done quickly, for I've
been here long enough already. I'll put the thing in another
shape (and then pointing to the paper); don't you know those
charges to be false?"
"I do not."
" Do you know them to be true?"
"Of my own personal knowledge I do not."
"Why then did you print them?"
"Because rightly considered in their connection they are not
charges, but pertinent and useful suggestions in answer to the
queries of a correspondent who stated facts which are inex-
plicable."
"Don't you know that / know they are false?"
"If you do, the proper course is simply to deny them and
court an investigation."
"And do YOU claim the right to make ME come out and
deny anything you may choose to write and print?"
To that question I think I made no reply, and he then further
said: "Come, now, we've talked about the matter long enough.
I want your final answer — did you write that article or not?"
"I cannot in honor tell you who wrote it."
"Did you not see it before it was printed?"
"Most certainly, sir."
"And did you deem it a fit thing to publish?"
"Most assuredly, sir, or I would never have consented to
its appearance. Of its authorship I can say nothing whatever,
but for its publication, I assume full, sole and personal responsi-
bility."
"And do you then retract it or not?"
"Mr. Winters, if my refusal to sign such a paper as you have
demanded must entail upon me all that your language in this
room fairly implies, then I ask a few minutes for prayer."
"Prayer! you, this is not your hour for prayer — your
time to pray was when you were writing those lying charges.
WiH you sign or not?"
"You already have my answer."
326
ROUGHING IT
"What! do you still refuse?"
"I do, sir."
"Take that, then," and to my amazement and inexpressible
relief he drew only a rawhide instead of what I expected — a
bludgeon or pistol. With it, as he spoke, he struck at my left
ear downward, as if to tear it off, and afterward on the side
of the head. As he moved away to get a better chance for a
more effective shot, for the first time I gained a chance under
peril to rise, and I did so pitying him from the very bottom of
my soul, to think that one so naturally capable of true dignity,
power, and nobility could, by the temptations of this state, and
by unfortunate associations and aspirations, be so deeply de-
based as to find in such brutality anything which he could call
satisfaction — but the great hope for us all is in progress and
growth, and John B. Winters, I trust, will yet be able to com-
prehend my feelings.
He continued to beat me with all his great force, until abso-
lutely weary, exhausted, and panting for breath. I still adhered
to my purpose of non-aggressive defense, and made no other use
of my arms than to defend my head and face from further dis-
figurement. The mere pain arising from the blows he inflicted
upon my person was of course transient, and my clothing to some
extent deadened its severity, as it now hides all remaining traces.
When I supposed he was through, taking the butt end of his
weapon and shaking it in my face, he warned me, if I correctly
understood him, of more yet to come, and furthermore said, if
ever Tagain dared introduce his name to print, in either my own
or any other public journal, he would cut off my left ear (and
I do not think he was jesting) and send me home to my family
a visibly mutilated man, to be a standing warning to all low-lived
puppies who seek to blackmail gentlemen and to injure their
good names. And when he did so operate, he informed me that
his implement would not be a whip but a knife.
When he had said this, unaccompanied by Mr. Lynch, as I
remember it, he left the room, for I sat down by Mr. Lynch,
exclaiming: "The man is mad — he is utterly mad — this step is his
ruin — it is a mistake — it would be ungenerous in me, despite
of all the ill usage I have here received, to expose him, at least
until he has had an opportunity to reflect upon the matter.
I shall be in no haste."
"Winters is very mad just now," replied Mr. Lynch, "but
327
MARK TWAIN
when he is himself he is one of the finest men I ever mat. In
fact, he told me the reason he did not meet you up-stairs was
to spare you the humiliation of a beating in the sight of others."
I submit that that unguarded remark of Philip Lynch con-
victs him of having been privy in advance to Mr. Winters's
intentions whatever they may have been, or at least to his
meaning to make an assault upon me, but I leave to others to
determine how much censure an editor deserves for inveigling
a weak, non-combatant man, also a publisher, to a pen of his
own to be horsewhipped, if no worse, for the simple printing
of what is verbally in the mouth of nine out of ten men, and
women too, upon the street.
While writing this account two theories have occurred to me
as possibly true respecting this most remarkable assault:
First. — The aim may have been simply to extort from me such
admissions as in the hands of money and influence would have
sent me to the Penitentiary for libel. This, however, seems
unlikely, because any statements elicited by fear or force could
not be evidence in law or could be so explained as to have no
force. The statements wanted so badly must have been de-
sired for some other purpose.
Second. — The other theory has so dark and wilfully murderous
a look that I shrink from writing it, yet as in all probability my
death at the earliest practicable moment has already been
decreed, I feel I should do all I can before my hour arrives, at
least to show others how to break up that aristocratic rule and
combination which has robbed all Nevada of true freedom, if
not of manhood itself. Although I do not prefer this hypothesis
as a "charge," I feel that as an American citizen I still have a
right both to think and to speak my thoughts even in the land
of Sharon and Winters, and as much so respecting the theory of
a brutal assault (especially when I have been its subject) as
respecting any other apparent enormity. I give the matter
simply as a suggestion which may explain to the proper authori-
ties and to the people whom they should represent, a well-
ascertained but notwithstanding a darkly mysterious fact. The
scheme of the assault may have been
First. — To terrify me by making me conscious of my own help-
lessness after making actual though not legal threats against
my life.
Second. — To imply that I could save my life only by writing or
328
ROUGHING IT
signing certain specific statements which if not subsequently
explained would eternally have branded me as infamous and
would have consigned my family to shame and want, and to the
dreadful compassion and patronage of the rich.
Third. — To blow my brains out the moment I had signed,
thereby preventing me from making any subsequent explana-
tion such as could remove the infamy.
Fourth. — Philip Lynch to be compelled to testify that I was
killed by John B. Winters in self-defense, for the conviction of
Winters would bring him in as an accomplice. If that was
the program in John B. Winters's mind nothing saved my life
but my persistent refusal to sign, when that refusal seemed
clearly to me to be the choice of death.
The remarkable assertion made to me by Mr. Winters, that
pity only spared my life on Wednesday evening last, almost com-
pels me to believe that at first he could not have intended me
to leave that room alive; and why I was allowed to, unless
through mesmeric or some other invisible influence, I cannot
divine. The more I reflect upon this matter, the more probable
as true does this horrible interpretation become.
The narration of these things I might have spared both to
Mr. Winters and to the public had he himself observed silence,
but as he has both verbally spoken and suffered a thoroughly
garbled statement of facts to appear in the Gold Hill News
I feel it due to myself no less than this community, and to the
entire independent press of America and Great Britain, to give
a true account of what even the Gold Hill News has pronounced
a disgraceful affair, and which it deeply regrets because of some
alleged telegraphic mistake in the account of it. [Who received
the erroneous telegrams?]
Though he may not deem it prudent to take my life just now,
the publication of this article I feel sure must compel Gen.
Winters (with his peculiar views about his right to exemption
from criticism by me) to resolve on my violent death, though it
may take years to compass it. Notwithstanding / bear him
no ill will; and if W. C. Ralston and William Sharon, and other
members of the San Francisco mining and milling Ring feel that
he above all other men in this state and California is the most
fitting man to supervise and control Yellow Jacket matters,
until I am able to vote more than half their stock I presume he
will be retained to grace his present post.
329
MARK TWAIN
Meantime, I cordially invite all who know of any sort o(
important villainy which only can be cured by exposure (and
who would expose it if they felt sure they would not be betrayed
under bullying threats), to communicate with the People's
Tribune; for until I am murdered, so long as I can raise the
means to publish, I propose to continue my e forts at least to
revive the liberties of the state, to curb oppression, and to
benefit man's world and God's earth.
CONRAD WIEGAND.
[It does seem a pity that the Sheriff was shut out, since the
good sense of a general of militia and of a prominent editor failed
to teach them that the merited castigation of this weak, half-
witted child was a thing that ought to have been done in the
street, where the poor thing could have a chance to run. When
a journalist maligns a citizen, or attacks his good name on
hearsay evidence, he deserves to be thrashed for it, even if
he is a "non-combatant" weakling; but a generous adversary
would at least allow such a lamb the use of his legs at •such a
time.— M. T.J
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
1318 Roughing it
Al
1913
Erindale
College
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11