GIFT OF 
 Yoshl S. Kuno 
 
Airthnr Naiumal Sbttum 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF 
 
 MARK TWAIN 
 VOLUME I 
 
EARLY PORTRAITS, 1853-1868 
 
THE 
 
 INNOCENTS ABROAD 
 
 OR 
 
 THE NEW PILGRIMS PROGRESS 
 
 BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE STEAMSHIP QUAKER CITY S 
 PLEASURE EXCURSION TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN 
 
 (Samuel L. Clemens) 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
 
 AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District of Connecticut 
 
 Copyright, 1897 and 1899 
 
 THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Hartford, Conn. 
 
rmy most patient reader and most charitable 
 critic, my aged Motner, this volume b- 
 affectionately inscribed. 
 
 M192919 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM 
 
 BY BRANDER MATTHEWS 
 f+oftssor of Literature in Columbia University 
 
 IT is a common delusion of those who discuss con 
 temporary literature that there is such an entity 
 as the * reading public," possessed of a certain uni 
 formity of taste. There is not one public ; there are 
 many publics, as many in fact as there are different 
 kinds of taste ; and the extent of an author s popu 
 larity is in proportion to the number of these separate 
 publics he may chance to please. Scott, for ex 
 ample, appealed not only to those who relished 
 romance and enjoyed excitement, but also to those 
 who appreciated his honest portrayal of sturdy char 
 acters. Thackeray is preferred by ambitious youth 
 who are insidiously flattered by his tacit compliments 
 to their knowledge of the world, by the disenchanted 
 who cannot help seeing the petty meannesses of soci 
 ety, and by the less sophisticated in whom sentiment 
 
vi Biographical Criticism 
 
 has not gone to seed in sentimentality. Dickens In 
 his own day bid for the approval of those who liked 
 broad caricature (and were therefore pleased with 
 Stiggins and Chadband), of those who fed greedily 
 on plentiful pathos (and were therefore delighted 
 with the deathbeds of Smike and Paul Dombey and 
 Little Nell) and also of those who asked for unex 
 pected adventure (and were therefore glad to dis 
 entangle the melodramatic intrigues of Ralph 
 Nickleby). 
 
 In like manner the American author who has 
 chosen to call himself Mark Twain has attained to an 
 immense popularity because the qualities he pos 
 sesses in a high degree appeal to so many and so 
 widely varied publics, first of all, no doubt, to the 
 public that revels in hearty and robust fun, but also 
 to the public which is glad to be swept along by the 
 full current of adventure, which is sincerely touched 
 by manly pathos, which is satisfied by vigorous and 
 exact portrayal of character, and which respects 
 shrewdness and wisdom and sanity and a healthy 
 hatred of pretense and affectation and sham. Per 
 haps no one book of Mark Twain s with the pos 
 sible exception of * Huckleberry Finn is equally a 
 favorite with all his readers ; and perhaps some of 
 his best characteristics are absent from his earlier 
 
Biographical Criticism Yil 
 
 books or but doubtfully latent in them. Mark 
 Twain is many-sided ; and he has ripened in knowl 
 edge and in power since he first attracted attention 
 as a wild Western funny man. As he has grown 
 older he has reflected more ; he has both broadened 
 and deepened. The writer of " comic copy " for a 
 mining-camp newspaper has developed into a liberal 
 humorist, handling life seriously and making his 
 readers think as he makes them laugh, until to-day 
 Mark Twain has perhaps the largest audience of any 
 author now using the English Iariguage To trace 
 the stages of this evolution and to count the steps 
 whereby the sage-brush reporter has risen to the rank 
 of a writer of world-wide celebrity, is as interesting 
 as it is instructive, 
 
 I. 
 
 Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 
 30, 1835, a t Florida, Missouri. His father was a 
 merchant who had come from Tennessee and who 
 removed soon after his son s birth to Hannibal, a 
 little town on the Mississippi. What Hannibal was 
 like and what were the circumstances of Mr. Clem- 
 ens s boyhood we can see for ourselves in the con 
 vincing pages of Tom Sawyer. Mr. Howells has 
 called Hannibal " a loafing, ort-at-elbows, down-at- 
 the-heels, slave-holding Mississippi town;" and 
 
viii Biographical Criticism 
 
 Mr. Clemens was himself a slave owner, who silently 
 abhorred slavery. 
 
 When the future author was but twelve his father 
 died, and the son had to get his education as best 
 he could. Of actual schooling he got little and of 
 book-learning still less ; but life itself is not a bad 
 teacher for a boy who wants to study, and young 
 Clemens did not waste his chances. He spent three 
 years in the printing office of the little local paper, 
 for, like not a few others on the list of American 
 authors that stretches from Benjamin Franklin to 
 William Dean Howells, he began his connection with 
 literature by setting type. As a journeyman printer 
 the lad wandered from town to town and rambled 
 even as far east as New York. 
 
 When he was seventeen he went back to the home 
 of his boyhood resolved to become a pilot on the 
 Mississippi.. How he learnt the river he has told 
 us in * Life on the Mississippi/ wherein his adven 
 tures, his experiences, and his impressions while he 
 was a cub-pilot are recorded with a combination of 
 precise veracity and abundant humor which makes 
 the earlier chapters of that marvelous book a most 
 masterly fragment of autobiography. The life of a 
 pilot was full of interest and excitement and oppor 
 tunity, and what young Clemens saw and heard and 
 
Biographical Criticism U 
 
 divined during the years when he was going up and 
 down the mighty river we may read in the pages of 
 Huckleberry Finn* and Pudd nhead Wilson. 
 But toward the end of the fifties the railroads 
 began to rob the river of its supremacy as a carrier ; 
 and in the beginning of the sixties the civil war broke 
 out and the Mississippi no longer went unvexed to 
 the sea. The skill, slowly and laboriously acquired, 
 was suddenly rendered useless, and at twenty-five the 
 young man found himself bereft of his calling. As a 
 border state, Missouri was sending her sons into the 
 armies of the Union and into the armies of the Con 
 federacy, while many a man stood doubting, not 
 knowing which way to turn. The ex-pilot has given 
 us the record of his very brief and inglorious service 
 as a soldier of the South. When this escapade was 
 swiftly ended, he went to the Northwest with his 
 brother, who had been appointed Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor of Nevada. Thus the man who had been born 
 on the borderland of North and South, who had gone 
 East as a jour-printer, who had been again and again 
 up and down the Mississippi, now went West while he 
 was still plastic and impressionable ; and he had thus 
 another chance to increase that intimate knowledge 
 of American life and American character which is 
 one of the most precious of his possessions 
 
x Biographical Criticism 
 
 While still on the river he had written a satiric 
 letter or two signed " Mark Twain" taking the 
 name from a call of the man who heaves the 
 lead and who cries "By the mark, three," " Mark 
 twain," and so on. In Nevada he went to the 
 mines and lived the life he has described in * Rough 
 ing It, but when he failed to ** strike it rich," he 
 naturally drifted into journalism and back into a 
 newspaper office again. The Virginia City Enter 
 prise was not overmanned, and the newcomer did all 
 sorts of odd jobs, finding time now and then to write 
 a sketch which seemed important enough to permit 
 of his signature. The name of Mark Twain soon 
 began to be known to those who were curious in 
 newspaper humor. After a while he was drawn 
 across the mountains to San Francisco, where he 
 found casual employment on the Morning Call, and 
 where he joined himself to a little group of aspiring 
 literators which included Mr. Bret Harte, Mr. Noah 
 Brooks, Mr. Charles Henry Webb, and Mr. Charles 
 Warren Stoddard. 
 
 It was in 1867 that Mr. Webb published Mark 
 Twain s first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog 
 of Calaveras ; and it was in 1867 that the proprie 
 tors of the Alia California supplied him with the 
 funds necessary to enable him to become one of the 
 
Biographical Criticism xl 
 
 passengers on the steamer Quaker City, which had 
 been chartered to take a select party on what is now 
 known as the Mediterranean trip. The weekly let 
 ters, in which he set forth what befel him on this 
 journey, were printed in the Alta Sunday after Sun 
 day, and were copied freely by the other Californian 
 papers. These letters served as the foundation of a 
 book published in 1 869 and called The Innocents 
 Abroad/ a book which instantly brought to th* 
 author celebrity and cash. 
 
 Both of these valuable aids to ambition were in 
 creased by his next step, his appearance on the 
 lecture platform. Mr. Noah Brooks, who was 
 present at his first attempt, has recorded that Mark 
 Twain s " method as a lecturer was distinctly unique 
 and novel. His slow, deliberate drawl, the anxious 
 and perturbed expression of his visage, the appar 
 ently painful effort with which he framed his sen 
 tences, the surprise that spread over his face when 
 the audience roared with delight or rapturously ap 
 plauded the finer passages of his word-painting, were 
 unlike anything of the kind they had ever known." 
 In the thirty years since that first appearance the 
 method has not changed, although it has probably 
 matured. Mark Twain is one of the most effective 
 of platform-speakers and one of the most artistic, 
 
Hi Biographical Criticism 
 
 with an art of his own which is very individual and 
 very elaborate in spite of its seeming simplicity. 
 
 Although he succeeded abundantly as a lecturer, 
 and although he was the author of the most widely- 
 circulated book of the decade, Mark Twain still 
 thought of himself only as a journalist ; and when 
 he gave up the West for the East he became an 
 editor of the Buffalo Express* in which he had 
 bought an interest. In 1870 he married; and it is 
 perhaps not indiscreet to remark that his was 
 another of those happy unions of which there have 
 been so many in the annals of American authorship. 
 In 1871 he removed to Hartford, where his home 
 has been ever since ; and at the same time he gave 
 up newspaper work. 
 
 In 1872 he wrote Roughing It,* and in the 
 following year came his first sustained attempt 
 at fiction, The Gilded Age, written in collabora 
 tion with Mr. Charles Dudley Warner. The charac 
 ter of Colonel Mulberry Sellers Mark Twain soon 
 took out of this book to make it the central figure 
 of a play, which the late John T. Raymond acted 
 hundreds of times throughout the United States, the 
 playgoing public pardoning the inexpertness of the 
 dramatist in favor of the delicious humor and the 
 compelling veracity with which the chief character 
 
Biographical Criticism xiii 
 
 was presented. So universal was this type and so 
 broadly recognizable its traits that there were few 
 towns wherein the play was presented in which some 
 one did not accost the actor who impersonated the 
 ever-hopeful schemer to declare, " I m the original 
 of Sellers! Didn t Mark ever tell you? Well, he 
 took the Colonel from me ! 
 
 Encouraged by the welcome accorded to this first 
 attempt at fiction, Mark Twain turned to the days 
 of his boyhood and wrote Tom Sawyer, pub 
 lished in 1875. He also collected his sketches, scat 
 tered here and there in newspapers and magazines. 
 Toward the end of the seventies he went to Europe 
 again with his family ; and the result of this journey 
 is recorded in * A Tramp Abroad, published in 
 1880. Another volume of sketches, The Stolen 
 White Elephant, was put forth in 1882; and in the 
 same year Mark Twain first came forward as a his 
 torical novelist if The Prince and the Pauper can 
 fairly be called a historical novel. The year after, he 
 sent forth the volume describing his Life on the 
 Mississippi ; and in 1884 he followed this with the 
 story in which that life has been crystallized forever, 
 Huckleberry Finn/ the finest of his books, the 
 deepest in its insight, and the widest in its appeal. 
 
 This Odyssey of the Mississippi was published by 
 
xiv Biographical Criticism 
 
 a new firm, in which the author was a chief part- 
 ner, ft just as Sir Walter Scott had been an associate 
 of Ballantyne and Constable. There was at first 
 a period of prosperity in which the house issued 
 the Personal Memoirs of Grant, giving his 
 widow checks for $350,000 in 1886, and in which 
 Mark Twain himself published *A Connecticut 
 Yankee at King Arthur s Court, a volume of 
 4 Merry Tales, and a story called * The American 
 Claimant, wherein Colonel Sellers reappears. Then 
 there came a succession of hard years ; and at last 
 the publishing house in which Mark Twain was a 
 partner failed, as the publishing house in which 
 Walter Scott was a partner had formerly failed. The 
 author of Huckleberry Finn was past sixty when 
 he found himself suddenly saddled with a load of 
 debt, just as the author of Waverley had been 
 burdened full threescore years earlier; and Mark 
 Twain stood up stoutly under it as Scott had done 
 before him. More fortunate than the Scotchman, 
 the American has lived to pay the debt in full. 
 
 Since the disheartening crash came, he has given 
 to the public a third Mississippi River tale, Pud- 
 d nhead Wilson, issued in 1894; and a third his 
 torical novel *Joan of Arc, a reverent and sym 
 pathetic study of the bravest figure in all French 
 
Biographical Criticism rv 
 
 history, printed anonymously in Harper s Magazine 
 and then in a volume acknowledged by the author in 
 1896. As one of the results of a lecturing tour 
 around the world he has prepared another volume of 
 travels, Following the Equator, published toward 
 the end of 1897, Mention must also be made of a 
 fantastic tale called Tom Sawyer Abroad, sent 
 forth in 1894, of a volume of sketches, * The Mil 
 lion Pound Bank-Note, assembled in 1893, and also 
 of a collection of literary essays, How to Tell a 
 Story/ published in 1897. 
 
 This is but the barest outline of Mark Twain s life, 
 such a brief summary as we must have before us 
 if we wish to consider the conditions under which the 
 author has developed and the stages of his growth. 
 It will serve, however, to show how various have 
 been his forms of activity printer, pilot, miner, 
 journalist, traveler, lecturer, novelist, publisher 
 and to suggest the width of his experience of life. 
 
 II 
 
 A humorist is often without honor in his own 
 country. Perhaps this is partly because humor is 
 likely to be familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt. 
 Perhaps it is partly because (for some strange 
 reason) we tend to despise those who make us 
 
xvi Biographical Criticism 
 
 laugh, while we respect those who make us weep 
 forgetting that there are formulas for forcing tear.*, 
 quite as facile as the formulas for forcing smiles. 
 Whatever the reason, the fact is indisputable that the 
 humorist must pay the penalty of his humor; he 
 must run the risk of being tolerated as a mere fun- 
 makei, not to be taken seriously, and unworthy of 
 critical consideration. This penalty is being paid 
 now by Mark Twain. In many of the discussions 
 of American literature he is dismissed as though 
 he were only a competitor of his predecessors, 
 Artemus Ward and John Phoenix, instead of being, 
 what he is really, a writer who is to be classed 
 at whatever interval only time may decide rather 
 with Cervantes and Moliere. 
 
 Like the heroines of the problem-plays of the 
 modern theater, Mark Twain has had to live down 
 his past. His earlier writing gave but little promise 
 of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later 
 works. Mr. Noah Brooks has told us how he was 
 advised if he wished to " see genuine specimens of 
 American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and auda 
 cious/ to look up the sketches which the then almost 
 unknown Mark Twain was printing in a Nevada news 
 paper. The humor of Mark Twain is still American, 
 still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it 
 
Biographical Criticism xvii 
 
 is riper now and richer, and it has taken unto itself 
 other qualities existing only in germ in these first 
 lings of his muse. The sketches in * The Jumping 
 Frog and the letters which made up The Inno 
 cents Abroad are " comic copy/ as the phrase is 
 in newspaper offices comic copy not altogether 
 unlike what John Phoenix had written and Artemus 
 Ward, better indeed than the work of these news 
 paper humorists (for Mark Twain had it in him to de 
 velop as they did not) , but not essentially dissimilar. 
 And in the eyes of many who do not think for 
 themselves, Mark Twain is only the author of these 
 genuine specimens of American humor. For when 
 the public has once made up its mind about any 
 man s work, it does not relish any attempt to force 
 it to unmake this opinion and to remake it. Like 
 other juries, it does not like to be ordered to recon 
 sider its verdict as contrary to the facts of the case. 
 It is always sluggish in beginning the necessary read 
 justment, and not only sluggish, but somewhat 
 grudging. Naturally it cannot help seeing the later 
 works of a popular writer from the point of view it 
 had to take to enjoy his earlier writings. And thus 
 the author of Huckleberry Finn and Joan of 
 Arc is forced to pay a high price for the earlv and 
 abundant popularity of * The Innocents Abroad. 
 
xviii Biographical Criti 
 
 No doubt, a few of his earlier sketch 
 pensive in their elements; made of mate 
 threadbare by generations of earlier funny men, j 
 were sometimes cut in the pattern of his prede* 
 sors. No doubt, some of the earliest of all w< 
 crude and highly colored, and may even be call 
 forced, not to say violent. No doubt, also, the 
 did not suggest the seriousness and the melanchol] 
 which always must underlie the deepest humor, as 
 we find it in Cervantes and Moliere, in Swift and in 
 Lowell. But even a careless reader, skipping 
 through the book in idle amusement, ought to have 
 been able to see in * The Innocents Abroad/ that 
 the writer of that liveliest of books of travel was no 
 mere merryandrew, grinning through a horse-collar 
 to make sport for the groundlings ; but a sincere ob 
 server of life, seeing through his own eyes and set 
 ting down what he saw with abundant humor, of 
 course, but also with profound respect for the eternal 
 verities. 
 
 George Eliot in one of her essays calls those who 
 parody lofty themes * debasers of the moral cur 
 rency." Mark Twain is always an advocate of the 
 sterling ethical standard. He is ready to overwhelm 
 an affectation with irresistible laughter, but he never 
 lacks reverence for the things that really deserve 
 
Biographical Criticism xix 
 
 reverence. It is not at the Old Masters that he 
 scoffs in Italy, but rather at those who pay lip-ser 
 vice to things which they neither enjoy nor under 
 stand. For a ruin or a painting or a legend that 
 does not seem to him to deserve the appreciation in 
 which it is held he refuses to affect an admiration he 
 does not feel; he cannot help being honest he 
 was born so. For meanness of all kinds he has a 
 burning contempt; and on Abelard he pours out 
 the vials of his wrath. He has a quick eye for all 
 humbugs and a scorching scorn for them ; but there 
 is no attempt at being funny in the manner of the 
 cockney comedians when he stands in the awful 
 presence of the Sphinx. He is not taken in by 
 the glamour of Palestine ; he does not lose his head 
 there; he keeps his feet; but he knows that he is 
 standing on holy ground ; and there is never a hint 
 of irreverence in his attitude. 
 
 A Tramp Abroad is a better book than The 
 Innocents Abroad ; it is quite as laughter-provok 
 ing, and its manner is far more restrained. Mark 
 Twain was then master of his method, sure of him 
 self, secure of his popularity; and he could do his 
 best and spare no pains to be certain that it was his 
 best. Perhaps there is a slight falling off in " Fol 
 lowing the Equator ; a trace of fatigue, of weari- 
 
xx Biographical Criticism 
 
 ness, of disenchantment. But the last book of 
 travels has passages as broadly humorous as any of 
 the first; and it proves the author s possession of a 
 pithy shrewdness not to be suspected from a perusal 
 of its earliest predecessor. The first book was the 
 work of a young fellow rejoicing in his own fun and 
 resolved to make his readers laugh with him or at 
 him; the latest book is the work of an older man, 
 who has found that life is not all laughter, but whose 
 eye is as clear as ever and whose tongue is as plain- 
 spoken. 
 
 These three books of travel are like all other books 
 of travel in that they relate in the first person what 
 the author went forth to see. Autobiographic also 
 are Roughing It* and Life on the Mississippi/ 
 and they have always seemed to me better books 
 than the more widely circulated travels. They are 
 better because they are the result of a more intimate 
 knowledge of the material dealt with. Every traveler 
 is of necessity but a bird of passage ; he is a mere 
 carpet-bagger; his acquaintance with the countries 
 he visits is external only ; and this acquaintanceship 
 is made only when he is a full-grown man. But 
 Mark Twain s knowledge of the Mississippi was ac 
 quired in his youth ; it was not purchased with a 
 price; it was his birthright; and it was internal and 
 
Biographical Criticism xxi 
 
 complete. And his knowledge of the mining-camp 
 was achieved in early manhood when the mind ia 
 open and sensitive to every new impression. There 
 is in both these books a fidelity to the inner truth, 
 a certainty of touch, a sweep of vision, not to be 
 found in the three books of travels. For my own 
 part 1 have long thought that Mark Twain could 
 securely rest his right to survive as an author on 
 those opening chapters in Life on the Mississippi 
 in which he makes clear the difficulties, the seeming 
 impossibilities, that fronted those who wished to 
 learn the river. These chapters are bold and bril 
 liant ; and they picture for us forever a period and a 
 set of conditions, singularly interesting and splen 
 didly varied, that otherwise would have had to forego 
 all adequate record, 
 
 IIL 
 
 It is highly probable that when an author reveals 
 the power of evoking views of places and of calling 
 up portraits of people such as Mark Twain showed 
 in Life on the Mississippi/ and when he has the 
 masculine grasp of reality Mark Twain made evident 
 in Roughing It, he must needs sooner or later 
 turn from mere fact to avowed fiction and become a 
 story-teller. The long stories which Mark Twain 
 has written fall into two divisions, first, those ol 
 
xxii Biographical Criticism 
 
 which the scene is laid in the present; in reality, and 
 mostly in the Mississippi Valley, and second, those 
 of which the scene is laid in the past, in fantasy 
 mostly, and in Europe. 
 
 As my own liking is a little less for the latter 
 group, there is no need for me now to linger over 
 them. In writing these tales of the past Mark Twain 
 was making up stories in his head ; personally I pre 
 fer the tales of his in which he has his foot firm on 
 reality, * The Prince and the Pauper has the 
 essence of boyhood in it ; it has variety and vigor ; 
 it has abundant humor and plentiful pathos ; and yet 
 I for one would give the whole of it for the single 
 chapter in which Tom Sawyer lets the contract for 
 whitewashing his aunt s fence. 
 
 Mr. Howells has declared that there are two kinds 
 of fiction he likes almost equally well, "a real 
 novel and a pure romance; " and he joyfully accepts 
 A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur s Court 
 as "one of the greatest romances ever imagined." 
 It is a humorous romance overflowing with stalwart 
 fun; and it is not irreverent but iconoclastic, in that 
 it breaks not a few disestablished idols. It is in 
 tensely American and intensely nineteenth century 
 and intensely democratic in the best sense of that 
 abused adjective. The British critics were greatly 
 
Biographical Criticism xxifl 
 
 displeased with the book; and we are reminded of 
 the fact that the Spanish still somewhat resent Don 
 Quixote because it brings out too truthfully the 
 fatal gap in the Spanish character between the ideal 
 and the real. So much of the feudal still survives in 
 British society that Mark Twain s merry and eluci 
 dating assault on the past seemed to some almost an 
 insult to the present. 
 
 But no critic, British or American, has ventured to 
 discover any irreverence in Joan of Arc,* wherein 
 indeed the tone is almost devout and the humor 
 almost too much subdued. Perhaps it is my own 
 distrust of the so-called historical novel, my own dis 
 belief that it can ever be anything but an inferior 
 form of art, which makes me care less for this worthy 
 effort to honor a noble figure. And elevated and 
 dignified as is the 4 Joan of Arc, I do not think 
 that it shows us Mark Twain at his best ; although it 
 has many a passage that only he could have written, 
 it is perhaps the least characteristic of his works. 
 Yet it may well be that the certain measure of success 
 he has achieved in handling a subject so lofty and so 
 serious, will help to open the eyes of the public to 
 see the solid merits of his other stories, in which his 
 humor has fuller play and in which his natural gifts 
 are more abundantly displayed. 
 
xxiv Biographical Criticism 
 
 Of these other stories three are " real novels," to 
 use Mr. Howells s phrase; they are novels as real 
 as any in any literature. Tom Sawyer* and 
 Huckleberry Finn* and Pudd nhead Wilson 
 are invaluable contributions to American literature 
 for American literature is nothing if it is not a 
 true picture of American life and if it does not help 
 us to understand ourselves. Huckleberry Finn is 
 a very amusing volume, and a generation has read 
 its pages and laughed over it immoderately ; but it 
 is very much more than a funny book; it is a 
 marvelously accurate portrayal of a whole civilization. 
 Mr. Ormsby, in an essay which accompanies his 
 translation of Don Quixote, has pointed out that 
 for a full century after its publication that greatest of 
 novels was enjoyed chiefly as a tale of humorous mis 
 adventure, and that three generations had laughed 
 over it before anybody suspected that it was more 
 than a mere funny book. It is perhaps rather with 
 the picaresque romances of Spain that Huckleberry 
 Finn is to be compared than with the masterpiece 
 of Cervantes ; but I do not think it will be a century 
 or take three generations before we Americans gen 
 erally discover how great a book Huckleberry 
 Finn really is, how keen its vision of character, 
 how close its observation of life, how sound its 
 
Biographical Criticism xxv 
 
 philosophy, and how it records for us once and for 
 all certain phases of Southwestern society which it is 
 most important for us to perceive and to understand. 
 The influence of slavery, the prevalence of feuds, 
 the conditions and the circumstances that make 
 lynching possible all these things are set before us 
 clearly and without comment. It is for us to draw 
 our own moral, each for himself, as we do when we 
 see Shakespeare acted. 
 
 Huckleberry Finn, in its art, for one thing, 
 and also in its broader range, is superior to Tom 
 Sawyer* and to Pudd nhead Wilson, fine as both 
 these are in their several ways. In no book in our 
 language, to my mind, has the boy, simply as a boy, 
 been better realized than in Tom Sawyer. In 
 some respects Pudd nhead Wilson is the most dra 
 matic of Mark Twain s longer stories, and also the 
 most ingenious ; like Tom Sawyer and * Huckle 
 berry Finn, it has the full flavor of the Mississippi 
 River, on which its author spent his own boyhood, 
 and from contact with the soil of which he always 
 rises reinvigorated. 
 
 It is by these three stories, and especially by 
 Huckleberry Finn, that Mark Twain is likely to 
 live longest. Nowhere else is the life of the Missis 
 sippi Valley so truthfully recorded. Nowhere else 
 
xxvl Biographical Criticism 
 
 can we find a gallery of Southwestern characters as 
 varied and as veracious as those Huck Finn met in 
 his wanderings. The histories of literature all praise 
 the * Gil Bias of Le Sage for its amusing adven 
 tures, its natural characters, its pleasant humor, and 
 its insight into human frailty; and the praise is de 
 served. But in every one of these qualities * Huckle 
 berry Finn* is superior to Gil Bias. Le Sage 
 set the model of the picaresque novel, and Mark 
 Twain followed his example; but the American 
 book is richer than the French deeper, finer, 
 stronger. It would be hard to find in any language 
 better specimens of pure narrative, better examples 
 of the power of telling a story and of calling up 
 action so that the reader cannot help but see it, than 
 Mark Twain s account of the Shepherdson-Granger- 
 ford feud, and his description of the shooting of 
 Boggs by Sherburn and of the foiled attempt to 
 lynch Sherburn afterward. 
 
 These scenes, fine as they are, vivid, powerful, 
 and most artistic in their restraint, can be matched 
 in the two other books. In * Tom Sawyer they 
 can be paralleled by the chapter in which the boy and 
 the girl are lost in the cave, and Tom, seeing a gleam 
 of light in the distance, discovers that it is a candle 
 carried by Indian Joe, the one enemy he has in the 
 
Biographical Criticism xxvii 
 
 world. In Pudd nhead Wilson * the great passages 
 of Huckleberry Finn are rivaled by that most 
 pathetic account of the weak son willing to sell his 
 own mother as a slave "* down the river." Although 
 no one of the books is sustained throughout on this 
 high level, and although, in truth, there are in each of 
 them passages here and there that we could wish away 
 (because they are not worthy of the association in 
 which we find them), I have no hesitation in express 
 ing here my own conviction that the man who has 
 given us four scenes like these is to be compared 
 with the masters of literature ; and that he can abide 
 the comparison with equanimity. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Perhaps I myself prefer these three Mississippi 
 Valley books above all Mark Twain s other writings 
 (although with no lack of affection for those also) 
 partly because these have the most of the flavor of 
 the soil about them. After veracity and the sense 
 of the universal, what I best relish in literature is this 
 native aroma, pungent, homely, and abiding. Yet 
 I feel sure that I should not rate him so high if 
 he were the author of these three books only* They 
 are tlie best of him, but the others are good also, 
 and good in a different way. Other writers have 
 
xxviii Biographical Criticism 
 
 given us this local color more or less artistically, 
 more or less convincingly: one New England and 
 another New York, a third Virginia, and a fourth 
 Georgia, and a fifth Wisconsin ; but who so well as 
 Mark Twain has given us the full spectrum of the 
 Union? With all his exactness in reproducing the 
 Mississippi Valley, Mark Twain is not sectional in 
 his outlook ; he is national always. He is not narrow ; 
 he is not Western or Eastern ; he is American with 
 a certain largeness and boldness and freedom and cer 
 tainty that we like to think of as befitting a country 
 so vast as ours and a people so independent. 
 
 In Mark Twain we have ** the national spirit as 
 seen with our own eyes," declared Mr. Howells; 
 and, from more points of view than one, Mark Twain 
 seems to me to be the very embodiment of Ameri 
 canism. Self-educated in the hard school of life, he 
 has gone on broadening his outlook as he has grown 
 older. Spending many years abroad, he has come 
 to understand other nationalities, without enfeebling 
 his own native faith. Combining a mastery of the 
 commonplace with an imaginative faculty, he is a 
 practical idealist. No respecter of persons, he has a 
 tender regard for his fellow man. Irreverent toward 
 all outworn superstitions, he has ever revealed the 
 deepest respect for all things truly worthy of rever- 
 
Biographical Criticism xxix 
 
 ence. Unwilling to take pay in words, he is im 
 patient always to get at the root of the matter, to 
 pierce to the center, to see the thing as it is. He 
 has a habit of standing upright, of thinking for him 
 self, and of hitting hard at whatsoever seems to him 
 hateful and mean ; but at the core of him there is 
 genuine gentleness and honest sympathy, brave 
 humanity and sweet kindliness. Perhaps it is boast 
 ful for us to think that these characteristics which we 
 see in Mark Twain are characteristics also of the 
 American people as a whole ; but it is pleasant to 
 think so. 
 
 Mark Twain has the very marrow of Americanism. 
 He is as intensely and as typically American as 
 Franklin or Emerson or Hawthorne. He has not a 
 little of the shrewd common sense and the homely 
 and unliterary directness of Franklin. He is not 
 without a share of the aspiration and the elevation 
 of Emerson ; and he has a philosophy of his own as 
 optimistic as Emerson s. He possesses also some 
 what of Hawthorne s interest in ethical problems, 
 with something of the same power of getting at the 
 heart of them; he, too, has written his parables and 
 apologues wherein the moral is obvious and un- 
 obtruded. He is uncompromisingly honest; and his 
 conscience is as rugged as his style sometimes is. 
 
 3 
 
xxx Biographical Criticism 
 
 No American author has to-day at his command a 
 style more nervous, more varied, more flexible, or 
 more various than Mark Twain s. His colloquial 
 ease should not hide from us his mastery of all the 
 devices of rhetoric. He may seem to disobey the 
 letter of the law sometimes, but he is always obedient 
 to the spirit. He never speaks unless he has some 
 thing to say; and then he says it tersely, sharply, 
 with a freshness of epithet and an individuality of 
 phrase, always accurate however unacademic. His 
 vocabulary is enormous, and it is deficient only in 
 the dead words; his language is alive always, and 
 actually tingling with vitality. He rejoices in the 
 daring noun and in the audacious adjective. His in 
 stinct for the exact word is not always unerring, and 
 now and again he has failed to exercise it ; but there 
 is in his prose none of the flatting and sharping he 
 censured in Fenimore Cooper s. His style has 
 none of the cold perfection of an antique statue ; it is 
 too modern and too American for that, and too com 
 pletely the expression of the man himself, sincere 
 and straightforward. It is not free from slang, 
 although this is far less frequent than one might ex 
 pect ; but it does its work swiftly and cleanly. And 
 it is capable of immense variety. Consider the tale 
 of the Blue Jay in A Tramp Abroad/ wherein the 
 
Biographical Criticism 
 
 humor is sustained by unstated pathos ; what could 
 be better told than this, with every word the right 
 word and in the right place? And take Huck Finn s 
 description of the storm when he was alone on the 
 island, which is in dialect, which will not parse, which 
 bristles with double negatives, but which none the 
 less is one of the finest passages of descriptive prose 
 in all American literature. 
 
 V. 
 
 After all, it is as a humorist pure and simple that 
 Mark Twain is best known and best beloved. In 
 the preceding pages I have tried to point out the 
 several ways in which he transcends humor, as the 
 word is commonly restricted, and to show that he is 
 no mere fun-maker. But he is a fun-maker beyond 
 all question, and he has made millions laugh as no 
 other man of our century has done. The laughter 
 he has aroused is wholesome and self-respecting ; it 
 clears the atmosphere. For this we cannot but be 
 grateful. As Lowell said, " let us not be ashamed 
 to confess that, if we find the tragedy a bore, we 
 take the profoundest satisfaction in the farce. It is 
 a mark of sanity." There is no laughter in Don 
 Quixote, the noble enthusiast whose wits are un 
 settled; and there is little on the lips of Alceste the 
 
 3 
 
xxxh Biographical Onticism 
 
 misanthrope of Moliere; but for both of them life 
 would have been easier had they known how to 
 laugh. Cervantes himself, and Moliere also, found 
 relief in laughter for their melancholy; and it was 
 the sense of humor which kept them tolerantly inter 
 ested in the spectacle of humanity, although life had 
 pressed hardly on them both. On Mark Twain also 
 life has left its scars; but he has bound up his 
 wounds and battled forward with a stout heart, as 
 Cervantes did, and Moliere. It was Moliere who 
 declared that it was a strange business to undertake 
 to make people laugh; but even now, after two 
 centuries, when the best of Moliere s plays are acted, 
 mirth breaks out again and laughter overflows. 
 
 It would be doing Mark Twain a disservice to liken 
 him to Moliere, the greatest comic dramatist of all 
 time ; and yet there is more than one point of sim 
 ilarity. Just as Mark Twain began by writing comic 
 copy which contained no prophecy of a master 
 piece like 4 Huckleberry Finn/ so Moliere was at 
 first the author only of semi-acrobatic farces on the 
 Italian model in no wise presaging Tartuffe and 
 1 The Misanthrope/ Just as Moliere succeeded first 
 of all in pleasing the broad public that likes robust 
 fun, and then slowly and step by step developed into 
 a dramatist who set on the stage enduring figures 
 
Biographical Criticism xxxifi 
 
 plucked out of the abounding life about him, so 
 also has Mark Twain grown, ascending from 
 The Jumping Frog to Huckleberry Finn, as 
 comic as its elder brother and as laughter-provoking, 
 but charged also with meaning and with philosophy. 
 And like Moliere again, Mark Twain has kept solid 
 hold of the material world ; his doctrine is not of the 
 earth earthy, but it is never sublimated into senti 
 mentality. He sympathizes with the spiritual side 
 of humanity, while never ignoring the sensual. 
 Like Moliere, Mark Twain takes his stand on com 
 mon sense and thinks scorn of affectation of every 
 sort. He understands sinners and strugglers and 
 weaklings; and he is not harsh with them, reserving 
 his scorching hatred for hypocrites and pretenders 
 and frauds. 
 
 At how long an interval Mark Twain shall be rated 
 after Moliere and Cervantes it is for the future to 
 declare. All that we can see clearly now is that it is 
 with them that he is to be classed, with Moliere 
 and Cervantes, with Chaucer and Fielding, humorists 
 all of them, and all of them manly men. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE UNIFORM EDITION 
 
 FAR as I remember, I have never seen an 
 Author s Preface which had any purpose but one 
 to furnish reasons for the publication of the book. 
 Prefaces wear many disguises, call themselves by 
 various names, and pretend to come on various 
 businesses, but I think that upon examination we are 
 quite sure to find that their errand is always the same : 
 they are there to apologise for the book ; in other words, 
 furnish reasons for its publication. This often insures 
 brevity. 
 
 Upon these terms, if there is nothing to explain or 
 nothing worth the explanation, there is no occasion for 
 a Preface ; there is nothing for it to do except to 
 explain its own presence, apologise for its intrusion. 
 That is what this present Preface does. 
 
 When the books in this collection appeared in print 
 originally t most of them had Prefaces which furnished 
 reasons for publication. Those Introductions will be 
 
 3 (xxxr) 
 
xxxvi Preface 
 
 found in their places, and need not be repeated here. 
 Tbe jurisdiction of tbe present Preface is restricted to 
 furnishing reasons for tbe publication of tbe Collection 
 as a whole. This is not easy to do. Aside from tbe 
 ordinary commercial reasons I find none that I can offer 
 with dignify. I cannot say without immodesty that the 
 books have merit ; I cannot say without immodesty that 
 the public want a Uniform Edition ; I cannot say with- 
 out immodesty that a Uniform Edition will turn the 
 nation toward high ideals and elevated thought; I can 
 not say without immodesty that a Uniform Edition will 
 eradicate crime. Though I think it will. I find no 
 reason which I can offer without immodesty except tbe 
 rather poor one that I should like to see a Uniform 
 Edition myself. It is nothing; a cat could say it about 
 her kittens. Still, I believe I will stand upon that. 
 I have to have a Preface and a reason, by law of cus 
 tom, and the reason which I am putting forward is at 
 least without offense. 
 
 MARK TWAIN. 
 Vienna, January, 2899. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS book is a record of a pleasure trip. If it 
 were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it 
 would have about it that gravity, that profundity, 
 and that impressive incomprehensibility which are 
 so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attrac 
 tive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a 
 picnic, it has a purpose, which is, to suggest to the 
 reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the 
 East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead 
 of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries 
 before him. I make small pretence of showing any 
 one how he ought to look at objects of interest be 
 yond the sea other books do that, and therefore, 
 even if I were competent to doit, there is no need. 
 
 I offer no apologies for any departures from the 
 usual style of travel- writing that may be Charged 
 against me for I think I have seen with impartial 
 eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, 
 whether wisely or not. 
 
 In this volume I have used portions of letters which 
 I wrote for the Daily Alta California, of San Fran- 
 
 (xxxvii) 
 
xxxviii Preface 
 
 Cisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived 
 their rights and given me the necessary permission. 
 
 I have also inserted portions of several letters 
 written for the New York Tribune and the New York 
 Herald. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PORTRAITS, 1853, 1868 ..... ... f* Frontispiece 
 
 THE DAME LOOKED PERPLEXED . Peter Newell . . *39 
 * IS HE DEAD?" Peter Newell . . 37 2 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Popular Talk of the Excursion Programme of the Trip Duly 
 Ticketed for the Excursion Defection of the Celebrities . . 45 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Grand Preparations An Imposing Dignitary The European 
 Exodus Mr. Blucher s Opinion Stateroom No. 10 The 
 Assembling of the Clans At Sea at Last 54 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "Averaging" the Passengers " Far, far at Sea " Tribulation 
 among the Patriarchs Seeking Amusement under Difficulties 
 Five Captains in the Ship 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Pilgrim Life at Sea The " Synagogue " Jack s " Journal >f 
 The "Q. C. dub" State Ball on Deck Mock Trials 
 Pilgrim Solemnity Executive Officer Delivers an Opinion . 66 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 An Eccentric Moon The Mystery of " Ship Tune " The Deni- 
 zens of the Deep The First Landing on a Foreign Shore 
 The Azores Islands Blucher s Disastrous Dinner .... 77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A Fossil Community Curious Ways and Customs Jesuit Hum- 
 buggery Fantastic Pilgrimizing Origin of the Russ Pave 
 ment Squaring Accounts with the Fossils At Sea Again . 86 
 
xlii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Spain and Africa on Exhibition The Pillars of Hercules The 
 Rock of Gibraltar " The Queen s Chair " A Private Frolic 
 in Africa Disembarking in the Empire of Morocco 95 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Ancient City of Tangier, Morocco Strange Sights A Cradle 
 of Antiquity We Become Wealthy How They Rob the Mail 
 in Africa Danger of being Opulent in Morocco 113 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A Pilgrim in Deadly Peril How They Mended the Clock 
 Moorish Punishments for Crime Shrewdness Df Mohamme 
 dan Pilgrims Reverence for Cats Bliss of being a Consul- 
 General 121 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A Mediterranean Sunset The "Oracle" is Delivered of an Opin 
 ion France in Sight The Ignorant Native In Marseilles 
 Lost in the Great City A Frenchy Scene 130 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Getting "Used to it" No Soap Table d hote A Curious 
 Discovery The " Pilgrim " Bird A Long Captivity Some 
 of Dumas Heroes Dungeon of the Famous " Iron Mask " 140 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A Holiday Flight through France Peculiarities of French Cars 
 Why there are no Accidents The " Old Travelers Still 
 on the Wing Paris at Last Seeing the Sights .... 148 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Monsieur Billfinger Re-christening the Frenchman In the 
 Clutches of a Paris Guide The International Exposition 
 Military Review Napoleon and the Sultan of Turkey . . .163 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Cathedral of Notre-Dame Treasures and Sacred Relics 
 The Morgue The Outrageous Can-can The Louvre Pal 
 ace The Great Park Preservation of Noted Things . . .177 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 French National Burying-ground The Story of Abelard and 
 Heloise " English Spoken Here " Imperial Honors to an 
 American The Over-estimated Grisette Leaving Paris . .188 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Versailles Paradise Regained A Wonderful Park Paradise 
 
 Lost Napoleonic Strategy 204 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Italy in Sight The "City of Palaces " Beauty of the Genoese 
 Women Gifted Guide Church Magnificence How the 
 Genoese Live Massive Architecture Graves for 60,000 , 21 1 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Flying through Italy Marengo Some Wonders of the Famous 
 Cathedral An Unpleasant Adventure Tons of Gold and 
 Silver Holy Relics Solomon s Temple Rivaled . . . 225 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 La Scala Ingenious Frescoes Ancient Roman Amphitheater 
 The Chief Charm of European Life An Italian Bath The 
 Most Celebrated Painting in the World A Kiss for a Franc . 237 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Rural Italy by Rail Fumigated, According to Law The Sor- 
 rowing Englishman The Famous Lake Como Its Scenery 
 Como Compared with Tahoe Meeting a Shipmate 256 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The Pretty Lago di Lecco A Carriage Drive in the Country A 
 Sleepy Land Bloody Shrines The Heart and Home of 
 Priestcraft Birthplace of Harlequin Approaching Venice . 266 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Night in Venice The " Gay Gondolier " The Grand Fete by 
 Moonlight The Notable Sights of Venice The Mother of 
 the Republics Desolate 278 
 
xliv Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The Famous Gondola Great Square of St. Mark and Winged 
 Lion Snobs, at Home and Abroad Sepulchres of the Great 
 Dead A Tilt at the " Old Masters " Moving Again . . 293 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Through Italy by Rail Idling in Florence Wonderful Mosaics 
 Tower of Pisa Ancient Duomo The Original Pendulum 
 A New Holy Sepulchre Leghorn Gen. Garibaldi . . .312 
 
 CHAFFER XXV. 
 
 Railway Grandeur The Sumptuousness of Mother Church Mag 
 nificence and Misery General Execration A Good Word 
 for the Priests Civita Vecchia the Dismal Off for Rome . 325 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Grandeur of St. Peter s Holy Relics Grand View from the 
 Dome The Holy Inquisition Monkish Frauds The Coli 
 seum Ancient Plav-bill of a Coliseum Performance . . .338 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 " Butchered to Make a Roman Holiday " An Exasperating Sub 
 ject Asinine Guides The Roman Catacombs The Saint 
 who Burst his Ribs Miracle of the Bleeding Heart . . .361 
 
THE INNOCENTS ABROAD 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 r.R months the great Pleasure Excursion to 
 Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about 
 In the newspapers everywhere in America, and dis 
 cussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the 
 way of excursions its like had not been thought 
 of before, and it compelled that interest which attrac 
 tive novelties always command. It was to be a pic 
 nic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, in 
 stead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with 
 youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and pad 
 dling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a 
 grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long 
 summer day s laborious frolicking under the impres 
 sion that it was fun, were to sail away in a great 
 steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and 
 take a royal holiday beyond the broad ocean, in 
 many a strange clime and in many a land renowned 
 in history ! They were to sail for months over the 
 breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean ; they 
 were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the 
 ship with shouts and laughter or read novels and 
 poetry in the shade of the smoke-stacks, or watch 
 * (45) 
 
46 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 for the jelly-fish and the nautilus, over the side, and 
 the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of 
 the deep ; and at night they were to dance in the 
 open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ball 
 room that stretched from horizon to horizon, and 
 was domed by the bending heavens and lighted by 
 no meaner lamps than the stars and the magnificent 
 moon dance, and promenade, and smoke, and 
 sing, and make love, and search the skies for con 
 stellations that never associate with the "Big 
 Dipper" they were so tired of : and they were to 
 see the ships of twenty navies the customs and 
 costumes of twenty curious peoples the great 
 cities of half a world they were to hobnob with 
 nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and 
 princes, Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of 
 mighty empires ! 
 
 It was a brave conception ; it was the offspring of 
 a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but 
 it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the extraor 
 dinary character, the seductive nature, and the 
 vastness of the enterprise provoked comment every 
 where and advertised it in every household in the 
 land. Who could read the program of the excur 
 sion without longing to make one of the party? I 
 will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. 
 As a text for this book, nothing could be better; 
 
The Innocents Abroad 47 
 
 EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA, 
 GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST. 
 
 BROOKLYN, Fcbmary ist y 1867. 
 
 The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming 
 season, and begs to submit to you the following programme : 
 
 A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of 
 accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will be 
 selected, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not more 
 than three-fourths of the ship s capacity. There is good reason to 
 believe that this company can be easily made up in this immediate 
 vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances. 
 
 The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, includ 
 ing library and musical instruments. 
 
 An experienced physician will be on board. 
 
 Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will 
 be taken across the Atlantic, and, passing through the group of Azores, 
 St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be 
 spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the 
 voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached hi three or four days. 
 
 A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful sub 
 terraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries being readily 
 obtained. 
 
 From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France, 
 Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be given 
 not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years 
 before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in 
 the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the Great Exhibition ; and 
 the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of 
 which, on a clear day, Mont Blanc and the Alps can be distinctly seen. 
 Passengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and, 
 passing down through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at Genoa. 
 
 From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists 
 will have an opportunity to look over this, the " magnificent city of 
 palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a 
 beautiful road built by Napoleon I. From this point, excursions may 
 be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to Milan, Verona 
 (famous for its extraordinary fortifications), Padua, and Venice. Or, if 
 passengers desire to visit Palma (famous for Correggio s frescoes) and 
 
48 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Bologna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and rejoin the steamer at 
 Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous 
 for art in Italy. 
 
 From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one 
 night, and time appropriated to this point in which to visit Florence, its 
 palaces and galleries; Pisa, its Cathedral and "Leaning Tower," and 
 Lucca and its baths and Roman amphitheater; Florence, the most 
 remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles. 
 
 From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who 
 may prefer to go to Rome from that point) the distance will be made in 
 about thirty-six hours ; the route will lay along the coast of Italy, close 
 by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been made to take 
 on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera, and, if practicable, a call will 
 be made there to visit the home of Garibaldi. 
 
 Roma (by rail), Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Virgil s tomb, 
 and possibly, the ruins of Paestum, can be visited, as well as the beauti 
 ful surroundings of Naples and its charming bay. 
 
 The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city of 
 Sicily, which will be reached in one night from Naples. A day will be 
 spent here, and, leaving in the evening, the course will be taken towards 
 Athens. 
 
 Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group 
 of JEolian Isles, in sight of Stromboli and Vulcania, both active volca 
 noes, through the Straits of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one hand 
 and "Charybdis" on the other, along the east coast of Sicily, and in 
 sight of Mount ^Etna, along the south coast of Italy, the west and south 
 coast of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athens Gulf, and into the 
 Piraeus, Athens will be reached in two and a half or three days. After 
 tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will be crossed, and a day given 
 to Corinth, whence the voyage will be continued to Constantinople, 
 passing on the way through the Grecian Archipelago, the Dardanelles, 
 the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of the Golden Horn, and arriving 
 in about forty-eight hours from Athens. 
 
 After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the 
 beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black Sea to Sebastopol and Balaklava, 
 a run o! about twenty-four hours. Here it is proposed to remain two 
 days, visiting the harbors, fortifications, and battlefields of the Crimea ; 
 thence back through the Bosphorus, touching at Constantinople to take 
 in any who may have preferred to remain there ; down through the Sea 
 
The Innocents Abroad 49 
 
 of Marmora and the Dardanelles, along the coasts of ancient Troy and 
 Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which will be reached in two or two and a hall 
 days from Constantinople. A sufficient stay will be made here to give 
 opportunity of visiting Ephesus, fifty miles distant by rail. 
 
 From Smyrna towards the Holy Land the course will lay through the 
 Grecian Archipelago, close by the Isle of Patmos, along the coast of 
 Asia, ancient Pamphylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirout will be reached 
 in three days. At Beirout time will be given to visit Damascus ; after 
 which the steamer will proceed to Joppa. 
 
 From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias, 
 Nazareth, Bethany, Bethlehem, and other points of interest in the Holy 
 Land can be visited, and here those who may have preferred to make 
 the journey from Beirout through the country, passing through Damas 
 cus, Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by the River Jordan and Sea of 
 Tiberias, can rejoin the steamer. 
 
 Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be Alexandria, 
 which will be reached in twenty- four hours. The ruins of Caesar s 
 Palace, Pompey s Pillar, Cleopatra s Needle, the Catacombs, and ruins 
 of ancient Alexandria, Mill be found worth the visit. The journey to 
 Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be made in a few hours, 
 and from which can be visited the site of ancient Memphis, Joseph s 
 Granaries, and the Pyramids. 
 
 From Alexandria the route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta, 
 Cagliari (in Sardinia), and Palma (in Majorca), all magnificent harbors, 
 with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits. 
 
 A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Palma in the 
 evening, Valencia in Spain will be reached the next morning. A few 
 days will be spent in this, the finest city of Spain. 
 
 From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting 
 along the coast of Spain. Alicante, Carthagena, Palos, and Malaga 
 will be passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about 
 twenty- four hours. 
 
 A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to 
 Madeira, which will be reached in about three days. Captain Marryatt 
 writes: " I do not know a spot on the globe which so much astonishes 
 and delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two days 
 will be made here, which, if time permits, may be extended, and passing 
 on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of Teneriffe, a 
 southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed within the latitudes 
 4. 
 
50 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of the Northeast trade winds, where mild and pleasant weather and a 
 smooth sea can always be expected. 
 
 A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route 
 homeward, and will be reached in about ten days from Madeira, and 
 after spending a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the final 
 departure will be made for home, which will be reached in about three 
 days. 
 
 Already, applications have been received from parties in Europe 
 wishing to join the Excursion there. 
 
 The ship will at all times be a home, where the excursionists, if sick, 
 will be surrounded by kind friends, and have all possible comfort and 
 sympathy. 
 
 Should contagious sickness exist in any of the ports named in the 
 programme, such ports will be passed, and others of interest substituted. 
 
 The price of passage is fixed at $1,250, currency, for each adult 
 passenger. Choice of rooms and of seats at the tables apportioned in 
 the order in which passages are engaged, and no passage considered 
 engaged until ten per cent, of the passage money is deposited with the 
 treasurer. 
 
 Passengers can remain on board of the steamer at all ports, if they 
 desire, without additional expense, and all boating at the expense of 
 the ship. 
 
 All passages must be paid for when taken, in order that the most 
 perfect arrangements be made for starting at the appointed time. 
 
 Applications for passage must be approved by the committee before 
 tickets are issued, and can be made to the undersigned. 
 
 Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during 
 the voyage, may be brought home in the steamer free of charge. 
 
 Five dollars per day, in geld, it is believed, will be a fair calculation 
 to make for all traveling expenses on shore, and at the various points 
 where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for days at a time. 
 
 The tnp can be extended, and the route changed, by unanimous 
 vote of the passengers. 
 
 CHAS. C, DUNCAN, 
 
 1 1 7 WALL STREET, NEW YORK. 
 R. R. G*****, Treasurer. 
 
 COMMITTEE ON APPLICATIONS. 
 J. T. H***, ESQ., R. R. G******, ESQ., C. C. DUNCAN. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 51 
 
 COMMITTEE ON SELECTING STEAMER. 
 
 OPT. W. W. S******, Surveyor for Board of Underwriters. 
 C. W. C******, Consulting Engineer for U. S. and Canada. 
 J. T. H******, ESQ. 
 C. C. DUNCAN. 
 
 P. S. The very beautiful and substantial side-wheel steamship 
 "Quaker City" has been chartered for the occasion, and will leave 
 New York, June 8th. Letters have been issued by the government 
 commending the party to courtesies abroad. 
 
 What was there lacking about that program, to 
 make it perfectly irresistible? Nothing, that any 
 finite mind could discover. Paris, England, Scot 
 land, Switzerland, Italy Garibaldi! The Grecian 
 archipelago ! Vesuvius ! Constantinople ! Smyrna ! 
 The Holy Land ! Egypt and " our friends the Ber- 
 mudians " ! People in Europe desiring to join the 
 Excursion contagious sickness to be avoided 
 boating at the expense of the ship physician on 
 board the circuit of the globe to be made if the 
 passengers unanimously desired it the company 
 to be rigidly selected by a pitiless " Committee on 
 Applications" the vessel to be as rigidly selected 
 by as pitiless a * Committee on Selecting Steamer." 
 Human nature could not withstand these bewildering 
 temptations. I hurried to the Treasurer s office and 
 deposited my ten per cent. I rejoiced to know that 
 a few vacant staterooms were still left. I did avoid 
 a critical personal examination into my character, by 
 that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the 
 people of high standing I could think of in the com- 
 D 
 
52 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 munity who would be least likely to know anything 
 about me. 
 
 Shortly a supplementary program was issued which 
 set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hymns 
 would be used on board the ship. I then paid the 
 balance of my passage money. 
 
 I was provided with a receipt, and duly and 
 officially accepted as an excursionist. There was 
 happiness in that, but it was tame compared to the 
 novelty of being * select." 
 
 This supplementary program also instructed the 
 excursionists to provide themselves with light musi 
 cal instruments for amusement in the ship ; with sad 
 dles for Syrian travel ; green spectacles and umbrellas ; 
 veils for Egypt; and substantial clothing to use in 
 rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, 
 it was suggested that although the ship s library 
 would afford a fair amount of reading matter, it 
 would still be well if each passenger would provide 
 himself with a few guide-books, a Bible, and some 
 standard works of travel. A list was appended, 
 which consisted chiefly of books relating to the 
 Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the 
 excursion and seemed to be its main feature. 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was to have accom 
 panied the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him 
 to give up the idea. There were other passengers 
 who could have been spared better, and would have 
 been spared more willingly. Lieutenant-General 
 Sherman was to have been of the party, also, 
 
The Innocents Abroad 53 
 
 but the Indian war compelled his presence on the 
 plains. A popular actress had entered her name on 
 the ship s books, but something interfered, and she 
 couldn t go. The " Drummer Boy of the Potomac " 
 deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity left! 
 
 However, we were to have a " battery of guns " 
 from the Navy Department (as per advertisement), 
 to be used in answering royal salutes ; and the docu 
 ment furnished by the Secretary of the Navy, which 
 was to make "General Sherman and party" wel 
 come guests in the courts and camps of the old 
 world, was still left to us, though both document 
 and battery, I think, were shorn of somewhat of 
 their original august proportions. However, had 
 not we the seductive program, still, with its Paris, 
 its Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jericho, and 
 * * our friends the Bermudians ? What did we care ? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 OCCASIONALLY, during the following month, I 
 vy dropped in at 117 Wall Street to inquire how 
 the repairing and refurnishing of the vessel was com 
 ing on ; how additions to the passenger list were aver 
 aging; how many people the committee were de 
 creeing not "select," every day, and banishing in 
 sorrow and tribulation. I was glad to know that we 
 were to have a little printing-press on board and 
 issue a daily newspaper of our own. I was glad to 
 learn that our piano, our parlor organ, and our 
 melodeon were to be the best instruments of the 
 kind that could be had in the market. I was proud 
 to observe that among our excursionists were three 
 ministers of the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or 
 eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains 
 with sounding titles, an ample crop of " Professors " 
 of various kinds, and a gentleman who had ** COM 
 MISSIONER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO 
 EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA" thundering after his 
 name in one awful blast ! I had carefully prepared 
 myself to take rather a back seat in that ship, be 
 cause of the uncommonly select material that would 
 
 (54) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 55 
 
 alone be permitted to pass through the camel s eye 
 of that committee on credentials; I had schooled 
 myself to expect an imposing array of military and 
 naval heroes, and to have to set that back seat still 
 further back in consequence of it, may be; but I 
 state frankly that I was all unprepared for this 
 crusher. 
 
 I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and 
 blighted thing. I said that if that potentate must 
 go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must but 
 that to my thinking, when the United States consid 
 ered it necessary to send a dignitary of that tonnage 
 across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and 
 safer, to take him apart and cart him over in sections, 
 in several ships. 
 
 Ah, if I had only known, then, that he was only 
 a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing 
 more overpowering about it than the collecting of 
 seeds, and uncommon yams and extraordinary cab 
 bages and peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, 
 innocent, mildewed old fossil, the Smithsonian In 
 stitute, I would have felt so much relieved. 
 
 During that memorable month I basked in the hap 
 piness of being for once in my life drifting with the 
 tide of a great popular movement. Everybody was 
 going to Europe I, too, was going to Europe. 
 Everybody was going to the famous Paris Exposition 
 I, too, was going to the Paris Exposition. The 
 steamship lines were carrying Americans out of the 
 various ports of the country at the rate of four or 
 
56 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 five thousand a week, in the aggregate. If I met a 
 dozen individuals, during that month, who were not 
 going to Europe shortly, I have no distinct remem 
 brance of it now. I walked about the city a good 
 deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked 
 for the excursion. He was confiding, goou-natured, 
 unsophisticated, companionable; but he was not a 
 man to set the river on fire. He had the most ex 
 traordinary notions about this European exodus, and 
 came at last to consider the whole nation as packing 
 up for emigration to France. We stepped into a 
 store in Broadway, one day, where he bought a 
 handkerchief, and when the man could not make 
 change, Mr. B. said : 
 
 44 Never mind, I ll hand it to you in Paris." 
 
 14 But I am not going to Paris. " 
 
 44 How is what did I understand you to say? " 
 
 44 1 said I am not going to Paris." 
 
 * 4 Not going to Paris / Not g well then, where 
 in the nation are you going to? " 
 
 44 Nowhere at all." 
 
 44 Not anywhere whatsoever? not any place on 
 earth but this?" 
 
 44 Not any place at all but just this stay here all 
 summer." 
 
 My comrade took his purchase and walked out of 
 the store without a word walked out with an in 
 jured look upon his countenance. Up the street 
 apiece he broke silence and said impressively: * 4 It 
 was a lie that is my opinion of it ! " 
 
The Innocents Abroad 57 
 
 In the fullness of time the ship was ready to re 
 ceive her passengers. I was introduced to the 
 young gentleman who was to be my room-mate, and 
 found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit, un 
 selfish, full of generous impulses, patient, consider 
 ate, and wonderfully good-natured. Not any 
 passenger that sailed in the Quaker City will with 
 hold his endorsement of what I have just said. We 
 selected a stateroom forward of the wheel, on the 
 starboard side, * below decks." It had two berths 
 in it, a dismal dead-light, a sink with a wash-bowl in 
 it, and a long sumptuously cushioned locker, which 
 was to do service as a sofa partly, and partly as a 
 hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this 
 furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but 
 not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to 
 the cat. However, the room was large, for a ship s 
 stateroom, and was in every way satisfactory. 
 
 The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Sat 
 urday early in June. 
 
 A Httle after noon, on that distinguished Saturday, 
 I reached the ship and went on board. All was 
 bustle and confusion. [I have seen that remark be 
 fore, somewhere.] The pier was crowded with car 
 riages and men ; passengers were arriving and hurry 
 ing on board ; the vessel s decks were encumbered 
 with trunks and valises ; groups of excursionists, 
 arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were 
 moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as 
 droopy and woe-begone as so many molting chick- 
 
58 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 ens. The gallant flag was up, but it was under the 
 spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the 
 mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle ! 
 It was a pleasure excursion there was no gainsay 
 ing that, because the program said so it was so 
 nominated in the bond but it surely hadn t the 
 general aspect of one. 
 
 Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and 
 shouting and hissing of steam, rang the order to 
 " cast off!" a sudden rush to the gangways a 
 scampering ashore of visitors a revolution of the 
 wheels, and we were off the picnic was begun! 
 Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping 
 crowd on the pier; we answered them gently from 
 the slippery decks ; the flag made an effort to wave, 
 and failed; the " battery of guns " spake not the 
 ammunition was out. 
 
 We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and 
 came to anchor. It was still raining. And not only 
 raining, but storming. ** Outside" we could see, 
 ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We 
 must lie still, in the calm harbor, till the storm should 
 abate. Our passengers hailed from fifteen states; 
 only a few of them had ever been to sea before; 
 manifestly it would not do to pit them against a full 
 blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on. 
 Towards evening the two steam tugs that had accom 
 panied us with a rollicking champagne party of young 
 New Yorkers on board who wished to bid farewell to 
 one of our number in due and ancient form, de- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 59 
 
 parted, and we were alone on the deep. On deep 
 five fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And 
 out in the solemn rain, at that. This was pleasur 
 ing with a vengeance. 
 
 It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded 
 for prayer-meeting. The first Saturday night of any 
 other pleasure excursion might have been devoted to 
 whist and dancing; but I submit it to the unpreju 
 diced mind if it would have been in good taste for us 
 to engage in such frivolities, considering what we had 
 gone through and the frame of mind we were in. 
 We would have shone at a wake, but not at anything 
 more festive. 
 
 However, there is always a cheering influence about 
 the sea; and in my berth, that night, rocked by the 
 measured swell of the waves, and lulled by the mur 
 mur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out 
 of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the 
 day and damaging premonitions of the future. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone 
 down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was 
 still piling its frothy hills high in air " outside," as 
 we could plainly see with the glasses. We could 
 not properly begin a pleasure excursion on Sunday; 
 we could not offer untried stomachs to so pitiless a 
 sea as that. We must lie still till Monday. And 
 we did. But we had repetitions of church and 
 prayer-meetings; and so, of course, we were just as 
 eligibly situated as we could have been anywhere. 
 
 I was up early that Sabbath morning, and was 
 early to breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire 
 to have a good, long, unprejudiced look at the pas 
 sengers, at a time when they should be free from 
 self-consciousness which is at breakfast, when 
 such a moment occurs in the lives of human beings 
 at all. 
 
 I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly peo 
 ple I might almost say, so many venerable people. 
 A glance at the long lines of heads was apt to make 
 one think it was all gray. But it was not. There 
 was a tolerably fair sprinkling of /oung folks, and 
 
 (60) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 61 
 
 another fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who 
 were non-committal as to age, being neither actually 
 old or absolutely young. 
 
 The next morning, we weighed anchor and went 
 to sea. It was a great happiness to get away, after 
 this dragging, dispiriting delay. I thought there 
 never was such gladness in the air before, such 
 brightness in the sun, such beauty in the sea. I was 
 satisfied with the picnic, then, and with all its belong 
 ings. All my malicious instincts were dead within me ; 
 and as America faded out of sight, I think a spirit 
 of charity rose up in their place that was as bound 
 less, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was 
 heaving its billows about us. I wished to express my 
 feelings J wished to lift up my voice and sing, but 
 I did not know anything to sing, and so I was obliged 
 to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship 
 though, perhaps. 
 
 It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still 
 very rough. One could not promenade without 
 risking hi? neck ; at one moment the bowsprit was 
 taking a deadly aim at the sun in mid-heaven, and at 
 the next it was trying to harpoon a shark in the bot 
 tom of the ocean. What a weird sensation it is to 
 feel the stern of a ship sinking swiftly from under 
 you and see the bow climbing high away among the 
 clouds ! One s safest course, that day, was to clasp 
 a railing and hang on ; walking was too precarious 
 a pastime. 
 
 By some happy fortune I was not seasick. That 
 
62 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 was a thing to be proud of. I had not always 
 escaped before. If there is one thing in the 
 world that will make a man peculiarly and insuffer 
 ably self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave 
 itself, the first day at sea, when nearly all his 
 comrades are seasick. Soon, a venerable fossil, 
 shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, 
 appeared at the door of the after deck-house, and 
 the next lurch of the ship shot him into my arms. 
 I said: 
 
 * Good morning, sir. It is a fine day." 
 
 He put his hand on his stomach and said, "Oh, 
 my ! and then staggered away and fell over the 
 coop of a skylight. 
 
 Presently another old gentleman was projected 
 from the same door, with great violence. I said: 
 
 ** Calm yourself, sir There is no hurry. It is a 
 fine day, sir." 
 
 He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said 
 "Oh, my! " and reeled away. 
 
 In a little while another veteran was discharged 
 abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for 
 a saving support. I said : 
 
 " Good morning, sir. It is a fine day for pleasur 
 ing. You were about to say " 
 
 41 Oh, my!" 
 
 I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I 
 stayed there and was bombarded with old gentlemen 
 for an hour, perhaps ; and all I got out of any of 
 them was " Oh, my!" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 63 
 
 I went away, then, in a thoughtful mood. I said, 
 this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The 
 passengers are not garrulous, but still they are 
 sociable. I like those old people, but somehow 
 they all seem to have the " Oh, my " rather bad. 
 
 I knew what was the matter with them. They 
 were seasick. And I was glad of it. We all like to 
 see people seasick when we are not, ourselves. 
 Playing whist by the cabin lamps, when it is storm 
 ing outside, is pleasant; walking the quarter-deck in 
 the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy 
 foretop is pleasant, when one is not afraid to go up 
 there; but these are all feeble and commonplace 
 compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the 
 miseries of seasickness. 
 
 I picked up a good deal of information during the 
 afternoon. At one time I was climbing up the 
 quarter-deck when the vessel s stern was in the sky; 
 I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfort 
 able. Somebody ejaculated : 
 
 " Come, now, that won t answer. Read the sign 
 up there NO SMOKING ABAFT THE WHEEL!" 
 
 It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. 
 I went forward, of course. I saw a long spyglass 
 lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck staterooms 
 back of the pilot-house, and reached after it there 
 was a ship in the distance : 
 
 "Ah, ah hands off! Come out of that!" 
 
 I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep but 
 in a low voice : 
 
64 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 " Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers 
 and the discordant voice?" 
 
 "It s Captain Bursley executive officer sail 
 ing master." 
 
 I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of 
 something better to do, fell to carving a railing with 
 my knife. Somebody said, in an insinuating, ad 
 monitory voice : 
 
 "Now, say my friend don t you know any 
 better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that 
 way? You ought to know better than that." 
 
 I went back and found the deck-sweep : 
 
 "Who is that smooth-faced animated outrage 
 yonder in the fine clothes?" 
 
 " That s Captain L****, the owner of the ship 
 he s one of the main bosses." 
 
 In the course of time I brought up on the star 
 board side of the pilot-house, and found a sextant 
 lying on a bench. Now, I said, they " take the 
 sun " through this thing; I should think I might see 
 that vessel through it. I had hardly got it to my 
 eye when some one touched me on the shoulder and 
 said, deprecatingly : 
 
 "I ll have to get you to give that to me, sir. If 
 there s anything you d like to know about taking the 
 sun, I d as soon tell you as not but I don t like 
 to trust anybody with that instrument, if you want 
 any figuring done Aye-aye, sir!" 
 
 He was gone, to answer a call from the other side. 
 I sought the deck-sweep : 
 
The Innocents Abroad 65 
 
 " Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with 
 the sanctimonious countenance?" 
 
 "It s Captain Jones, sir the chief mate." 
 
 " Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything 
 I ever heard of before. Do you now I ask you 
 as a man and a brother do you think I could 
 venture to throw a rock here in any given direction 
 without hitting a captain of this ship?" 
 
 * Well, sir, I don t know I think likely you d 
 fetch the captain of the watch, maybe, because he s 
 a-standing right yonder in the way." 
 
 I went below meditating, and a little down 
 hearted. I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, 
 what may not five captains do with a pleasure ex 
 cursion. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE plowed along bravely for a week or more, 
 and without any conflict of jurisdiction among 
 the captains worth mentioning. The passengers 
 soon learned to accommodate themselves to their 
 new circumstances, and life in the ship became 
 nearly as systematically monotonous as the routine 
 ot a barrack. 1 do not mean that it was dull, for it 
 was not entirely so by any means but there was a 
 good deal of sameness about it. As is always the 
 fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to pick 
 up sailor terms a sign that they were beginning 
 to feel at home. Half-past six was no longer half- 
 past six to these pilgrims from New England, the 
 South, and the Mississippi Valley, it was " seven 
 bells " ; eight, twelve, and four o clock were " eight 
 bells ; the captain did not take the longitude at 
 nine o clock, but at "two bells." They spoke 
 glibly of the " after cabin," the " for rard cabin," 
 " port and starboard " and the " fo castle." 
 
 At seven bells the first gong rang ; at eight there 
 was breakfast, for such as were not too seasick to 
 eat it. After that all the well people walked arm- 
 
 (66) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 67 
 
 in-arm up and down the long promenade deck, 
 enjoying the fine summer mornings, and the seasick 
 ones crawled out and propped themselves up in the 
 lee of the paddle-boxes and ate their dismal tea and 
 toast, and looked wretched. From eleven o clock 
 until luncheon, and from luncheon until dinner at 
 six in the evening, the employments and amusements 
 were various. Some reading was done ; and much 
 smoking and sewing, though not by the same 
 parties ; there were the monsters of the deep to be 
 looked after and wondered at; strange ships had to 
 be scrutinized through opera-glasses, and sage de 
 cisions arrived at concerning them ; and more than 
 that, everybody took a personal interest in seeing 
 that the flag was run up and politely dipped three 
 times in response to the salutes of those strangers; 
 in the smoking-room there were always parties of 
 gentlemen playing euchre, draughts, and dominoes, 
 especially dominoes, that delightfully harmless game ; 
 and down on the main deck, " for rard " for rard 
 of the chicken coops and the cattle we had what 
 was called "horse-billiards." Horse-billiards is a 
 fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarity, 
 and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of 
 * hop-scotch" and shuffle-board played with a 
 crutch. A large hop-scotch diagram is marked out 
 on the deck with chalk, and each compartment num 
 bered. You stand off three or foui steps, with some 
 broad wooden disks before you on the deck, and 
 these you send forward with a vigorous thrust of a 
 
68 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does 
 not count anything. If it stops in division No. 7, 
 it counts 7; in 5, it counts 5, and so on. The game 
 is 100, and four can play at a time. That game 
 would be very simple, played on a stationary floor, 
 but with us, to play it well required science. We 
 had to allow for the reeling of the ship to the right 
 or the left. Very often one made calculations for a 
 heel to the right and the ship did not go that way. 
 The consequence was that that disk missed the 
 whole hop-scotch plan a yard or two, and then there 
 was humiliation on one side and laughter on the other. 
 
 When it rained, the passengers had to stay in the 
 house, of course or at least the cabins and 
 amuse themselves with games, reading, looking out 
 of the windows at the very familiar billows, and talk 
 ing gossip. 
 
 By 7 o clock in the evening, dinner was about 
 over; an hour s promenade on the upper deck fol 
 lowed ; then the gong sounded and a large majority 
 of the party repaired to the after cabin (upper) a 
 handsome saloon fifty or sixty feet long, for prayers. 
 The unregenerated called this saloon the " Syna 
 gogue." The devotions consisted only of two 
 hymns from the " Plymouth Collection," and a 
 short prayer, and seldom occupied more than fifteen 
 minutes. The hymns were accompanied by parlor 
 organ music when the sea was smooth enough to 
 allow a performer to sit at the instrument without 
 being lashed to his chair. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 69 
 
 After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the 
 stmblance of a writing-school. The like of that 
 picture was never seen in a ship before. Behind the 
 long dining-tables on either side of the saloon, and 
 scattered from one end to the other of the latter, 
 some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them 
 down under the swaying lamps, and for two or three 
 hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas ! that 
 journals so voluminously begun should come to so 
 lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them 
 did ! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that 
 host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal 
 concerning the first twenty days voyaging in the 
 Quaker City ; and I am morally certain that not ten 
 of the party can show twenty pages of journal for 
 the succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging! 
 At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition 
 of a man to keep a faithful record of his perform 
 ances in a book ; and he dashes at this work with an 
 enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that 
 keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, 
 snd the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one 
 days, he will find out that only those rare natures 
 that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to 
 duty for duty s sake, and invincible determination, 
 may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enter 
 prise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a 
 shameful defeat. 
 
 One of our favorite youths, Jack, a splendid 
 young fellow with a head full of good sense, and a 
 
70 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 pair of legs that were a wonder to look upon in the 
 way of length and straightness and slimness, used 
 to report progress every morning in the most glow 
 ing and spirited way, and say : 
 
 " Oh, I m coming along bully!" (he was a little 
 given to slang, in his happier moods) " I wrote ten 
 pages in my journal last night and you know I 
 wrote nine the night before, and twelve the night 
 before that. Why, it s only fun !" 
 
 * What do you find to put in it, Jack?" 
 
 " Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon 
 every day; and how many miles v/e made last 
 twenty-four hours ; and all the domino games I beat, 
 and horse-billiards; and whales and sharks and 
 porpoises; and the text of the sermon, Sundays 
 (because that ll tell at home, you know) ; and the 
 ships we saluted and what nation they were; and 
 which way the wind was, and whether there was a 
 heavy sea, and what sail we carried, though we don t 
 ever carry any, principally, going against a head 
 wind always wonder what is the reason of that? 
 and how many lies Moult has told Oh, everything ! 
 I ve got everything down. My father told me to 
 keep that journal. Father wouldn t take a thousand 
 dollars for it when I get it done." 
 
 " No, Jack; it will be worth more than a thou 
 sand dollars when you get it done." 
 
 ** Do you? no, but do you think it will, 
 though?" 
 
 * Yes, it will be worth at least as much as a 
 
The Innocents Abroad 71 
 
 thousand dollars when you get it done. Maybe, 
 
 more." 
 
 " Well, I about half think so, myself. It ain t no 
 slouch of a journal." 
 
 But it shortly became a most lamentable " slouch 
 of a journal." One night in Paris, after a hard 
 day s toil in sight-seeing, I said: 
 
 " Now I ll go and stroll around the cafe s awhile, 
 Jack, and give you a chance to write up your jour 
 nal, old fellow." 
 
 His countenance lost its fire. He said : 
 
 "Well, no, you needn t mind. I think I won t 
 run that journal any more. It is awful tedious. Do 
 you know I reckon I m as much as four thousand 
 pages behindhand. I haven t got any France in it 
 at all. First I thought I d leave France out and start 
 fresh. But that wouldn t do, would it? The gov 
 ernor would say, Hello, here didn t see anything 
 in France? That cat wouldn t fight, you know. 
 First I thought I d copy France out of the guide 
 book, like old Badger in the for rard cabin who s 
 writing a book, but there s more than three hundred 
 pages of it. Oh, /don t think a journal s any use 
 do you? They re only a bother, ain t they?" 
 
 * Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn t of much 
 use, but a journal properly kept is worth a thousand 
 dollars, when you ve got it done." 
 
 * A thousand! well, I should think so. / 
 wouldn t finish it for a million." 
 
 His experience was only the experience of the 
 
72 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 majority of that industrious night-school in the 
 cabin. If you wish to inflict a heartless and malig 
 nant punishment upon a young person, pledge him 
 to keep a journal a year. 
 
 A good many expedients were resorted to to keep 
 the excursionists amused and satisfied. A club was 
 formed, of all the passengers, which met in the 
 writing-school after prayers and read aloud about 
 the countries we were approaching, and discussed 
 the information so obtained. 
 
 Several times the photographer of the expedition 
 brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a 
 handsome magic lantern exhibition. His views were 
 nearly all of foreign scenes, but there were one or 
 two home pictures among them. He advertised that 
 he would * open his performance in the after cabin 
 at * two bells (9 p. m.), and show the passengers 
 where they shall eventually arrive which was all 
 very well, but by a funny accident the first picture 
 that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of 
 Greenwood Cemetery ! 
 
 On several starlight nights we danced on the upper 
 deck, under the awnings, and made something of a 
 ball-room display of brilliancy by hanging a number 
 of ship s lanterns to the stanchions. Our music 
 consisted of the well-mixed strains of a melodeon 
 which was a little asthmatic and apt to catch its 
 breath where it ought to come out strong ; a clarinet 
 which was a little unreliable on the high keys and 
 rather melancholy on the low ones; and a disrepu- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 73 
 
 table accordion that had a leak somewhere and 
 breathed louder than it squawked a more elegant 
 term does not occur to me just now. However, the 
 dancing was infinitely worse than the music. When 
 the ship rolled to starboard the whole platoon of 
 dancers came charging down to starboard with it, 
 and brought up in mass at the rail; and when it 
 rolled to port, they went floundering down to port 
 with the same unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers 
 spun around precariously for a matter of fifteen 
 seconds and then went skurrying down to the rail as 
 if they meant to go overboard. The Virginia reel, 
 as performed on board the Quaker City, had more 
 genuine reel about it than any reel I ever saw be 
 fore, and was as full of interest to the spectator as it 
 was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth es 
 capes to the participant. We gave up dancing, 
 finally. 
 
 We celebrated a lady s birthday anniversary, with 
 toasts, speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also 
 had a mock trial. No ship ever went to sea that 
 hadn t a mock trial on board. The purser was ac 
 cused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No, 
 10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of 
 the court, constables, sheriffs ; counsel for the state 
 and for the defendant ; witnesses were subpoenaed, 
 and a jury empaneled after much challenging. The 
 witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradic 
 tory, as witnesses always are. The counsel were 
 eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of 
 
74 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 each other, as was characteristic and proper. The 
 case was at last submitted, and duly finished by the 
 judge with an absurd decision and a ridiculous 
 sentence. 
 
 The acting of charades was tried, on several even 
 ings, by the young gentlemen and ladies, in the 
 cabins, and proved the most distinguished success of 
 all the amusement experiments. 
 
 An attempt was made to organize a debating club, 
 but it was a failure. There was no oratorical talent 
 in the ship. 
 
 We all enjoyed ourselves I think I can safely 
 say that, but it was in a rather quiet way. We very, 
 very seldom played the piano ; we played the flute 
 and the clarinet together, and made good music, 
 too, what there was of it, but we always played the 
 same old tune; it was a very pretty tune how 
 well I remember it I wonder when I shall ever get 
 rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or 
 the organ, except at devotions but I am too fast; 
 young Albert did know part of a tune something 
 about * O Something-Or-Other How Sweet it is to 
 Know that he s his What s-his-Name " (I do not 
 remember the exact title of it, but it was very plain 
 tive, and full of sentiment), Albert played that 
 pretty much all the time, until we contracted with 
 him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by 
 moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational 
 singing at church and prayers was not of a superior 
 order of architecture. I put up with it as long as I 
 
The Innocents Abroad 75 
 
 could, and then joined in and tried to improve it, 
 but this encouraged young George to join in, too, 
 and that made a failure of it; because George s 
 voice was just " turning," and when he was singing 
 a dismal sort of bass, it was apt to fly off the handle 
 and startle everybody with a most discordant cackle 
 on the upper notes. George didn t know the tunes, 
 either, which was also a drawback to his perform 
 ances. I said: 
 
 " Come, now, George, don t improvise. It looks 
 too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick 
 to * Coronation/ like the others. It is a good tune 
 you can t improve it any, just off-hand, in this 
 way." 
 
 "Why, I m not trying to improve it and I am 
 singing like the others just as it is in the notes." 
 
 And he honestly thought he was, too ; and so he 
 had no one to blame but himself when his voice 
 caught on the center occasionally, and gave him the 
 lockjaw. 
 
 There were those among the unregenerated who 
 attributed the unceasing head winds to our distress 
 ing choir music. There were those who said openly 
 that it was taking chances enough to have such 
 ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best; 
 and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George 
 help, was simply flying in the face of Providence. 
 These said that the choir would keep up their lacer 
 ating attempts at melody until they would bring 
 down a storm some day that would sink the ship. 
 
76 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 There were even grumblers at the prayers. The 
 executive officer said the Pilgrims had no charity. 
 
 There they are, down there every night at eight 
 bells, praying for fair winds when they know as 
 well as I do that this is the only ship going east this 
 time of the year, but there s a thousand coming 
 west what s a fair wind for us is a head wind to 
 them the Almighty s blowing a fair wind for a 
 thousand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it 
 clear around so as to accommodate one, and she a 
 steamship at that! It ain t good sense, it ain t good 
 reason, it ain t good Christianity, it ain t common 
 human charity. Avast with such nonsense !" 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TAKING it "by and large," as the sailors say, 
 we had a pleasant ten days run from New 
 York to the Azores islands not a fast run, for the 
 distance is only twenty-four hundred miles but a 
 right pleasant one, in the main. True, we had head 
 winds all the time, and several stormy experiences 
 which sent fifty per cent, of the passengers to bed, 
 sick, and made the ship look dismal and deserted 
 stormy experiences that all will remember who 
 weathered them on the tumbling deck, and caught 
 the vast sheets of spray that every now and then 
 sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept 
 the ship like a thunder shower; but for the most 
 part we had balmy summer weather, and nights that 
 were even finer than the days. We had the phe 
 nomenon of a full moon located just in the same 
 spot in the heavens at the same hour every night. 
 The reason of this singular conduct on the part of 
 the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did 
 afterward when we reflected that we were gaining 
 about twenty minutes every day, because we were 
 going east so fast we gained just about enough 
 6 (7?) 
 
78 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 every day to keep along with the moon. It was 
 becoming an old moon to the *nends we had left 
 behind us, but to us Joshuas it stood still in the 
 same place, and remained always the same. 
 
 Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, 
 and is on his first voyage, was a good deal worried 
 by the constantly changing * ship time." He was 
 proud of his new watch at first, and used to drag it 
 out promptly when eight bells struck at noon, but 
 he came to look after a while as if he were losing 
 confidence in it. Seven days out from New York 
 he came on deck, and said with great decision: 
 
 44 This thing s a swindle! 
 
 "What s a swindle?" 
 
 14 Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois 
 gave $150 for her and I thought she was good. 
 And, by George, she is good on shore, but some 
 how she don t keep up her lick here on the water 
 gets seasick, ~naybe. She skips; she runs along 
 regular enough till half-past eleven, and then, all of 
 a sudden, she lets down. I ve set that old regulator 
 up faster and faster, till I ve shoved it clear around, 
 but it don t do any good ; she just distances every 
 watch in the ship, and clatters along in a way that s 
 astonishing till it is noon, but them eight bells always 
 gets in about ten minutes ahead of her, anyway. I 
 don t know what to do with her now. She s doing 
 all she can she s going her best gait, but it won t 
 save her. Now, don t you know, there ain t a watch 
 in the ship that s making better time than she is; 
 
The Innocents Abroad 79 
 
 but what does it signify? When you hear them 
 eight bells you ll find her just about ten minutes 
 short of her score, sure." 
 
 The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, 
 and this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast 
 enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he 
 had pushed the regulator up as far as it would go, 
 and the watch was ** on its best gait," and so noth 
 ing was left him but to fold his hands and see the 
 ship beat the race. We sent him to the captain, 
 and he explained to him the mystery of ** ship 
 time," and set his troubled mind at rest, This 
 young man asked a great many questions about 
 seasickness before we left, and wanted to know what 
 its characteristics were, and how he was to tell wnen 
 he had it. He found out. 
 
 We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, 
 etc., of course, and by and by large schools of 
 Portuguese men-of-war were added to the regular 
 list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and 
 some of a brilliant carmine color. The nautilus is 
 nothing but a transparent web of jelly, that spreads 
 itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-looking 
 strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep 
 it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor, 
 and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when 
 a storm threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and 
 furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. 
 Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing 
 order by turning over and dipping it in the water for 
 
80 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 SL moment. Seamen say the nautilus is only found 
 in these waters between the 35th and 45th parallels 
 of latitude. 
 
 At three o clock on the morning of the 2 1st of 
 June we were awakened and notified that the 
 Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take 
 any interest in islands at three o clock in the morn 
 ing. But another persecutor came, and then another 
 and another, and finally believing that the general 
 enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in 
 peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was 
 five and a half o clock now, and a raw, blustering 
 morning. The passengers were huddled about the 
 smoke stacks and fortified behind ventilators, and all 
 were wrapped in wintry costumes, and looking sleepy 
 and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching 
 spray. 
 
 The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a 
 mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mists 
 of the sea. But as we bore down upon it, the sun 
 came out and made it a beautiful picture a mass 
 of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a 
 height of fifteen hundred feet, and mingled its 
 upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with 
 sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with narrow cations, 
 and here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals 
 shaped themselves into mimic battlements and 
 castles ; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts 
 of sunlight, that painted summit and slope and 
 glen with bands of fire, and left belts of somber 
 
The Innocents Abroad 81 
 
 shade between. It was the aurora borealis of the 
 frozen pole exiled to a summer land ! 
 
 We skirted around two-thirds of the island, lour 
 miles from shore, and all the opera-glasses in the 
 ship were called into requisition to settle disputes as 
 to whether mossy spots on the uplands were groves 
 of trees or groves of weeds, or whether the white 
 villages down by the sea were really villages or only 
 the clustering tombstones of cemeteries. Finally, 
 we stood to sea and bore away for San Miguel, and 
 Flores shortly became a dome of mud again, and 
 sank down among the mists and disappeared. But 
 to many a seasick passenger it was good to see the 
 green hills again, and all were more cheerful after 
 this episode than anybody could have expected 
 them to be, considering how sinfully early they had 
 gotten up. 
 
 But we had to change our purpose about San 
 Miguel, for a storm came up about noon that so 
 tossed and pitched the vessel that common sense 
 dictated a run for shelter. Therefore we steered for 
 the nearest island of the group Fayal (the people 
 there pronounce it Fy-all, and put the accent on the 
 first syllable). We anchored in the open ^oadstead 
 of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town 
 has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its 
 snow-white houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh 
 green vegetation, and no village could look prettier 
 or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphi 
 theater of hills which are three hundred to seven 
 6. 
 
82 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 hundred feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to 
 their summits not a foot of soil left idle. Every 
 farm and every acre is cut up into little square in- 
 closures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect 
 the growing products from the destructive gales that 
 blow there. These hundreds of green squares, 
 marked by their black lava walls, make the hills 
 look like vast checker-boards. 
 
 The islands belong to Portugal, and everything in 
 Fayal has Portuguese characteristics about it. But 
 more of that anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, 
 lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese 
 boatmen, with brass rings in their ears, and fraud in 
 their hearts, climbed the ship s sides, and various 
 parties of us contracted with them to take us ashore 
 at so much a head, silver coin of any country. We 
 landed under the walls of a little fort, armed with 
 batteries of twelve and thirty-two pounders, which 
 Horta considered a most formidable institution, but 
 if we were ever to get after it with one of our tur- 
 reted monitors, they would have to move it out in 
 the country if they wanted it where they could go 
 and find it again when they needed it. The group 
 on the pier was a rusty one men and women, 
 and boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, un 
 combed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and 
 profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and 
 never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get 
 rid of them. We walked up the middle of the prin 
 cipal street, and these vermin surrounded us on all 
 
The Innocents Abroad 83 
 
 sides, and glared upon us; and every moment ex 
 cited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a 
 good look back, just as village boys do when they 
 accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from 
 street to street. It was very flattering to me to be 
 part of the material for such a sensation. Here and 
 there in the doorways we saw women, with fashion 
 able Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick 
 blue cloth, attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and 
 is a marvel of ugliness. It stands up high, and 
 spreads far abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It 
 fits like a circus tent, and a woman s head is hidden 
 away in it like the man s who prompts the singers 
 from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is 
 no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote, 
 as they call it it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue 
 mass of sail, and a woman can t go within eight 
 points of the wind with one of them on; she has to 
 go before the wind or not at all. The general style 
 of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will 
 remain so for the next ten thousand years, but each 
 island shapes its capotes just enough differently from 
 the others to enable an observer to tell at a glance 
 what particular island a lady hails from. 
 
 The Portuguese pennies or reis (pronounced rays) 
 are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make 
 a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis. 
 We did not know this until after we had found it out 
 through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy 
 and so grateful to be on solid land once more, that 
 
84 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 he wanted to give a feast said he had heard it was 
 a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand 
 banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an ex 
 cellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst 
 of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, 
 and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his 
 bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. 
 He took another look to assure himself that his 
 senses had not deceived him, and then read the items 
 aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his 
 cheeks turned to ashes : 
 
 "*Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis P Ruin 
 and desolation !" 
 
 " Twenty-five cigars, at IOO reis, 2,500 reis! 
 Oh, my sainted mother!" 
 
 " Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis, 13,200 
 reis! Be with us all!" 
 
 " TOTAL, TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUN 
 DRED REIS! The suffering Moses! there ain t 
 money enough in the ship to pay that bill ! Go 
 leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined com 
 munity." 
 
 I think it was the blankest looking party I ever 
 saw. Nobody could say a word. It was as if every 
 soul had been stricken dumb. Wine glasses de 
 scended slowly to the table, their contents untasted. 
 Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers. 
 Each man sought his neighbor s eye, but found in it 
 no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last the 
 fearful silence was broken. The shadow of a des 
 
The Innocents Abroad 85 
 
 perate resolve settled upon Blucher s countenance 
 like a cloud, and he rose up and said: 
 
 44 Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I ll 
 never, never stand it. Here s a hundred and fifty 
 dollars, sir, and it s all you ll get I ll swim in 
 blood, before I ll pay a cent more." 
 
 Our spirits rose and the landlord s fell at least 
 we thought so ; he was confused at any rate, not 
 withstanding he had not understood a word that had 
 been said. He glanced from the little pile of gold 
 pieces to Blucher several times, and then went out. 
 He must have visited an American, for, when he 
 returned, he brought back his bill translated into a 
 language that a Christian could understand thus : 
 
 10 dinners, 6,000 reis, or ... 
 25 cigars, 2,500 reis, or / 
 
 11 bottles wine, 13,200 reis, or . 
 
 Total 21,700 reis, or . 
 
 Happiness reigned once more in Blucher s dinnei 
 party. More refreshments were ordered 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 I THINK the Azores must be very little known m 
 America. Out of our whole ship s company 
 there was not a solitary individual who knew any 
 thing whatever about them. Some of the party, 
 well read concerning most other lands, had no other 
 information about the Azores than that they were a 
 group of nine or ten small islands far out in the 
 Atlantic, something more than half way between 
 New York and Gibraltar. That was all. These con 
 siderations move me to put in a paragraph of dry 
 facts just here. 
 
 The community is eminently Portuguese that is 
 to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. 
 There is a civil governor, appointed by the King of 
 Portugal; and also a military governor, who can 
 assume supreme control and suspend the civil gov 
 ernment at his pleasure. The islands contain a 
 population of about 200,000, almost entirely Portu 
 guese. Everything is staid and settled, for the 
 country was one hundred years old when Columbus 
 discovered America. The principal crop is corn, 
 and they raise it and grind it just as their great-great- 
 
 (86) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 87 
 
 great-grandfathers did. They plow with a board 
 slightly shod with iron ; their trifling little harrows 
 are drawn by men and women; small windmills 
 grind the corn, ten bushels a day, and there is one 
 assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a gen 
 eral superintendent to stand by and keep him from 
 going to sleep. When the wind changes they hitch 
 on some donkeys, and actually turn the whole upper 
 half of the mill around until the sails are in proper 
 position, instead of fixing the concern so that the 
 sails could be moved instead of the mill. Oxen 
 tread the wheat from the ear, after the fashion pre 
 valent in the time of Methuselah. There is not a 
 wheelbarrow in the land they carry everything on 
 their heads, or on donkeys, or in a wicker-bodied 
 cart, whose wheels are solid blocks of wood and 
 whose axles turn with the wheel. There is not a 
 modern plow in the islands, or a threshing-machine. 
 All attempts to introduce them have failed. The 
 good Catholic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed 
 God to shield him from all blasphemous desire to 
 know more than his father did before him. The 
 climate is mild ; they never have snow or ice, and I 
 saw no chimneys in the town. The donkeys and 
 the men, women, and children of a family, all eat 
 and sleep in the same room, and are unclean, are 
 ravaged by vermin, and are truly happy. The 
 people lie, and cheat the stranger, and are desper 
 ately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for 
 their dead. The latter trait shows how little better 
 
88 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 they are than the donkeys they eat and sleep with. 
 The only well-dressed Portuguese in the camp are 
 the half a dozen well-to-do families, the Jesuit priests, 
 and the soldiers of the little garrison. The wages of 
 a laborer are twenty to twenty-four cents a day, and 
 those of a good mechanic about twice as much. 
 They count it in reis at a thousand to the dollar, and 
 this makes them rich and contented. Fine grapes 
 used to grow in the islands, and an excellent wine 
 was made and exported. But a disease killed all 
 the vines fifteen years ago, and since that time no 
 wine has been made. The islands being wholly of 
 volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very rich. 
 Nearly every foot of ground is under cultivation, 
 and two or three crops a year of each article are 
 produced, but nothing is exported save a few 
 oranges chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, 
 and nobody goes away. News is a thing unknown 
 in Fayal. A thirst for it is a passion equally un 
 known. A Portuguese of average intelligence in 
 quired if our civil war was over? because, he said, 
 somebody had told him it was or, at least, it ran 
 in his mind, that somebody had told him something 
 like that! And when a passenger gave an officer 
 of the garrison copies of the Tribune, the Herald, 
 and Times, he was surprised to find later news in 
 them from Lisbon than he had just received 
 by the little monthly steamer. He was told that 
 it came by cable. He said he knew they had 
 tried to lay a cable ten years ago, but it had 
 
The Innocents Abroad 89 
 
 been in his mind, somehow, that they hadn t 
 succeeded ! 
 
 It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbug- 
 gery flourishes. We visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly 
 two hundred years old, and found in it a piece of the 
 veritable cross upon which our Saviour was crucified. 
 It was polished and hard, and in as excellent a state 
 of preservation as if the dread tragedy on Calvary 
 had occurred yesterday instead of eighteen centuries 
 ago. But these confiding people believe in that 
 piece of wood unhesitatingly. 
 
 In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with 
 facings of solid silver at least, they call it so, and 
 I think myself it would go a couple of hundred to 
 the ton (to speak after the fashion of the silver 
 miners), and before it is kept forever burning a small 
 lamp. A devout lady who died, left money and 
 contracted for unlimited masses for the repose of 
 her soul, and also stipulated that this lamp should 
 be kept lighted always, day and night. She did all 
 this before she died, you understand. It is a very 
 small lamp, and a very dim one, and it could not 
 work her much damage, I think, if it went out 
 altogether. 
 
 The great altar of the cathedral, and also three or 
 four minor ones, are a perfect mass of gilt gimcracks 
 and gingerbread. And they have a swarm of rusty, 
 dusty, battered apostles standing around the filigree 
 work, some on one leg and some with one eye out 
 but a gamey look in the other, and some with two 
 
90 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 or three fingers gone, and some with not enough 
 nose left to blow all of them crippled and dis 
 couraged, and fitter subjects for the hospital than 
 the cathedral. 
 
 The walls of the chancel are of porcelain, all 
 pictured over with figures of almost life size, very 
 elegantly wrought, and dressed in the fanciful cos 
 tumes of two centuries ago. The design was a his 
 tory of something or somebody, but none of us were 
 learned enough to read the story. The old father, 
 reposing under a stone close by, dated 1686, might 
 have told us if he could have risen. But he didn t. 
 
 As we came down through the town, we encoun 
 tered a squad of little donkeys ready saddled for 
 use. The saddles were peculiar, to say the least. 
 They consisted of a sort of saw-buck, with a small 
 mattress on it, and this furniture covered about half 
 the donkey. There were no stirrups, but really 
 such supports were not needed to use such a 
 saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table 
 there was ample support clear out to one s knee 
 joints. A pack of ragged Portuguese muleteers 
 crowded around us, offering their beasts at half a 
 dollar an hour more rascality to the stranger, for 
 the market price is sixteen cents. Half a dozen of 
 us mounted the ungainly affairs, and submitted to 
 the indignity of making a ridiculous spectacle of 
 ourselves through the principal streets of a town of 
 10,000 inhabitants. 
 
 We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a 
 
The Innocents Abroad 91 
 
 canter, but a stampede, and made up of all possible 
 or conceivable gaits. No spurs were necessary. 
 There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen 
 volunteers beside, and they banged the donkeys 
 with their goad-sticks, and pricked them with their 
 spikes, and shouted something that sounded like 
 44 Sekki-yah /" and kept up a din and a racket that 
 was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals were 
 all on foot, but no matter, they were always up to 
 time they can outrun and outlast a donkey. 
 Altogether ours was a lively and picturesque pro 
 cession, and drew crowded audiences to the balconies 
 wherever we went. 
 
 Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. 
 The beast scampered zigzag across the road and the 
 others ran into him ; he scraped Blucher against carts 
 and the corners of houses ; the road was fenced in 
 with high stone walls, and the donkey gave him a 
 polishing first on one side and then on the other, but 
 never once took the middle ; he finally came to the 
 house he was born in and darted into the parlor, 
 scraping Blucher off at the doorway. After re 
 mounting, Blucher said to the muleteer, " Now, 
 that s enough, you know; you go slow hereafter." 
 But the fellow knew no English and did not under 
 stand, so he simply said, "Sekki-yah!" and the 
 donkey was off again like a shot. He turned a 
 corner suddenly, and Blucher went over his head. 
 And, to speak truly, every mule stumbled over the 
 two, and the whole cavalcade was piled up in a 
 
92 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 heap. No harm done. A fall from one of those 
 donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling 
 off a sofa. The donkeys all stood still after the 
 catastrophe, and waited for their dismembered sad 
 dles to be patched up and put on by the noisy 
 muleteers. Blucher was pretty angry, and wanted 
 to swear, but every time he opened his mouth his 
 animal did so also, and let off a series of brays that 
 drowned all other sounds. 
 
 It was fun, skurrying around the breezy hills and 
 through the beautiful caftons. There was that rare 
 thing, novelty, about it; it was a fresh, new, ex 
 hilarating sensation, this donkey riding, and worth a 
 hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures. 
 
 The roads were a wonder, and well they might be. 
 Here was an island with only a handful of people in 
 it 25,000 and yet such fine roads do not exist 
 in the United States outside of Central Park. Every 
 where you go, in any direction, you find either a 
 hard, smooth, level thoroughfare, just sprinkled with 
 black lava sand, and bordered with little gutters 
 neatly paved with small smooth pebbles, or com 
 pactly paved ones like Broadway. They talk much 
 of the Russ pavement in New York, and call it a 
 new invention yet here they have been using it in 
 this remote little isle of the sea for two hundred 
 years ! Every street in Horta is handsomely paved 
 with the heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat 
 and true as a floor not marred by holes like 
 Broadway. And every road is fenced in by tall, 
 
The Innocents Abroad 9> 
 
 solid lava walls, which will last a thousand years in 
 this land where frost is unknown. They are very 
 thick, and are often plastered and whitewashed, and 
 capped with projecting slabs of cut stone. Trees 
 from gardens above hang their swaying tendril? 
 down, and contrast their bright green with the white 
 wash or the black lava of the walls, and make them 
 beautiful. The trees and vines stretch across these 
 narrow roadways sometimes, and so shut out the 
 sun that you seem to be riding through a tunnel. 
 The pavements, the roads, and the bridges are all 
 government work. 
 
 The bridges are of a single span a single arch 
 of cut stone, without a support, and paved on top 
 with flags of lava and ornamental pebble work. 
 Everywhere are walls, walls, walls, and all of them 
 tasteful and handsome and eternally substantial ; 
 and everywhere are those marvelous pavements, so 
 neat, so smooth, and so indestructible. And if ever 
 roads and streets, and the outsides of houses, were 
 perfectly free from any sign or semblance of dirt or 
 dust or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is 
 Horta, it is Fayal. The lower classes of the people, 
 in their persons and their domiciles, are not clean 
 but there it stops the town and the island are 
 miracles of cleanliness. 
 
 We arrived home again finally, after a ten-mile 
 excursion, and the irrepressible muleteers scampered 
 at our heels through the main street, goading 
 the donkeys, shouting the everlasting " Sekki-yah," 
 
94 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and singing "John Brown s Body 
 English. 
 
 When we were dismounted and it came to set 
 tling, the shouting and jawing and swearing and 
 quarreling among the muleteers and with us, was 
 nearly deafening. One fellow would demand a 
 dollar an hour for the use of his donkey ; another 
 claimed half a dollar for pricking him up, another a 
 quarter for helping in that service, and about four 
 teen guides presented bills for showing us the way 
 through the town and its environs; and every 
 vagrant of them was more vociferous, and more 
 vehement, and more frantic in gesture than his 
 neighbor. We paid one guide, and paid for one 
 muleteer to each donkey. 
 
 The mountains on some of the islands are very 
 high. We sailed along the shore of the Island of 
 Pico, under a stately green pyramid that rose up 
 with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an 
 altitude of 7,613 feet, and thrust its summit above 
 the white clouds like an island adrift in a fog ! 
 
 We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, 
 apricots, etc., in these Azores, of course. But I 
 will desist. I am not here to write patent office 
 reports. 
 
 We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach 
 there five or six days out from the Azores. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 RWEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relent 
 less sea ; a week of seasickness and deserted 
 cabins ; of lonely quarter-decks drenched with spray 
 spray so ambitious that it even coated the smoke 
 stacks thick with a white crust of salt to their very 
 tops ; a week of shivering in the shelter of the life 
 boats and deck-houses by day, and blowing suffo 
 cating " clouds" and boisterously performing at 
 dominoes in the smoking-room at night. 
 
 And the last night of the seven was the stormiest 
 of all. There was no thunder, no noise but the 
 pounding bows of the ship, the keen whistling of 
 the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the 
 seething waters. But the vessel climbed aloft as if 
 she would climb to heaven then paused an instant 
 that seemed a century, and plunged headlong down 
 again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays 
 drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of 
 darkness was everywhere. At long intervals a flash 
 of lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire, that 
 revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing 
 before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, 
 
 (95) 
 
96 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly 
 luster ! 
 
 Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoid 
 ing the night winds and the spray. Some thought 
 the vessel could not live through the night, and it 
 seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the 
 wild tempest and see the peril that threatened than 
 to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the 
 dim lamps, and imagine the horrors that were abroad 
 on the ocean. And once out once where they 
 could see the ship struggling in the strong grasp of 
 the storm once where they could hear the shriek 
 of the winds, and face the driving spray and look 
 out upon the majestic picture the lightnings dis 
 closed, they were prisoners to a fierce fascination 
 they could not resist, and so remained. It was a 
 wild night and a very, very long one. 
 
 Everybody was sent scampering to the deck at 
 seven o clock this lovely morning of the 3Oth of 
 June with the glad news that land was in sight ! It 
 was a rare thing and a joyful, to see all the ship s 
 family abroad once more, albeit the happiness that 
 sat upon every countenance could only partly con 
 ceal the ravages which that long siege of storms had 
 wrought there. But dull eyes soon sparkled with 
 pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and frames 
 weakened by sickness gathered new life from the 
 quickening influences of the bright, fresh morning. 
 Yea, and from a still more potent influence : the 
 worn castaways were to see the blessed land again 1 
 
The Innocents Abroad 97 
 
 and to see it was to bring back that mother-land 
 that was in all their thoughts. 
 
 Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits 
 of Gibraltar, the tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa 
 on our right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze 
 and their summits swathed in clouds the same 
 being according to Scripture, which says that 
 "clouds and darkness are over the land." The 
 words were spoken of this particular portion of 
 Africa, I believe. On our left were the granite- 
 ribbed domes of old Spain. The Strait is only 
 thirteen miles wide in its narrowest part. 
 
 At short intervals, along the Spanish shore, were 
 quaint-looking old stone towers Moorish, we 
 thought but learned better afterward. In former 
 times the Morocco rascals used to coast along the 
 Spanish Main in their boats till a safe opportunity 
 seemed to present itself, and then dart in and cap 
 ture a Spanish village, and carry off all the pretty 
 women they could find. It was a pleasant business, 
 and was very popular. The Spaniards built these 
 watch towers on the hills to enabk them to keep a 
 sharper lookout on the Moroccan speculators. 
 
 The picture, on the other hand, was very beauti 
 ful to eyes weary of the changeless sea, and by and 
 by the ship s company grew wonderfully cheerful. 
 But while we stood admiring the cloud-capped peaks 
 and the lowlands robed in misty gloom, a finer 
 picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a 
 magnet a stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas 
 7. 
 
98 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 till she was one towering mass of bellying sail ! She 
 came speeding over the sea like a great bird. 
 Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was 
 for the beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed, 
 she swept superbly by and flung the Stars and 
 Stripes to the breeze ! Quicker than thought, hats 
 and handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer 
 went up ! She was beautiful before she was 
 radiant now. Many a one on our decks knew then 
 for the first time how tame a sight his country s 
 flag is at home compared to what it is in a foreign 
 land. To see it is to see a vision of home itself and 
 all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a very 
 river of sluggish blood ! 
 
 We were approaching the famed Pillars of Her 
 cules, and already the African one, "Ape s Hill," 
 a grand old mountain with summit streaked with 
 granite ledges, was in sight. The other, the great 
 Rock of Gibraltar, was yet to come. The ancients 
 considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navi 
 gation and the end of the world. The information 
 the ancients didn t have was very voluminous. Even 
 the prophets wrote book after book and epistle after 
 epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a 
 great continent on our side of the water ; yet they 
 must have known it was there, I should think. 
 
 In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of 
 rock, standing seemingly in the center of the wide 
 strait and apparently washed on all sides by the sea, 
 swung magnificently into view, and we needed no 
 
The Innocents Abroad 99 
 
 tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. 
 There could not be two rocks like that in one king 
 dom. 
 
 The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half 
 long, I should say, by 1,400 to 1,500 feet high, and 
 a quarter of a mile wide at its base. One side and 
 one end of it come about as straight up out of the 
 sea as the side of a house, the other end is irregular 
 and the other side is a steep slant which an army 
 would find very difficult to climb. At the foot of 
 this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar or rather 
 the town occupies part of the slant. Everywhere 
 on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the 
 heights, everywhere you choose to look, Gibraltar 
 is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It 
 makes a striking and lively picture, from whatsoever 
 point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the 
 sea on the end of a flat, narrow strip of land, and is 
 suggestive of a * gob of mud on the end of a 
 shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground at 
 its base belongs to the English, and then, extending 
 across the strip from the Atlantic to the Mediter 
 ranean, a distance of a quarter of a mile, comes the 
 "Neutral Ground," a space two or three hundred 
 yards wide, which is free to both parties. 
 
 * Are you going through Spain to Paris?" That 
 question was bandied about the ship day and night 
 from Fayal to Gibraltar, and I thought I never could 
 get so tired of hearing any one combination of words 
 again, or more tired of answering, " I don t know." 
 
100 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 At the last moment six or seven had sufficient 
 decision of character to make up their minds to go, 
 and did go, and I felt a sense of relief at once it 
 was forever too late, now, and I could make up my 
 mind at my leisure, not to go. I must have a pro 
 digious quantity of mind ; it takes me as much as a 
 week, sometimes, to make it up. 
 
 But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. 
 tVe had no sooner gotten rid of the Spain distress 
 than the Gibraltar guides started another a tire 
 some repetition of a legend that had nothing very 
 astonishing about it, even in the first place: "That 
 high hill yonder is called the Queen s Chair; it is 
 because one of the queens of Spain placed her chair 
 there when the French and Spanish troops were be 
 sieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move 
 from the spot till the English flag was lowered from 
 the fortresses. If the English hadn t been gallant 
 enough to lower the flag for a few hours one day, 
 she d have had to break her oath or die up there." 
 
 We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow 
 streets and entered the subterranean galleries the 
 English have blasted out in the rock. These gal 
 leries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short 
 intervals in them great guns frown out upon sea and 
 town through portholes five or six hundred feet 
 above the ocean. There is a mile or so of this 
 subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal 
 of money and labor. The gallery guns command 
 the peninsula and the harbors of both oceans, but 
 
The Innocents Abroad 10 V- 
 
 they might as well not be there, I should think, for 
 an army could hardly climb the perpendicular wall 
 of the rock anyhow. Those lofty portholes afford 
 superb views of the sea, though. At one place, 
 where a jutting crag was hollowed out into a great 
 chamber whose furniture was huge cannon and 
 whose windows were portholes, a glimpse was 
 caught of a hill not far away, and a soldier said : 
 
 "That high hill yonder is called the Queen s 
 Chair; it is because a queen of Spain placed her 
 chair there once, when the French and Spanish 
 troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would 
 never move from the spot till the English flag was 
 lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn t 
 been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few 
 hours, one day, she d have had to break her oath 
 or die up there." 
 
 On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a 
 good while, and no doubt the mules were tired. 
 They had a right to be. The military road was 
 good, but rather steep, and there was a good deal 
 of it. The view from the narrow ledge was magnifi 
 cent ; from it vessels seeming like the tiniest little 
 toy boats, were turned into noble ships by the tele 
 scopes ; and other vessels that were fifty miles away, 
 and even sixty, they said, and invisible to the naked 
 eye, could be clearly distinguished through those 
 same telescopes. Below, on one side, we looked 
 down upon an endless mass of batteries, and on the 
 other straight down to the sea. 
 
tot Tie Innocents Abroad 
 
 While I was resting ever so comfortably on a 
 rampart, and cooling my baking head in the delicious 
 breeze, an officious guide belonging to another party 
 came up and said : 
 
 "Senor, that high hill yonder is called the 
 Queen s Chair " 
 
 " Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. 
 Have pity on me. Don t now don t inflict that 
 most in-FERNAL old legend on me any more to 
 day!" 
 
 There I had used strong language, after prom 
 ising I would never do so again ; but the provoca 
 tion was more than human nature could bear. If 
 you had been bored so, when you had the noble 
 panorama of Spain and Africa and the blue Mediter 
 ranean spread abroad at your feet, and wanted to 
 gaze, and enjoy, and surfeit yourself with its beauty 
 in silence, you might have even burst into stronger 
 language than I did. 
 
 Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of 
 them of nearly four years duration (it failed), and 
 the English only captured it by stratagem. The 
 wonder is that anybody should ever dream of trying 
 so impossible a project as the taking it by assault 
 and yet it has been tried more than once. 
 
 The Moors held the place twelve hundred years 
 ago, and a staunch old castle of theirs of that date 
 still frowns from the middle of the town, with moss- 
 grown battlements and sides well scarred by shots 
 fired in battles and sieges that are forgotten now. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 10j 
 
 A secret chamber, in the rock behind it, was dis 
 covered some time ago, which contained a sword of 
 exquisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor 
 of a fashion that antiquaries are not acquainted with, 
 though it is supposed to be Roman. Roman armor 
 and Roman relics, of various kinds, have been found 
 in a cave in the sea extremity of Gibraltar ; history 
 says Rome held this part of the country about the 
 Christian era, and these things seem to confirm the 
 statement. 
 
 In that cave, also, are found human bones, crusted 
 with a very thick, stony coating, and wise men have 
 ventured to say that those men not only lived before 
 the flood, but as much as ten thousand years before 
 it. It may be true it looks reasonable enough 
 but as long as those parties can t vote any more, 
 the matter can be of no great public interest. In 
 this cave, likewise, are found skeletons and fossils 
 of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet 
 within memory and tradition have never existed in 
 any portion of Spain save this lone peak of Gibraltar ! 
 So the theory is that the channel between Gibraltar 
 and Africa was once dry land, and that the low, neutral 
 neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind 
 it was once ocean, and, of course, that these African 
 animals, being over at Gibraltar (after rock, per 
 haps there is plenty there), got closed out when 
 the great change occurred. The hills in Africa, 
 across the channel, are full of apes, and there are 
 now, and always have been, apes on the rock of 
 
104 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Gibraltar but not elsewhere in Spain ! The sub 
 ject is an interesting one. 
 
 There is an English garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 
 or 7,000 men, and so uniforms of flaming red are 
 plenty; and red and blue, and undress costumes of 
 snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the bare- 
 kneed Highlander; and one sees soft-eyed Spanish 
 girls from San Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties 
 (I suppose they are beauties) from Tarifa, and 
 turbaned, sashed, and trowsered Moorish merchants 
 from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged 
 Mohammedan vagabonds from Tetouan and Tangier, 
 some brown, some yellow, and some as black as 
 virgin ink and Jews from all around, in gaberdine, 
 skull-cap, and slippers, just as they are in pictures 
 and theaters, and just as they were three thousand 
 years ago, no doubt. You can easily understand 
 that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest that ex 
 pression, because they march in a straggling pro 
 cession through these foreign places with such an 
 Indian-like air of complacency and independence 
 about them) like ours, made up from fifteen or six 
 teen states of the Union, found enough to stare at 
 in this shifting panorama of fashion to-day. 
 
 Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have 
 one or two people among us who are sometimes an 
 annoyance. However, I do not count the Oracle in 
 that list. I will explain that the Oracle is an inno 
 cent old ass who eats for four and looks wiser than 
 the whole Academy of France would have any right 
 
The Innocents Abroad 105 
 
 to look, and never uses a one-syllable word when he 
 can think of a longer one, and never by any possible 
 chance knows the meaning of any long word he 
 uses, or ever gets it in the right place ; yet he will 
 serenely venture an opinion on the most abstruse 
 subject, and back it up complacently with quotations 
 from authors who never existed, and finally when 
 cornered will slide to the other side of the question, 
 say he has been there all the time, and come back 
 at you with your own spoken arguments, only with 
 the big words all tangled, and play them in your 
 very teeth as original with himself. He reads a 
 chapter in the guide books, mixes the facts all up, 
 with his bad memory, and then goes off to inflict 
 the whole mess on somebody as wisdom which has 
 been festering in his brain for years, and which he 
 gathered in college from erudite authors who are 
 dead now and out of print. This morning at break 
 fast he pointed out of the window, and said : 
 
 " Do you see that there hill out there on that 
 African coast? It s one of them Pillows of Her- 
 kewls, I should say and there s the ultimate one 
 alongside of it." 
 
 " The ultimate one that is a good word but 
 the Pillars are not both on the same side of the 
 strait." (I saw he had been deceived by a care 
 lessly written sentence in the Guide Book.) 
 
 * Well, it ain t for you to say, nor for me. 
 
 Some authors states it that way, and some states it 
 
 different. Old Gibbons don t say nothing about 
 
106 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 it, just shirks it complete Gibbons always done 
 that when he got stuck but there is Rolampton, 
 what does he say? Why, he says that they was 
 both on the same side, and Trinculian, and Sobaster, 
 and Syraccus, and Langomarganbl 
 
 ** Oh, that will do that s enough. If you have 
 got your hand in for inventing authors and testi 
 mony, I have nothing more to say let them be on 
 the same side." 
 
 We don t mind the Oracle. We rather like him. 
 We can tolerate the Oracle very easily ; but we have 
 a poet and a good-natured, enterprising idiot on 
 board, and they do distress the company. The one 
 gives copies of his verses to consuls, commanders, 
 hotel keepers, Arabs, Dutch, to anybody, in fact, 
 who will submit to a grievous infliction most kindly 
 meant. His poetry is all very well on shipboard, 
 notwithstanding when he wrote an "Ode to the 
 Ocean in a Storm" in one half-hour, and an 
 "Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the 
 Ship " in the next, the transition was considered to 
 be rather abrupt; but when he sends an invoice of 
 rhymes to the governor of Fayal and another to the 
 commander-in-chief and other dignitaries in Gib 
 raltar, with the compliments of the Laureate of the 
 Ship, it is not popular with the passengers. 
 
 The other personage I have mentioned is young 
 and green, and not bright, not learned, and not wise. 
 He will be, though, some day, if he recollects the 
 answers to all his questions. He is known about 
 
The Innocents Abroad 107 
 
 the ship as the "Interrogation Point," and this by 
 constant use has become shortened to "Interroga 
 tion." He has distinguished himself twice already. 
 In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was 
 eight hundred feet high and eleven hundred feet 
 long. And they told him there was a tunnel two 
 thousand feet long and one thousand feet high run 
 ning through the hill, from end to end. He believed 
 it. He repeated it to everybody, discussed it, and 
 read it from his notes. Finally, he took a useful 
 hint from this remark which a thoughtful old pilgrim 
 made : 
 
 "Well, yes, it is a little remarkable singular 
 tunnel altogether stands up out of the top of the 
 hill about two hundred feet, and one end of it sticks 
 out of the hill about nine hundred! " 
 
 Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated 
 British officers and badgers them with braggadocio 
 about America and the wonders she can perform. 
 He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could 
 come here and knock Gibraltar into the Mediter 
 ranean sea! 
 
 At this present moment, half a dozen of us are 
 taking a private pleasure excursion of our own 
 devising. We form rather more than half the list of 
 white passengers on board a small steamer bound 
 for the venerable Moorish town of Tangier, Africa. 
 Nothing could be more absolutely certain than that 
 we are enjoying ourselves. One cannot do other 
 wise who speeds over these sparkling waters, and 
 
108 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 breathes the soft atmosphere of this sunny land. 
 Care cannot assail us here. We are out of its 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fort 
 ress of Malabat (a stronghold of the Emperor of 
 Morocco), without a twinge of fear. The whole 
 garrison turned out under arms, and assumed a 
 threatening attitude yet still we did not fear. The 
 entire garrison marched and counter-marched, within 
 the rampart, in full view yet notwithstanding even 
 this, we never flinched. 
 
 I suppose we really do not know what fear is. I 
 inquired the name of the garrison of the fortress of 
 Malabat, and they said it was Mehemet AH Ben 
 Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some 
 more garrisons to help him ; but they said no ; he 
 had nothing to do but hold the place, and he was 
 competent to do that; had done it two years 
 already. That was evidence which one could not 
 well refute. There is nothing like reputation. 
 
 Every now and then, my glove purchase in Gib 
 raltar last night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and 
 the ship s surgeon and I had been up to the great 
 square, listening to the music of the fine military 
 bands, and contemplating English and Spanish 
 female loveliness and fashion, and, at 9 o clock, 
 were on our way to the theater, when we met the 
 General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, 
 and the Commissioner of the United States of 
 America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been 
 
The Innocents Abroad 109 
 
 to the Club House, to register their several titles 
 and impoverish the bill of fare ; and they told us to 
 go over to the little variety store, near the Hall of 
 Justice, and buy some kid gloves. They said they 
 were elegant, and very moderate in price. It seemed 
 a stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, 
 and we acted upon the hint. A very handsome 
 young lady in the store offered me a pair of blue 
 gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they 
 would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The 
 remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at 
 my hand, and somehow it did seem rather a comely 
 member. I tried a glove on my left, and blushed a 
 little. Manifestly tfie size ,vas too small for me. 
 But I felt gratified when she said : 
 
 " Oh, it is just right!" yet I knew it was no 
 such thing. 
 
 I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging 
 work. She said: 
 
 " Ah! I seejy0 are accustomed to wearing kid 
 gloves but some gentlemen are so awkward about 
 putting them on." 
 
 It was the last compliment I had expected. I 
 only understand putting on the buckskin article 
 perfectly. I made another effort, and tore the glove 
 from the base of the thumb into the palm ot the 
 hand and tried to hide the rent. She kept up her 
 compliments, and I kept up my determination to 
 deserve them or die : 
 
 44 Ah, you have had experience!" [A rip down 
 
 8 
 
110 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 the back of the hand.] " They are just right for 
 you your hand is very small if they tear you 
 need not pay for them." [A rent across the mid 
 dle.] " I can always tell when a gentleman under 
 stands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace 
 about it that only comes with long practice." 
 [The whole after guard of the glove " fetched 
 away," as the sailors say, the fabric parted across 
 the knuckles, and nothing was left but a melancholy 
 ruin.] 
 
 I was too much flattered to make an exposure, 
 and throw the merchandise on the angel s hands. I 
 was hot, vexed, confused, but still happy; but I 
 hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing 
 interest in the proceedings. I wished they were in 
 Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheer 
 fully: 
 
 "This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I 
 like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma am, 
 never mind; I ll put the other on in the street. It 
 is warm here." 
 
 It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever 
 was in. I paid the bill, and as I passed out with a 
 fascinating bow, I thought I detected a light in the 
 woman s eye that was gently ironical ; and when I 
 looked back from the street, and she was laughing 
 all to herself about something or other, I said to 
 myself, with withering sarcasm, " Oh, certainly; you 
 know how to put on kid gloves, don t you? a self- 
 complacent ass, ready to be flattered out of your 
 
The Innocents Abroad 111 
 
 senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the 
 trouble to do it! 1 
 
 The silence of the boys annoyed me. Finally, 
 Dan said, musingly: 
 
 * Some gentlemen don t know how to put on kid 
 gloves at all; but some do." 
 
 And the doctor said (to the moon, I thought) : 
 
 " But it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is 
 used to putting on kid gloves." 
 
 Dan soliloquized, after a pause: 
 
 "Ah, yes; there is a grace about it that only 
 comes with long, very long practice." 
 
 * Yes, indeed, I ve noticed that when a man hauls 
 on a kid glove like he was dragging a cat out of an 
 ash-hole by the tail, he understands putting on kid 
 gloves ; he s had ex 
 
 "Boys, enough of a thing s enough! You think 
 you are very smart, I suppose, but I don t. And if 
 you go and tell any of those old gossips in the ship 
 about this thing, I ll never forgive you for it; that s 
 all." 
 
 They let me alone then, for the time being. We 
 always let each other alone in time to prevent ill 
 feeling from spoiling a joke. But they had bought 
 gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases 
 away together this morning. They were coarse, 
 unsubstantial, freckled all over with broad yellow 
 splotches, and could neither stand wear nor public 
 exhibition. We had entertained an angel unawares, 
 but we did not take her in. She did that for us. 
 
112 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Tangier ! A tribe of stalwart Moors are wading 
 into the sea to carry us ashore on their backs from 
 the small boats. 
 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 is royal ! Let those who went up through 
 1 Spain make the best of it these dominions of 
 the Emperor of Morocco suit our little party well 
 enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar 
 for the present. Tangier is the spot we have been 
 longing for all the time. Elsewhere we have found 
 foreign-looking things and foreign-looking people, 
 but always with things and people intermixed that 
 we were familiar with before, and so the novelty of 
 the situation lost a deal of its force. We wanted 
 something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign 
 foreign from top to bottom foreign from center 
 to circumference foreign inside and outside and 
 all around nothing anywhere about it to dilute its 
 foreignness nothing to remind us of any other 
 people or any other land under the sun. And lo ! 
 in Tangier we have found it. Here is not the slight 
 est thing that ever we have seen save in pictures 
 and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We 
 can not any more. The pictures used to seem ex 
 aggerations they seemed too weird and fanciful for 
 reality. But behold, they were not wild enough 
 8* (113) 
 
114 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 they were not fanciful enough they have not told 
 half the story. Tangier is a foreign land if ever 
 there was one ; and the true spirit of it can never 
 be found in any book save the Arabian Nights. 
 Here are no white men visible, yet swarms of 
 humanity are all about us. Here is a packed and 
 jammed city inclosed in a massive stone wall which 
 is more than a thousand years old. All the houses 
 nearly are one and two story ; made of thick walls 
 of stone ; plastered outside ; square as a dry-goods 
 box; flat as a floor on top; no cornices; white 
 washed all over a crowded city of snowy tombs ! 
 And the doors are arched with a peculiar arch we 
 see in Moorish pictures ; the floors are laid in vari 
 colored diamond flags ; in tessellated many-colored 
 porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces of Fez; 
 in red tiles and broad bricks that time cannot wear ; 
 there is no furniture in the rooms (of Jewish dwel 
 lings) save divans what there is in Moorish ones 
 no man may know; within their sacred walls no 
 Christian dog can enter. And the streets are ori 
 ental some of them three feet wide, some six, but 
 only two that are over a dozen ; a man can blockade 
 the most of them by extending his body across them. 
 Isn t it an oriental picture? 
 
 There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and 
 stately Moors, proud of a history that goes back to 
 the night of time; and Jews, whose fathers fled 
 hither centuries upon centuries ago ; and swarthy 
 Riffians from the mountains born cutthroats and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 115 
 
 original, genuine negroes, as black as Moses; and 
 howling dervishes, and a hundred breeds of Arabs 
 all sorts and descriptions of people that are foreign 
 and curious to look upon. 
 
 And their dresses are strange beyond all descrip 
 tion. Here is a bronzed Moor in a prodigious white 
 turban, curiously embroidered jacket, gold and crim 
 son sash of many folds, wrapped round and round 
 his waist, trowsers that only come a little below his 
 knee, and yet have twenty yards of stuff in them, 
 ornamented scimetar, bare shins, stockingless feet, 
 yellow slippers, and gun of preposterous length a 
 mere soldier ! I thought he was the Emperor at 
 least. And here are aged Moors with flowing white 
 beards, and long white robes with vast cowls; and 
 Bedouins with long, cowled, striped cloaks, and 
 negroes and Riffians with heads clean-shaven, except 
 a kinky scalp-lock back of the ear, or rather up on 
 the after corner of the skull, and all sorts of bar 
 barians in all sorts of weird costumes, and all more 
 or less ragged. And here are Moorish women who 
 are enveloped from head to foot in coarse white 
 robes and whose sex can only be determined by the 
 fact that they only leave one eye visible, and never 
 look at men of their own race, or are looked at by 
 them in public. Here are five thousand Jews in blue 
 gaberdines, sashes about their waists, slippers upon 
 their feet, little skull-caps upon the backs of their 
 heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut 
 straight across the middle of it from side to side 
 
 H 
 
116 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 the self-same fashion their Tangier ancestors have 
 worn for I don t know how many bewildering cen 
 turies. Their feet and ankles are bare. Their noses 
 are all hooked, and hooked alike. They all resemble 
 each other so much that one could almost believe 
 they were of one family Their women are plump 
 and pretty, and do smile upon a Christian in a way 
 which is in the last degree comforting. 
 
 What a funny old town it is ! It seems like pro* 
 fanation to laugh and jest and bandy the frivolous 
 chat of our day amid its hoary relics. Only the 
 stately phraseology and the measured speech of the 
 sons of the Prophet are suited to a venerable 
 antiquity like this. Here is a crumbling wall that 
 was old when Columbus discovered America; was 
 old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men 
 of the Middle Ages to arm for the first Crusade; 
 was old when Charlemagne and his paladins be 
 leaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants 
 and genii in the fabled days of the olden time ; was 
 old when Christ and his disciples walked the earth ; 
 stood where it stands to-day when the lips of 
 Memnon were vocal, and men bought and sold in 
 the streets of ancient Thebes ! 
 
 The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the English, 
 Moors, Romans, all have battled for Tangier all 
 have won it and lost it. Here is a ragged, oriental- 
 looking negro from some desert place in interior 
 Africa, filling his goat-skin with water from a stained 
 and battered fountain built by the Romans twelve 
 
The Innocents Abroad 117 
 
 hundred years ago. Yonder is a ruined arch of a 
 bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred years 
 ago. Men who had seen the infant Saviour in the 
 Virgin s arms have stood upon it, may be. 
 
 Near it are the ruins of a dockyard where Caesar 
 repaired his ships and loaded them with grain when 
 he invaded Britain, fifty years before the Christian 
 era. 
 
 Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets 
 seemed thronged with the phantoms of forgotten 
 ages. My eyes are resting upon a spot where stood 
 a monument which was seen and described by 
 Roman historians less than two thousand years ago, 
 whereon was inscribed : 
 
 "WE ARE THE CANAANITES. WE ARE THEY 
 THAT HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF THE LAND OF 
 CANAAN BY THE JEWISH ROBBER, JOSHUA." 
 
 Joshua drove them out, and they came here. Not 
 many leagues from here is a tribe of Jews whose 
 ancestors fled thither after an unsuccessful revolt 
 against King David, and these their descendants are 
 still under a ban and keep to themselves. 
 
 Tangier has been mentioned in history for three 
 thousand years. And it was a town, though a queer 
 one, when Hercules, clad in his lion-skin, landed 
 here, four thousand years ago. In these streets he 
 met Anytus, the king of the country, and brained 
 him with his club, which was the fashion among gen 
 tlemen in those days. The people of Tangier (called 
 
118 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Tingis, then) lived in the rudest possible huts, and 
 dressed in skins and carried clubs, and were as sav 
 age as the wild beasts they were constantly obliged 
 to war with. But they were a gentlemanly race, 
 and did no work. They lived on the natural pro 
 ducts of the land. Their king s country residence 
 was at the famous Garden of Hesperides, seventy 
 miles down the coast from here. The garden, with 
 its golden apples (oranges), is gone now no 
 vestige of it remains. Antiquarians concede that 
 such a personage as Hercules did exist in ancient 
 times, and agree that he was an enterprising and 
 energetic man, but decline to believe him a good, 
 bona fide god, because that would be unconstitu 
 tional. 
 
 Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave 
 of Hercules, where that hero took refuge when he was 
 vanquished and driven out of the Tangier country. 
 It is full of inscriptions in the dead languages, which 
 fact makes me think Hercules could not have traveled 
 much, else he would not have kept a journal. 
 
 Five days journey from here say two hundred 
 miles are the ruins of an ancient city, of whose 
 history there is neither record nor tradition. And yet 
 its arches, its columns, and its statues, proclaim it 
 to have been built by an enlightened race. 
 
 The general size of a store in Tangier is about that 
 of an ordinary shower-bath in a civilized land. The 
 Mohammedan merchant, tinman, shoemaker, or ven 
 der of trifles, sits cross-legged on the floor, and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 119 
 
 reaches after any article you may want to buy. You 
 can rent a who^e block of these pigeon-holes for fifty 
 dollars a month. The market people crowd the 
 market-place with their baskets of figs, dates, melons, 
 apricots, etc., and among them file trains of laden 
 asses, not much larger, if any, than a Newfoundland 
 dog. The scene is lively, is picturesque, and smells 
 like a police court. The Jewish money-changers 
 have their dens close at hand ; and all day long are 
 counting bronze coins and transferring them from 
 one bushel basket to another. They don t coin 
 much money now-a-days, I think. I saw none but 
 what was dated four or five hundred years back, and 
 was badly worn and battered. These coins are not 
 very valuable. Jack went out to get a napoleon 
 changed, so as to have money suited to the general 
 cheapness of things, and came back and said he had 
 " swamped the bank; had bought eleven quarts of 
 coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street 
 to negotiate for the balance of the change." I 
 bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shil 
 ling myself. I am not proud on account of having 
 so much money, though. I care nothing for wealth. 
 The Moors have some small silver coins, and also 
 some silver slugs worth a dollar each. The latter 
 are exceedingly scarce so much so that when poor 
 ragged Arabs see one they beg to be allowed to kiss it. 
 They have also a small gold coin worth two dol 
 lars. And that reminds me of something. When 
 Morocco is in a state of war, Arab couriers carry 
 
120 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 letters through the country, and charge a liberal 
 postage. Every now and then they fall into the 
 hands of marauding bands and get robbed. There 
 fore, warned by experience, as soon as they have 
 collected two dollars worth of money they exchange 
 it for one of those little gold pieces, and when rob 
 bers come upon them, swallow it. The stratagem 
 was good while it was unsuspected, but after that the 
 marauders simply gave the sagacious United States 
 mail an emetic and sat down to wait. 
 
 The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and 
 the great officers under him are despots on a smaller 
 scale. There is no regular system of taxation, but 
 when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they 
 levy on some rich man, and he has to furnish the 
 cash or go to prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco 
 dare to be rich. It is too dangerous a luxury. 
 Vanity occasionally leads a man to display wealth, 
 but sooner or later the Emperor trumps up a charge 
 against him any sort of one will do and confis 
 cates his property. Of course, there are many rich 
 men in the empire, but their money is buried, and 
 they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every 
 now and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is 
 suspected of the crime of being rich, and makes 
 things so uncomfortable for him that he is forced to 
 discover where he has hidden his money. 
 
 Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under 
 the protection of the foreign consuls, and then they can 
 flout their riches in the Emperor s face with impunity. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 7TBOUT the first adventure we had yesterday after- 
 noon, after landing here, came near finishing 
 that heedless Blucher. We had just mounted some 
 mules and asses, and started out under the guardian* 
 ship of the stately, the princely, the magnificent 
 Hadji Mohammed Lamarty (may his tribe increase !), 
 when we came upon a fine Moorish mosque, with tall 
 tower, rich with checker-work of many-colored por 
 celain, and every part and portion of the edifice 
 adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alham- 
 bra, and Blucher started to ride into the open door 
 way. A startling "Hi-hi ! " from our camp follow 
 ers, and a loud " Halt! " from an English gentle 
 man in the party, checked the adventurer, and then 
 we were informed that so dire a profanation is it for 
 a Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred threshold 
 of a Moorish mosque, that no amount of purification 
 can ever make it fit for the faithful to pray in again. 
 Had Blucher succeeded in entering the place, he 
 would no doubt have been chased through the town 
 and stoned ; and the time has been, and not many 
 years ago either, when a Christian would have been 
 
 (HI) 
 
122 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 most ruthlessly slaughtered, if captured in a mosque. 
 We caught a glimpse of the handsome tessellated 
 pavements within, and of the devotees performing 
 their ablutions at the fountains; but even that we 
 took that glimpse was a thing not relished by the 
 Moorish bystanders. 
 
 Some years ago the clock in the tower of the 
 mosque got out of order. The Moors of Tangier 
 have so degenerated that it has been long since 
 there was an artificer among them capable of curing 
 so delicate a patient as a debilitated clock. The 
 great men of the city met in solemn conclave to con 
 sider how the difficulty was to be met. They dis 
 cussed the matter thoroughly but arrived at no solu 
 tion. Finally, a patriarch arose and said : 
 
 " Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto 
 you that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clockmender 
 pollutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye 
 know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses 
 bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred 
 threshold. Now, therefore, send the Christian dog 
 on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to 
 mend the clock, and let him go as an ass ! " 
 
 And in that way it was done. Therefore, if 
 Blucher ever sees the inside of a mosque, he will 
 have to cast aside his humanity and go in his natural 
 character. We visited the jail, and found Moorish 
 prisoners making mats and baskets. (This thing of 
 utilizing crime savors of civilization.) Murder is 
 punished with death. A short time ago three mur- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 123 
 
 derers were taken beyond the city walls and shot. 
 Moorish guns are not good, and neither are Moorish 
 marksmen. In this instance, they set up the poor 
 criminals at long range, like so many targets, and 
 practiced on them kept them hopping about and 
 dodging bullets for half an hour before they man 
 aged to drive the center. 
 
 When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right 
 hand and left leg, and nail them up in the market 
 place as a warning to everybody. Their surgery is 
 not artistic. They slice around the bone a little; 
 then break off the limb. Sometimes the patient gets 
 well; but, as a general thing, he don t. However, 
 the Moorish heart is stout. The Moors were always 
 brave. These criminals undergo the fearful opera 
 tion without a wince, without a tremor of any kind, 
 without a groan ! No amount of suffering can bring 
 down the pride of a Moor, or make him shame his 
 dignity with a cry. 
 
 Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the 
 parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen 
 interviews, no riding out, no courting in dim parlors, 
 no lovers quarrels and reconciliations no nothing 
 that is proper to approaching matrimony. The 
 young man takes the girl his father selects for him, 
 marries her, and after that she is unveiled, and he 
 sees her for the first time. If, after due acquaintance, 
 she suits him, he retains her; but if he suspects her 
 purity, he bundles her back to her father ; if he finds 
 her diseased, the same; or if, after just and reason- 
 
124 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 able time is allowed her, she neglects to bear chil 
 dren, back she goes to the home of her childhood. 
 
 Mohammedans here, who can afford it, keep a 
 good many wives on hand. They are called wives, 
 though I believe the Koran only allows four genuine 
 wives the rest are concubines. The Emperor of 
 Morocco don t know how many wives he has, but 
 thinks he has five hundred. However, that is near 
 enough a dozen or so, one way or the other, don t 
 matter. 
 
 Even the Jews in the interior have a plurality of 
 wives. 
 
 I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several 
 Moorish women (for they are only human, and will 
 expose their faces for the admiration of a Christian 
 dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of 
 veneration for the wisdom that leads them to cover 
 up such atrocious ugliness. 
 
 They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, 
 like other savages the world over. 
 
 Many of the negroes are held in slavery by the 
 Moors. But the moment a female slave becomes 
 her master s concubine her bonds are broken, and 
 as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of 
 the Koran (which contains the creed) he can no 
 longer be held in bondage. 
 
 They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The 
 Mohammedan s comes on Friday, the Jew s on 
 Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on Sun 
 day. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor 
 
The Innocents Abroad 125 
 
 goes to his mosque about noon on his Sabbath, as 
 on any other day, removes his shoes at the door, 
 performs his ablutions, makes his salaams, pressing 
 his forehead to the pavement time and again, says 
 his prayers, and goes back to his work. 
 
 But the Jew shuts up shop ; will not touch copper 
 or bronze money at all ; soils his fingers with nothing 
 meaner than silver and gold ; attends the synagogue 
 devoutly ; will not cook or have anything to do with 
 fire ; and religiously refrains from embarking in any 
 enterprise. 
 
 The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is 
 entitled to high distinction. Men call him Hadji, 
 and he is thenceforward a great personage. Hun 
 dreds of Moors come to Tangier every year, and 
 embark for Mecca. They go part of the way in 
 English steamers ; and the ten or twelve dollars they 
 pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They 
 take with them a quantity of food, and when the 
 commissary department fails they ** skirmish," as 
 Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the 
 time they leave till they get home again, they never 
 wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone 
 from five to seven months, and as they do not 
 change their clothes during all that time, they are 
 totally unfit for the drawing-room when they get 
 back. 
 
 Many of them have to rake and scrape a long 
 time to gather together the ten dollars their steamer 
 passage costs; and when one of them gets back he 
 
126 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever 
 build up their fortunes again in one short lifetime, 
 after so reckless an outlay. In order to confine the 
 dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of patrician blood and 
 possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man 
 should make the pilgrimage save bloated aristocrats 
 who were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But 
 behold how iniquity can circumvent the law ! For a 
 consideration, the Jewish money-changer lends the 
 pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough for him to 
 swear himself through, and then receives it back be 
 fore the ship sails out of the harbor ! 
 
 Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The 
 reason is, that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war 
 and her loudest guns to astonish these Moslems; 
 while America, and other nations, send only a little 
 contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally. The. 
 Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see; 
 not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in 
 the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African 
 ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, 
 France, and America, and put their representatives 
 to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they 
 grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. 
 But the moment the Spanish minister makes a de 
 mand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just 
 or not. 
 
 Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, 
 about a disputed piece of property opposite Gib 
 raltar, and captured the city of Tetouan. She com- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 127 
 
 promised on an augmentation of her territory; 
 twenty million dollars indemnity in money; and 
 peace. And then she gave up the city. But she 
 never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten 
 up all the cats. They would not compromise as long 
 as the cats held out. Spaniards are very fond of 
 cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as 
 something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them 
 on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct 
 in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred 
 toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which 
 even the driving them out of Spain was tame and 
 passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever 
 now. France had a minister here once who embit 
 tered the nation against him in the most innocent 
 way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tan 
 gier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of 
 their hides. He made his carpet in circles first a 
 circle of old gray tom-cats, with their tails all point 
 ing toward the center ; then a circle of yellow cats ; 
 next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones ; 
 then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a 
 centerpiece of assorted kittens. It was very beauti 
 ful ; but the Moors curse his memory to this day. 
 
 When we went to call on our American Consul- 
 general, to-day, I noticed that all possible games for 
 parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his 
 center-tables. I thought that hinted at lonesome- 
 ness. The idea was correct. His is the only 
 American family in Tangier. There are many 
 
128 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 foreign Consuls in this place ; but much visiting is 
 not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world, 
 and what is the use of visiting when people have 
 nothing on earth to talk about? There is none. So 
 each consul s family stays at home chiefly, and 
 amuses itself as best it can. Tangier is full of inter 
 est tor one day, but after that it is a weary prison. 
 The consul-general has been here five years, and has 
 got enough of it to do him for a century, and is 
 going home shortly. His family seize upon their 
 letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them 
 over and over again for two days or three, talk them 
 over and over again for two or three more, till they 
 wear them out, and after that, for days together, 
 they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the 
 same old road, and see the same old tiresome things 
 that even decades of centuries have scarcely changed, 
 and say never a single word ! They have literally 
 nothing whatever to talk about. The arrival of an 
 American man-of-war is a godsend to them. * Oh, 
 solitude, where are the charms which sages have 
 seen in thy face?" It is the completest exile that I 
 can conceive of. I would seriously recommend to 
 the government of the United States that when a 
 man commits a crime so heinous that the law pro 
 vides no adequate punishment for it, they make him 
 consul-general to Tangier. 
 
 I am glad to have seen Tangier the second 
 oldest town in the world. But I am ready to bid it 
 good-bye, I believe. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 129 
 
 We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in 
 the morning ; and doubtless the Quaker City will sail 
 from that port within the next forty-eight hours. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 WE passed the Fourth of July on board the 
 Quaker City, in mid-ocean. It was in all re 
 spects a characteristic Mediterranean day fault 
 lessly beautiful. A cloudless sky; a refreshing 
 summer wind; a radiant sunshine that glinted 
 cheerily from dancing wavelets instead of crested 
 mountains of water; a sea beneath us that was so 
 wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it 
 overcame the dullest sensibilities with the spell of 
 its fascination. 
 
 They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean 
 a thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of 
 the globe. The evening we sailed away from Gib 
 raltar, that hard-featured rock was swimming in a 
 creamy mist so rich, so soft, so enchantingly vague 
 and dreamy, that even the Oracle, that serene, that 
 inspired, that overpowering humbug, scorned the 
 dinner-gong and tarried to worship ! 
 
 He said: "Well, that s gorgis, ain t it! They 
 don t have none of them things in our parts, do 
 they? I consider that them effects is on account of 
 the superior refragability, as you may say, of the 
 
 (130) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 131 
 
 sun s diramic combination with the lymphatic forces 
 of the perihelion of Jubiter. What should you 
 think? 1 
 
 "Oh, go to bed!" Dan said that, and went 
 away. 
 
 " Oh, yes, it s all very well to say go to bed when 
 a man makes an argument which another man can t 
 answer. Dan don t never stand any chance in an 
 argument with me. And he knows it, too. What 
 should you say, Jack?" 
 
 ** Now, doctor, don t you come bothering around 
 me with that dictionary bosh. I don t do you any 
 harm, do I? Then you let me alone." 
 
 ** He s gone, too. Well, them fellows have all 
 tackled the old Oracle, as they say, but the old 
 man s most too many for em. Maybe the Poet 
 Lariat ain t satisfied with them deductions?" 
 
 The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme, and 
 went below. 
 
 " Pears that he can t qualify, neither. Well, I 
 didn t expect nothing out of him. I never see one 
 of them poets yet that knowed anything. He ll 
 go down, now, and grind out about four reams of 
 the awfullest slash about that old rock, and give it 
 to a consul or a pilot or a nigger, or anybody he 
 comes across- first which he can impose on. Pity 
 but somebody d take that poor old lunatic and dig 
 all that poetry rubbage out of him. Why can t a 
 man put his intellect onto things that s some value? 
 Gibbons and Hippocratus and Sarcophagus, and 
 
132 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 all them old ancient philosophers, was down on 
 poets " 
 
 " Doctor," I said, "you are going to invent 
 authorities now, and I ll leave you, too. I always 
 enjoy your conversation, notwithstanding the luxuri 
 ance of your syllables, when the philosophy you 
 offer rests on your own responsibility ; but when you 
 begin to soar when you begin to support it with 
 the evidence of authorities who are the creations of 
 your own fancy, I lose confidence." 
 
 That was the way to flatter the doctor. He con 
 sidered it a sort of acknowledgment on my part of a 
 fear to argue with him. He was always persecuting 
 the passengers with abstruse propositions framed in 
 language that no man could understand, and they 
 endured the exquisite torture a minute or two and 
 then abandoned the field. A triumph like this, over 
 half a dozen antagonists, was sufficient for one day; 
 from that time forward he would patrol the decks 
 beaming blandly upon all comers, and so tranquilly, 
 blissfully happy! 
 
 But I digress. The thunder of our two brave 
 cannon announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, 
 to all who were awake. But many of us got cur 
 information at a later hour, from the almanac. All 
 the flags were sent aloft, except half a dozen that 
 were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, 
 and in a short time the vessel assumed a holiday ap 
 pearance. During the morning, meetings were held 
 and all manner of committees set to work on the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 133 
 
 celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the ship s 
 company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings; 
 the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consump 
 tive clarinet, crippled the Star Spangled Banner, the 
 choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a 
 peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and 
 slaughtered it. Nobody mourned. 
 
 We carried put the corpse on three cheers (that 
 joke was not intentional and I do not indorse it), and 
 then the President, throned behind a cable-locker 
 with a national flag spread over it, announced the 
 " Reader," who rose up and read that same old 
 Declaration of Independence which we have all 
 listened to so often without paying any attention to 
 what it said ; and after that the President piped the 
 Orator of the Day to quarters and he made that 
 same old speech about our national greatness which 
 we so religiously believe and so fervently applaud. 
 Now came the choir into court again, with the com 
 plaining instruments, and assaulted Hail Columbia; 
 and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George 
 returned with his dreadful wild-goose stop turned on, 
 and the choir won, of course. A minister pro 
 nounced the benediction, and the patriotic little 
 gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, 
 as far as the Mediterranean was concerned. 
 
 At dinner in the evening, a well-written original 
 poem was recited with spirit by one of the ship s 
 captains, and thirteen regular toasts were washed 
 down with several baskets of champagne. The 
 
134 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 speeches were bad execrable, almost without ex 
 ception. In fact, without any exception, but one. 
 Captain Duncan made a good speech ; he made the 
 only good speech of the evening. He said : 
 
 * LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: May we all live to 
 a green old age, and be prosperous and happy. 
 Steward, bring up another basket of champagne." 
 
 It was regarded as a very able effort. 
 
 The festivities, so to speak, closed with another of 
 those miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We 
 were not used to dancing on an even keel, though, 
 and it was only a questionable success. But take it 
 altogether, it was a bright, cheerful, pleasant Fourth. 
 
 Toward nightfall, the next evening, we steamed 
 into the great artificial harbor of this noble city of 
 Marseilles, and saw the dying sunlight gild its 
 clustering spires and ramparts, and flood its leagues 
 of environing verdure with a mellow radiance that 
 touched with an added charm the white villas that 
 flecked the landscape far and near. [Copyright 
 secured according to law.] 
 
 There were no stages out, and we could not get 
 on the pier from the ship. It was annoying. We 
 were full of enthusiasm we wanted to see France ! 
 Just at nightfall our party of three contracted with a 
 waterman for the privilege of using his boat as a 
 bridge its stern was at our companion ladder and 
 its bow touched the pier. We got in and the fellow 
 backed out into the harbor. I told him in French 
 that all we wanted was to walk over his thwarts and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 135 
 
 step ashore, and asked him what he went away out 
 there for? He said he could not understand me. I 
 repeated. Still, he could not understand. He ap 
 peared to be very ignorant of French. The doctor 
 tried him, but he could not understand the doctor. 
 I asked this boatman to explain his conduct, which 
 he did; and then I couldn t understand him. Dan 
 said: 
 
 " Oh, go to the pier, you old fool that s where 
 we want to go ! 
 
 We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless 
 to speak to this foreigner in English that he had 
 better let us conduct this business in the French 
 language and not let the stranger see how unculti 
 vated he was. 
 
 " Well, go on, go on," he said, ** don t mind me. 
 I don t wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling 
 him in your kind of French he never will find out 
 where we want to go to. That is what I think about 
 it." 
 
 We rebuked him severely for this remark, and said 
 we never knew an ignorant person yet but was 
 prejudiced. The Frenchman spoke again, and the 
 doctor said : 
 
 " There, now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to 
 the douain. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, 
 certainly we don t know the French language." 
 
 This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It 
 silenced further criticism from the disaffected mem 
 ber. We coasted past the sharp bows of a navy of 
 
136 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 great steamships, and stopped at last at a govern 
 ment building on a stone pier. It was easy to re 
 member then that the douain was the custom-house, 
 and not the hotel. We did not mention it, how 
 ever. With winning French politeness, the officers 
 merely opened and closed our satchels, declined to 
 examine our passports, and sent us on our way. 
 We stopped at the first cafe" we came to, and en 
 tered. An old woman seated us at a table and 
 waited for orders. The doctor said : 
 
 " Avez-vous du vin?" 
 
 The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said 
 again, with elaborate distinctness of articulation: 
 
 4 * Avez-vous du vin ! 
 
 The dame looked more perplexed than before. I 
 said : 
 
 ** Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation 
 somewhere. Let me try her. Madame, avez-vous 
 du vin? It isn t any use, doctor take the wit 
 ness." 
 
 " Madame, avez-vous du vin ou fromage 
 pain pickled pigs feet beurre des oefs du 
 beuf horseradish, sour-crout, hog and hominy 
 anything, anything in the world that can stay a 
 Christian stomach!" 
 
 She said : 
 
 " Bless you, why didn t you speak English be 
 fore? I don t know anything about your plagued 
 French!" 
 
 The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member 
 
The Innocents Abroad 137 
 
 spoiled the supper, and we dispatched it in angry 
 silence and got away as soon as we could. Here 
 we were in beautiful France in a vast stone house 
 of quaint architecture surrounded by all manner 
 of curiously worded French signs stared at by 
 strangely-habited, bearded French people every 
 thing gradually and surely forcing upon us the cov 
 eted consciousness that at last, and beyond all ques 
 tion, we were in beautiful France and absorbing its 
 nature to the forgetfulness of everything else, and 
 coming to feel the happy romance of the thing in 
 all its enchanting delightfulness and to think of 
 this skinny veteran intruding with her vile English, 
 at such a moment, to blow the fair vision to the 
 winds ! It was exasperating. 
 
 We set out to find the center of the city, in 
 quiring the direction every now and then. We 
 never did succeed in making anybody understand 
 just exactly what we wanted, and neither did we 
 ever succeed in comprehending just exactly what 
 they said in reply but then they always pointed 
 they always did that, and we bowed politely and 
 said * Merci, Monsieur," and so it was a blighting 
 triumph over the disaffected member, anyway. He 
 was restive under these victories and often asked : 
 
 44 What did that pirate say?" 
 
 "Why, he told us which way to go, to find the 
 Grand Casino." 
 
 " Yes, but what did he say ?" 
 
 "Oh, it don t matter what he said we under- 
 
138 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 stood him. These are educated people not like 
 that absurd boatman." 
 
 ** Well, I wish they were educated enough to tell 
 a man a direction that goes somewhere for we ve 
 been going around in a circle for an hour I ve 
 passed this same old drug store seven times." 
 
 We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood (but 
 we knew it was not) . It was plain that it would not 
 do to pass that drug store again, though we might 
 go on asking directions, but we must cease from 
 following finger pointings if we hoped to check the 
 suspicions of the disaffected member. 
 
 A long walk through smooth, asphaltum-paved 
 streets, bordered by blocks of vast new mercantile 
 houses of cream-colored stone,- every house and 
 every block precisely like all the other houses and 
 all the other blocks for a mile, and all brilliantly 
 lighted, brought us at last to the principal 
 thoroughfare. On every hand were bright colors, 
 flashing constellations of gas-burners, gaily-dressed 
 men and women thronging the sidewalks hurry, 
 life, activity, cheerfulness, conversation, and laughter 
 everywhere ! We found the Grand Hotel du Louvre 
 et de la Paix, and wrote down who we were, where 
 we were born, what our occupations were, the place 
 we came from last, whether we were married or 
 single, how we liked it, how old we were, where we 
 were bound for and when we expected to get there, 
 and a great deal of information of similar importance 
 all for the benefit of the landlord and the secret 
 
The Innocents Abroad 139 
 
 police. We hired a guide and began the business of 
 sight-seeing immediately. That first night on French 
 soil was a stirring one. I cannot think of half the 
 places we went to, or what we particularly saw; we 
 had no disposition to examine carefully into any 
 thing at all we only wanted to glance and go to 
 move, keep moving ! The spirit of the country was 
 upon us. We sat down, finally, at a late hour, in 
 the great Casino, and called for unstinted cham 
 pagne. It is so easy to be bloated aristocrats where 
 it costs nothing of consequence ! There were about 
 five hundred people in that dazzling place, I sup 
 pose, though the walls being papered entirely with 
 mirrors, so to speak, one could not really tell but 
 that there were a hundred thousand. Young, 
 daintily-dressed exquisites and young, stylishly- 
 dressed women, and also old gentlemen and old 
 ladies, sat in couples and groups about innumerable 
 marble-topped tables, and ate fancy suppers, drank 
 wine, and kept up a chattering din of conversation 
 that was dazing to the senses. There was a stage at 
 the far end, and a large orchestra; and every now 
 and then actors and actresses in preposterous comic 
 dresses came out and sang the most extravagantly 
 funny songs, to judge by their absurd actions; but 
 that audience merely suspended its chatter, stared 
 cynically, and never once smiled, never once ap 
 plauded ! I had always thought that Frenchmen 
 were ready to laugh at anything. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 IV AE are getting foreignized rapidly, and with 
 VY facility. We are getting reconciled to halls 
 and bed-chambers with unhomelike stone floors, and 
 no carpets floors that ring to the tread of one s 
 heels with a sharpness that is death to sentimental 
 musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless 
 waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover 
 about your back and your elbows like butterflies, 
 quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; 
 thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount; 
 and always polite never otherwise than polite. 
 That is the strangest curiosity yet a really polite 
 hotel waiter who isn t an idiot. We are getting 
 used to driving right into the central court of the 
 hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and 
 flowers, and in the midst, also, of parties of gentle 
 men sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. 
 We are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process 
 in ordinary bottles the only kind of ice they have 
 here. We are getting used to all these things; but 
 we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. 
 We are sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs 
 
 (140) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 141 
 
 and tooth-brushes ; but this thing of having to ring 
 for soap every time we wash is new to us, and not 
 pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our 
 heads and faces thoroughly wet, or just when we 
 think we have been in the bath-tub long enough, 
 and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. 
 These Marseillaise make Marseillaise hymns, and 
 Marseilles vests, and Marseilles soap for all the 
 world ; but they never sing their hymns, or wear 
 their vests, or wash with their soap themselves. 
 
 We have learned to go through the lingering 
 routine of the table d hote with patience, with 
 serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup; then 
 wait a few minutes for the fish ; a few minutes more 
 and the plates are changed, and the roast beef 
 comes ; another change and we take peas ; change 
 again and take lentils; change and take snail patties 
 (I prefer grasshoppers) ; change and take roast 
 chicken and salad; then strawberry pie and ice 
 cream; then green figs, pears, oranges, green 
 almonds, etc., finally coffee. Wine with every 
 course, of course, being in France. With such a 
 cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we 
 must sit long in the cool chambers and smoke and 
 read French newspapers, which have a strange 
 fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you 
 get to the " nub " of it, and then a word drops in 
 that no man can translate, and that story is ruined. 
 An embankment fell on some Frenchmen yesterday, 
 and the papers are full of it to-day but whether 
 
142 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 those sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, 
 or only scared, is more than I can possibly make 
 out, and yet I would just give anything to know. 
 
 We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the 
 conduct of an American, who talked very loudly 
 and coarsely, and laughed boisterously where all 
 others were so quiet and well-behaved. He ordered 
 wine with a royal flourish, and said: " I never dine 
 without wine, sir" (which was a pitiful falsehood), 
 and looked around upon the company to bask in 
 the admiration he expected to find in their faces. 
 All these airs in a land where they would as soon 
 expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as 
 the wine ! in a land where wine is nearly as com 
 mon among all ranks as water ! This fellow said : 
 ** I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, 
 and I want everybody to know it!" He did not 
 mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam s 
 ass ; but everybody knew that without his telling it. 
 
 We have driven in the Prado that superb avenue 
 bordered with patrician mansions and noble shade 
 trees and have visited the Chateau Bore"ly and its 
 curious museum. They showed us a miniature 
 cemetery there a copy of the first graveyard that 
 was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate little 
 skeletons were lying in broken vaults, and had their 
 household gods and kitchen utensils with them. 
 The original of this cemetery was dug up in the 
 principal street of the city a few years ago. It had 
 remained there, only twelve feet under ground, for 
 
The Innocents Abroad 143 
 
 a matter of twenty-five hundred years, or there 
 abouts. Romulus was here before he built Rome, 
 and thought something of founding a city on this 
 spot, but gave up the idea. He may have been 
 personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians 
 whose skeletons we have been examining 
 
 In the great Zoological Gardens we found speci 
 mens of all the animals the world produces, I think, 
 including a dromedary, a monkey ornamented with 
 tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair a very 
 gorgeous monkey he was a hippopotamus from 
 the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a 
 beak like a powder-horn, and close-fitting wings like 
 the tails of a dress-coat. This fellow stood up with 
 his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped forward a 
 little, and looked as if he had his hands under his 
 coat-tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such supernatural 
 gravity, such self-righteousness, and such ineffable 
 self-complacency as were in the countenance and 
 attitude of that gray-bodied, dark-winged, bald- 
 headed, and preposterously uncomely bird ! He 
 was so ungainly, so pimply about the head, so scaly 
 about the legs; yet so serene, so unspeakably satis 
 fied ! He was the most comical-looking creature 
 that can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and 
 the doctor laugh such natural and such enjoyable 
 laughter had not been heard among our excursionists 
 since our ship sailed away from America. This bird 
 was a godsend to us, and I should be an ingrate if 
 I forgot to make honorable mention of him in these 
 
144 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 pages. Ours was a pleasure excursion; therefore 
 we stayed with that bird an hour, and made the 
 most of him. We stirred him up occasionally, but 
 he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed it again, 
 abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or 
 his tremendous seriousness. He only seemed to 
 say, " Defile not Heaven s anointed with unsanctified 
 hands." We did not know his name, and so we 
 called him "The Pilgrim." Dan said: 
 
 " All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection." 
 The boon companion of the colossal elephant was 
 A common cat ! This cat had a fashion of climbing 
 ttp the elephant s hind legs, and roosting on his 
 back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved 
 under her breast, and sleep in the sun half the after 
 noon. It used to annoy the elephant at first, and 
 he would reach up and take her down, but she 
 would go aft and climb up again. She persisted 
 until she finally conquered the elephant s prejudices, 
 and now they are inseparable friends. The cat 
 plays about her comrade s forefeet or his trunk 
 often, until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft 
 out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several 
 dogs lately, that pressed his companion too closely. 
 We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an 
 excursion to one of the small islands in the harbor 
 to visit the Castle d If. This ancient fortress has a 
 melancholy history. It has been used as a prison 
 for political offenders for two or three hundred 
 years, and its dungeon walls are scarred with the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 145 
 
 rudely-carved names of many and many a captive 
 who fretted his life away here, and left no record of 
 himself but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own 
 hands. How thick the names were! And their 
 long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy 
 cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We 
 loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away down 
 into the living rock below the level of the sea, it 
 seemed. Names everywhere ! some plebeian, some 
 noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and 
 noble, had one solicitude in common they would 
 not be forgotten ! They could suffer solitude, inac 
 tivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound 
 ever disturbed ; but they could not bear the thought 
 of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence 
 the carved names. In one cell, where a little light 
 penetrated, a man had lived twenty-seven years 
 without seeing the face of a human being lived in 
 filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but 
 his own thoughts, and they were sorrowful enough, 
 and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever his 
 jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to 
 his cell by night, through a wicket. This man 
 carved the walls of his prison-house from floor to 
 roof with all manner of figures of men and animals, 
 grouped in intricate designs. He had toiled there 
 year after year, at his self-appointed task, while in 
 fants grew to boyhood to vigorous youth idled 
 through school and college acquired a profession 
 claimed man s mature estate married and 
 
146 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 looked back to infancy as to a thing of some vague, 
 ancient time, almost. But who shall tell how many 
 ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the one, time 
 flew sometimes ; with the other, never it crawled 
 always. To the one, nights spent in dancing had 
 seemed made of minutes instead of hours; to the 
 other, those self-same nights had been like all othei 
 nights of dungeon life, and seemed made of slow, 
 dragging weeks, instead of hours and minutes. 
 
 One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses 
 upon his walls, and brief prose sentences brief, 
 but full of pathos. These spoke not of himself and 
 his hard estate ; but only of the shrine where his 
 spirit fled the prison to worship of home and the 
 idols that were templed there. He never lived to 
 see them. 
 
 The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some 
 bed-chambers at home are wide fifteen feet. We 
 saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas 
 heroes passed their confinement heroes of * Monte 
 Cristo." It was here that the brave Abb wrote a 
 book with his own blood ; with a pen made of a 
 piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made 
 out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease obtained 
 from his food ; and then dug through the thick wall 
 with some trifling instrument which he wrought 
 himself out of a stray piece of iron or table cutlery, 
 and freed Dante s from his chains. It was a pity 
 that so many weeks of dreary labor should have 
 come to naught at last. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 147 
 
 They showed us the noisome cell where the cele 
 brated " Iron Mask" that ill-starred brother of a 
 hard-hearted king of France was confined for a 
 season, before he was sent to hide the strange mys 
 tery of his life from the curious in the dungeons of 
 St. Marguerite. The place had a far greater interest 
 for us than it could have had if we had known be 
 yond all question who the Iron Mask was, and what 
 his history had been, and why this most unusual 
 punishment had been meted out to him Mystery! 
 That was the charm. That speechless tongue, those 
 prisoned features, that heart so freighted with un 
 spoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed with 
 its piteous secret, had been here. These dank 
 walls had known the man whose dolorous story is a 
 sealed book forever ! There was fascination in the 
 spot. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 \ V /E have come five hundred miles by rail through 
 VV the heart of France. What a bewitching land 
 it is ! What a garden ! Surely the leagues of bright 
 green lawns are swept and brushed and watered 
 every day and their grasses trimmed by the barber. 
 Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and 
 their symmetry preserved by the most architectural 
 of gardeners. Surely the long, straight rows of 
 stately poplars that divide the beautiful landscape 
 like the squares of a checker-board are set with line 
 and plummet, and their uniform height determined 
 with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, 
 pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sand 
 papered every day. How else are these marvels of 
 symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is 
 wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls, and 
 never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no 
 decay, no rubbish anywhere nothing that even 
 hints at untidiness nothing that ever suggests 
 neglect. All is orderly and beautiful everything 
 Is charming to the eye. 
 
 We had such glimpses of the Rhone gliding along 
 
The Innocents Abroad 149 
 
 between its grassy banks ; of cosy cottages buried 
 in flowers and shrubbery; of quaint old red-tiled 
 villages with mossy mediaeval cathedrals looming 
 out of their midst ; of wooded hills with ivy-grown 
 towers and turrets of feudal castles projecting above 
 the foliage; such glimpses of Paradise, it seemed to 
 us, such visions of fabled fairy-land ! 
 
 We knew, then, what the poet meant, when he 
 sang of 
 
 " thy cornfields green, and sunny vines, 
 O pleasant land of France ! " 
 
 And it tj a pleasant land. No word described it 
 so felicitously as that one. They say there is no 
 word for "home" in the French language. Well, 
 considering that they have the article itself in such 
 an attractive aspect, they ought to manage to get 
 along without the word. Let us not waste too much 
 pity on " homeless " France. I have observed that 
 Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea 
 of going back to France some time or other. I am 
 not surprised at it now. 
 
 We are not infatuated with these French railway 
 cars, though. We took first-class passage, not be 
 cause we wished to attract attention by doing a thing 
 which is uncommon in Europe, but because we 
 could make our journey quicker by so doing. It is 
 hard to make railroading pleasant, in any country. 
 It is too tedious. Stage-coaching is infinitely more 
 delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts 
 and mountains of the West, in a stage-coach, from 
 
150 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 the Missouri line to California, and since then all 
 my pleasure-trips must be measured to that rare 
 holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless 
 rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and 
 never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest ! 
 The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its 
 grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than 
 any sea, and figured with designs fitted to its magni 
 tude the shadows of the clouds. Here were no 
 scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition in 
 spired by them but to lie at full length on the mail 
 sacks, in the grateful breeze, and dreamily smoke the 
 pipe of peace what other, where all was repose 
 and contentment? In cool mornings, before the 
 sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city 
 toiling and moiling, to perch in the foretop with the 
 driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the 
 sharp snapping of a whip that never touched them ; 
 to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no 
 lords but us ; to cleave the wind with uncovered head 
 and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a 
 speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a 
 typhoon ! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert 
 solitudes ; of limitless panoramas of bewildering 
 perspective; of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathe 
 drals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the 
 eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and 
 gold of the setting sun ; of dizzy altitudes among 
 fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where 
 thunders and lightnings and tempests warred mag- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 151 
 
 nificently at our feet and the storm-clouds above 
 swung their shredded banners in our very faces ! 
 
 But I forgot. I am in elegant France, now, and 
 not skurrying through the great South Pass and the 
 Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and buffa 
 loes, and painted Indians on the warpath. It is 
 not meet that I should make too disparaging com 
 parisons between humdrum travel on a railway and 
 that royal summer flight across a continent in a 
 stage-coach. I meant, in the beginning, to say that 
 railway journeying is tedious and tiresome, and so it 
 is though, at the time, I was thinking particularly 
 of a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York 
 and St. Louis. Of course our trip through France 
 was not really tedious, because all its scenes and 
 experiences were new and strange ; but as Dan says, 
 it had its " discrepancies." 
 
 The cars are built in compartments that hold eight 
 persons each. Each compartment is partially sub 
 divided, and so there are two tolerably distinct 
 parties of four in it. Four face the other four. 
 The seats and backs are thickly padded and cush 
 ioned, and are very comfortable; you can smoke, if 
 you wish; there are no bothersome peddlers; you 
 are saved the infliction of a multitude of disagree 
 able fellow-passengers. So far, so well. But then 
 the conductor locks you in when the train starts ; 
 there is no water to drink in the car; there is no 
 heating apparatus for night travel; if a drunken 
 rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter 
 
152 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of twenty seats from him, or enter another car; but, 
 above all, if you are worn out and must sleep, you 
 must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped legs and 
 in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and 
 lifeless the next day for behold, they have not 
 that culmination of all charity and human kindness, 
 a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American 
 system. It has not so many grievous " discrepan 
 cies. " 
 
 In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They 
 make no mistakes. Every third man wears a uni 
 form, and whether he be a marshal of the empire or 
 a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to 
 answer all your questions with tireless politeness, 
 ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and ready 
 to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall 
 not go astray. You cannot pass into the waiting- 
 room of the depot till you have secured your ticket, 
 and you cannot pass from its only exit till the train 
 is at its threshold to receive you. Once on board, 
 the train will not start till your ticket has been ex 
 amined till every passenger s ticket has been in 
 spected. This is chiefly for your own good. If 
 by any possibility you have managed to take the 
 wrong train, you will be handed over to a polite 
 official who will take you whither you belong, and 
 bestow you with many an affable bow. Your ticket 
 will be inspected every now and then along the 
 route, and when it is time to change cars you will 
 know it. You are in the hands of officials who 
 
The Innocents Abroad 153 
 
 zealously study your welfare and your interest, in 
 stead of turning their talents to the invention of new 
 methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is 
 very often the main employment of that exceedingly 
 self-satisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of 
 America. 
 
 But the happiest regulation in French railway 
 government, is thirty minutes to dinner! No five- 
 minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy coffee, ques 
 tionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose 
 conception and execution are a dark and bloody 
 mystery to all save the cook who created them ! 
 No; we sat calmly down it was in old Dijon, 
 which is so easy to spell and so impossible to pro 
 nounce, except when you civilize it and call it 
 Demijohn and poured out rich Burgundian wines 
 and munched calmly through a long table d hote 
 bill of fare, snail patties, delicious fruits and all, then 
 paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the 
 train again, without once cursing the railroad com 
 pany. A rare experience, and one to be treasured 
 forever. 
 
 They say they do not have accidents on these 
 French roads, and I think it must be true. If I 
 remember rightly, we passed high above wagon 
 roads, or through tunnels under them, but never 
 crossed them on their own level. About every 
 quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man came out 
 and held up a club till the train went by, to signify 
 that everything was safe ahead. Switches were 
 
154 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 changed a mile in advance, by pulling a wire rope 
 that passed along the ground by the rail, from 
 station to station. Signals for the day and signals 
 for the night gave constant and timely notice of the 
 position of switches. 
 
 No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in 
 France. But why? Because when one occurs, 
 somebody has to hang for it!* Not hang, maybe, 
 but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis 
 as to make negligence a thing to be shuddered at by 
 railroad officials for many a day thereafter. " No 
 blame attached to the officers" that lying and 
 disaster-breeding verdict so common to our soft 
 hearted juries, is seldom rendered in France. If the 
 trouble occurred in the conductor s department, that 
 officer must suffer if his subordinate cannot be 
 proven guilty; if in the engineer s department, and 
 the case be similar, the engineer must answer. 
 
 The Old Travelers those delightful parrots who 
 have " been here before," and know more about 
 the country than Louis Napoleon knows now or 
 ever will know, tell us these things, and we believe 
 them because they are pleasant things to believe, 
 and because they are plausible and savor of the rigid 
 subjection to law and order which we behold about 
 us everywhere. 
 
 But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear 
 them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them 
 
 * They go on the principle that it is better that one innocent man 
 Bhould suffer than five hundred. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 155 
 
 the moment we see them. They always throw out 
 a few feelers : they never cast themselves adrift till 
 they have sounded every individual and know that 
 he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle- 
 valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, 
 and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth ! 
 Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate 
 you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant 
 and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory ! 
 They will not let you know anything. They sneer 
 at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh 
 unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign 
 lands; they brand the statements of your traveled 
 aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities ; they 
 deride your most trusted authors and demolish the 
 fair images they have set up for your willing worship 
 with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast ! 
 But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for 
 their witless platitudes ; for their supernatural ability 
 to bore ; for their delightful asinine vanity ; for their 
 luxuriant fertility of imagination ; for their startling, 
 their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity ! 
 
 By Lyons and the Saone (where we saw the Lady 
 of Lyons and thought little of her comeliness) ; by 
 Villa Franca, Tonnerre, venerable Sens, Melun, Fon* 
 tainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we 
 swept, always noting the absence of hog-wallows, 
 broken fences, cowlots, unpainted houses, and mud, 
 and always noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, 
 grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the 
 
156 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 disposition of a tree or the turning of a hedge, the 
 marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of ruts and 
 guiltless of even an inequality of surface we 
 bowled along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer 
 day, and as nightfall approached we entered a 
 wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped 
 through it, and then, excited, delighted, and half 
 persuaded that we were only the sport of a beautiful 
 dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris! 
 
 What excellent order they kept about that vast 
 depot ! There was no frantic crowding and jostling, 
 no shouting and swearing, and no swaggering in 
 trusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter 
 gentry stood outside stood quietly by their long 
 line of vehicles and said never a word. A kind of 
 hackman-general seemed to have the whole matter 
 of transportation in his hands. He politely received 
 the passengers and ushered them to the kind of 
 conveyance they wanted, and told the driver where 
 to deliver them. There was no ** talking back," no 
 dissatisfaction about overcharging, no grumbling 
 about anything. In a little while we were speeding 
 through the streets of Paris, and delightfully recog 
 nizing certain names and places with which books 
 had long ago made us familiar. It was like meeting 
 an old friend when we read " Rue de Rivoli on the 
 street corner ; we knew the genuine vast palace of 
 the Louvre as well as we knew its picture ; when we 
 passed by the Column of July we needed no one to 
 tell us what it was, or to remind us that on its site 
 
The Innocents Abroad 157 
 
 once stood the grim Bastile, that grave of human 
 hopes and happiness, that dismal prison-house 
 within whose dungeons so many young faces put on 
 the wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew 
 humble, so many brave hearts broke. 
 
 We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had 
 three beds put into one room, so that we might be 
 together, and then we went out to a restaurant, just 
 after lamp-lighting, and ate a comfortable, satis 
 factory, lingering dinner. It was a pleasure to eat 
 where everything was so tidy, the food so well 
 cooked, the waiters so polite, and the coming and 
 departing company so moustached, so frisky, so 
 affable, so fearfully and wonderfully Frenchy ! All 
 the surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two 
 hundred people sat at little tables on the sidewalk, 
 sipping wine and coffee; the streets were thronged 
 with light vehicles and with joyous pleasure-seekers ; 
 there was music in the air, life and action all about 
 us, and a conflagration of gaslight everywhere ! 
 
 After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian 
 specialties as we might see without distressing exer 
 tion, and so we sauntered through the brilliant streets 
 and looked at the dainty trifles in variety stores and 
 jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure 
 of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on 
 the rack with questions framed in the incomprehen 
 sible jargon of their native language, and while they 
 writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we 
 scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles. 
 
158 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had 
 some of the articles marked "gold," and some 
 labeled * imitation." We wondered at this extrava 
 gance of honesty, and inquired into the matter. We 
 were informed that inasmuch as most people are not 
 able to tell false gold from the genuine article, the 
 government compels jewelers to have their gold work 
 assayed and stamped officially according to its fine 
 ness, and their imitation work duly labeled with the 
 sign of its falsity. They told us the jewelers would 
 not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a 
 stranger bought in one of their stores might be de 
 pended upon as being strictly what it was repre 
 sented to be. Verily, a wonderful land is France ! 
 
 Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest 
 infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to 
 be shaved some day in a palatial barber-shop of 
 Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cush 
 ioned invalid-chair, with pictures about me, and 
 sumptuous furniture; with frescoed walls and gilded 
 arches above me, and vistas of Corinthian columns 
 stretching far before me ; with perfumes of Araby 
 to intoxicate my senses, and the slumbrous drone of 
 distant noises to soothe me to sleep. At the end of 
 an hour I would wake up regretfully and find my 
 face as smooth and as soft as an infant s. Depart 
 ing, I would lift my hands above that barber s head 
 and say, * Heaven bless you, my son!" 
 
 So we searched high and low, for a matter of two 
 hours, but never a barber-shop could we see. We 
 
The Innocents Abroad 159 
 
 saw only wig-making establishments, with shocks of 
 dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of 
 painted waxen brigands who stared out from glass 
 boxes upon the passer-by, with their stony eyes, 
 and scared him with the ghostly white of their coun 
 tenances. We shunned these signs for a time, but 
 finally we concluded that the wig-makers must of 
 necessity be the barbers as well, since we could 
 find no single legitimate representative of the frater 
 nity. We entered and asked, and found that it 
 was even so. 
 
 I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber in 
 quired where my room was. I said, never mind 
 where my room was, I wanted to be shaved there, 
 on the spot. The doctor said he would be shaved 
 also. Then there was an excitement among those 
 two barbers ! There was a wild consultation, and 
 afterward a hurrying to and fro and a feverish gather 
 ing up of razors from obscure places and a ransack 
 ing for soap. Next they took us into a little mean, 
 shabby back room ; they got two ordinary sitting- 
 room chairs and placed us in them, with our coats 
 on. My old, old dream of bliss vanished into thin 
 air! 
 
 I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemn. One 
 of the wig-making villains lathered my fa~e for ten 
 terrible minutes and finished by plastering a mass of 
 suds into my mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff with 
 a strong English expletive and said, " Foreigner, 
 beware I Then this outlaw strapped his razor on 
 
160 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 his boot, hovered over me ominously for six fearful 
 seconds, and then swooped down upon me like the 
 genius of destruction. The first rake of his razor 
 loosened the very hide from my face and lifted me 
 out of the chair. I stormed and raved, and the 
 other boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong 
 and thick. Let us draw the curtain over this harrow 
 ing scene. Suffice it that I submitted, and went 
 through with the cruel infliction of a shave by a 
 French barber ; tears of exquisite agony coursed down 
 my cheeks, now and then, but I survived. Then the 
 incipient assassin held a basin of water under my 
 chin and slopped its contents over my face, and into 
 my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a 
 mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood. 
 He dried my features with a towel, and was going 
 to comb my hair; but I asked to be excused. I 
 said, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to 
 be skinned I declined to be scalped. 
 
 I went away from there with my handkerchief 
 about my face, and never, never, never desired to 
 dream of palatial Parisian barber-shops any more. 
 The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, 
 that they have no barber-shops worthy of the name 
 in Paris and no barbers, either, for that matter. 
 The impostor who does duty as a barber brings his 
 pans and napkins and implements of torture to your 
 residence and deliberately skins you in your private 
 apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, suffered, 
 here in Paris, but never mind the time is coming 
 
The Innocents Abroad 161 
 
 when I shall have a dark and bloody revenge. Some 
 day a Parisian barber will come to my room to skin 
 me, and from that day forth that barber will never 
 be heard of more. 
 
 At eleven o clock we alighted upon a sign which 
 manifestly referred to billiards. Joy! We had 
 played billiards in the Azores with balls that were 
 not round, and on an ancient table that was very 
 little smoother than a brick pavement one of those 
 wretched old things with dead cushions, and with 
 patches in the faded cloth and invisible obstructions 
 that made the balls describe the most astonishing 
 and unsuspected angles, and perform feats in the 
 way of unlooked-for and almost impossible 
 * scratches," that were perfectly bewildering We 
 had played at Gibraltar with balls the size of a 
 walnut, on a table like a public square and in both 
 instances we achieved far more aggravation than 
 amusement. We expected to fare better here, but 
 we were mistaken. The cushions were a good deal 
 higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion 
 of always stopping under the cushions, we accom 
 plished very little in the way of caroms. The cush 
 ions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were^so 
 crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for 
 the curve or you would infallibly put the " English " 
 on the wrong side of the ball. Dan was to mark 
 while the doctor and I played. At the end of an 
 hour neither of us had made a count, and so Dan 
 was tired of keeping tally with nothing to tally, and 
 11. 
 
162 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid 
 the heavy bill about six cents and said we 
 would call around some time when we had a week 
 to spend, and finish the game. 
 
 We adjourned to one of those pretty cafes and 
 took supper and tested the wines of the country, as 
 we had been instructed to do, and found them harm 
 less and unexciting. They might have been ex 
 citing, however, if we had chosen to drink a suffi 
 ciency of them. 
 
 To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and 
 pleasantly, we now sought our grand room in the 
 Grand Hotel du Louvre and climbed into our sump 
 tuous bed, to read and smoke but alas! 
 
 It was pitiful, 
 In a whole city-full, 
 Gas we had none. 
 
 No gas to read by nothing but dismal candles. 
 It was a shame. We tried to map out excursions 
 for the morrow; we puzzled over French " Guides 
 to Paris" ; we talked disjointedly, in a vain endeavor 
 to make head or tail of the wild chaos of the day s 
 sights and experiences; we subsided to indolent 
 smoking; we gaped and yawned, and stretched 
 then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in 
 renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away into that 
 vast mysterious void which men call sleep. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE next morning we were up and dressed at ten 
 o clock. We went to the commissionaire of 
 the hotel I don t know what a commissionaire is, 
 but that is the man we went to and told him we 
 wanted a guide. He said the great International 
 Exposition had drawn such multitudes of English 
 men and Americans to Paris that it would be next 
 to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He 
 said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he 
 only had three now. He called them. One looked 
 so like a very pirate that we let him go at once. 
 The next one spoke with a simpering precision of 
 pronunciation that was irritating, and said : 
 
 "If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande 
 honneur to me rattain in hees serveece, I shall show 
 to him everysing zat is magnifique to look upon in 
 ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh pair- 
 f aitemaw. 
 
 He would have done well to have stopped there, 
 because he had that much by heart and said it right 
 off without making a mistake. But his self-com 
 placency seduced him into attempting a flight into 
 
164 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 regions of unexplored English, and the reckless 
 experiment was his ruin. Within ten seconds he 
 was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs and 
 torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human 
 ingenuity could ever have gotten him out of it with 
 credit. It was plain enough that he could not 
 * speaky " the English quite as * pairfaitemaw " as 
 he had pretended he could. 
 
 The third man captured us. He was plainly 
 dressed, but he had a noticeable air of neatness 
 about him. He wore a high silk hat which 
 was a little old, but had been carefully brushed 1 . He 
 wore second-hand kid gloves, in good repair, and 
 carried a small rattan cane with a curved handle a 
 female leg, of ivory. He stepped as gently and as 
 daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he 
 was urbanity; he was quiet, unobtrusive self-posses 
 sion ; he was deference itself ! He spoke softly and 
 guardedly ; and when he was about to make a state 
 ment on his sole responsibility, or offer a sugges 
 tion, he weighed it by drachms and scruples first, 
 with the crook of his little stick placed meditatively 
 to his teeth. His opening speech was perfect. It 
 was perfect in construction, in phraseology, in 
 grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation every 
 thing. He spoke little and guardedly, after that. 
 We were charmed. We were more than charmed 
 we were overjoyed. We hired him at once. We 
 never even asked him his price. This man our 
 lackey, our servant, our unquestioning slave though 
 
The Innocents Abroad 165 
 
 he was, was still a gentleman we could see that < 
 while of the other two one was coarse and awkward, 
 and the other was a born pirate. We asked our 
 man Friday s name. He drew from his pocket- 
 book a snowy little card, and passed it to us with a 
 profound bow: 
 
 A. BlLLFINGER, 
 
 Guide to Paris, France, Germany, 
 
 Spain, &c., &c., 
 Grande Hotel du Louvre. 
 
 " Billfinger! Oh, carry me home to die!" 
 That was an * aside" from Dan. The atrocious 
 name grated harshly on my ear, too. The most of 
 us can learn to forgive, and even to like, a counte 
 nance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of 
 us, I fancy, become reconciled to a jarring name so 
 easily. I was almost sorry we had hired this man, 
 his name was so unbearable. However, no matter. 
 We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to 
 the door to call a carriage, and then the doctor said : 
 "Well, the guide goes with the barber-shop, with 
 the billiard table, with the gasless room, and maybe 
 with many another pretty romance of Paris. I ex 
 pected to have a guide named Henri de Mont- 
 morency, or Armand de la Chartreuse, or something 
 that would sound grand in letters to the villagers at 
 home ; but to think of a Frenchman by the name of 
 Billfinger! Oh! this is absurd, you know. This 
 will never do. We can t say Billfinger; it is nause- 
 
166 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 ating. Name him over again ; what had we better 
 call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?" 
 
 " Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I sug 
 gested. 
 
 * Call him Ferguson," said Dan. 
 
 That was practical, unromantic good sense. 
 Without debate, we expunged Billfinger as Bill- 
 finger, and called him Ferguson. 
 
 The carriage an open barouche was ready. 
 Ferguson mounted beside the driver, and we whirled 
 away to breakfast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson 
 stood by to transmit our orders and answer ques 
 tions. By and by, he mentioned casually the 
 artful adventurer that he would go and get his 
 breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He 
 knew we could not get along without him, and that 
 we would not want to loiter about and wait for him. 
 We asked him to sit down and eat with us. He 
 begged, with many a bow, to be excused. It 
 was not proper, he said ; he would sit at another 
 table. We ordered him peremptorily to sit down 
 with us. 
 
 Here endeth the first lesson. It was a mistake. 
 
 As long as we had the fellow after that, he was 
 always hungry; he was always thirsty. He came 
 early ; he stayed late ; he could not pass a restaurant ; 
 he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wine-shop. 
 Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink 
 were forever on his lips. We tried all we could to 
 fill him so full that he would have no room to spare 
 
The Innocents Abroad 16; 
 
 for a fortnight ; but it was a failure. He did not 
 hold enough to smother the cravings of his super 
 human appetite. 
 
 He had another "discrepancy" about him. He 
 was always wanting us to buy things. On the shal 
 lowest pretenses, he would inveigle us into shirt- 
 stores, boot-stores, tailor-shops, glove-shops any 
 where under the broad sweep of the heavens that 
 there seemed a chance of our buying anything. Any 
 one could have guessed that the shopkeepers paid 
 him a percentage on the sales ; but in our blessed 
 innocence we didn t, until this feature of his conduct 
 grew unbearably prominent. One day, Dan hap 
 pened to mention that he thought of buying three or 
 four silk dress-patterns for presents. Ferguson s 
 hungry eye was upon him in an instant. In the 
 course of twenty minutes, the carriage stopped. 
 
 " What s this?" 
 
 " Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris ze most 
 celebrate." 
 
 " What did you come here for? We told you to 
 take us to the palace of the Louvre." 
 
 " I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some 
 silk." 
 
 "You are not required to suppose* things for 
 the party, Ferguson. We do not wish to tax your 
 energies too much. We will bear some of the 
 burden and heat of the day ourselves. We will 
 endeavor to do such supposing as is really neces 
 sary to be done. Drive on." So spake the doctor. 
 
168 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, 
 and before another silk-store. The doctor said : 
 
 44 Ah, the palace of the Louvre; beautiful, beau 
 tiful edifice ! Does the Emperor Napoleon live here 
 now, Ferguson?" 
 
 44 Ah, doctor! you do jest; zis is not ze palace; 
 we come there directly. But since we pass right by 
 zis store, where is such beautiful silk " 
 
 * 4 Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you 
 that we did not wish to purchase any silks to-day; 
 but in my absentmindedness I forgot it. I also 
 meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the 
 Louvre; but I forgot that also. However, we will 
 go there now. Pardon my seeming carelessness, 
 Ferguson. Drive on." 
 
 Within the half-hour, we stopped again in from 
 of another silk-store. We were angry; but the 
 doctor was always serene, always smooth-voiced. 
 He said. 
 
 i4 At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet 
 how small ! how exquisitely fashioned ! how charm 
 ingly situated! Venerable, venerable pile " 
 
 14 Pairdon, doctor, zis is not ze Louvre it 
 is " 
 
 44 What is it?" 
 
 44 1 have ze idea it come to me in a moment 
 zat ze silk in zis magazin 
 
 " Ferguson, how heedless I am! I fully intended 
 to tell you that we did not wish to buy any silks to 
 day, and I also intended to tell you that we yearned 
 
The Innocents Abroad 169 
 
 to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre, but 
 enjoying the happiness of seeing you devour four 
 breakfasts this morning has so filled me with pleasur 
 able emotions that I neglect the commonest interests 
 of the time. However, we will proceed now to the 
 Louvre, Ferguson." 
 
 " But, doctor " (excitedly), "it will take not a 
 minute not but one small minute ! Ze gentleman 
 need not to buy if he not wish to but only look at 
 ze silk look at ze beautiful fabric." [Then plead 
 ingly.] " Sair just only one leetle moment!" 
 
 Dan said, ** Confound the idiot! I don t want to 
 see any silks to-day, and I won t look at them. 
 Drive on." 
 
 And the doctor: ** We need no silks now, Fergu 
 son. Our hearts yearn for the Louvre, Let us 
 journey on let us journey on." 
 
 "But, doctor! it is only one moment one leetle 
 moment. And ze time will be save entirely save! 
 Because zere is nothing to see, now it is too late. 
 It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at 
 four only one leetle- moment, doctor!" 
 
 The treacherous miscreant ! After four breakfasts 
 and a gallon of champagne, to serve us such a scurvy 
 trick. We got no sight of the countless treasures of 
 art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our only 
 poor little satisfaction was in the reflection that 
 Ferguson sold not a solitary silk dress-pattern. 
 
 I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfac 
 tion of abusing that accomplished knave, Billfinger, 
 
170 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and partly to show whosoever shall read this how 
 Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides, and 
 what sort of people Paris guides are. It need not 
 be supposed that we were a stupider or an easier 
 prey than our countrymen generally are, for we 
 were not. The guides deceive and defraud every 
 American who goes to Paris for thl first time and 
 sees its sights alone or in company with others as 
 little experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris 
 again some day, and then let the guides beware ! I 
 shall go in my war-paint I shall carry my toma 
 hawk along. 
 
 I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We 
 have gone to bed every night tired out. Of course, 
 we visited the renowned International Exposition. 
 All the world did that. We went there on our third 
 day in Paris and we stayed there nearly two hours. 
 That was our first and last visit. To tell the truth, 
 we saw at a glance that one would have to spend 
 weeks yea, even months in that monstrous 
 establishment, to get an intelligible idea of it. It 
 was a wonderful show, but the moving masses of 
 people of all nations we saw there were a still more 
 wonderful show. I discovered that if I were to stay 
 there a month, I should still find myself looking at 
 the people instead of the inanimate objects on 
 exhibition. I got a little interested in some curious 
 old tapestries of the thirteenth century, but a party 
 of Arabs came by, and their dusky faces and quaint 
 costumes called my attention away at once. I 
 
The Innocents Abroad 171 
 
 watched a silver swan, which had a living grace 
 about his movements, and a living intelligence in his 
 eyes watched him swimming about as comfortably 
 and as unconcernedly as if he had been born in a 
 morass instead of a jeweler s shop watched him 
 seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up 
 his head and go through all the customary and 
 elaborate motions of swallowing it but the moment 
 it disappeared down his throat some tattooed South 
 Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to their 
 attractions. Presently I found a revolving pistol 
 several hundred years old which looked strangely 
 like a modern Colt, but just then I heard that the 
 Empress of the French was in another part of the 
 building, and hastened away to see what she might 
 look like. We heard martial music we saw an 
 unusual number of soldiers walking hurriedly about 
 there was a general movement among the people. 
 We inquired what it was all about, and learned that 
 the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey 
 were about to review twenty-five thousand troops at 
 the Arc de rtoile. We immediately departed. I 
 had a greater anxiety to see these men than I could 
 have had to see twenty expositions. 
 
 We drove away and took up a position in an open 
 space opposite the American minister s house. A 
 speculator bridged a couple of barrels with a board 
 and we hired standing places on it. Presently there 
 v/as a sound of distant music ; in another minute a 
 pillar of dust came moving slowly toward us ; a mo- 
 
172 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 ment more, and then, with colors flying and a grand 
 crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalry 
 men emerged from the dust and came down the 
 street on a gentle trot. After them came a long 
 line of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid 
 uniforms; and then their Imperial Majesties, Napo 
 leon III and Abdul Aziz. The vast concourse of 
 people swung their hats and shouted the windows 
 and housetops in the wide vicinity burst into a 
 snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers 
 of the same mingled their cheers with those of the 
 masses below. It was a stirring spectacle. 
 
 But the two central figures claimed all my atten 
 tion. Was ever such a contrast set up before a 
 multitude till then? Napoleon, in military uniform 
 a long-bodied, short-legged man. fiercely mus- 
 tached, old, wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and 
 such a deep, crafty, scheming expression about 
 them! Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the 
 loud plaudits, and watching everything and every 
 body with his cat-eyes from under his depressed hat- 
 brim, as if to discover any sign that those cheers 
 were not heartfelt and cordial. 
 
 Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman Em 
 pire, clad in dark green European clothes, almost 
 without ornament or insignia of rank ; a red Turkish 
 fez on his head a short, stout, dark man, black- 
 bearded, black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing a 
 man whose whole appearance somehow suggested 
 that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white 
 
The Innocents Abroad 173 
 
 apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear 
 him say : * A mutton roast to-day, or will you have 
 a nice porterhouse steak?" 
 
 Napoleon III, the representative of the highest 
 modern civilization, progress, and refinement; Ab 
 dul Aziz, the representative of a people by nature 
 and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, 
 superstitious and a government whose Three 
 Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in 
 brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, 
 the First Century greets the Nineteenth ! 
 
 NAPOLEON III, Emperor of France! Surrounded 
 by shouting thousands, by military pomp, by the 
 splendors of his capital city, and companioned by 
 kings and princes this is the man who was sneered 
 at, and reviled, and called Bastard yet who was 
 dreaming of a crown and an empire all the while ; 
 who was driven into exile but carried his dreams 
 with him ; who associated with the common herd in 
 America, and ran foot-races for a wager but still 
 sat upon a throne, in fancy; who braved every 
 danger to go to his dying mother and grieved that 
 she could not be spared to see him cast aside his 
 plebeian vestments for the purple of royalty; who 
 kept his faithful watch and walked his weary beat a 
 common policeman of London but dreamed the 
 while of a coming night when he should tread the 
 long-drawn corridors of the Tuileries; who made 
 the miserable fiasco of Strasbourg; saw his poor, 
 shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch 
 
174 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 upon his shoulder; delivered his carefully prepared, 
 sententious burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic 
 ears; found himself a prisoner, the butt of small 
 wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world 
 yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid 
 pageants as before ; who lay a forgotten captive in 
 the dungeons of Ham and still schemed and 
 planned and pondered over future glory and future 
 power; President of France at lastl a coup cT ttat 
 and surrounded by applauding armies, welcomed by 
 the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and 
 waves before an astounded world the scepter of a 
 mighty empire ! Who talks of the marvels of fic 
 tion? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? 
 Who prates of the tame achievements of Aladdin 
 and the Magi of Arabia? 
 
 ABDUL Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the 
 Ottoman Empire ! Born to a throne ; weak, stupid, 
 ignorant, almost, as his meanest slave; chief of a 
 vast royalty, yet the puppet of his premier and the 
 obedient child of a tyrannical mother; a man who 
 sits upon a throne the beck of whose finger moves 
 navies and armies who holds in his hands the 
 power of life and death over millions yet who 
 sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred 
 concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and 
 sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take 
 the reins of government and threaten to be a Sultan, 
 is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad Pacha 
 with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship 
 
The Innocents Abroad 175 
 
 charmed away with a new toy, like any other restless 
 child ; a man who sees his people robbed and op 
 pressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no 
 word to save them; who believes in gnomes and 
 genii and the wild fables of the Arabian Nights, but 
 has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, 
 and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious 
 railroads and steamboats and telegraphs ; who would 
 see undone in Egypt all that great Mehemet Ali 
 achieved, and would prefer rather to forget than 
 emulate him ; a man who found his great empire a 
 blot upon the earth a degraded, poverty-stricken, 
 miserable, infamous agglomeration of ignorance, 
 crime, and brutality, and will idle away the allotted 
 days of his trivial life, and then pass to the dust and 
 the worms and leave it so ! 
 
 Napoleon has augmented the commercial pros 
 perity of France, in ten years, to such a degree that 
 figures can hardly compute it. He has rebuilt Paris, 
 and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He 
 condemns a whole street at a time, assesses the 
 damages, pays them, and rebuilds superbly. Then 
 speculators buy up the ground and sell, but the 
 original owner is given the first choice by the gov 
 ernment at a stated price before the speculator is 
 permitted to purchase. But above all things, he 
 has taken the sole control of the empire of France 
 into his hands, and made it a tolerably free land 
 for people who will not attempt to go too far in 
 meddling with government affairs. No country 
 
176 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 offers greater security to life and property than 
 France, and one has all the freedom he wants, but 
 no license no license to interfere with anybody, 
 or make any one uncomfortable. 
 
 As for the Sultan, one could set a trap anywhere 
 and catch a dozen abler men in a night. 
 
 The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer, 
 Napoleon III, the genius of Energy, Persistence, 
 Enterprise; and the feeble Abdul Aziz, the genius of 
 Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the 
 Forward March ! 
 
 We saw the splendid review, we saw the white- 
 moustached old Crimean soldier, Canrobert, Marshal 
 of France, we saw well, we saw everything, and 
 then we went home satisfied. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WE went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
 We had heard of it before. It surprises me 3 
 sometimes, to think how much we do know, and how 
 intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old 
 Gothic pile in a moment ; it was like the pictures, 
 We stood at a little distance and changed from one 
 point of observation to another, and gazed long at 
 its lofty square towers and its rich front, clustered 
 thick with stony, mutilated saints who had been 
 looking calmly down from their perches for ages. 
 The Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the 
 old days of chivalry and romance, and preached the 
 third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago; 
 and since that day they have stood there and looked 
 quietly down upon the most thrilling scenes, the 
 grandest pageants, the most extraordinary spectacles 
 that have grieved or delighted Paris. These bat 
 tered and broken-nosed old fellows saw many and 
 many a cavalcade of mail-clad knights come march 
 ing home from Holy Land; they heard the bells 
 above them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew s 
 Massacre, and they saw the slaughter that followed; 
 12 (177) 
 
178 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 later, they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage of 
 the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the corona 
 tion of two Napoleons, the christening of the young 
 prince that lords it over a regiment of servants in 
 the Tuileries to-day and they may possibly con 
 tinue to stand there until they see the Napoleon 
 dynasty swept away and the banners of a great Re 
 public floating above its ruins. I wish these old 
 parties could speak. They could tell a tale worth 
 the listening to. 
 
 They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre 
 Dame now stands, in the old Roman days, eighteen 
 or twenty centuries ago remains of it are still pre 
 served in Paris; and that a Christian church took 
 its place about A. D. 300; another took the place 
 of that in A. D. 500; and that the foundations of 
 the present cathedral were laid about A. D. noo. 
 The ground ought to be measurably sacred by this 
 time, one would think. One portion of this noble 
 old edifice is suggestive of the quaint fashions of 
 ancient times. It was built by Jean Sans-Peur, 
 Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience at rest 
 he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans. Alas ! 
 those good old times are gone, when a murderer 
 could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his 
 troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks 
 and mortar and building an addition to a church. 
 
 The portals of the great western front are bisected 
 by square pillars. They took the central one away, 
 in 1852, on the occasion of thanksgivings for the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 179 
 
 reinstitution of the Presidential power but precious 
 soon they had occasion to reconsider that motion 
 and put it back again ! And they did. 
 
 We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour 
 or two, staring up at the rich stained-glass windows 
 embellished with blue and yellow and crimson saints 
 and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless 
 great pictures in the chapels, and then we were ad 
 mitted to the sacristy and shown the magnificent 
 robes which the Pope wore when he crowned Napo 
 leon I ; a wagon-load of solid gold and silver uten 
 sils used in the great public processions and cere 
 monies of the church ; some nails of the true cross, 
 a fragment of the cross itself, a part of the crown 
 of thorns. We had already seen a large piece of the 
 true cross in a church in the Azores, but no nails. 
 They showed us likewise the bloody robe which that 
 Archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his sacred 
 person and braved the wrath of the insurgents of 
 1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft the 
 olive branch of peace in the hope of stopping the 
 slaughter. His noble effort cost him his life. He 
 was shot dead. They showed us a cast of his face, 
 taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the 
 two vertebrae in which it lodged. These people 
 have a somewhat singular taste in the matter of 
 relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross which 
 the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized 
 and thrown into the Seine, where it lay embedded 
 in the mud for fifteen years, and then an angel ap- 
 L* 
 
180 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 peared to a priest and told him where to dive for it ; 
 he did dive for it and got it, and now it is there on 
 exhibition at Notre Dame, to be inspected by any 
 body who feels an interest in inanimate objects of 
 miraculous intervention. 
 
 Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible 
 receptacle for the dead who die mysteriously and 
 leave the manner of their taking off a dismal secret. 
 We stood before a grating and looked through into 
 a room which was hung all about with the clothing 
 of dead men ; coarse blouses, water-soaked ; the 
 delicate garments of women and children ; patrician 
 vestments, flecked and stabbed and stained with red; 
 a hat that was crushed and bloody. On a slanting 
 stone lay a drowned man, naked, swollen, purple; 
 clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a grip 
 which death had so petrified that human strength 
 could not unloose it mute witness of the last de 
 spairing effort to save the life that was doomed 
 beyond all help. A stream of water trickled cease 
 lessly over the hideous face. We knew that the 
 body and the clothing were there for identification 
 by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could 
 love that repulsive object or grieve for its loss. We 
 grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years 
 ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing was 
 dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting 
 it and displaying it with satisfied pride to the passers- 
 by, a prophetic vision of this dread ending ever 
 flitted through her brain. I half feared that the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 181 
 
 mother, or the wife or a brother of the dead man 
 might come while we stood there, but nothing of 
 the kind occurred. Men and women came, and 
 some looked eagerly in, and pressed their faces 
 against the bars; others glanced carelessly at the 
 body, and turned away with a disappointed look 
 people, I thought, who live upon strong excite 
 ments, and who attend the exhibitions of the 
 Morgue regularly, just as other people go to see 
 theatrical spectacles every night. When one of 
 these looked in and passed on, I could not help 
 thinking 
 
 * Now this don t afford you any satisfaction a 
 party with his head shot off is what you need." 
 
 One night we went to the celebrated Jar din 
 Mabille^ but only stayed a little while. We wanted 
 to see some of this kind of Paris life, however, and 
 therefore the next night we went to a similar place 
 of entertainment in a great garden in the suburb of 
 Asnie res. We went to the railroad depot, toward 
 evening, and Ferguson got tickets for a second-class 
 carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not 
 often seen but there was no noise, no disorder, 
 no rowdyism. Some of the women and young girls 
 that entered the train we knew to be of the demi 
 monde ^ but others we were not at all sure about. 
 
 The girls and women in our carriage behaved 
 themselves modestly and becomingly all the way 
 out, except that they smoked. When we arrived at 
 the garden in Asnie res, we paid a franc or two ad- 
 
182 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 mission, and entered a place which had flower-beds 
 in it, and grass-plats, and long, curving rows of 
 ornamental shrubbery, with here and there a secluded 
 bower convenient for eating ice-cream in. We moved 
 along the sinuous gravel walks, with the great con 
 course of girls and young men, and suddenly a 
 domed and filigreed white temple, starred over and 
 over and over again with brilliant gas jets, burst 
 upon us like a fallen sun. Near by was a large, 
 handsome house with its ample front illuminated in 
 the same way, and above its roof floated the Star 
 Spangled Banner of America. 
 
 44 Well!" I said. " How is this?" It nearly 
 took my breath away. 
 
 Ferguson said an American a New Yorker 
 kept the place, and was carrying on quite a stirring 
 opposition to the Jardin Mabille. 
 
 Crowds, composed of both sexes and nearly all 
 ages, were frisking about the garden or sitting in the 
 open air in front of the flagstaff and the temple, 
 drinking wine and coffee, or smoking. The dancing 
 had not begun yet. Ferguson said there was to be 
 an exhibition. The famous Blondin was going to 
 perform on a tight rope in another part of the garden. 
 We went thither. Here the light was dim, and the 
 masses of people were pretty closely packed together. 
 And now I made a mistake which any donkey might 
 make, but a sensible man never. I committed an 
 error which I find myself repeating every day of my 
 life. Standing right before a young lady, I said : 
 
The Innocents ADroad 183 
 
 " Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she 
 is!" 
 
 * I thank you more for the evident sincerity of 
 the compliment, sir, than for the extraordinary 
 publicity you have given to it!" This in good, 
 pure English. 
 
 We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very 
 sadly dampened. I did not feel right comfortable 
 for some time afterward. Why will people be so 
 stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners 
 among a crowd of ten thousand persons? 
 
 But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on 
 a stretched cable, far away above the sea of tossing 
 hats and handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the hun 
 dreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he 
 looked like a wee insect. He balanced his pole and 
 walked the length of his rope two or three hun 
 dred feet ; he came back and got a man and carried 
 him across; he returned to the center and danced a 
 jig; next he performed some gymnastic and balanc 
 ing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle ; 
 and he finished by fastening to his person a thou 
 sand Roman candles, Catherine wheels, serpents and 
 rockets of all manner of brilliant colors, setting them 
 on fire all at once and walking and waltzing across 
 his rope again in a blinding blaze of glory that lit up 
 the garden and the people s faces like a great con 
 flagration at midnight. 
 
 The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the 
 temple. Within it was a drinking-saloon ; and all 
 
184 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 around it was a broad circular platform for the 
 dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, 
 and waited. Twenty sets formed, the music struck 
 up, and then I placed my hands before my face 
 for very shame. But I looked through my fingers. 
 They were dancing the renowned "Can-can." A 
 handsome girl in the set before me tripped forward 
 lightly to meet the opposite gentleman tripped 
 back again, grasped her dresses vigorously on 
 both sides with her hands, raised them pretty high, 
 danced an extraordinary jig that had more activity 
 and exposure about it than any jig I ever saw be 
 fore, and then, drawing her clothes still higher, she 
 advanced gaily to the center and launched a vicious 
 kick full at her vis-a-vis that must infallibly have 
 removed his nose if he had been seven feet high. It 
 was a mercy he was only six. 
 
 That is the can-can. The idea of it is to dance as 
 wildly, as noisily, as furiously as you can ; expose 
 yourself as much as possible if you are a woman ; 
 and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex 
 you belong to. There is no word of exaggeration 
 in this. Any of the staid, respectable, aged people 
 who were there that night can testify to the truth of 
 that statement. There were a good many such 
 people present. I suppose French morality is not 
 of that strait-laced description which is shocked at 
 trifles. 
 
 I moved aside and took a general view of the can 
 can. Shouts, laughter, furious music, a bewildering 
 
The Innocents Abroad 185 
 
 chaos of darting and intermingling forms, storm? 
 jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing heads, 
 flying arms, lightning flashes of white-stockinged 
 calves and dainty slippers in the air, and then a 
 grand final rush, riot, a terrific hubbub, and a wild 
 stampede ! Heavens ! Nothing like it has been 
 seen on earth since trembling Tarn O Shanter saw 
 the devil and the witches at their orgies that stormy 
 night in " Alloway s auld haunted kirk." 
 
 We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no 
 silk purchases in view, and looked at its miles of 
 paintings by the old masters. Some of them were 
 beautiful, but at the same time they carried such 
 evidences about them of the cringing spirit of those 
 great men that we found small pleasure in examining 
 them. Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons 
 was more prominent to me and chained my attention 
 more surely than the charms of color and expression 
 which are claimed to be in the pictures. Gratitude 
 for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some 
 of those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be 
 gratitude, and became worship. If there is a plau 
 sible excuse for the worship of men, then by all 
 means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren. 
 
 But I will drop the subject, lest I say something 
 about the old masters that might as well be left 
 unsaid. 
 
 Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne, that 
 limitless park, with its forests, its lakes, its cascades, 
 and its broad avenues. There were thousands upon 
 
186 The innocents Abroad 
 
 thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full 
 of life and gayety. There were very common hacks, 
 with father and mother and all the children in them ; 
 conspicuous little open carriages with celebrated 
 ladies of questionable reputation in them; there 
 were Dukes and Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous 
 footmen perched behind, and equally gorgeous out 
 riders perched on each of the six horses ; there were 
 blue and silver, and green and gold, and pink and 
 black, and all sorts and descriptions of stunning and 
 startling liveries out, and I almost yearned to be a 
 flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes. 
 
 But presently the Emperor came along and he 
 outshone them all. He was preceded by a body 
 guard of gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, 
 his carriage horses (there appeared to be somewhere 
 in the remote neighborhood of a thousand of them) 
 were bestridden by gallant looking fellows, also in 
 stylish uniforms, and after the carriage followed 
 another detachment of body-guards. Everybody 
 get out of the way ; everybody bowed to the Em 
 peror and his friend the Sultan, and they went by 
 on a swinging trot and disappeared. 
 
 I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can 
 not do it. It is simply a beautiful, cultivated, end 
 less, wonderful wilderness. It is an enchanting 
 place. It is in Paris, now, one may say, but a 
 crumbling old cross in one portion of it reminds one 
 that it was not always so. The cross marks the spot 
 where a celebrated troubadour was waylaid and mur- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 187 
 
 dered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park 
 that that fellow with an unpronounceable name made 
 the attempt upon the Russian Czar s life last spring 
 with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson 
 showed us the place. Now in America that interest 
 ing tree would be chopped down or forgotten 
 within the next five years, but it will be treasured 
 here. The guides will point it out to visitors for 
 the next eight hundred years, and when it decays 
 and falls down they will put up another there and go 
 on with the same old story just the same. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ONE of our pleasantest visits was to Pere la 
 Chaise, the national burying-ground of 
 France, the honored resting-place of some of her 
 greatest and best children, the last home of scores 
 of illustrious men and women who were born to no 
 titles, but achieved fame by their own energy and 
 their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding 
 streets, and of miniature marble temples and man 
 sions of the dead gleaming white from out a wilder 
 ness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is 
 so well peopled as this, or has so ample an area 
 within its walls. Few palaces exist in any city that 
 are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so costly 
 in material, so graceful, so beautiful. 
 
 We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, 
 where the marble effigies of thirty generations of 
 kings and queens lay stretched at length upon the 
 tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and 
 novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, 
 the placid faces, the hands placed palm to palm in 
 eloquent supplication it was a vision of gray 
 antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing 
 
 (188) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 189 
 
 face to face, as it were, with old Dagobert I, and 
 Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague, colossal 
 heroes, those shadows, those myths of a thousand 
 years ago ! I touched their dust-covered faces with 
 my finger, but Dagobert was deader than the sixteen 
 centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept 
 well after his labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne 
 went on dreaming of his paladins, of bloody Ronces- 
 valles, and gave no heed to me. 
 
 The great names of Pere la Chaise impress one, 
 too, but differently. There the suggestion brought 
 constantly to his mind is, that this place is sacred 
 to a nobler royalty the royalty of heart and brain. 
 Every faculty of mind, every noble trait of human 
 nature, every high occupation which men engage in, 
 seems represented by a famous name. The effect is 
 a curious medley. Davoust and Massena, who 
 wrought in many a battle-tragedy, are here, and so 
 also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic tragedy on 
 the stage. The Abbe Sicard sleeps here the first 
 great teacher of the deaf and dumb a man whose 
 heart went out to every unfortunate, and whose life 
 was given to kindly offices in their service ; and not 
 far off, in repose and peace at last, lies Marshal 
 Ney, whose stormy spirit knew no music like the 
 bugle call to arms. The man who originated public 
 gas lighting, and that other benefactor who intro 
 duced the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed 
 millions of his starving countrymen, lie with the 
 Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and 
 
 13 
 
190 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac, the chemist; 
 Laplace, the astronomer; Larrey, the surgeon; de 
 Seze, the advocate, are here, and with them are 
 Talma, Bellini, Rubini ; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, 
 Be>anger; Moliere and Lafontaine, and scores of 
 other men whose names and whose worthy labors 
 are as familiar in the remote byplaces of civilization 
 as are the historic deeds of the kings and princes 
 that sleep in the marble vaults of St. Denis. 
 
 But among the thousands and thousands of tombs 
 in Pere la Chaise, there is one that no man, no 
 woman, no youth of either sex, ever passes by with 
 out stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort 
 of indistinct idea of the history of its dead, and 
 comprehends that homage is due there, but not one 
 in twenty thousand clearly remembers the story of 
 that tomb and its romantic occupants. This is the 
 grave of Abelard and Heloise a grave which has 
 been more revered, more widely known, more writ 
 ten and sung about and wept over, for seven hun 
 dred years, than any other in Christendom, save 
 only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pen 
 sively about it; all young people capture and carry 
 away keepsakes and mementoes of it; all Parisian 
 youths and maidens who are disappointed in love 
 come there to bail out when they are full of tears ; 
 yea, many stricken lovers make pilgrimages to this 
 shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail and 
 41 grit" their teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to 
 purchase the sympathies of the chastened spirits of 
 
The Innocents Abroad 191 
 
 that tomb with offerings of immortelles and budding 
 flowers. 
 
 Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling 
 over that tomb. Go when you will, you find it 
 furnished with those bouquets and immortelles. Go 
 when you will, you find a gravel train from Marseilles 
 arriving to supply the deficiencies caused by 
 memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections have 
 miscarried. 
 
 Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and 
 Heloise? Precious few people. The names are 
 perfectly familiar to everybody, and that is about 
 all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge 
 of that history, and I propose to narrate it here, 
 partly for the honest information of the public and 
 partly to show that public that they have been wast 
 ing a good deal of marketable sentiment very un 
 necessarily. 
 
 STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE. 
 
 Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six 
 years ago. She may have had parents. There is 
 no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert, a 
 canon of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know 
 what a canon of a cathedral is, but that is what he 
 was He was nothing more than a sort of a moun 
 tain howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy 
 artillery in those days. Suffice it, then, that Heloise 
 lived with her uncle the howitzer, and was happy* 
 She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of 
 
192 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Ajgenteuil never heard of Argenteuil before, but 
 suppose there was really such a place. She then 
 returned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, 
 as the case may be, and he taught her to write and 
 speak Latin, which was the language of literature 
 and polite society at that period. 
 
 Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already 
 made himself widely famous as a rhetorician, came 
 to found a school of rhetoric in Paris. The origi 
 nality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great 
 physical strength and beauty created a profound 
 sensation. He saw Heloise, and was captivated by 
 her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming 
 disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He 
 wrote again, she answered again. He was now in 
 love. He longed to know her to speak to her face 
 to face. 
 
 His school was near Fulbert s house. He asked 
 .Fulbert to allow him to call. The good old swivel 
 saw here a rare opportunity; his niece, whom he so 
 much loved, would absorb knowledge from this 
 man, and it would not cost him a cent. Such was 
 Fulbert penurious. 
 
 Fulbert s first name is not mentioned by any 
 author, which is unfortunate. However, George W. 
 Fulbert will answer for him as well as any other. 
 We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard tc 
 teach her. 
 
 Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. Ha 
 came often and stayed long. A letter of his shows 
 
The Innocents Abroad 193 
 
 \n its very first sentence that he came under that 
 friendly roof, like a cold-hearted villain as he was, 
 tvith the deliberate intention of debauching a con 
 fiding, innocent girl. This is the letter: 
 
 " I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; I was 
 as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power of a hungry 
 wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave ourselves up wholly 
 to love, and the solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us. 
 Books were open before us, but we spoke oftener of love than philosophy, 
 and kisses came more readily from our lips than words." 
 
 And so, exulting over an honorable confidence 
 which to his degraded instinct was a ludicrous 
 41 simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced the 
 niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found 
 it out. Fulbert was told of it told often but 
 refused to believe it. He could not comprehend 
 how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred 
 protection and security of hospitality as a means for 
 the commission of such a crime as that. But when 
 he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the love- 
 songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain 
 love-songs come not properly within the teachings 
 of rhetoric and philosophy. 
 
 He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard re 
 turned secretly and carried Heloise away to Palais, 
 in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly after 
 ward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, 
 was surnamed Astrolabe William G. The girl s 
 flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed for vengeance, 
 but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Heloise 
 13* 
 
194 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 for he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard 
 offered to marry Heloise but on a shameful con 
 dition : that the marriage should be kept secret from 
 the world, to the end that (while her good name 
 remained a wreck, as before) his priestly reputation 
 might be kept untarnished. It was like that mis 
 creant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. 
 He would see the parties married, and then violate 
 the confidence of the man who had taught him that 
 trick ; he would divulge the secret and so remove 
 somewhat of the obloquy that attached to his niece s 
 fame. But the niece suspected his scheme. She 
 refused the marriage at first; she said Fulbert would 
 betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did 
 not wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so 
 honored by the world, and who had such a splendid 
 career before him. It was noble, self-sacrificing 
 love, and characteristic of the pure-souled Heloise, 
 but it was not good sense. 
 
 But she was overruled, and the private marriage 
 took place. Now for Fulbert! The heart so 
 wounded should be healed at last ; the proud spirit 
 so tortured should find rest again; the humbled 
 head should be lifted up once more. He proclaimed 
 the marriage in the high places of the city, and re 
 joiced that dishonor had departed from his house. 
 But lo ! Abelard denied the marriage I Heloise 
 denied it ! The people, knowing the former circum 
 stances, might have believed Fulbert, had only 
 Abelard denied it, but when the person chiefly inter- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 195 
 
 ested the girl herself denied it, they laughed 
 despairing Fulbert to scorn. 
 
 The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was 
 spiked again. The last hope of repairing the wrong 
 that had been done his house was gone. What 
 next? Human nature suggested revenge. He com 
 passed it. The historian says : 
 
 " Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and in- 
 flicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation." 
 
 I am seeking the last resting-place of those " ruffi 
 ans." When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, 
 and stack up some bouquets and immortelles, and 
 cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember 
 that howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have 
 been, these ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, 
 albeit it was not warranted by the strict letter of the 
 law. 
 
 Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to 
 the world and its pleasures for all time. For twelve 
 years she never heard of Abelard never even heard 
 his name mentioned. She had become prioress of 
 Argenteuil, and led a life of complete seclusion. 
 She happened one day to see a letter written by him, 
 in which he narrated his own history. She cried 
 over it, and wrote him. He answered, addressing 
 her as his** sister in Christ." They continued to 
 correspond, she in the unweighed language of un 
 wavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of 
 the polished rhetorician. She poured out her heart 
 
 M 
 
196 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 in passionate, disjointed sentences; he replied with 
 finished essays, divided deliberately into heads and 
 sub-heads, premises and argument. She showered 
 upon him the tenderest epithets that love could 
 devise, he addressed her from the North Pole of his 
 frozen heart as the "Spouse of Christ!" The 
 abandoned villain ! 
 
 On account of her too easy government of her 
 nuns, some disreputable irregularities were discov 
 ered among them, and the Abbot of St. Denis broke 
 up her establishment. Abelard was the official head 
 of the monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that 
 time, and when he heard of her homeless condition 
 a sentiment of pity was aroused in his breast (it is a 
 wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his 
 head off), and he placed her and her troop in the 
 little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious establish 
 ment which he had founded. She had many priva 
 tions and sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth 
 and her gentle disposition won influential friends for 
 her, and she built up a wealthy and flourishing 
 nunnery. She became a great favorite with the 
 heads of the church, and also the people, though 
 she seldom appeared in public. She rapidly ad 
 vanced in esteem, in good report and in usefulness, 
 and Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so 
 honored her that he made her the head of her order. 
 Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as 
 the first debater of his time, became timid, irreso 
 lute, and distrustful of his powers. He only needed 
 
The Innocents Abroad 197 
 
 a great misfortune to topple him from the high posi 
 tion he held in the world of intellectual excellence, 
 and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet 
 the subtle St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he 
 stood up in the presence of a royal and illustrious 
 assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he 
 looked about him, and stammered a commencement; 
 but his courage failed him, the cunning of his tongue 
 was gone; with his speech unspoken, he trembled 
 and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion. 
 
 He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, 
 A. D. 1144. They removed his body to the Para 
 clete afterward, and when Heloise died, twenty years 
 later, they buried her with him, in accordance with 
 her last wish. He died at the ripe age of 64, and 
 she at 63. After the bodies had remained entombed 
 three hundred years, they were removed once more. 
 They were removed again in 1800, and finally, 
 seventeen years afterward, they were taken up and 
 transferred to Pere la Chaise, where they will remain 
 in peace and quiet until it comes time for them to 
 get up and move again. 
 
 History is silent concerning the last acts of the 
 mountain howitzer. Let the world say what it will 
 about him, 7, at least, shall always respect the 
 memory and sorrow for the abused trust, and the 
 broken heart, and the troubled spirit of the old 
 smooth-bore. Rest and repose be his ! 
 
 Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such 
 is the history that Lamartine has shed such cataracts 
 
198 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of tears over. But that man never could come 
 within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic 
 without overflowing his banks. He ought to be 
 dammed or leveed, I should more properly say. 
 Such is the history not as it is usually told, but as 
 it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality 
 that would enshrine for our loving worship a 
 dastardly seducer like Pierre Abelard. I have not 
 a word to say against the misused, faithful girl, and 
 would not withhold from her grave a single one of 
 those simple tributes which blighted youths and 
 maidens offer to her memory, but I am sorry enough 
 that I have not time and opportunity to write four 
 or five volumes of my opinion of her friend the 
 founder of the Parachute, or the Paraclete, or what 
 ever it was. 
 
 The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that 
 unprincipled humbug, in rny ignorance ! I shall 
 throttle down my emotions hereafter, about this sort 
 of people, until I have read them up and know 
 whether they are entitled to any tearful attentions or 
 not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now, and 
 that bunch of radishes. 
 
 In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign, 
 "English Spoken Here," just as one sees in the 
 windows at home the sign, * Id on parle fran$aisc" 
 We always invaded these places at once and in 
 variably received the information, framed in faultless 
 French, that the clerk who did the English for the 
 establishment had just gone to dinner and would be 
 
The Innocents Abroad 199 
 
 back in an hour would Monsieur buy something? 
 We wondered why those parties happened to take 
 their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary 
 hours, for we never called at a time when an exem 
 plary Christian would be in the least likely to be 
 abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it was a 
 base fraud a snare to trap the unwary chaff to 
 catch fledglings with. They had no English- 
 murdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to in 
 veigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their 
 own blandishments to keep them there till they 
 bought something. 
 
 We ferreted out another French imposition a 
 frequent sign to this effect: "ALL MANNER OP 
 AMERICAN DRINKS ARTISTICALLY PREPARED 
 HERE." We procured the services of a gentleman 
 experienced in the nomenclature of the American 
 bar, and moved upon the works of one of these im 
 postors. A bowing, aproned Frenchman skipped 
 forward and said : 
 
 " Que voulez les messieurs?" I do not know 
 what " Que voulez les messieurs" means, but such 
 was his remark. 
 
 Our General said, "We will take a whisky- 
 straight." 
 
 [A stare from the Frenchman.] 
 
 " Well, if you don t know what that is, give us a 
 champagne cock-tail." 
 
 [A stare and a shrug.] 
 
 " Well, then, give us a sherry cobbler." 
 
200 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 The Frenchman was checkmated. This was all 
 Greek to him. 
 
 * Give us a brandy smash !" 
 
 The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious 
 of the ominous vigor of the last order began to 
 back away, shrugging his shoulders and spreading 
 his hands apologetically. 
 
 The General followed him up and gained a com 
 plete victory. The uneducated foreigner could not 
 even furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an Eye-Opener, a 
 Stone-Fence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that 
 he was a wicked impostor. 
 
 An acquaintance of mine said, the other day, that 
 he was doubtless the only American visitor to the Ex 
 position who had had the high honor of being escorted 
 by the Emperor s body-guard. I said with unob 
 trusive frankness that I was astonished that such a 
 long-legged, lantern-jawed, unprepossessing looking 
 specter as he should be singled out for a distinction 
 (ike that, and asked how it came about. He said 
 he had attended a great military review in the 
 Champ de Mars, some time ago, and while the 
 multitude about him was growing thicker and thicker 
 every moment, he observed an open space inside 
 the railing. He left his carriage and went into it. 
 He was the only person there, and so he had plenty 
 of room, and the situation being central, he could 
 see all the preparations going on about the field. 
 By and by there was a sound of music, and soon 
 the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of 
 
The Innocents Abroad 201 
 
 Austria, escorted by the famous Cent Gardes, en 
 tered the inclosure. They seemed not to observe 
 him, but directly, in response to a sign from the 
 commander of the Guard, a young lieutenant came 
 toward him with a file of his men following, halted, 
 raised his hand and gave the military salute, and 
 then said in a low voice that he was sorry to have to 
 disturb a stranger and a gentleman, but the place 
 was sacred to royalty. Then this New Jersey phan 
 tom rose up and bowed and begged pardon, then 
 with the officer beside him, the file of men marching 
 behind him, and with every mark of respect, he wag 
 escorted to his carriage by the imperial Cent Gardes ! 
 The officer saluted again and fell back, the New 
 Jersey sprite bowed in return and had presence of 
 mind enough to pretend that he had simply called 
 on a matter of private business with those emperors, 
 and so waved them an adieu, and drove from the 
 field! 
 
 Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding 
 upon a public rostrum sacred to some sixpenny 
 dignitary in America. The police would scare him 
 to death, first, with a storm of their elegant blas 
 phemy, and then pull him to pieces getting him 
 away from there. We are measurably superior to 
 the French in some things, but they are immeasur 
 ably our betters in others. 
 
 Enough of Paris for the present. We have done 
 our whole duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, 
 the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder 
 
202 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great 
 churches and museums, libraries, imperial palaces, 
 and sculpture and picture galleries, the Pantheon, 
 Jardin des Planies, the opera, the circus, the legis 
 lative body, the billiard-rooms, the barbers, the 
 grisette s 
 
 Ah, the grisettes ! I had almost forgotten. They 
 are another romantic fraud. They were (if you let 
 the books of travel tell it) always so beautiful so 
 neat and trim, so graceful so natve and trusting 
 so gentle, so winning so faithful to their shop 
 duties, so irresistible to buyers in their prattling 
 importunity so devoted to their poverty-stricken 
 students of the Latin Quarter so light hearted and 
 happy on their Sunday picnics in the suburbs and 
 oh, so charmingly, so delightfully immoral ! 
 
 Stuff ! For three or four days I was constantly 
 saying: 
 
 ** Quick, Ferguson ! is that a grisette /" 
 
 And he always said "No." 
 
 He comprehended, at last, that I wanted to see a 
 grisette. Then he showed me dozens of them. 
 They were like nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever 
 saw homely. They had large hands, large feet, 
 large mouths; they had pug noses as a general 
 thing, and moustaches that not even good breeding 
 could overlook; they combed their hair straight 
 back without parting; they were ill-shaped, they 
 were not winning, they were not graceful ; I knew 
 by their looks that they ate garlic and onions ; and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 203 
 
 lastly and finally, to my thinking it would be base 
 flattery to call them immoral. 
 
 Aroint thee, wench ! I sorrow for the vagabond 
 student of the Latin Quarter now, even more than 
 formerly I envied him. Thus topples to earth 
 another idol of my Infancy. 
 
 We have seen everything, and to-morrow we go 
 to Versailles. We shall see Paris only for a little 
 while as we come back to take up our line of march 
 for the ship, and so I may as well bid the beautiful 
 city a regretful farewell. We shall travel many 
 thousands of miles after we leave here, and visit 
 many great cities, but we shall find none so enchant 
 ing as this. 
 
 Some of our party have gone to England, intend 
 ing to take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel 
 at Leghorn or Naples, several weeks hence. We 
 came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to 
 return to Marseilles and go up through Italy from 
 Genoa. 
 
 I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I 
 am sincerely proud to be able to make and glad, 
 as well, that my comrades cordially indorse it, to 
 wit : by far the handsomest women we have seen in 
 France were born and reared in America. 
 
 I feel, now, like a man who has redeemed a failing 
 reputation and shed luster upon a dimmed escutch 
 eon, by a single just deed done at the eleventh hour. 
 
 Let the curtain fall, to slow music. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WERSAILLES! It is wonderfully beautiful ! You 
 V gaze, and stare, and try to understand that it 
 is real, that it is on the earth, that it is not the 
 Garden of Eden but your brain grows giddy, 
 stupefied by the world of beauty around you, and 
 you half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite 
 dream. The scene thrills one like military music ! 
 A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front 
 block upon block away, till it seemed that it would 
 never end ; a grand promenade before it, whereon 
 the armies of an empire might parade ; all about it 
 rainbows of flowers, and colossal statues that were 
 almost numberless, and yet seemed only scattered 
 over the ample space ; broad flights of stone steps 
 leading down from the promenade to lower grounds 
 of the park stairways that whole regiments might 
 stand to arms upon and have room to spare; vast 
 fountains whose great bronze effigies discharged 
 rivers of sparkling water into the air and mingled a 
 hundred curving jets together in forms of matchless 
 beauty; wide grass-carpeted avenues that branched 
 hither and thither in every direction and wandered 
 
 (BO*) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 20J 
 
 to seemingly interminable distances, walled all the 
 way on either side with compact ranks of leafy trees 
 whose branches met above and formed arches as 
 faultless and as symmetrical as ever were carved in 
 stone ; and here and there were glimpses of sylvan 
 lakes with miniature ships glassed in their surfaces. 
 And everywhere on the palace steps, and the great 
 promenade, around the fountains, among the trees, 
 and far under the arches of the endless avenues, 
 hundreds and hundreds of people in gay costumes 
 walked or ran or danced, and gave to the fairy 
 picture the life and animation which was all of per 
 fection it could have lacked. 
 
 It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is 
 on so gigantic a scale. Nothing is small nothing 
 is cheap. The statues are all large ; the palace is 
 grand; the park covers a fair-sized county; the 
 avenues are interminable. All the distances and all 
 the dimensions about Versailles are vast. I used to 
 think the pictures exaggerated these distances and 
 these dimensions beyond all reason, and that they 
 made Versailles more beautiful than it was possible 
 for any place in the world to be. I know now that 
 the pictures never came up to the subject in any re 
 spect, and that no painter could represent Versailles 
 on canvas as beautiful as it is in reality. I used to 
 abuse Louis XIV for spending two hundred millions 
 of dollars in creating this marvelous park, when 
 bread was so scarce with some of his subjects ; but 
 I have forgiven him now. He took a tract of land 
 
206 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 sixty miles in circumference and set to worlc to 
 make this park and build this palace and a road to 
 it from Paris. He kept 36,000 men employed daily 
 on it, and the labor was so unhealthy that they used 
 to die and be hauled off by cart-loads every night. 
 The wife of a nobleman of the time speaks of this as 
 an inconvenience" but nafvely remarks that "it 
 does not seem worthy of attention in the happy 
 state of tranquillity we now enjoy." 
 
 I always thought ill of people at home, who 
 trimmed their shrubbery into pyramids and squares 
 and spires and all manner of unnatural shapes, and 
 when I saw the same thing being practiced in this 
 great park I began to feel dissatisfied. But I soon 
 saw the idea of the thing and the wisdom of it. 
 They seek the general effect. We distort a dozen 
 sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in a little 
 yard no bigger than a dining-room, and then surely 
 they look absurd enough. But here they take two 
 hundred thousand tall forest trees and set them in a 
 double row ; allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow 
 on the trunk lower down than six feet above the 
 ground ; from that point the boughs begin to pro 
 ject, and very gradually they extend outward further 
 and further till they meet overhead, and a faultless 
 tunnel of foliage is formed. The arch is mathe 
 matically precise. The effect is then very fine. 
 They make trees take fifty different shapes, and so 
 these quaint effects are infinitely varied and pictur 
 esque. The trees in no two avenues are shaped 
 
The Innocents Abroad 207 
 
 alike, and consequently the eye is not fatigued with 
 anything in the nature of monotonous uniformity. 
 I will drop this subject now, leaving it to others to 
 determine how these people manage to make endless 
 ranks of lofty forest trees grow to just a certain 
 thickness of trunk (say a foot and two-thirds) ; how 
 they make them spring to precisely the same height 
 for miles; how they make them grow so close 
 together ; how they compel one huge limb to spring 
 from the same identical spot on each tree and form 
 the main sweep of the arch ; and how all these things 
 are kept exactly in the same condition, and in the 
 same exquisite shapeliness and symmetry month 
 after month and year after year for I have tried to 
 reason out the problem, and have failed. 
 
 We walked through the great hall of sculpture 
 and the one hundred and fifty galleries of paintings 
 in the palace of Versailles, and felt that to be in 
 such a place was useless unless one had a whole year 
 at his disposal. These pictures are all battle-scenes, 
 and only one solitary little canvas among them all 
 treats of anything but great French victories. We 
 wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon and the 
 Petit Trianon, those monuments of royal prodigality, 
 and with histories so mournful filled, as it is, 
 with souvenirs of Napoleon the First, and three dead 
 kings and as many queens. In one sumptuous bed 
 they had all slept in succession, but no one occupies 
 it now. In a large dining-room stood the table at 
 which Louis XIV and his mistress, Madame Main- 
 
208 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 tenon, and after them Louis XV, and Pompadour, 
 had sat at their meals naked and unattended for 
 the table stood upon a trap-door, which descended 
 with it to regions below when it was necessary to 
 replenish its dishes. In a room of the Petit Trianon 
 stood the furniture, just as poor Marie Antoinette 
 left it when the mob came and dragged her and the 
 King to Paris, never to return. Near at hand, in 
 the stables, were prodigious carriages that showed 
 no color but gold carriages used by former kings 
 of France on state occasions, and never used now 
 save when a kingly head is to be crowned, or an 
 imperial infant christened. And with them were 
 some curious sleighs, whose bodies were shaped 
 like lions, swans, tigers, etc. vehicles that had once 
 been handsome with pictured designs and fine work 
 manship, but were dusty and decaying now. They 
 had their history. When Louis XIV had finished 
 the Grand Trianon, he told Maintenon he had 
 created a Paradise for her, and asked if she could 
 think of anything now to wish for. He said he 
 wished the Trianon to be perfection nothing less. 
 She said she could think of but one thing it was 
 summer, and it was balmy France yet she would like 
 well to sleigh-ride in the leafy avenues of Versailles ! 
 The next morning found miles and miles of grassy 
 avenues spread thick with snowy salt and sugar, and 
 a procession of those quaint sleighs waiting to re 
 ceive the chief concubine of the gayest and most 
 unprincipled court that France has ever seen I 
 
The Innocents Abroad 209 
 
 From sumptuous Versailles, with its palaces, its 
 statues, its gardens and its fountains, we journeyed 
 back to Paris and sought its antipodes the Fau 
 bourg St. Antoine. Little, narrow streets; dirty 
 children blockading them ; greasy, slovenly women 
 capturing and spanking them; filthy dens on first 
 floors, with rag stores ii them (the heaviest business 
 in the Faubourg is the chiffonier s) ; other filthy 
 dens where whole suits of second and third-hand 
 clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any pro 
 prietor who did not steal his stock ; still other filthy 
 dens where they sold groceries sold them by the 
 half-pennyworth five dollars would buy the man 
 out, good-will and all. Up these little crooked 
 streets they will murder a man for seven dollars and 
 dump the body in the Seine. And up some other 
 of these streets most of them, I should say live 
 lorettes. 
 
 All through this Faubourg St. Antoine, misery, 
 poverty, vice, and crime go hand in hand, and the 
 evidences of it stare one in the face from every side. 
 Here the people live who begin the revolutions. 
 Whenever there is anything of that kind to be done, 
 they are always ready. They take as much genuine 
 pleasure in building a barricade as they do in cutting 
 a throat or shoving a friend into the Seine. It is 
 these savage-looking ruffians who storm the splen 
 did halls of the Tuileries, occasionally, and swarm 
 into Versailles when a king is to be called to 
 account. 
 U. 
 
210 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 But they will build no more barricades, they wifl 
 break no more soldiers heads with paving-stones. 
 Louis Napoleon has taken care of all that. He is 
 annihilating the crooked streets, and building in their 
 stead noble boulevards as straight as an arrow 
 avenues which a cannon-ball could traverse from end 
 to end without meeting an obstruction more irre 
 sistible than the flesh and bones of men boule 
 vards whose stately edifices will never afford refuges 
 and plotting-places for starving, discontented revolu 
 tion-breeders. Five of these great thoroughfares 
 radiate from one ample center a center which is 
 exceedingly well adapted to the accommodation of 
 heavy artillery. The mobs used to riot there, but 
 they must seek another rallying-place in future. 
 And this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his 
 great cities with a smooth, compact composition of 
 asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flag 
 stones -no more assaulting his Majesty s troops 
 with cobbles. I cannot feel friendly toward my 
 quondam fellow- American, Napoleon III, espe 
 cially at this time,* when in fancy I see his credulous 
 victim, Maximilian, lying stark and stiff in Mexico, 
 and his maniac widow watching eagerly from her 
 French asylum for the form that will never come 
 but I do admire his nerve, his calm self-reliance, his 
 shrewd good sense. 
 
 July, 1867. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 WE had a pleasant journey of it seaward again, 
 We found that for the three past nights our 
 ship had been in a state of war. The first night the 
 sailors of a British ship, being happy with grog, 
 came down on the pier and challenged our sailors to 
 a free fight. They accepted with alacrity, repaired 
 to the pier and gained their share of a drawn 
 battle. Several bruised and bloody members of 
 both parties were carried off by the police, and im 
 prisoned until the following morning. The next 
 night the British boys came again to renew the fight, 
 but our men had had strict orders to remain on 
 board and out of sight. They did so, and the 
 besieging party grew noisy, and more and more 
 abusive as the fact became apparent (to them) that 
 our men were afraid to come out. They went away, 
 finally, with a closing burst of ridicule and offensive 
 epithets. The third night they came again, and were 
 more obstreperous than ever. They swaggered up 
 and down the almost deserted pier, and hurled 
 curses, obscenity, and stinging sarcasms at our crew. 
 It was more than human nature could bear. The 
 N* (an) 
 
212 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 executive officer ordered our men ashore with 
 instructions not to fight. They charged the British 
 and gained a brilliant victory. I probably would 
 not have mentioned this war had it ended differently. 
 But I travel to learn, and I still remember that they 
 picture no French defeats in the battle-galleries of 
 Versailles. 
 
 It was like home to us to step on board the com 
 fortable ship again, and smoke and lounge about her 
 breezy decks. And yet it was not altogether like 
 home, either, because so many members of the 
 family were away. We missed some pleasant faces 
 which we would rather have found at dinner, and at 
 night there were gaps in the euchre-parties which 
 could not be satisfactorily filled. 4I Moult." was in 
 England, Jack in Switzerland, Charley in Spain. 
 Blucher was gone, none could tell where. But we 
 were at sea again, and we had the stars and the 
 ocean to look at, and plenty of room to meditate in. 
 
 In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and 
 as we stood gazing from the decks early in the bright 
 summer morning, the stately city of Genoa rose up 
 out of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her 
 Jiundred palaces. 
 
 Here we rest, for the present or rather, here 
 we have been trying to rest, for some little time, but 
 we run about too much to accomplish a great deal 
 in that line. 
 
 I would like to remain here. I had rather not go 
 any further. There may be prettier women in 
 
The Innocents Abroad 213 
 
 Europe, but I doubt it. The population of Genoa 
 is 120,000; two-thirds of these are women, I think, 
 and at least two-thirds of the women are beautiful. 
 They are as dressy and as tasteful and as graceful 
 as they could possibly be without being angels. 
 However, angels are not very dressy, I believe. At 
 least the angels in pictures are not they wear 
 nothing but wings. But these Genoese women do 
 look so charming. Most of the young demoiselles 
 are robed in a cloud of white from head to foot, 
 though many trick themselves out more elaborately. 
 Nine-tenths of them wear nothing on their heads but 
 a filmy sort of veil, which falls down their backs like 
 a white mist. They are very fair, and many of 
 them have blue eyes, but black and dreamy dark 
 brown ones are met with oftenest. 
 
 The ladies and gentlemen of Genoa have a 
 pleasant fashion of promenading in a large park on 
 the top of a hill in the center of the city, from six 
 till nine in the evening, and then eating ices in a 
 neighboring garden an hour or two longer. We 
 went to the park on Sunday evening. Two thou 
 sand persons were present, chiefly young ladies and 
 gentlemen. The gentlemen were dressed in the very 
 latest Paris fashions, and the robes of the ladies 
 glinted among the trees like so many snow-flakes. 
 The multitude moved round and round the park in 
 a great procession. The bands played, and so did 
 the fountains ; the moon and the gas-lamps lit up 
 the scene, and altogether it was a brilliant and an 
 
214 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 animated picture. I scanned every female face that 
 passed, and it seemed to me that all were handsome. 
 I never saw such a freshet of loveliness before. I do 
 not see how a man of only ordinary decision of char 
 acter could marry here, because, before he could get 
 his mind made up he would fall in love with some 
 body else. 
 
 Never smoke any Italian tobacco. Never do it 
 on any account. It makes me shudder to think 
 what it must be made of. You cannot throw an old 
 cigar "stub" down anywhere, but some vagabond 
 will pounce upon it on the instant. I like to smoke 
 a good deal, but it wounds my sensibilities to see 
 one of these stub-hunters watching me out of the 
 corners of his hungry eyes and calculating how long 
 my cigar will be likely to last. It reminded me too 
 painfully of that San Francisco undertaker who used 
 to go to sick beds with his watch in his hand and 
 time the corpse. One of these stub-hunters followed 
 us all over the park last night, and we never had a 
 smoke that was worth anything. We were always 
 moved to appease him with the stub before the cigar 
 was half gone, because he looked so viciously anxious. 
 He regarded us as his own legitimate prey, by right 
 of discovery, I think, because he drove off several 
 other professionals who wanted to take stock in us. 
 
 Now, they surely must chew up those old stubs, 
 and dry and sell them for smoking tobacco. There 
 fore, give your custom to other than Italian brands 
 of the article. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 215 
 
 "The Superb" and the " City of Palaces "are 
 names which Genoa has held for centuries. She is 
 full of palaces, certainly, and the palaces are sump 
 tuous inside, but they are very rusty without, and 
 make no pretensions to architectural magnificence. 
 44 Genoa, the Superb," would be a felicitous title if 
 it referred to the women. 
 
 We have visited several of the palaces immense 
 thick- walled piles, with great stone staircases, tessel 
 lated marble pavements on the floors (sometimes 
 they make a mosaic work, of intricate designs, 
 wrought in pebbles, or little fragments of marble 
 laid in cement) , and grand salons hung with pictures 
 by Rubens, Guido, Titian, Paul Veronese, and so 
 on, and portraits of heads of the family, in plumed 
 helmets and gallant coats of mail, and patrician 
 ladies, in stunning costumes of centuries ago. But, 
 of course, the folks were all out in the country for 
 the summer, and might not have known enough to 
 ask us to dinner if they had been at home, and so 
 all the grand empty salons y with their resounding 
 pavements, their grim pictures of dead ancestors, 
 and tattered banners with the dust of bygone cen 
 turies upon them, seemed to brood solemnly of 
 death and the grave, and our spirits ebbed away, 
 and our cheerfulness passed from us. We never 
 went up to the eleventh story. We always began to 
 suspect ghosts. There was always an undertaker- 
 looking servant along, too, who handed us a pro 
 gramme, pointed to the picture that began the list 
 
216 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of the salon he was in, and then stood stiff and stark 
 and unsmiling in his petrified livery till we were 
 ready to move on to the next chamber, whereupon 
 he marched sadly ahead and took up another malig 
 nantly respectful position as before. I wasted so 
 much time praying that the roof would fall in on 
 these dispiriting flunkeys that I had but little left to 
 bestow upon palace and pictures. 
 
 And besides, as in Paris, we had a guide. Perdi 
 tion catch all the guides. This one said he was the 
 most gifted linguist in Genoa, as far as English was 
 concerned, and that only two persons in the city 
 beside himself could talk the language at all. He 
 showed us the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, 
 and after we had reflected in silent awe before it for 
 fifteen minutes, he said it was not the birthplace of 
 Columbus, but of Columbus s grandmother! When 
 we demanded an explanation of his conduct he only 
 shrugged his shoulders and answered in barbarous 
 Italian. I shall speak further of this guide in a 
 future chapter. All the information we got out of 
 him we shall be able to carry along with us, I think. 
 
 I have not been to church so often in a long time 
 as I have in the last few weeks. The people in these 
 old lands seem to make churches their specialty. 
 Especially does this seem to be the case with the 
 citizens of Genoa. I think there is a church every 
 three or four hundred yards all over town. The 
 streets are sprinkled from end to end with shovel- 
 hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and the church 
 
The Innocents Abroad 217 
 
 bells by dozens are pealing all the day; long, nearly. 
 Every now and then one comes across a friar of 
 orders gray, with shaven head, long, coarse robe, 
 rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals 
 or entirely bare. These worthies suffer in the flesh, 
 and do penance all their lives, I suppose, but they 
 look like consummate famine-breeders. They are 
 all fat and serene. 
 
 The old Cathedral of San Lorenzo is about as 
 notable a building as we have found in Genoa. It 
 Is vast, and has colonnades of noble pillars, and a 
 great organ, and the customary pomp of gilded 
 moldings, pictures, frescoed ceilings, and so forth. 
 I cannot describe it, of course it would require a 
 good many pages to do that. But it is a curious 
 place. They said that half of it from the front 
 door half way down to the altar was a Jewish 
 Synagogue before the Saviour was born, and that no 
 alteration had been made in it since that time. We 
 doubted the statement, but did it reluctantly. We 
 would much rather have believed it. The place 
 looked in too perfect repair to be so ancient. 
 
 The main point of interest about the cathedral is 
 the little Chapel of St. John the Baptist. They only 
 allow women to enter it on one day in the year, on 
 account of the animosity they still cherish against 
 the sex because of the murder of the Saint to gratify 
 a caprice of Herodias. In this chapel is a marble 
 chest, in which, they told us, were the ashes of St. 
 John; and around it was wound a chain, which, 
 
218 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 they said, had confined him when he was in prison. 
 We did not desire to disbelieve these statements, and 
 yet we could not feel certain that they were correct 
 partly because we could have broken that chain, 
 and so could St. John, and partly because we had 
 seen St. John s ashes before, in another church. 
 We could not bring ourselves to think St. John had 
 two sets of ashes. 
 
 They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna 
 which was painted by St. Luke, and it did not look 
 half as old and smoky as some of the pictures by 
 Rubens. We could not help admiring the Apostle s 
 modesty in never once mentioning in his writings 
 that he could paint. 
 
 But isn t this relic matter a little overdone? We 
 find a piece of the true cross in every old church we 
 go into, and some of the nails that held it together. 
 I would not like to be positive, but I think we have 
 seen as much as a keg of these nails. Then there 
 is the crown of thorns ; they have part of one in 
 Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, and part of one, also, in 
 Notre Dame. And as for bones of St. Denis, I feel 
 certain we have seen enough of them to duplicate 
 him, if necessary. 
 
 I only meant to write about the churches, but I 
 keep wandering from the subject. I could say that 
 the Church of the Annunciation is a wilderness of 
 beautiful columns, of statues, gilded moldings, and 
 pictures almost countless, but that would give no 
 one an entirely perfect idea of the thing, and so 
 
The Innocents Abroad 219 
 
 where is the use? One family built the whole 
 edifice, and have got money left. There is where 
 the mystery lies. We had an idea at first that only 
 a mint could have survived the expense. 
 
 These people here live in the heaviest, highest, 
 broadest, darkest, solidest houses one can imagine. 
 Each one might " laugh a siege to scorn. 1 A 
 hundred feet front and a hundred high is about the 
 style, and you go up three flights of stairs before 
 you begin to come upon signs of occupancy. 
 Everything is stone, and stone of the heaviest 
 floors, stairways, mantels, benches everything. 
 The walls are four to five feet thick. The streets 
 generally are four or five to eight feet wide and as 
 crooked as a corkscrew. You go along one of these 
 gloomy cracks, and look up and behold the sky like 
 a mere ribbon of light, far above your head, where 
 the tops of the tall houses on either side of the 
 street bend almost together. You feel as if you 
 were at the bottom of some tremendous abyss, with 
 all the world far above you. You wind in and out 
 and here and there, in the most mysterious way, 
 and have no more idea of the points of the compass 
 than if you were a blind man. You can never per 
 suade yourself that these are actually streets, and 
 the frowning, dingy, monstrous houses dwellings, 
 till you see one of these beautiful, prettily-dressed 
 women emerge from them see her emerge from a 
 dark, dreary-looking den that looks dungeon all 
 over, from the ground away half-way up to heaven. 
 
220 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 And then you wonder that such a charming moth 
 could come from such a forbidding shell as that. 
 The streets are wisely made narrow and the houses 
 heavy and thick and stony, in order that the people 
 may be cool in this roasting climate. And they are 
 cool, and stay so. And while I think of it the 
 men wear hats and have very dark complexions, but 
 the women wear no headgear but a flimsy veil like a 
 gossamer s web, and yet are exceedingly fair as a 
 general thing. Singular, isn t it? 
 
 The huge palaces of Genoa are each supposed to 
 be occupied by one family, but they could accom 
 modate a hundred, I should think. They are relics 
 of the grandeur of Genoa s palmy days the days 
 when she was a great commercial and maritime 
 power several centuries ago. These houses, solid 
 marble palaces though they be, are, in many cases, 
 of a dull pinkish color, outside, and from pavement 
 to eaves are pictured with Genoese battle-scenes, 
 with monstrous Jupiters and Cupids and with familiar 
 illustrations from Grecian mythology. Where the 
 paint has yielded to age and exposure and is peel- 
 jig off in flakes and patches, the effect is not happy. 
 A noseless Cupid, or a Jupiter with an eye out, or 
 a Venus with a fly-blister on her breast, are not 
 attractive features in a picture. Some of these 
 painted walls reminded me somewhat of the tall van, 
 plastered with fanciful bills and posters, that follows 
 the band wagon of a circus about a country village. 
 I have not read or heard that the outsides of the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 221 
 
 houses of any other European city are frescoed in 
 this way. 
 
 I cannot conceive of such a thing as Genoa i 
 ruins. Such massive arches, such ponderous sub 
 structions as support these towering broad-winged 
 edifices, we have seldom seen before; and surely 
 the great blocks of stone of which these edifices are 
 built can never decay; walls that are as thick as an 
 ordinary American doorway is high, cannot crumble- 
 
 The Republics of Genoa and Pisa were very 
 powerful in the Middle Ages. Their ships filled 
 the Mediterranean, and they carried on an extensive 
 commerce with Constantinople and Syria. Their 
 warehouses were the great distributing depots from 
 whence the costly merchandise of the East was sent 
 abroad over Europe. They were warlike little 
 nations, and defied, in those days, governments 
 that overshadow them now as mountains overshadow 
 molehills. The Saracens captured and pillaged 
 Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the fol 
 lowing century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offen 
 sive and defensive alliance and besieged the Sara 
 cen colonies in Sardinia and the Balearic Isles with 
 an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and 
 held to its purpose for forty long years. They were 
 victorious at last, and divided their conquests 
 equably among their great patrician families. De 
 scendants of some of those proud families still in 
 habit the palaces of Genoa, and trace in their own 
 features a resemblance to the grim knights whose 
 
 IS 
 
222 The Innocents Abroau 
 
 portraits hang in their stately halls, and to pictured 
 beauties with pouting lips and merry eyes whose 
 originals have been dust and ashes for many a dead 
 and forgotten century. 
 
 The hotel we live in belonged to one of those 
 great orders of Knights of the Cross in the times of 
 the Crusades, and its mailed sentinels once kept 
 watch and ward in its massive turrets and woke the 
 echoes of these halls and corridors with their iron 
 heels. 
 
 But Genoa s greatness has degenerated into an 
 unostentatious commerce in velvets and silver filigree 
 work. They say that each European town has its 
 specialty. These filigree things are Genoa s spe 
 cialty. Her smiths take silver ingots and work them 
 up into all manner of graceful and beautiful forms. 
 They make bunches of flowers, from flakes and wires 
 of silver, that counterfeit the delicate creations the 
 frost weaves upon a window pane ; and we were 
 shown a miniature silver temple whose fluted col 
 umns, whose Corinthian capitals and rich entabla 
 tures, whose spire, statues, bells, and ornate lavish- 
 ness of sculpture were wrought in polished silver, 
 and with such matchless art that every detail was a 
 fascinating study, and the finished edifice a wonder 
 of beauty. 
 
 We are ready to move again, though we are not 
 really tired, yet, of the narrow passages of this old 
 marble cave. Cave is a good word when speak- 
 ing of Genoa under the stars. When we have been 
 
The Innocents Abroad 223 
 
 prowling at midnight through the gloomy crevices 
 they call streets, where no footfalls but ours were 
 echoing, where only ourselves were abroad, and 
 lights appeared only at long intervals and at a dis 
 tance, and mysteriously disappeared again, and the 
 houses at our elbows seemed to stretch upward 
 farther than ever toward the heavens, the memory 
 of a cave I used to know at home was always in my 
 mind, with its lofty passages, its silence and solitude, 
 its shrouding gloom, its sepulchral echoes, its flitting 
 lights, and more than all, its sudden revelations of 
 branching crevices and corridors where we least ex 
 pected them. 
 
 We are not tired of the endless processions of 
 cheerful, chattering gossipers that throng these 
 courts and streets all day long, either ; nor of the 
 coarse-robed monks; nor of the * Asti" wines, 
 which that old doctor (whom we call the Oracle^ 
 with customary felicity in the matter of getting 
 everything wrong, misterms " nasty." But we 
 must go, nevertheless. 
 
 Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place 
 intended to accommodate 60,000 bodies), and we 
 shall continue to remember it after we shall have 
 forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble colonnaded 
 corridor extending around a great unoccupied square 
 of ground ; its broad floor is marble, and on every 
 slab is an inscription for every slab covers a 
 corpse. On either side, as one walks down the 
 middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and 
 
224 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and 
 are full of grace and beauty. They are new and 
 snowy; every outline is perfect, every feature guilt 
 less of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and, therefore, 
 to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms 
 are a hundredfold more lovely than the damaged 
 and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck 
 of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris for 
 the worship of the world. 
 
 Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of 
 life, we are now ready to take the cars for Milan. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 aLL day long we sped through a mountainous 
 country whose peaks were bright with sun 
 shine, whose hillsides were dotted with pretty villas 
 sitting in the midst of gardens and shrubbery, and 
 whose deep ravines were cool and shady, and looked 
 ever so inviting from where we and the birds were 
 winging our flight through the sultry upper air. 
 
 We had plenty of chilly tunnels wherein to 
 check our perspiration, though. We timed one of 
 them. We were twenty minutes passing through 
 it, going at the rate of thirty to thirty-five mUes 
 an hour. 
 
 Beyond Alessandria we passed the battlefield of 
 Marengo. 
 
 Toward dusk we drew near Milan, and caught 
 glimpses of the city and the blue mountain-peaks 
 beyond. But we were not caring for these things 
 they did not interest us in the least. We were in a 
 fever of impatience ; we were dying to see the re 
 nowned cathedral ! We watched in this direction 
 and that all around everywhere. We needed no 
 one to point it out we did not wish any one to 
 15 (225) 
 
226 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 point it out we would recognize it, even in the 
 desert of the great Sahara. 
 
 At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering 
 in the amber sunlight, rose slowly above the pigmy 
 housetops, as one sometimes sees, in the far hori 
 zon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift itself 
 above the waste of waves, at sea, the cathedral ! 
 We knew it in a moment. 
 
 Half of that night, and all of the next day, this 
 architectural autocrat was our sole object of interest. 
 
 What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so 
 vast ! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful ! A 
 very world of solid weight, and yet it seems in the 
 soft moonlight only a fairy delusion of frostwork 
 that might vanish with a breath ! How sharply its 
 pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were cut 
 against the sky, and how richly their shadows fell upon 
 its snowy roof ! It was a vision ! a miracle ! an 
 anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in marble ! 
 
 Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is 
 noble, it is beautiful ! Wherever you stand in 
 Milan, or within seven miles of Milan, it is visible 
 and when it is visible, no other object can chain 
 your whole attention. Leave your eyes unfettered 
 by your will but a single instant and they will surely 
 turn to seek it. It is the first thing you look for 
 when you rise in the morning, and the last your 
 lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely, it must 
 be the princeliest creation that ever brain of man 
 conceived. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 227 
 
 At nine o clock in the morning we went and stood 
 before this marble colossus. The central one of its 
 five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds 
 and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been 
 so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they 
 seem like living creatures and the figures are so 
 numerous and the design so complex, that one 
 might study it a week without exhausting its 
 interest. On the great steeple surmounting the 
 myriad of spires inside of the spires over the 
 doors, the windows in nooks and corners every 
 where that a niche or a perch can be found about the 
 enormous building, from summit to base, there is a 
 marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself! 
 Raphael, Angelo, Canova giants like these gave 
 birth to the designs, and their own pupils carved 
 them. Every face is eloquent with expression, and 
 every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on 
 the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted 
 spires spring high in the air, and through their rich 
 tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst the 
 central steeple towers proudly up like the mainmast 
 of some great Indiaman among a fleet of coasters. 
 
 We wished to go aloft. The sacristan showed us 
 a marble stairway (of course it was marble, and of 
 the purest and whitest there is no other stone, no 
 brick, no wood, among its building materials;, and 
 told us to go up one hundred and eighty-two steps 
 and stop till he came. It was not necessary to say 
 stop we should have done that anyhow , We 
 o 
 
228 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 were tired by the time we got there. This was the 
 roof. Here, springing from its broad marble flag 
 stones, were the long files of spires, looking very 
 tall close at hand, but diminishing in the distance 
 like the pipes of an organ. We could see, now, that 
 the statue on the top of each was the size of a large 
 man, though they all looked like dolls from the 
 street. We could see, also, that from the inside of 
 each and every one of these hollow spires, from 
 sixteen to thirty-one beautiful marble statues looked 
 out upon the world below. 
 
 From the eaves to the comb of the roof stretched 
 in endless succession great curved marble beams, 
 like the fore-and-aft braces of a steamboat, and 
 along each beam from end to end stood up a row of 
 richly carved flowers and fruits each separate and 
 distinct in kind, and over 15,000 species repre 
 sented. At a little distance these rows seem to 
 close together like the ties of a railroad track, and 
 then the mingling together of the buds and blossoms 
 of this marble garden forms a picture that is very 
 charming to the eye. 
 
 We descended and entered. Within the church, 
 long rows of fluted columns, like huge monuments, 
 divided the building into broad aisles, and on the 
 figured pavement fell many a soft blush from the 
 painted windows above. I knew the church was 
 very large, but I could not fully appreciate its great 
 size until I noticed that the men standing far down 
 by the altar looked like boys, and seemed to glide, 
 
The Innocents Abroad 229 
 
 rather than walk. We loitered about gazing aloft at 
 the monster windows all aglow with brilliantly 
 colored scenes in the lives of the Saviour and his 
 followers. Some of these pictures are mosaics, and 
 so artistically are their thousand particles of tinted 
 glass or stone put together that the work has all the 
 smoothness and finish of a painting. We counted 
 sixty panes of glass in one window, and each pane 
 was adorned with one of these master achievements 
 of genius and patience. 
 
 The guide showed us a coffee-colored piece of 
 sculpture which he said was considered to have come 
 from the hand of Phidias, since it was not possible 
 that any other artist, of any epoch, could have 
 copied nature with such faultless accuracy. The 
 figure was that of a man without a skin ; with every 
 vein, artery, muscle, every fibre and tendon and 
 tissue of the human frame, represented in minute 
 detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked 
 as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely 
 to look that way, unless his attention were occupied 
 with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, 
 and yet there was a fascination about it somewhere. 
 I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see 
 it, now. I shall dream of it, sometimes. I shall 
 dream that it is resting its corded arms on the bed s 
 head and looking down on me with its dead eyes ; I 
 shall dream that it is stretched between the sheets 
 with me and touching me with its exposed muscles 
 and its stringy colH legs. 
 
230 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember 
 yet how I ran off from school once, when I was a 
 boy, and then, pretty late at night, concluded to 
 climb into the window of my father s office and 
 sleep on a lounge, because I had a delicacy about 
 going home and getting thrashed. As I lay on the 
 lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the dark 
 ness, I fancied I could see a long, dusky, shapeless 
 thing stretched upon the floor. A cold shiver went 
 through me. I turned my face to the wall. That 
 did not answer. I was afraid that that thing would 
 creep over and seize me in the dark. I turned back 
 and stared at it for minutes and minutes they 
 seemed hours. It appeared to me that the lagging 
 moonlight never, never would get to it. I turned to 
 the wall and counted twenty, to pass the feverish 
 time away. I looked the pale square was nearer. 
 I turned again and counted fifty it was almost 
 touching it. With desperate will I turned again and 
 counted one hundred, and faced about, all in a 
 tremble. A white human hand lay in the moon 
 light ! Such an awful sinking at the heart such a 
 sudden gasp for breath ! I felt I cannot tell what 
 I felt. When I recovered strength enough, I faced 
 the wall again. But no boy could have remained 
 so, with that mysterious hand behind him. I 
 counted again, and looked the most of a naked 
 arm was exposed. I put my hands over my eyes 
 and counted till I could stand it no longer, and then 
 the pallid face of a man was there, with the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 231 
 
 corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes 
 fixed and glassy in death ! I raised to a sitting 
 posture and glowered on that corpse till the light 
 crept down the bare breast, line by line inch by 
 inch past the nipple, and then it disclosed a 
 ghastly stab ! 
 
 I went away from there. I do not say that I went 
 away in any sort of a hurry, but I simply went 
 that is sufficient. I went out at the window, and I 
 carried the sash along with me. I did not need the 
 sash, but it was handier to take it than it was to 
 leave it, and so I took it. I was not scared, but I 
 was considerably agitated. 
 
 When I reached home, they whipped me, but I 
 enjoyed it. It seemed perfectly delightful. That 
 man had been stabbed near the office that afternoon, 
 and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he 
 only lived an hour. I have slept in the same rocm 
 with him often, since then in my dreams. 
 
 Now we will descend into the crypt, under the 
 grand altar of Milan cathedral, and receive an im 
 pressive sermon from lips that have been silent and 
 hands that have been gestureless for three hundred 
 years. 
 
 The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held 
 up his candle. This was the last resting-place of a 
 good man, a warm-hearted, unselfish man; a man 
 whose whole life was given to succoring the poor, 
 encouraging the faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in 
 relieving distress, whenever and wherever he found 
 
232 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 it. His heart, his hand, and his purse were always 
 open. With his story in one s mind he can almost 
 see his benignant countenance moving calmly among 
 the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the 
 plague swept the city, brave where all others were 
 cowards, full of compassion where pity had been 
 crushed out of all other breasts by the instinct of 
 self-preservation gone mad with terror, cheering all, 
 praying with all, helping all, with hand and braic 
 and purse, at a time when parents forsook their 
 children, the friend deserted the friend, and the 
 brother turned away from the sister while her plead 
 ings were still wailing in his ears. 
 
 This was good St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop of 
 Milan. The people idolized him; princes lavished 
 uncounted treasures upon him. We stood in his 
 tomb. Near by was the sarcophagus, lighted by the 
 dripping candles. The walls were faced with bas- 
 reliefs representing scenes in his life done in massive 
 silver. The priest put on a short white lace garment 
 over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed rever 
 ently, and began to turn a windlass slowly. The 
 sarcophagus separated in two parts, lengthwise, and 
 the lower part sank down and disclosed a coffin of 
 rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within lay 
 the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with 
 gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. 
 The decaying head was black with age, the dry skin 
 was drawn tight to the bones, the eyes were gone, 
 there was a hole in the temple and another in the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 233 
 
 cheek, and the skinny lips were parted as in a ghastly 
 smile 1 Over this dreadful face, its dust and decay, 
 and its mocking grin, hung a crown sown thick with 
 flashing brilliants ; and upon the breast lay crosses 
 and croziers of solid gold that were splendid with 
 emeralds and diamonds. 
 
 How poor, and cheap, and trivial these gewgaws 
 seemed in presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, 
 the awful majesty of Death ! Think of Milton, 
 Shakespeare, Washington, standing before a reverent 
 world tricked out in the glass beads, the brass ear 
 rings, and tin trumpery of the savages of the plains 1 
 
 Dead Borromeo preached his pregnant sermon, 
 and its burden was: You that worship the vanities 
 of earth you that long for worldly honor, worldly 
 wealth, worldly fame behold their worth! 
 
 To us it seemed that so good a man, so kind a 
 heart, so simple a nature, deserved rest and peace in 
 a grave sacred from the intrusion of prying eyes, 
 and believed that he himself would have preferred 
 to have it so, but peradventure our wisdom was at 
 fault in this regard. 
 
 As we came out upon the floor of the church 
 again, another priest volunteered to show us the 
 treasures of the church. What, more? The furni 
 ture of the narrow chamber of death we had just 
 visited, weighed six millions of francs in ounces and 
 carats alone, without a penny thrown into the ac 
 count for the costly workmanship bestowed upon 
 them ! But we .ollowed into a large room rilled 
 
234 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 with tall wooden presses like wardrobes. He threw 
 them open, and behold, the cargoes of " crude 
 bullion " of the assay offices of Nevada faded out of 
 my memory. There were Virgins and bishops there, 
 above their natural size, made of solid silver, each 
 worth, by weight, from eight hundred thousand to 
 two millions of francs, and bearing gemmed books 
 in their hands worth eighty thousand ; there were 
 bas-reliefs that weighed six hundred oounds, carved 
 in solid silver; croziers and crosses, and candlesticks 
 six and eight feet high, all of virgin gold, and 
 brilliant with precious stones ; and beside these were 
 all manner of cups and vases, and such things, rich 
 in proportion. It was an Aladdin s palace. The 
 treasures here, by simple weight, without counting 
 workmanship, were valued at fifty millions of francs ! 
 If I could get the custody of them for a while, I fear 
 me the market price of silver bishops would advance 
 shortly, on account of their exceeding scarcity in 
 the Cathedral of Milan. 
 
 The priests showed us two of St. Paul s fingers, 
 and one of St. Peter s; a bone of Judas Iscariot (it 
 was black), and also bones of all the other disciples; 
 a handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the 
 impression of his face. Among the most precious 
 of the relics were, a stone from the Holy Sepulchre, 
 part of the crown of thorns (they have a whole one 
 at Notre Dame), a fragment of the purple robe 
 worn by the Saviour, a nail from the Cross, and a 
 picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 235 
 
 veritable hand of St. Luke. This is the second of 
 St. Luke s Virgins we have seen. Once a year all 
 these holy relics are carried in procession through 
 the streets of Milan. 
 
 I like to revel in the dryest details of the great 
 cathedral. The building is five hundred feet long 
 by one hundred and eighty wide, and the principal 
 steeple is in the neighborhood of four hundred feet 
 high. It has 7,148 marble statues, and will have 
 upward of three thousand more when it is finished. 
 In addition, it has one thousand five hundred bas- 
 reliefs. It has one hundred and thirty-six spires 
 twenty-one more are to be added. Each spire is 
 surmounted by a statue six and a half feet high. 
 Everything about the church is marble, and all from 
 the same quarry ; it was bequeathed to the Arch 
 bishopric for this purpose centuries ago. So noth 
 ing but the mere workmanship costs; still that is 
 expensive the bill foots up six hundred and 
 eighty-four millions of francs, thus far (considerably 
 over a hundred millions of dollars), and it is esti 
 mated that it will take a hundred and twenty years 
 yet to finish the cathedral. It looks complete, but 
 is far from being so. We saw a new statue put in 
 its niche yesterday, alongside of one which had been 
 standing these four hundred years, they said. There 
 are four staircases leading up to the main steeple, 
 each of which cost a hundred thousand dollars, with 
 the four hundred and eight statues which adorn 
 them., Marcoda Campione was the architect who de- 
 
236 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 signed the wonderful structure more than five hun* 
 dred years ago, and it took him forty-six years to 
 work out the plan and get it ready to hand over to 
 the builders. He is dead now. The building was 
 begun a little less than five hundred years ago, and 
 the third generation hence will not see it completed. 
 
 The building looks best by moonlight, because 
 the older portions of it being stained with age, con 
 trast unpleasantly with the newer and whiter por 
 tions. It seems somewhat too broad for its height, 
 but may be familiarity with it might dissipate this 
 impression. 
 
 They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second 
 only to St. Peter s at Rome. I cannot understand 
 how it can be second to anything made by human 
 hands. 
 
 We bid it good-bye now possibly for all time. 
 How surely, in some future day, when the memory 
 of it shall have lost its vividness, shall we half 
 believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream, bui 
 never with waking eyes I 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 u P\O you wis zo haut can be?" 
 
 L That was what the guide asked, when we 
 were looking up at the bronze horses on the Arch 
 of Peace. It meant, Do you wish to go up there? 
 I give it as a specimen of guide-English. These are 
 the people that make life a burthen to the tourist. 
 Their tongues are never still. They talk forever and 
 forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they use. 
 Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them. If 
 they would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a 
 venerable tomb, or a prison-house, or a battlefield, 
 hallowed by touching memories, or historical remini 
 scences, or grand traditions, and then step aside and 
 hold still for ten minutes and let you think, it would 
 not be so bad. But they interrupt every dream, 
 every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome 
 cackling. Sometimes when I have been standing 
 before some cherished old idol of mine that I re 
 membered years and years ago in pictures in the 
 geography at school, I have thought I would give a 
 whole world if the human parrot at my side would 
 16 (237? 
 
238 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to 
 gaze, and ponder, and worship. 
 
 No, we did not "wis zo haut can be." We 
 wished to go to La Scala, the largest theater in the 
 world, I think they call it. We did so. It was a 
 large place. Seven separate and distinct masses of 
 humanity six great circles and a monster par- 
 quette. 
 
 We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and 
 we did that also. We saw a manuscript of Virgil, 
 with annotations in the handwriting of Petrarch, the 
 gentleman who loved another man s Laura, and 
 lavished upon her all through life a love which was a 
 clear waste of the raw material. It was sound senti 
 ment, but bad judgment. It brough f both parties 
 fame, and created a fountain of con miseration for 
 them in sentimental breasts that is running yet. But 
 who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I 
 do not know his other name.) Who glorifies him? 
 Who bedews him with tears? Who writes poetry 
 about him? Nobody. How do you suppose he 
 liked the state of things that has given the world so 
 much pleasure? How did he enjoy having another 
 man following his wife everywhere and making her 
 name a familiar word in every garlic-exterminating 
 mouth in Italy with his sonnets to her pre-empted 
 eyebrows? They got fame and sympathy he got 
 neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of 
 what is called poetical justice. It is all very fine; 
 but it does not chime with my notions of right. It 
 
The Innocents Abroad 239 
 
 is too one-sided too ungenerous. Let the world 
 go on fretting about Laura and Petrarch if it will ; 
 but as for me, my tears and my lamentations shall 
 be lavished upon the unsung defendant. 
 
 We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia 
 Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained 
 the highest respect, on account of her rare histrionic 
 capabilities, her opulence in solid gold goblets made, 
 of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic 
 screamer, and the facility with which she could order 
 a sextuple funeral and get the corpses ready for it. 
 We saw one single coarse yellow hair from Lucre- 
 zia s head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we 
 still live. In this same library we saw some drawings 
 by Michael Angelo (these Italians call him MickeJ 
 Angelo), and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it 
 Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always 
 spell better than they pronounce.) We reserve our 
 opinion of these sketches. 
 
 In another building they showed us a fresco 
 representing some lions and other beasts drawing 
 chariots ; and they seemed to project so far from 
 the wall that we took them to be sculptures. The 
 artist had shrewdly heightened the delusion by paint 
 ing dust on the creatures backs, as if it had fallen 
 there naturally and properly. Smart fellow if it 
 be smart to deceive strangers. 
 
 Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheater, 
 with its stone seats still in good preservation. 
 Modernized, it is now the scene of more peaceful 
 
240 The Innocents Aoroad 
 
 recreations than the exhibition of a party of wild 
 beasts with Christians for dinner. Part of the time, 
 the Milanese use it for a race track, and at other 
 seasons they flood it with water and have spirited 
 yachting regattas there. The guide told us these 
 things, and he would hardly try so hazardous an 
 experiment as the telling of a falsehood, when it is 
 all he can do to speak the truth in English without 
 getting the lockjaw. 
 
 In another place we were shown a sort of summer 
 arbor, with a fence before it. We said that was 
 nothing. We looked again, and saw, through the 
 arbor, an endless stretch of garden, and shrubbery, 
 and grassy lawn. We were perfectly willing to go 
 in there and rest, but it could not be done. It was 
 only another delusion a painting by some ingenious 
 artist with little chanty in his heart for tired folk. 
 The deception was perfect. No one could have 
 imagined the park was not real. We even thought 
 we smelled the flowers at first. 
 
 We got a carriage at twilight and drove in the 
 shaded avenues with the other nobility, and after 
 dinner we took wine and ices in a fine garden with 
 the great public. The music was excellent, the 
 flowers and shrubbery were pleasant to the eye, the 
 scene was vivacious, everybody was genteel and well- 
 behaved, and the ladies were slightly moustached, and 
 handsomely dressed, but very homely. 
 
 We adjourned to a caf6 and played billiards an 
 hour, and I made six or seven points by the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 241 
 
 doctor pocketing his ball, and he made as many by 
 my pocketing my ball. We came near making a 
 carom sometimes, but not the one we were trying to 
 make. The table was of the usual European style 
 cushions dead and twice as high as the balls; the 
 cues in bad repair. The natives play only a sort of 
 pool on them. We have never seen anybody play 
 ing the French three-ball game yet, and I doubt if 
 there is any such game known in France, or that 
 there lives any man mad enough to try to play it on 
 one of these European tables. We had to stop 
 playing, finally, because Dan got to sleeping fifteen 
 minutes between the counts and paying no attention 
 to his marking. 
 
 Afterward we walked up and down one of the 
 most popular streets for some time, enjoying other 
 people s comfort and wishing we could export some 
 of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming 
 marts at home. Just in this one matter lies the 
 main charm of life in Europe comfort. In 
 America, we hurry which is well; but when the 
 day s work is done, we go on thinking of losses and 
 gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our 
 business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry 
 over them when we ought to be restoring our racked 
 bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our 
 energies with these excitements, and either die early 
 or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of 
 life which they call a man s prime in Europe. 
 When an acre of ground has produced long and 
 16* 
 
242 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we 
 take no man clear across the continent in the same 
 coach he started in the coach is stabled some 
 where on the plains and its heated machinery allowed 
 to cool for a few days ; when a razor has seen long 
 service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays 
 it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes back 
 of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon 
 inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What 
 a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might 
 be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occa 
 sionally and renew our edges ! 
 
 I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. 
 When the work of the day is done, they forget it. 
 Some of them go, with wife and children, to a beer 
 hall, and sit quietly and genteelly drinking a mug or 
 two of ale and listening to music ; others walk the 
 streets, others drive in the avenues ; others assemble 
 in the great ornamental squares in the early evening 
 to enjoy the sight and the fragrance of flowers and 
 to hear the military bands play no European city 
 being without its fine military music at eventide; 
 and yet others of the populace sit in the open air in 
 front of the refreshment houses and eat ices and 
 drink mild beverages that could not harm a child. 
 They go to bed moderately early, and sleep well. 
 They are always quiet, always orderly, always cheer 
 ful, comfortable, and appreciative of life and its 
 manifold blessings. One never sees a drunken man 
 among them. The change that has come over out 
 
The Innocents Abroad 243 
 
 little party is surprising. Day by day we lose some 
 of our restlessness and absorb some of the spirit of 
 quietude and ease that is in the tranquil atmosphere 
 about us and in the demeanor of the people. We 
 grow wise apace. We begin to comprehend what 
 life is for. 
 
 We have had a bath in Milan, in a public bath* 
 house. They were going to put all three of us in 
 one bathtub, but we objected. Each of us had an 
 Italian farm on his back. We could have felt 
 affluent if we had been officially surveyed and fenced 
 in. We chose to have three bathtubs, and large 
 ones tubs suited to the dignity of aristocrats who 
 had real estate, and brought it with them. After 
 we were stripped and had taken the first chilly 
 dash, we discovered that haunting atrocity that has 
 embittered our lives in so many cities and villages of 
 Italy and France there was no soap. I called. 
 A woman answered, and I barely had time to throw 
 myself against the door she would have been in, 
 in another second. I said : 
 
 4 * Beware, woman! Go away from here go 
 away, now, or it will be the worse for you. I am 
 an unprotected male, but I will preserve my honor 
 at the peril of my life ! 
 
 These words must have frightened her, for she 
 skurried away very fast. 
 
 Dan s voice rose on the air: 
 
 " Oh, bring some soap, why don t you !" 
 
 The reply was Italian. Dan resumed: 
 
244 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 " Soap, you know soap. That is what I want 
 soap. S-o-a-p, soap; s-o-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, 
 soap. Hurry up ! I don t know how you Irish 
 spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but 
 fetch it. I m freezing." 
 
 I heard the doctor say, impressively: 
 
 ** Dan, how often have we told you that these 
 foreigners cannot understand English? Why will 
 you not depend upon us? Why will you not tell us 
 what you want, and let us ask for it in the language 
 of the country? It would save us a great deal of 
 the humiliation your reprehensible ignorance causes 
 us. I will address this person in his mother tongue : 
 Here, cospetto ! corpo di Bacco ! Sacramento ! 
 Solferino ! Soap, you son of a gun! Dan, if 
 you would let us talk for you, you would never 
 expose your ignorant vulgarity." 
 
 Even this fluent discharge of Italian did not bring 
 the soap at once, but there was a good reason for it. 
 There was not such an article about the establish 
 ment. It is my belief that there never had been. 
 They had to send far up town, and to several 
 different places before they finally got it, so they 
 said. We had to wait twenty or thirty minutes. 
 The same thing had occurred the evening before, at 
 the hotel. I think I have divined the reason for this 
 state of things at last. The English know how to 
 travel comfortably, and they carry soap with them ; 
 other foreigners do not use the article. 
 
 At every hotel we stop at we always have to send 
 
The Innocents Abroad 245 
 
 out for soap, at the last moment, when we are 
 grooming ourselves for dinner, and they put it in the 
 bill along with the candles and other nonsense. In 
 Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we 
 consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have 
 a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have 
 obtained from books of travel, just as they have ac 
 quired an uncertain notion of clean shirts, and the 
 peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious matters. 
 This reminds me of poor Blucher s note to the land 
 lord in Paris: 
 
 " PARIS, le 7 Juillet. 
 
 "Monsieur le Landlord Sir: Pourquoi don t you mettez some 
 savon in your bedchambers? Est-ce que vous pensez I vill steal it? 
 La nuit passte you charged me pour deux chandelles when I only had 
 one; hier vous avez charged me avec glace when I had none at all; toui 
 les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mats vous ne 
 pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon is a necessary 
 de la vie to anybody but a Frenchman, et je Vaurai hors de cet hdtel or 
 make trouble You hear me. Allans. BLUCHER." 
 
 I remonstrated against the sending of this note, 
 because it was so mixed up that the landlord would 
 never be able to make head or tail of it; but 
 Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the 
 French ot it and average the rest. 
 
 Blucher s French is bad enough, but it is not 
 much worse than the English one finds in advertise 
 ments all over Italy every day. For instance, ob 
 serve the printed card of the hotel we shall probably 
 stop at on the shores of Lake Como : 
 
246 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 "NOTISH." 
 
 "This hotel which the best it is in Italy and most 
 superb, is handsome locate on the best situation of the 
 lake, with the most splendid view near the Villas Melzy, 
 to the King of Belgian, and Serbelloni. This hotel have 
 recently enlarge, do offer all commodities on moderate 
 price, at the strangers gentlemen who whish spend the 
 seasons on the Lake Come." 
 
 How is that for a specimen? In the hotel is a 
 handsome little chapel where an English clergyman 
 is employed to preach to such of the guests of the 
 house as hail from England and America, and this 
 fact is also set forth in barbarous English in the 
 same advertisement. Wouldn t you have supposed 
 that the adventurous linguist who framed the card 
 would have known enough to submit it to that clergy 
 man before he sent it to the printer? 
 
 Here, in Milan, in an ancient tumble-down ruin of 
 a church, is the mournful wreck of the most cele 
 brated painting in the world " The Last Supper," 
 by Leonardo da Vinci. We are not infallible judges 
 of pictures, but, of course, we went there to see this 
 wonderful painting, once so beautiful, always so 
 worshiped by masters in art, and forever to be 
 famous in song and story. And the first thing that 
 occurred was the infliction on us of a placard fairly 
 reeking with wretched English. Take a morsel of it: 
 
 "Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at th 
 spectator), uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have heard, 
 and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no 
 others." 
 
The Innocents Abroad 247 
 
 Good, isn t it? And then Peter is described as 
 " argumenting in a threatening and angrily condition 
 at Judas Iscariot." 
 
 This paragraph recalls the picture. "The Last 
 Supper" is painted on the dilapidated wall of what 
 was a little chapel attached to the main church in 
 ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred 
 in every direction, and stained and discolored by 
 time, and Napoleon s horses kicked the legs off most 
 the disciples when they (the horses, not the disciples) 
 were stabled there more than half a century ago. 
 
 I recognized the old picture in a moment the 
 Saviour with bowed head seated at the center of a 
 long, rough table with scattering fruits and dishes 
 upon it, and six disciples on either side :n their long 
 robes, talking to each other the picture from 
 which all engravings and all copies have been made 
 for three centuries. Perhaps no living man has 
 ever known an attempt to paint the Lord s Supper 
 differently. The world seems to have become set 
 tled in the belief, long ago, that it is not possible for 
 human genius to outdo this creation of Da Vinci s. 
 I suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any 
 of the original is left visible to the eye. There were a 
 dozen easels in the room, and as many artists trans 
 ferring the great picture to their canvases. Fifty 
 proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were 
 scattered around, too. And as usual, I could not 
 help noticing how superior the copies were to the 
 original, that is, to my inexperienced eye. Where- 
 
248 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 ever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michael 
 Angelo, a Caracci, or a Da Vinci (and we see them 
 every day) you find artists copying them, and the 
 copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the 
 originals were handsome when they were new, but 
 they are not now. 
 
 This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or 
 twelve high, I should think, and the figures are at 
 least life size. It is one of the largest paintings in 
 Europe. 
 
 The colors are dimmed with age ; the countenances 
 are scaled and marred, and nearly all expression is 
 gone from them ; the hair is a dead blur upon the 
 wall, and there is no life in the eyes. Only the 
 attitudes are certain. 
 
 People come here from all parts of the world, and 
 glorify this masterpiece. They stand entranced be 
 fore it with bated breath and parted lips, and when 
 they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of 
 rapture : 
 
 44 Oh, wonderful!" 
 
 14 Such expression!" 
 
 " Such grace of attitude!" 
 
 "Such dignity!" 
 
 ** Such faultless drawing!" 
 
 " Such matchless coloring!" 
 
 44 Such feeling!" 
 
 41 What delicacy of touch !" 
 
 44 What sublimity of conception!" 
 
 14 A vision! a vision!" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 249 
 
 I only envy these people; I envy them their 
 honest admiration, if it be honest their delight, if 
 they feel delight. I harbor no animosity toward 
 any of them. But at the same time the thought 
 will intrude itself upon me, How can they see what 
 is not visible? What would you think of a man 
 who looked at some decayed, blind, toothless, pock 
 marked Cleopatra, and said: "What matchless 
 beauty! What soul! What expression!" What 
 would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy, 
 foggy sunset, and said: "What sublimity! what 
 feeling ! what richness of coloring ! What would 
 you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon a 
 desert of stumps and said: ** Oh, my soul, my beat 
 ing heart, what a noble forest is here !" 
 
 You would think that those men had an astonish 
 ing talent for seeing things that had already passed 
 away. It was what I thought when I stood before 
 the Last Supper and heard men apostrophizing 
 wonders and beauties and perfections which had 
 faded out of the picture and gone, a hundred years 
 before they were born. We can imagine the beauty 
 that was once in an aged face ; we can imagine the 
 forest if we see the stumps; but we cannot abso 
 lutely see these things when they are not there. I 
 am willing to believe that the eye of the practiced 
 artist can rest upon the Last Supper and renew a 
 lustre where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint 
 that has faded away, restore an expression that is 
 gone; patch, and color, and add to the dull canvas 
 
250 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 until at last its figures shall stand before him aglow 
 with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all 
 the noble beauty that was theirs when first they 
 came from the hand of the master. But 7 cannot 
 work this miracle. Can those other uninspired 
 visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they 
 do? 
 
 After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that 
 the Last Supper was a very miracle of art once. But 
 it was three hundred years ago. 
 
 It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of " feel 
 ing," "expression," "tone," and those other 
 easily-acquired and inexpensive technicalities of art 
 that make such a fine show in conversations concern 
 ing pictures. There is not one man in seventy-five 
 hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended 
 to express. There is not one man in five hundred 
 that can go into a court-room and be sure that he 
 will not mistake some harmless innocent of a jury 
 man for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet 
 such people talk of "character" and presume to 
 interpret "expression" in pictures. There is an 
 old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding 
 the ability of the human face to express the passions 
 and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the 
 countenance could disclose what was passing in the 
 heart plainer than the tongue could. 
 
 " Now," he said, * observe my face what does 
 it express?" 
 
 "Despair!" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 251 
 
 "Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What 
 does this express?" 
 44 Rage!" 
 
 - * Stuff ! it means terror ! This / 
 11 Imbecility!" 
 " Fool ! It is smothered ferocity ! Now this /" 
 
 "Joy!" 
 
 " Oh, perdition! Any ass can see it means in 
 sanity ! 
 
 Expression ! People coolly pretend to read it 
 who would think themselves presumptuous if they 
 pretended to interpret the hieroglyphics on the 
 obelisk of Luxor yet they are fully as competent 
 to do the one thing as the other. I have heard two 
 very intelligent critics speak of Murillo s Immacu 
 late Conception (now in the museum at Seville) 
 within the past few days. One said : 
 
 * Oh, the Virgin s face is full of the ecstasy of a 
 joy that is complete that leaves nothing more to 
 be desired on earth!" 
 
 The other said : 
 
 " Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so plead 
 ing it says as plainly as words could say it: I 
 fear ; I tremble ; I am unworthy. But Thy will be 
 done; sustain Thou Thy servant!" 
 
 The reader can see the picture in any drawing- 
 room; it can be easily recognized; the Virgin (the 
 only young and really beautiful Virgin that was ever 
 painted by one of the old masters, some of us think) 
 stands in the crescent of the new moon, with a 
 
252 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 multitude of cherubs hovering about her, and more 
 coming; her hands are crossed upon her breast, and 
 upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of 
 the heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if he 
 chooses, in trying to determine which of these 
 gentlemen read the Virgin s * expression " aright, 
 or if either of them did it. 
 
 Any one who is acquainted with the old masters 
 will comprehend how much the Last Supper is 
 damaged when I say that the spectator cannot really 
 tell, now, whether the disciples are Hebrews or 
 Italians. These ancient painters never succeeded in 
 denationalizing themselves. The Italian artists 
 painted Italian Virgins, the Dutch painted Dutch 
 Virgins, the Virgins of the French painters were 
 Frenchwomen none of them ever put into the face 
 of the Madonna that indescribable something which 
 proclaims the Jewess, whether you find her in New 
 York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in 
 the Empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich 
 Islands, once, a picture, copied by a talented Ger 
 man artist from an engraving in one of the American 
 illustrated papers. It was an allegory, representing 
 Mr. Davis in the act of signing a secession act or 
 some such document. Over him hovered the ghost 
 of Washington in warning attitude, and in the back 
 ground a troop of shadowy soldiers in Continental 
 uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet 
 through a driving snowstorm. Valley Forge was 
 suggested* of course. The copy seemed accurate, 
 
The Innocents Abroad 253 
 
 and yet there was a discrepancy somewhere. After 
 a long examination I discovered what it was the 
 shadowy soldiers were all Germans ! Jeff. Davis was 
 a German ! even the hovering ghost was a German 
 ghost! The artist had unconsciously worked his 
 nationality into the picture. To tell the truth, I 
 am getting a little perplexed about John the Baptist 
 and his portraits. In France I finally grew recon 
 ciled to him as a Frenchman ; here he is unquestion 
 ably an Italian. What next? Can it be possible 
 that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard 
 ii> Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin? 
 
 We took an open barouche and drove two miles 
 out of Milan to ** see ze echo," as the guide ex 
 pressed it. The road was smooth, it was bordered 
 by trees, fields, and grassy meadows, and the soft 
 air was filled with the odor of flowers. Troops of 
 picturesque peasant girls, coming from work, hooted 
 at us, shouted at us, made all manner of game of 
 us, and entirely delighted me. My long-cherished 
 judgment was confirmed. I always did think those 
 frowsy, romantic, unwashed peasant girls I had read 
 so much about in poetry were a glaring fraud. 
 
 We enjoyed our jaunt. It was an exhilarating 
 relief from tiresome sightseeing. 
 
 We distressed ourselves very little about the 
 astonishing echo the guide talked so much about. 
 We were growing accustomed to encomiums on 
 wonders that too often proved no wonders at all. 
 
 And so we were most happily disappointed to find 
 17 
 
254 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 in the sequel that the guide had even failed to rise to 
 the magnitude of his subject. 
 
 We arrived at a tumble-down old rookery called 
 the Palazzo Simonetti a massive hewn-stone affair 
 occupied by a family of ragged Italians. A good- 
 looking young girl conducted us to a window on 
 the second floor which looked out on a court walled 
 on three sides by tall buildings. She put her head 
 out at the window and shouted. The echo answered 
 more times than we could count. She took a speak 
 ing-trumpet and through it she shouted, sharp and 
 quick, a single 
 
 "Ha!" The echo answered : 
 
 " Ha ha ! ! ha ! ha ! ha ! -ha ! 
 
 ha! h-a-a-a-a-a !" and finally went off into a rollick 
 ing convulsion of the jolliest laughter that could be 
 imagined. It was so joyful, so long-continued, 
 so perfectly cordial and hearty, that everybody was 
 forced to join in. There was no resisting it. 
 
 Then the girl took a gun and fired it. We stood 
 ready to count the astonishing clatter of reverbera 
 tions. We could not say one, two, three, fast 
 enough, but we could dot our note-books with our 
 pencil-points almost rapidly enough to take down a 
 sort of shorthand report of the result. My page 
 revealed the following account. I could not keep 
 up, but I did as well as I could. 
 
 I set down fifty-two distinct repetitions, and then 
 the echo got the advantage of me. The doctor set 
 down sixty-four, and thenceforth the echo moved 
 
The Innocents Abroad 255 
 
 too fast for him, also. After the separate concus 
 sions could no longer be noted, the reverberations 
 dwindled to a wild, long-sustained clatter of sounds 
 such as a watchman s rattle produces. It is likely 
 that this is the most remarkable echo in the world. 
 
 The doctor, in jest, offered to kiss the young girl, 
 and was taken a little aback when she said he might 
 for a franc ! The commonest gallantry compelled 
 him to stand by his offer, and so he paid the franc 
 and took the kiss. She was a philosopher. She 
 said a franc was a good thing to have, and she did 
 not care anything for one paltry kiss, because she 
 had a million left. Then our comrade, always a 
 shrewd business man, offered to take the whole cargo 
 at thirty days, but that little financial scheme was a 
 failure. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WE left Milan by rail. The cathedral six or 
 seven miles behind us vast, dreamy, blu 
 ish, snow-clad mountains twenty miles in front of 
 us, these were the accented points in the scenery. 
 The more immediate scenery consisted of fields and 
 farmhouses outside -the car and a monster-headed 
 dwarf and a moustached woman inside it. These latter 
 were not show-people. Alas, deformity and female 
 beards are too common in Italy to attract attention. 
 
 We passed through a range of wild, picturesque 
 hills, steep, wooded, cone-shaped, with rugged crags 
 projecting here and there, and with dwellings and 
 ruinous castles perched away up toward the drifting 
 clouds. We lunched at the curious old town of 
 Como, at the foot of the lake, and then took the 
 small steamer and had an afternoon s pleasure ex 
 cursion to this place, Bellagio. 
 
 When we walked ashore, a party of policemen 
 (people whose cocked hats and showy uniforms 
 would shame the finest uniform in the military 
 service of the United States) put us into a little 
 stone cell and locked us in. We had the whole 
 
 (256) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 257 
 
 passenger list for company, but their room would 
 have been preferable, for there was no light, there 
 were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and 
 hot. We were much crowded. It was the Black 
 Hole of Calcutta on a small scale. Presently a 
 smoke rose about our feet a smoke that smelt of 
 all the dead things of earth, of all the putrefaction 
 and corruption imaginable. 
 
 We were there five minutes, and when we got out 
 it was hard to tell which of us carried the vilest 
 fragrance. 
 
 These miserable outcasts called that * fumi 
 gating " us, and the term was a tame one, indeed. 
 They fumigated us to guard themselves against the 
 cholera, though we hailed from no infected port 
 We had left the cholera far behind us all the time. 
 However, they must keep, epidemics away somehow 
 or other, and fumigation is cheaper than soap. 
 They must either wash themselves or fumigate other 
 people. Some of the lower classes had rather die 
 than wash, but the fumigation of strangers causes 
 them no pangs. They need no fumigation them 
 selves. Their habits make it unnecessary. They 
 carry their preventive with them ; they sweat and 
 fumigate all the day long. I trust I am a humble 
 and a consistent Christian. I try to do what 
 is right. I know it is my duty to ** pray for 
 them that despitefully use me"; and therefore, 
 hard as it is, I shall still try to pray for these 
 fumigating, macaroni-stuffing organ-grinders. 
 
258 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Our hotel sits at the water s edge at least its 
 front garden does and we walk among the shrub 
 bery and smoke at twilight; we look afar off at 
 Switzerland and the Alps, and feel an indolent 
 willingness to look no closer; we go down the steps 
 and swim in the lake ; we take a shapely little boat 
 and sail abroad among the reflections of the stars; 
 lie on the thwarts and listen to the distant laughter, 
 the singing, the soft melody of flutes and guitars 
 that comes floating across the water from pleasuring 
 gondolas ; we close the evening with exasperating 
 billiards on one of those same old execrable tables. 
 A midnight luncheon in our ample bed-chamber; a 
 final smoke in its contracted veranda facing the 
 water, the gardens, and the mountains; a summing 
 up of the day s events. Then to bed, with drowsy 
 brains harassed with a mad panorama that mixes up 
 pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of the 
 ocean, of home, in grotesque and bewildering dis 
 order Then a melting away of familiar faces, of 
 cities and of tossing waves, into a great calm of 
 forgetfulness and peace. 
 
 After which, the nightmare. 
 
 Breakfast in the morning, and then the lake. 
 
 I did nof like it yesterday. 1 thought Lake Tahoe 
 was much finer. I have to confess now, however, 
 that my judgment erred somewhat, though not ex 
 travagantly. I always had an idea that Como was a 
 vast basin of water, like Tahoe, shut in by great 
 mountains. Well, the border of huge mountains is 
 
The Innocents Abroad 259 
 
 here, but the lake itself is not a basin. It is as 
 crooked as any brook, and only from one-quarter to 
 two-thirds as wide as the Mississippi. There is not 
 a yard of low ground on either side of it nothing 
 but endless chains of mountains that spring abruptly 
 from the water s edge, and tower to altitudes varying 
 from a thousand to two thousand feet. Their craggy 
 sides are clothed with vegetation, and white specks 
 of houses peep out from the luxuriant foliage every 
 where; they are even perched upon jutting and 
 picturesque pinnacles a thousand feet above your 
 head. 
 
 Again, for miles along the shores, handsome 
 country seats, surrounded by gardens and groves, 
 sit fairly in the water, sometimes in nooks carved by 
 Nature out of the vine-hung precipices, and with no 
 ingress or egress save by boats. Some have great 
 broad stone staircases leading down to the water, 
 with heavy stone balustrades ornamented with 
 statuary and fancifully adorned with creeping vines 
 and bright-colored flowers for all the world like a 
 drop-curtain in a theater, and lacking nothing but 
 long-waisted, high-heeled women and plumed gal 
 lants in silken tights coming down to go serenading 
 in the splendid gondola in waiting. 
 
 A great feature of Como s attractiveness is the 
 multitude of pretty houses and gardens that cluster 
 upon its shores and on its mountain sides. They 
 look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when 
 everything seems to slumber, and the music of the 
 
260 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one 
 almost believes that nowhere else than on the Lake 
 of Como can there be found such a paradise of 
 tranquil repose. 
 
 From my window here in Bellagio, I have a view 
 of the other side of the lake now, which is as beau 
 tiful as a picture. A scarred and wrinkled precipice 
 rises to a height of eighteen hundred feet ; on a tiny 
 bench half way up its vast wall, sits a little snow- 
 flake of a church, no bigger than a martin-box, ap 
 parently; skirting the base of the cliff are a hundred 
 orange groves and gardens, flecked with glimpses of 
 the white dwellings that are buried in them; in 
 front, three or four gondolas lie idle upon the water 
 and in the burnished mirror of the lake, mountain, 
 chapel, houses, groves, and boats are counterfeited 
 so brightly and so clearly that one scarce knows 
 where the reality leaves off and the reflection begins ! 
 
 The surroundings of this picture are fine. A 
 mile away, a grove-plumed promontory juts far into 
 the lake and glasses its palace in the blue depths ; in 
 midstream a boat is cutting the shining surface and 
 leaving a long track behind, like a ray of light; the 
 mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple 
 haze; far in the opposite direction a tumbled mass 
 of domes and verdant slopes and valleys bars the 
 lake, and here, indeed, does distance lend enchant 
 ment to the view for on this broad canvas, sun and 
 clouds and the richest of atmospheres have blended 
 a thousand tints together, and over its surface the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 261 
 
 filmy lights and shadows drift, hour after hour, and 
 glorify it with a beauty that seems reflected out of 
 Heaven itself. Beyond all question, this is the most 
 voluptuous scene we have yet looked upon. 
 
 Last night the scenery was striking and pictur 
 esque. On the other side crags and trees and snowy 
 houses were reflected in the lake with a wonderful 
 distinctness, and streams of light from many a dis 
 tant window shot far abroad over the still waters. 
 On this side, near at hand, great mansions, white 
 with moonlight, glared out from the midst of masses 
 of foliage that lay black and shapeless in the shad 
 ows that fell from the cliff above and down in the 
 margin of the lake every feature of the weird vision 
 was faithfully repeated. 
 
 To-day we have idled through a wonder of a 
 garden attached to a ducal estate but enough of 
 description is enough, I judge. I suspect that this 
 was the same place the gardener s son deceived the 
 Lady of Lyons with, but I do not know. You may 
 have heard of the passage somewhere : 
 
 "A deep vale, 
 
 Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world, 
 Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold 
 And whispering myrtles: 
 Glassing softest skies, cloudless, , 
 Save with rare and roseate shadows; 
 A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls, 
 From out a glossy bower of coolest foliage musical 
 with birds." 
 
 That is all very well, except the " clear " part of 
 
262 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 the lake. It certainly is clearer than a great many 
 lakes, but how dull its waters are compared with the 
 wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe ! I speak of 
 the north shore of Tahoe, where one can count the 
 scales on a trout at a depth of a hundred and eighty 
 feet. I have tried to get this statement off at par 
 here, but with no success; so I have been obliged 
 to negotiate it at fifty per cent, discount. At this 
 rate I find some takers; perhaps the reader will 
 receive it on the same terms ninety feet instead of 
 one hundred and eighty. But let it be remembered 
 that those are forced terms sheriffs-sale prices. 
 As far as I am privately concerned, I abate not a 
 jot of the original assertion that in those strangely- 
 magnifying waters one may count the scales on a 
 trout (a trout of the large kind) at a depth of a 
 hundred and eighty feet may see every pebble on 
 the bottom might even count a paper of dray- 
 pins. People talk of the transparent waters of the 
 Mexican Bay of Acapulco, but in my own experience 
 I know they cannot compare with those I am speak 
 ing of. I have fished for trout in Tahoe, and at a 
 measured depth of eighty-four feet I have seen 
 them put their noses to the bait and I could 
 see their gills open and shut. I could hardly have 
 seen the trout themselves at that distance in the 
 open air. 
 
 As I go back in spirit and recall that noble sea, 
 reposing among the snow-peaks six thousand feet 
 above the ocean, the conviction comes strong upon 
 
The Innocents Abroad 263 
 
 me again that Como would only seem a bedizened 
 little courtier in that august presence. 
 
 Sorrow and misfortune overtake the legislature 
 that still from year to year permits Tahoe to retain 
 its unmusical cognomen ! Tahoe ! It suggests no 
 crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. 
 Tahoe for a sea in the clouds ; a sea that has char 
 acter, and asserts it in solemn calms, at times, at 
 times in savage storms ; a sea, whose royal seclusion 
 is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift 
 their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above the level 
 world ; a sea whose every aspect is impressive, 
 whose belongings are all beautiful, whose lonely 
 majesty types the Deity ! 
 
 Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means grasshopper 
 soup. It is Indian, and suggestive of Indians. They 
 say it is Pi-ute possibly it is Digger. I am satis 
 fied it was named by the Diggers those degraded 
 savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the 
 human grease and ashes of bones with tar, and 
 " gaum " it thick all over their heads and foreheads 
 and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills and 
 call it mourning. These are the gentry that named 
 the lake. 
 
 People say that Tahoe means " Silver Lake * 
 "Limpid Water" "Falling Leaf." Bosh! It 
 means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the 
 Digger tribe and of the Pi-utes as well. It isn t 
 worth while, in these practical times, for people to 
 talk about Indian poetry there never was any in 
 
264 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 them except in the Fenimore Cooper Indians. 
 But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. 1 
 know the Noble Red Man. I have camped with the 
 Indians: I have been on the warpath with them, 
 taken part in the chase with them for grass 
 hoppers ; helped them steal cattle ; I have roamed 
 with them, scalped them, had them for breakfast. 
 I would gladly eat the whole race if I had a chance. 
 But I am growing unreliable. I will return to my 
 comparison of the lakes. Como is a little deeper 
 than Tahoe, if people here tell the truth. They say 
 it is eighteen hundred feet deep at this point, but it 
 does not look a dead enough blue for that. Tahoe 
 is one thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet 
 deep in the center, by the State Geologist s measure 
 ment. They say the great peak opposite this town 
 is five thousand feet high ; but I feel sure that three 
 thousand feet of that statement is a good, honest lie. 
 The lake is a mile wide here, and maintains about 
 that width from this point to its northern extremity 
 which is distant sixteen miles ; from here to its 
 southern extremity say fifteen miles it is not 
 over half a mile wide in any place, I should think. 
 Its snow-clad mountains one hears so much about 
 are only seen occasionally, and then in the distance, 
 the Alps. Tahoe is from ten to eighteen miles 
 wide, and its mountains shut it in like a wall. Their 
 summits are never free from snow the year round. 
 One thing about it is very strange : it never has even 
 a skim of ice upon its surface, although lakes in the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 265 
 
 same range of mountains, lying in a lower and 
 warmer temperature, freeze over in winter. 
 
 It is cheerful to meet a shipmate in these out-of- 
 the-way places and compare notes with him. We 
 have found one of ours here an old soldier of the 
 war, who is seeking bloodless adventures and rest 
 from his campaigns, in these sunny lands.* 
 
 * Col. J. HERON FOSTER, editor of a Pittsburgh journal, and a most 
 estimable gentleman. As these sheets are being prepared for the press, 
 I am pained to learn of his decease shortly after his return home. 
 M.T. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 WE voyaged by steamer down the Lago di Lecco, 
 through wild mountain scenery, and by ham 
 lets and villas, and disembarked at the town of 
 Lecco. They said it was two hours, by carriage, to 
 the ancient city of Bergamo, and that we would 
 arrive there in good season for the railway train. 
 We got an open barouche and a wild, boisterous 
 driver, and set out. It was delightful. We had a 
 fast team and a perfectly smooth road. There were 
 towering cliffs on our left, and the pretty Lago di 
 Lecco on our right, and every now and then it 
 rained on us. Just before starting, the driver picked 
 up, in the street, a stump of a cigar an inch long, 
 and put it in his mouth. When he had carried it 
 thus about an hour, I thought it would be only 
 Christian charity to give him a light. I handed him 
 my cigar, which I had just lit, and he put it in his 
 mouth and returned his stump to his pocket ! I 
 never saw a more sociable man. At least I never 
 saw a man who was more sociable on a short ac 
 quaintance. 
 
 We saw interior Italy now. The houses were of 
 
 (266) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 267 
 
 solid stone, and not often in good repair. The 
 peasants and their children were idle, as a general 
 thing, and the donkeys and chickens made them 
 selves at home in drawing-room and bed-chamber 
 and were not molested. The drivers of each and 
 every one of the slow-moving market-carts we met 
 were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise, 
 sound asleep. Every three or four hundred yards, 
 it seemed to me, we came upon the shrine of some 
 saint or other a rude picture of him built into a 
 huge cross or a stone pillar by the roadside. Some 
 of the pictures of the Saviour were curiosities in 
 their way. They represented him stretched upon 
 the cross, his countenance distorted with agony. 
 From the wounds of the crown of thorns ; from the 
 pierced side; from the mutilated hands and feet; 
 from the scourged body from every hand-breadth 
 of his person, streams of blood were flowing! Such 
 a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children 
 out of their senses, I should think. There were 
 some unique auxiliaries to the painting which added 
 to its spirited effect. These were genuine wooden 
 and iron implements, and were prominently disposed 
 round about the figure : a bundle of nails ; the 
 hammer to drive them ; the sponge ; the reed that 
 supported it; the cup of vinegar; the ladder for the 
 ascent of the cross; the spear that pierced the 
 Saviour s side. The crown of thorns was made of 
 real thorns, and was nailed to the sacred head. In 
 some Italian church paintings, even by the old 
 
268 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 masters, the Saviour and the Virgin wear silver or 
 gilded crowns that are fastened to the pictured head 
 with nails. The effect is as grotesque as it is incon 
 gruous. 
 
 Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, 
 we found huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs 
 like those in the shrines. It could not have dimin 
 ished their sufferings any to be so uncouthly repre 
 sented. We were in the heart and home of priest 
 craft of a happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, 
 superstition, degradation, poverty, indolence, and 
 everlasting unaspiring worthlessness. And we said 
 fervently, It suits these people precisely ; let them 
 enjoy it, along with the other animals, and Heaven 
 forbid that they be molested. We feel no malice 
 toward these fumigators. 
 
 We passed through the strangest, funniest, un 
 dreamt-of old towns, wedded to the customs and 
 steeped in the dreams of the elder ages, and per 
 fectly unaware that the world turns round ! And 
 perfectly indifferent, too, as to whether it turns 
 around or stands still. They have nothing to do but 
 eat and sleep and sleep and eat, and toil a little 
 when they can get a friend to stand by and keep 
 them awake. They are not paid for thinking they 
 are not paid to fret about the world s concerns. 
 They were not respectable people they were not 
 worthy people they were not learned and wise 
 and brilliant people but in their breasts, all their 
 stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth under- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 269 
 
 standing! How can men, calling themselves men, 
 consent to be so degraded and happy. 
 
 We whisked by many a gray old medieval castle, 
 clad thick with ivy that swung its green banners 
 down from towers and turrets where once some old 
 Crusader s flag had floated. The driver pointed to 
 one of these ancient fortresses, and said (I trans 
 late) : 
 
 " Do you see that great iron hook that projects 
 from the wall just under the highest window in the 
 ruined tower?" 
 
 We said we could not see it at such a distance, 
 but had no doubt it was there. 
 
 "Well," he said, "there is a legend connected 
 with that iron hook. Nearly seven hundred years 
 ago, that castle was the property of the noble Count 
 Luigi Gennaro Guido Alphonso di Genova " 
 
 " What was his other name?" said Dan. 
 
 " He had no other name. The name I have 
 spoken was all the name he had. He was the son 
 of " 
 
 "Poor but honest parents that is all right 
 never mind the particulars go on with the legend." 
 
 THE LEGEND. 
 
 Well, then, all the world, at that time, was in a 
 wild excitement about the Holy Sepulchre. All the 
 great feudal lords in Europe were pledging their 
 lands and pawning their plate to fit out men-at-arms 
 so that they might join the grand armies of Christen- 
 
270 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 dom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count 
 Luigi raised money, like the rest, and one mild 
 September morning, armed with battle-axe, portcullis 
 and thundering culverin, he rode through the greaves 
 and bucklers of his donjon-keep with as gallant a 
 troop of Christian bandits as ever stepped in Italy. 
 He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His beau 
 tiful countess and her young daughter waved him a 
 tearful adieu from the battering-rams and buttresses 
 of the fortress, and he galloped away with a happy 
 heart. 
 
 He made a raid on a neighboring baron and com 
 pleted his outfit with the booty secured. He then 
 razed the castle to the ground, massacred the family, 
 and moved on. They were hardy fellows in the 
 grand old days of chivalry. Alas ! those days will 
 never come again. 
 
 Count Luigi grew high in fame in Holy Land. 
 He plunged into the carnage of a hundred battles, 
 but his good Excalibur always brought him out 
 alive, albeit often sorely wounded. His face be 
 came browned by exposure to the Syrian sun in 
 long marches; he suffered hunger and thirst; he 
 pined in prisons, he languished in loathsome plague- 
 hospitals. And many and many a time he thought 
 of his loved ones at home, and wondered if all was 
 well with them. But his heart said, Peace, is not 
 thy brother watching over thy household ? 
 
 
 
 Forty-two years waxed and waned ; the good fight 
 
The Innocents Abroad 271 
 
 was won ; Godfrey reigned in Jerusalem the Chris 
 tian hosts reared the banner of the cross above the 
 Holy Sepulchre ! 
 
 Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins, in 
 flowing robes, approached this castle wearily, for 
 they were on foot, and the dust upon their garments 
 betokened that they had traveled far. They over 
 took a peasant, and asked him if it were likely they 
 could get food and a hospitable bed there, for love 
 of Christian charity, and if, perchance, a moral 
 parlor entertainment might meet with generous 
 countenance "for," said they, "this exhibition 
 hath no feature that could offend the most fastidious 
 taste." 
 
 " Marry," quoth the peasant, * an it please your 
 worships, ye had better journey many a good rood 
 hence with your juggling circus than trust your bones 
 in yonder castle." 
 
 " How now, sirrah!" exclaimed the chief monk, 
 " explain thy ribald speech, or by r Lady it shall go 
 hard with thee." 
 
 11 Peace, good mountebank, I did but utter the 
 truth that was in my heart. San Paolo be 
 my witness that did ye but find the stout Count 
 Leonardo in his cups, sheer from the castle s top 
 most battlements would he hurl ye all! Alack-a- 
 day ! the good Lord Luigi reigns not here in these 
 sad times." 
 
 "The good Lord Luigi?" 
 
 " Aye, none other, please your worship. In his 
 
272 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 day, the poor rejoiced in plenty and the rich he did 
 oppress; taxes were not known, the fathers of the 
 church waxed fat upon his bounty; travelers went 
 and came, with none to interfere; and whosoever 
 would, might tarry in his halls in cordial welcome, 
 and eat his bread and drink his wine, withal. But 
 woe is me ! some two and forty years agone the 
 good count rode hence to fight for Holy Cross, and 
 many a year hath flown since word or token have we 
 had of him. Men say his bones lie bleaching in the 
 fields of Palestine. 
 
 "And now? * 
 
 ** Now ! God a mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords 
 it in the castle. He wrings taxes from the poor ; 
 he robs all travelers that journey by his gates ; he 
 spends his days in feuds and murders, and his nights 
 in revel and debauch; he roasts the fathers of the 
 church upon his kitchen spits, and enjoyeth the 
 same, calling it pastime. These thirty years Luigi s 
 countess hath not been seen by any he in all this 
 land, and many whisper that she pines in the 
 dungeons of the castle for that she will not wed 
 with Leonardo, saying her dear lord still liveth and 
 that she will die ere she prove false to him. They 
 whisper likewise that her daughter is a prisoner as 
 well. Nay, good jugglers, seek ye refreshment 
 otherwheres. Twere better that ye perished in a 
 Christian way than that ye plunged from off yon 
 dizzy tower. Give ye good-day." 
 
 " God keep ye, gentle knave farewell." 
 
The Innocents Abroad 273 
 
 But heedless of the peasant s warning, the players 
 moved straightway toward the castle. 
 
 Word was brought to Count Leonardo that a 
 company of mountebanks besought his hospitality. 
 
 * Tis well. Dispose of them in the customary 
 manner. Yet stay ! I have need of them. Let 
 them come hither. Later, cast them from the 
 battlements or how many priests have ye on 
 hand?" 
 
 " The day s results are meager, good my lord. 
 An abbot and a dozen beggarly friars is all we have." 
 
 * Hell and furies! Is the estate going to seed? 
 Send hither the mountebanks. Afterward, broil 
 them with the priests." 
 
 The robed and close-cowled harlequins entered. 
 The grim Leonardo sate in state at the head of his 
 council board. Ranged up and down the hall on 
 either hand stood near a hundred men-at-arms. 
 
 " Ha, villains!" quoth the count, " What can ye 
 do to earn the hospitality ye crave?" 
 
 14 Dread lord and mighty, crowded audiences have 
 greeted our humble efforts with rapturous applause. 
 Among our body count we the versatile and talented 
 Ugolino ; the justly celebrated Rodolpho ; the gifted 
 and accomplished Roderigo ; the management have 
 spared neither pains nor expense " 
 
 "S death! what can ye do? Curb thy prating 
 tongue." 
 
 " Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice 
 with the dumb-bells, in balancing and ground and 
 18. 
 
274 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 lofty tumbling are we versed and sith your high 
 ness asketh me, I venture here to publish that in the 
 truly marvelous and entertaining Zampiilaerosta- 
 tion " 
 
 44 Gag him ! throttle him ! Body of Bacchus ! am 
 I a dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllabled 
 blasphemy like to this? But hold ! Lucretia, Isabel, 
 stand forth ! Sirrah, behold this dame, this weep 
 ing wench. The first I marry, within the hour; the 
 other shall dry her tears or feed the vultures. Thou 
 and thy vagabonds shall crown the wedding with thy 
 merry-makings. Fetch hither the priest!" 
 
 The dame sprang toward the chief player. 
 
 44 Oh, save me!" she cried; 4< save me from a 
 fate far worse than death ! Behold these sad eyes, 
 these sunken cheeks, this withered frame ! See thou 
 the wreck this fiend hath made, and let thy heart be 
 moved with pity ! Look upon this damosel ; note 
 her wasted form, her halting step, her bloomless 
 cheeks where youth should blush and happiness 
 exult in smiles ! Hear us, and have compassion. 
 This monster was my husband s brother. He who 
 should have been our shield against all harm, hath 
 kept us shut within the noisome caverns of his 
 donjon-keep for, lo, these thirty years. And for 
 what crime? None other than that I would not 
 belie my troth, root out my strong love for him who 
 marches with the legions of the cross in Holy Land 
 (for oh, he is not dead), and wed with himl Save 
 us, oh, save thy persecuted suppliants!" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 2/5 
 
 She flung herself at his feet and clasped his knees* 
 
 " Ha!-ha!-ha!" shouted the brutal Leonardo. 
 "Priest, to thy work!" and he dragged the weep 
 ing dame from her refuge. " Say, once for all, 
 will you be mine? for by my halidome, that 
 breath that uttereth thy refusal shall be thy last on 
 earth!" 
 
 "NE-VER!" 
 
 "Then die!" and the sword leaped from its 
 scabbard. 
 
 Quicker than thought, quicker than the lightning * 
 flash, fifty monkish habits disappeared, and fift> 
 knights in splendid armor stood revealed! fifty 
 falchions gleamed in air above the men-at-arms, and 
 brighter, fiercer than them all, flamed Excalibur 
 aloft, and cleaving downward struck the brutal 
 Leonardo s weapon from his grasp ! 
 
 " A Luigi to the rescue ! Whoop !" 
 
 " A Leonardo ! tare an ouns !" 
 
 " Oh, God, oh, God, my husband 1" 
 
 " Oh, God, oh, God, my wife! 1 
 
 "My father!" 
 
 " My precious !" [Tableau.] 
 
 Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and 
 foot. The practiced knights from Palestine made 
 holiday sport of carving the awkward men-at-arms 
 into chops and steaks. The victory was complete. 
 Happiness reigned. The knights all married the 
 daughter. Joy ! wassail ! finis ! 
 
 " fc But what did they do with the wicked brother?" 
 
276 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 41 Oh, nothing only hanged him on that Jron 
 hook I was speaking of. By the chin." 
 
 "As how?" 
 
 " Passed it up through his gills into his mouth." 
 
 " Leave him there?" 
 
 ** Couple of years." 
 
 "Ah is is he dead?" 
 
 14 Six hundred and fifty years ago, or such a 
 matter." 
 
 " Splendid legend splendid lie drive on." 
 
 We reached the quaint old fortified city of Ber 
 gamo, the renowed in history, some three-quarters 
 of an hour before the train was ready to start. The 
 place has thirty or forty thousand inhabitants and is 
 remarkable for being the birthplace of harlequin. 
 When we discovered that, that legend of our driver 
 took to itself a new interest in our eyes. 
 
 Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and 
 contented. I shall not tarry to speak of the hand 
 some Lago di Garda; its stately castle that holds in 
 its stony bosom the secrets of an age so remote that 
 even tradition goeth not back to it; the imposing 
 mountain scenery that ennobles the landscape there 
 abouts; nor yet of ancient Padua or haughty 
 Verona; nor of their Montagues and Capulets, 
 their famous balconies and tombs of Juliet and 
 Romeo et at., but hurry straight to the ancient city 
 of the sea, the widowed bride of the Adriatic. It 
 was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we 
 sat silent and hardly conscious of where we were 
 
The Innocents Abroad 277 
 
 subdued into that meditative calm that comes so 
 surely after a conversational storm ^some one 
 shouted : 
 
 "VENICE!" 
 
 And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a 
 league away, lay a great city, witti its towers and 
 domes and steeples drowsing in a golden mist of 
 suaset. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THIS Venice, which was a haughty, invincible, 
 magnificent Republic for nearly fourteen hun 
 dred years; whose armies compelled the world s ap 
 plause whenever and wherever they battled ; whose 
 navies well nigh held dominion of the seas, and 
 whose merchant fleets whitened the remotest oceans 
 with their sails and loaded these piers with the pro 
 ducts of every clime, is fallen a prey to poverty, 
 neglect and melancholy decay. Six hundred years 
 ago, Venice was the Autocrat of Commerce; her 
 mart was the great commercial center, the distrib 
 uting house from whence the enormous trade of the 
 Orient was spread abroad over the Western world. 
 To-day her piers are deserted, her warehouses are 
 empty, her merchant fleets are vanished, her armies 
 and her navies are but memories. Her glory is de 
 parted, and with her crumbling grandeur of wharves 
 and palaces about her she sits among her stagnant 
 lagoons, forlorn and beggared, forgotten of the 
 world. She, that in her palmy days commanded the 
 commerce of a hemisphere and made the weal or 
 woe of nations with a beck of her puissant finger, is 
 
 (278) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 279 
 
 become the humblest among the peoples of the 
 earth, a peddler of glass beads for women, and 
 trifling toys and trinkets for school-girls and children. 
 
 The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a 
 fit subject for flippant speech or the idle gossiping 
 of tourists. It seems a sort of sacrilege to disturb 
 the glamour of old romance that pictures her to 
 us softly from afar off as through a tinted mist, and 
 curtains her ruin and her desolation from our view. 
 One ought, indeed, to turn away from her rags, her 
 poverty, and her humiliation, and think of her only 
 as she was when she sunk the fleets of Charlemagne ; 
 when she humbled Frederick Barbarossa or waved 
 her victorious banners above the battlements of Con 
 stantinople. 
 
 We reached Venice at eight in the evening, and 
 entered a hearse belonging to the Grand Hotel 
 d Europe. At any rate, it was more like a hearse 
 than anything else, though, to speak by the card, it 
 was a gondola. And this was the storied gondola 
 of Venice ! the fairy boat in which the princely 
 cavaliers of the olden time were wont to cleave the 
 waters of the moonlit canals and look the eloquence 
 of love into the soft eyes of patrician beauties, while 
 the gay gondolier in silken doublet touched his 
 guitar and sang as only gondoliers can sing ! This 
 the famed gondola and this the gorgeous gondolier ! 
 the one an inky, rusty old canoe with a sable 
 hearse-body clapped on to the middle of it, and the 
 other a mangy, barefooted gutter-snipe with a por- 
 
280 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 tion of his raiment on exhibition which should have 
 been sacred from public scrutiny. Presently, as he 
 turned a corner and shot his hearse into a dismal 
 ditch between two long rows of towering, untenanted 
 buildings, the gay gondolier began to sing, true to 
 the traditions of his race. I stood it a little while. 
 Then I said : 
 
 " Now, here, Roderigo Gonzales Michael Angelo, 
 I m a pilgrim, and I m a stranger, but I am not 
 going to have my feelings lacerated by any such 
 caterwauling as that. If that goes on, one of us 
 has got to take water. It is enough that my cher 
 ished dreams of Venice have been blighted forever 
 as to the romantic gondola and the gorgeous gon 
 dolier; this system of destruction shall go no 
 farther; I will accept the hearse, under protest, and 
 you may fly your flag of truce in peace, but here I 
 register a dark and bloody oath that you shan t sing. 
 Another yelp, and overboard you go." 
 
 I began to feel that the old Venice of song and 
 story had departed forever. But I was too hasty. 
 In a few minutes we swept gracefully out into the 
 Grand Canal, and under the mellow moonlight the 
 Venice of poetry and romance stood revealed. 
 Right from the water s edge rose long lines of 
 stately palaces of marble; gondolas were gliding 
 swiftly hither and thither and disappearing suddenly 
 through unsuspected gates and alleys; ponderous 
 stone bridges threw their shadows athwart the glit 
 tering waves. There was life and motion every- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 281 
 
 where, and yet everywhere there was a hush, a 
 stealthy sort of stillness, that was suggestive of secret 
 enterprises of bravoes and of lovers; and, clad half 
 in moonbeams and half in mysterious shadows, the 
 grim old mansions of the Republic seemed to have 
 an expression about them of having an eye out for 
 just such enterprises as these at that same moment. 
 Music came floating over the waters Venice was 
 complete. 
 
 It was a beautiful picture very soft and dreamy 
 and beautiful. But what was this Venice to com 
 pare with the Venice of midnight? Nothing. There 
 was a fete a grand fete in honor of some saint 
 who had been instrumental in checking the cholera 
 three hundred years ago, and all Venice was abroad 
 on the water. It was no common affair, for the 
 Venetians did not know how soon they might need 
 the saint s services again, now that the cholera was 
 spreading everywhere. So in one vast space say 
 a third of a mile wide and two miles long were 
 collected two thousand gondolas, and every one of 
 them had from two to ten, twenty, and even thirty 
 colored lanterns suspended about it, and from four 
 to a dozen occupants. Just as far as the eye could 
 reach, these painted lights were massed together 
 like a vast garden of many-colored flowers, except 
 that these blossoms were never still; they were 
 ceaselessly gliding in and out, and mingling to 
 gether, and seducing you into bewildering attempts 
 to follow their mazy evolutions. Here and there a 
 
282 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 strong red, green, or blue glare from a rocket that 
 was struggling to get away splendidly illuminated all 
 the boats around it. Every gondola that swam by 
 us, with its crescents and pyramids and circles of 
 colored lamps hung aloft, and lighting up the faces 
 of the young and the sweet-scented and lovely 
 below, was a picture ; and the reflections of those 
 lights, so long, so slender, so numberless, so many- 
 colored and so distorted and wrinkled by the waves, 
 was a picture likewise, and one that was enchantingly 
 beautiful. Many and many a party of young ladies 
 and gentlemen had their state gondolas handsomely 
 decorated, and ate supper on board, bringing their 
 swallow-tailed, white-cravated varlets to wait upon 
 them, and having their tables tricked out as if for a 
 bridal supper. They had brought along the costly 
 globe lamps from their drawing-rooms, and the lace 
 and silken curtains from the same places, I suppose. 
 And they had also brought pianos and guitars, and 
 they played and sang operas, while the plebeian 
 paper-lanterned gondolas from the suburbs and the 
 back alleys crowded around to stare and listen. 
 
 There was music everywhere choruses, string 
 bands, brass bands, flutes, everything. I was so 
 surrounded, walled in with music, magnificence, and 
 loveliness, that I became inspired with the spirit of 
 the scene, and sang one tune myself. However, 
 when I observed that the other gondolas had sailed 
 away, and my gondolier was preparing to go over 
 board, I stopped. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 283 
 
 The fte was magnificent. They kept it up the 
 whole night long, and I never enjoyed myself better 
 than I did while it lasted. 
 
 What a funny old city this Queen of the Adriatic 
 is ! Narrow streets, vast, gloomy marble palaces, 
 black with the corroding damps of centuries, and all 
 partly submerged ; no dry land visible anywhere, 
 and no sidewalks worth mentioning; if you want to 
 go to church, to the theater, or to the restaurant, 
 you must call a gondola. It must be a paradise for 
 cripples, for verily a man has no use for legs here. 
 
 For a day or two the place looked so like an 
 overflowed Arkansas town, because of its currentless 
 waters laving the very doorsteps of all the houses, 
 and the cluster of boats made fast under the win 
 dows, or skimming in and out of the alleys and by 
 ways, that I could not get rid of the impression that 
 there was nothing the matter here but a spring 
 freshet, and that the river would fall in a few weeks 
 and leave a dirty high-water mark on the houses, 
 and the streets full of mud and rubbish. 
 
 In the glare of day, there is little poetry about 
 Venice, but under the charitable moon her stained 
 palaces are white again, their battered sculptures are 
 hidden in shadows, and the old city seems crowned 
 once more with the grandeur that was hers five hun 
 dred years ago. It is easy, then, in fancy, to people 
 these silent canals with plumed gallants and fair 
 ladies with Shylocks in gaberdine and sandals, 
 venturing loans upon the rich argosies of Venetian 
 
284 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 commerce with Othellos and Desdemonas, with 
 lagos and Roderigos with noble fleets and victori 
 ous legions returning from the wars. In the treach 
 erous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn, 
 poverty-stricken, and commerceless forgotten and 
 utterly insignificant. But in the moonlight, her 
 fourteen centuries of greatness fling their glories 
 about her, and once more is she the princeliest 
 among the nations of the earth. 
 
 " There is a glorious city in the sea; 
 The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, 
 Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea- weed 
 Oings to the marble of her palaces. 
 No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 
 Lead to her gates ! The path lies o er the sea, 
 Invisible : and from the land we went, 
 As to a floating city steering in, 
 And gliding up her streets, as in a dream, 
 So smoothly, silently by many a dome, 
 Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, 
 The statues ranged along an azure sky; 
 By many a pile, in more than Eastern pride, 
 Of old the residence of merchant kings; 
 The fronts of some, tho time had shatter d them, 
 Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 
 As tho the wealth within them had run o er." 
 
 What would one naturally wish to see first in 
 Venice? The Bridge of Sighs, of course and next 
 the Church and the Great Square of St. Mark, the 
 Bronze Horses, and the famous Lion of St. Mark. 
 
 We intended to go to the Bridge of Sighs, but 
 happened into the Ducal Palace first a building 
 
The Innocents Abroad 285 
 
 which necessarily figures largely in Venetian poetry 
 and tradition. In the Senate Chamber of the ancient 
 Republic we wearied our eyes with staring at acres 
 ef historical paintings by Tintoretto and Paul 
 Veronese, but nothing struck us forcibly except the 
 one thing that strikes all strangers forcibly a 
 black square in the midst of a gallery of portraits. 
 In one long row, around the great hall, were painted 
 the portraits of the doges of Venice (venerable 
 fellows, with flowing white beards, for of the three 
 hundred Senators eligible to the office, the oldest 
 was usually chosen doge), and each had its compli 
 mentary inscription attached till you came to the 
 place that should have had Marino Faliero s picture 
 in it, and that was blank and black blank, except 
 that it bore a terse inscription, saying that the con 
 spirator had died for his crime. It seemed cruel to 
 keep that pitiless inscription still staring from the 
 walls after the unhappy wretch had been in his grave 
 five hundred years. 
 
 At the head of the Giant s Staircase, where Marino 
 Faliero was beheaded, and where the doges were 
 crowned in ancient times, two small slits in the stone 
 wall were pointed out two harmless, insignificant 
 orifices that would never attract a stranger s atten 
 tion yet these were the terrible Lions Mouths! 
 The heads were gone (knocked off by the French 
 during their occupation of Venice), but these were 
 the throats, down which went the anonymous accu 
 sation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an 
 
 10 
 
286 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 enemy, that doomed many an innocent man to walk 
 the Bridge of Sighs and descend into the dungeon 
 which none entered and hoped to see the sun again. 
 This was in the old days when the Patricians alone 
 governed Venice the common herd had no vote 
 and no voice. There were one thousand five hun 
 dred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators 
 were chosen ; from the Senators a Doge and a 
 Council of Ten were selected, and by secret ballot 
 the Ten chose from their own number a Council of 
 Three. All these were government spies, then, and 
 every spy was under surveillance himself men 
 spoke in whispers in Venice, and no man trusted his 
 neighbor not always his own brother. No man 
 knew who the Council of Three were not even 
 the Senate, not even the Doge; the members of 
 that dread tribunal met at night in a chamber to 
 themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot in 
 scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, 
 unless by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous 
 political crimes, and from their sentence there was 
 no appeal. A nod to the executioner was sufficient. 
 The doomed man was marched down a hall and out 
 at a doorway into the covered Bridge of Sighs, 
 through it and into the dungeon and unto his death. 
 At no time in his transit was he visible to any save 
 his conductor. If a man had an enemy in those old 
 days, the cleverest thing he could do was to slip a 
 note for the Council of Three into the Lion s mouth, 
 saying * This man is plotting against tne govern- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 287 
 
 ment." If the awful Three found no proof, ten to 
 one they would drown him anyhow, because he was 
 a deep rascal, since his plots were unsolvable. 
 Masked judges and masked executioners, with un 
 limited power, and no appeal from their judgments, 
 in that hard, cruel age, were not likely to be lenient 
 with men they suspected yet could not convict. 
 
 We walked through the hall of the Council of 
 Ten, and presently entered the infernal den of the 
 Council of Three. 
 
 The table around which they had sat was there 
 still, and likewise the stations where the masked 
 inquisitors and executioners formerly stood, frozen, 
 upright and silent, till they received a bloody order, 
 and then, without a word, moved off, like the inex 
 orable machines they were, to carry it out. The 
 frescoes on the walls were startlingly suited to the 
 place. In all the other saloons, the halls, the great 
 state chambers of the palace, the walls and ceilings 
 were bright with gilding, rich with elaborate carving, 
 and resplendent with gallant pictures of Venetian 
 victories in war, and Venetian display in foreign 
 courts, and hallowed with portraits of the Virgin, 
 the Saviour of men, and the holy saints that 
 preached the Gospel of Peace upon earth but 
 here, in dismal contrast, were none but pictures of 
 death and dreadful suffering ! not a living figure 
 but was writhing in torture, not a dead one but was 
 smeared with blood, gashed with wounds, and dis 
 torted with the agonies that had taken away its life ! 
 
288 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 From the palace to the gloomy prison is but a 
 step one might almost jump across the narrow 
 canal that intervenes. The ponderous stone Bridge 
 of Sighs crosses it at the second story a bridge 
 that is a covered tunnel you cannot be seen when 
 you walk in it. It is partitioned lengthwise, and 
 through one compartment walked such as bore light 
 sentences in ancient times, and through the other 
 marched sadly the wretches whom the Three had 
 doomed to lingering misery and utter oblivion in the 
 dungeons, or to sudden and mysterious death. 
 Down below the level of the water, by the light of 
 smoking torches, we were shown the damp, thick- 
 walled cells where many a proud patrician s life was 
 eaten away by the long-drawn miseries of solitary 
 imprisonment without light, air, books; naked, 
 unshaven, uncombed, covered with vermin; his use 
 less tongue forgetting its office, with none to speak 
 to; the days and nights of his life no longer marked, 
 but merged into one eternal eventless night; far 
 away from all cheerful sounds, buried in the silence 
 of a tomb; forgotten by his helpless friends, and 
 his fate a dark mystery to them forever; losing his 
 own memory at last, and knowing no more who he 
 was or how he came there ; devouring the loaf of 
 bread and drinking the water that were thrust into 
 the cell by unseen hands, and troubling his worn 
 spirit no more with hopes and fears and doubts and 
 longings to be free ; ceasing to scratch vain prayers 
 and complainings on walls where none, not even 
 
The Innocents Abroad 289 
 
 himself, could see them, and resigning himself to 
 hopeless apathy, driveling childishness, lunacy! 
 Many and many a sorrowful story like this these 
 stony walls could tell if they could but speak. 
 
 In a little narrow corridor, near by, they showed 
 us where many a prisoner, after lying in the dun 
 geons until he was forgotten by all save his perse 
 cutors, was brought by masked executioners and 
 garroted, or sewed up in a sack, passed through a 
 little window to a boat, at dead of night, and taken 
 to some remote spot and drowned. 
 
 They used to show to visitors the implements of 
 torture wherewith the Three were wont to worm 
 secrets out of the accused villainous machines for 
 crushing thumbs; the stocks where a prisoner sat 
 immovable while water fell drop by drop upon his 
 head till the torture was more than humanity could 
 bear ; and a devilish contrivance of steel, which in 
 closed a prisoner s head like a shell, and crushed it 
 slowly by means of a screw. It bore the stains of 
 blood that had trickled through its joints long ago, 
 and on one side it had a projection whereon the tor 
 turer rested his elbow comfortably and bent down 
 his ear to catch the moanings of the sufferer perish 
 ing within. 
 
 Of course, we went to see the venerable relic of 
 the ancient glory of Venice, with its pavements woin 
 and broken by the passing feet of a thousand years 
 of plebeians and patricians The Cathedral of St. 
 Mark. It is built entirely of precious marbles, 
 Id. 
 
290 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 brought from the Orient nothing in its composi 
 tion is domestic. Its hoary traditions make it an 
 object of absorbing interest to even the most careless 
 stranger, and thus far it had interest for me ; but no 
 further. I could not go into ecstasies over its coarse 
 mosaics, its unlovely Byzantine architecture, or its 
 five hundred curious interior columns from as many 
 distant quarries. Everything was worn out every 
 block of stone was smooth and almost shapeless 
 with the polishing hands and shoulders of loungers 
 who devoutly idled here in bygone centuries and 
 have died and gone to the dev no, simply died, I 
 mean. 
 
 Under the altar repose the ashes of St. Mark 
 and Matthew, Luke, and John, too, for all I know. 
 Venice reveres those relics above all things earthly. 
 For fourteen hundred years St. Mark has been her 
 patron saint. Everything about the city seems to be 
 named after him or so named as to refer to him in 
 someway so named, or some purchase rigged in 
 some way to scrape a sort of hurrahing acquaintance 
 with him. That seems to be the idea. To be on 
 good terms with St. Mark seems to be the very 
 summit of Venetian ambition. They say St. Mark 
 had a tame lion, and used to travel with him and 
 everywhere that St. Mark went, the lion was sure to 
 go. It was his protector, his friend, his librarian. 
 And so the Winged Lion of St. Mark, with the open 
 Bible under his paw, is a favorite emblem in the 
 grand old city. It casts its shadow from the most 
 
The Innocents Abroad 291 
 
 ancient pillar in Venice, in the Grand Square of St. 
 Mark, upon the throngs of free citizens below, and 
 has so done for many a long century. The winged 
 lion is found everywhere and doubtless here, 
 where the winged lion is, no harm can come. 
 
 St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was 
 martyred, I think. However, that has nothing to 
 do with my legend. About the founding of the city 
 of Venice say four hundred and fifty years after 
 Christ (for Venice is much younger that any other 
 Italian city) a priest dreamed that an angel told 
 him that until the remains of St. Mark were brought 
 to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinc 
 tion among the nations; that the body must be 
 captured, brought to the city, and a magnificent 
 church built over it ; and that if ever the Venetians 
 allowed the Saint to be removed from his new rest 
 ing place, in that day Venice would perish from off 
 the face of the earth. The priest proclaimed his 
 dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the 
 corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another 
 tried and failed, but the project was never abandoned 
 during four hundred years. At last it was secured 
 by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and some 
 thing. The commander of a Venetian expedition 
 disguised himself, stole the bones, separated them, 
 and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The 
 religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor 
 anything that is in the nature of pork, and so when 
 the Christian was stopped by the officers at the 
 
292 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 gates of the city, they only glanced once into his 
 precious baskets, then turned up their noses at the 
 unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried 
 in the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been 
 waiting long years to receive them, and thus the 
 safety and the greatness of Venice were secured. 
 And to this day there be those in Venice who believe 
 that if those holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient 
 city would vanish like a dream, and its foundations 
 be buried forever in the unremembering sea. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 PE Venetian gondola is as free and graceful, in 
 its gliding movement, as a serpent. It is 
 twenty or thirty feet long, and is narrow and deep, 
 like a canoe ; its sharp bow and stern sweep upward 
 from the water like the horns of a crescent with the 
 abruptness of the curve slightly modified. 
 
 The bow is ornamented with a steel comb with a 
 battle-axe attachment which threatens to cut passing 
 boats in two occasionally, but never does. The 
 gondola is painted black because in the zenith of 
 Venetian magnificence the gondolas became too 
 gorgeous altogether, and the Senate decreed that all 
 such display must cease, and a solemn, unembel- 
 lished black be substituted. If the truth were 
 known, it would doubtless appear that rich plebeians 
 grew too prominent in their affectation of patrician 
 show on the Grand Canal, and required a wholesome 
 snubbing. Reverence for the hallowed Past and its 
 traditions keeps the dismal fashion in force now that 
 the compulsion exists no longer. So let it remain. 
 It is the color of mourning. Venice mourns. The 
 stern of the boat is decked over and the gondolier 
 
 (293) 
 
294 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 stands there. He uses a single oar a long blade, 
 of course, for he stands nearly erect. A wooden 
 peg, a foot and a half high, with two slight crooks 
 or curves in one side of it and one in the other, 
 projects above the starboard gunwale. Against that 
 peg the gondolier takes a purchase with his oar, 
 changing it at intervals to the other side of the peg 
 or dropping it into another of the crooks, as the 
 steering of the craft may demand and how in the 
 world he can back and fill, shoot straight ahead, or 
 flirt suddenly around a corner, and make the oar 
 stay in those insignificant notches, is a problem to 
 me and a never-diminishing matter of interest. I 
 am afraid I study the gondoliers marvelous skill 
 more than I do the sculptured palaces ,ve glide 
 among. He cuts a corner so closely, now and then, 
 or misses another gondola by such an imperceptible 
 hair-breadth, that I feel myself " scrooching," as the 
 children say, just as one does when a buggy wheel 
 grazes his elbow. But he makes all his calculations 
 with the nicest precision, and goes darting in and 
 out among a Broadway confusion of busy craft with 
 the easy confidence of the educated hackman. He 
 never makes a mistake. 
 
 Sometimes we go flying down the great canals at 
 such a gait that we can get only the merest glimpses 
 into front doors, and again, in obscure alleys in the 
 suburbs, we put on a solemnity suited to the silence, 
 the mildew, the stagnant waters, the clinging weeds, 
 the deserted houses, and the general lifelessness 
 
The Innocents Abroad 295 
 
 of the place, and move to the spirit of grave medi 
 tation. 
 
 The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he 
 wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken 
 tights. His attitude is stately ; he is lithe and sup 
 ple ; all his movements are full of grace. When his 
 long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its 
 high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening 
 sky, they make a picture that is very novel and 
 striking to a foreign eye. 
 
 We sit in the cushioned carriage-body of a cabin, 
 with the curtains drawn, and smoke, or read, or 
 look out upon the passing boats, the houses, the 
 bridges, the people, and enjoy ourselves much more 
 than we could in a buggy jolting over our cobble 
 stone pavements at home. This is the gentlest, 
 pleasantest locomotion we have ever known. 
 
 But it seems queer ever so queer to see a 
 boat doing duty as a private carriage. We see busi 
 ness men come to the front door, step into a gon 
 dola, instead of a street car, and go off down town 
 to the counting-room. 
 
 We see visiting young ladies stand on the stoop, 
 and laugh, and kiss good-bye, and flirt their fans 
 and say * Come soon now do you ve been just 
 as mean as ever you can be mother s dying to see 
 you and we ve moved into the new house, oh, 
 such a love of a place ! so convenient to the post- 
 office and the church, and the Young Men s Chris 
 tian Association ; and we do have such fishing, and 
 
296 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 such carrying on, and such swimming-matches in 
 the back yard Oh, you must come no distance 
 at all, and if you go down through by St. Mark s 
 and the Bridge of Sighs, and cut through the alley 
 and come up by the church of Santa Maria dei 
 Frari, and into the Grand Canal, there isn t a bit of 
 current now do come, Sally Maria by-bye!" 
 and then the little humbug trips down the steps, 
 jumps into the gondola, says, under her breath, 
 "Disagreeable old thing, I hope she won t!" 
 goes skimming away, round the corner; and the 
 other girl slams the street door and says, "Well, 
 that infliction s over, anyway, but I suppose I ve 
 got to go and see her tiresome, stuck-up thing!" 
 * Human nature appears to be just the same, all over 
 the world. We see the diffident young man, mild 
 of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain, 
 elegant of costume, drive up to her father s man 
 sion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start 
 fearfully up the steps and meet " the old gentle 
 man " right on the threshold ! hear him ask what 
 street the new British Bank is in as if that were 
 what he came for and then bounce into his boat 
 and skurry away with his coward heart in his boots ! 
 see him come sneaking around the corner again, 
 directly, with a crack of the curtain open toward the 
 old gentleman s disappearing gondola, and out 
 scampers his Susan with a flock of little Italian en 
 dearments fluttering from her lips, and goes to drive 
 with him in the watery avenues down toward the Rialto 
 
The Innocents Abroad 297 
 
 We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most 
 natural way, and flit from street to street and from 
 store to store, just in the good old fashion, except 
 that they leave the gondola, instead of a private 
 carriage, waiting at the curbstone a couple of hours 
 for them, waiting while they make the nice young 
 clerks pull down tons and tons of silks and velvets 
 and moire antiques and those things ; and then they 
 buy a paper of pins and go paddling away to confer 
 the rest of their disastrous patronage on some other 
 firm. And they always have their purchases sent _J 
 home just in the good old way. Human nature is 
 very much the same all over the world ; and it is so 
 like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go 
 into a store and buy ten cents worth of blue ribbon 
 and have it sent home in a scow. Ah, it is these 
 little touches of nature that move one to tears in 
 these far-off foreign lands. 
 
 We see little girls and boys go out in gondolas 
 with their nurses, for an airing. We see staid 
 families, with prayer book and beads, enter the 
 gondola dressed in their Sunday best, and float 
 away to church. And at midnight we see the 
 theater break up and discharge its swarm of hilarious 
 youth and beauty ; we hear the cries of the hackman- 
 gondoliers, and behold the struggling crowd jump 
 aboard, and the black multitude of boats go skim 
 ming down the moonlit avenues; we see them 
 separate here and there, and disappear up divergent 
 streets; we hear the faint sounds of laughter and. of 
 
298 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 shouted farewells floating up out of the distance; 
 and then, the strange pageant being gone, we have 
 lonely stretches of glittering water of stately 
 buildings of blotting shadows of weird stone 
 faces creeping into the moonlight of deserted 
 bridges of motionless boats at anchor. And 
 over all broods that mysterious stillness, that 
 stealthy quiet, that befits so well this old dreaming 
 Venice. 
 
 We have been pretty much everywhere in our 
 gondola. We have bought beads and photographs 
 in the stores, and wax matches in the Great Square 
 of St. Mark. The last remark suggests a digression. 
 Everybody goes to this vast square in the evening. 
 The military bands play in the center of it and 
 countless couples of ladies and gentlemen promenade 
 up and down on either side, and platoons of them 
 are constantly drifting away toward the old cathe 
 dral, and by the venerable column with the Winged 
 Lion of St. Mark on its top, and out to where the 
 boats lie moored ; and other platoons are as con 
 stantly arriving from the gondolas and joining the 
 great throng. Between the promenaders and the 
 sidewalks are seated hundreds and hundreds of peo 
 ple at small tables, smoking and taking granita (a 
 first cousin to ice-cream) ; on the sidewalks are 
 more employing themselves in the same way. The 
 shops in the first floor of the tall rows of buildings that 
 wall in three sides of the square are brilliantly lighted, 
 the air is filled with music and merry voices, and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 299 
 
 altogether the scene is as bright and spirited and full 
 of cheerfulness as any man could desire. We enjoy 
 it thoroughly. Very many of the young women are 
 exceedingly pretty and dress with rare good taste. 
 We are gradually and laboriously learning the ill- 
 manners of staring them unflinchingly in the face 
 not because such conduct is agreeable to us, but 
 because ft is the custom of the country and they say 
 the girls like it. We wish to learn all the curious, 
 outlandish ways of all the different countries, so 
 that we can " show off" and astonish people when 
 we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our 
 untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions 
 which we can t shake off. All our passengers are 
 paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in 
 view which I have mentioned. The gentle reader 
 will never, never know what a consummate ass he 
 can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of 
 course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has 
 not been abroad, and therefore is not already a 
 consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg 
 his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of 
 fellowship and call him brother. I shall always 
 delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I 
 shall have finished my travels. 
 
 On this subject let me remark that there are 
 Americans abroad in Italy who have actually for 
 gotten their mother tongue in three months forgot 
 it in France. They cannot even write their address 
 in English in a hotel register. I append these evi- 
 
300 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 dences, which I copied verbatim from the register oi 
 a hotel in a certain Italian city : 
 
 " John P. Whitcomb, tats Unis. 
 
 " William L. Ainsworth, travailleur (he meant traveler, I suppose), 
 tats Unis. 
 
 " George P. Morton et fits, d Amerique. 
 
 " Lloyd B. Williams, et trois amis, ville de Boston, Amerique. 
 
 " J. Ellsworth Baker, tout de suite d: France^ place de naissance 
 Amcrique, destination la Grande Bretagne." 
 
 I love this sort of people. A lady passenger of 
 ours tells of a fellow-citizen of hers who spent eight 
 weeks in Paris and then returned home and ad 
 dressed his dearest old bosom friend Herbert as Mr. 
 "Er-bare!" He apologized, though, and said, 
 1 Pon my soul it is aggravating, but I cahn t help 
 it I have got so used to speaking nothing but 
 French, my dear Erbare damme there it goes 
 Again! got so used to French pronunciation that 
 I cahn t get rid of it -*!t is positively annoying, I 
 assure you." This entertaining idiot, whose name 
 was Gordon, allowed himself to be hailed three 
 times in the street before he paid any attention, and 
 then begged a thousand pardons and said he had 
 grown so accustomed to hearing himself addressed 
 as M sieu Gor-r-dong," with a roll to the r, that he 
 had forgotten the legitimate sound of his name ! He 
 wore a rose in his buttonhole ; he gave the French 
 salutation two flips of the hand in front of the 
 face ; he called Paris Pairree in ordinary English con 
 versation; he carried envelopes bearing foreign 
 postmarks protruding from his breast pocket; he 
 
The Innocents Abroad 301 
 
 cultivated a moustache and imperial, and did what 
 else he could to suggest to the beholder his pet 
 fancy that he resembled Louis Napoleon and in a 
 spirit of thankfulness which is entirely unaccount 
 able, considering the slim foundation there was for 
 it, he praised his Maker that he was as he was, and 
 went on enjoying his little life just the same as if he 
 really had been deliberately designed and erected by 
 the great Architect of the Universe. 
 
 Think of our Whitcombs and our Ainsworths and 
 our Williamses writing themselves down in dilapi 
 dated French in a foreign hotel register ! We laugh 
 at Englishmen, when we are at home, for sticking 
 so sturdily to their national ways and customs, but 
 we look back upon it from abroad very forgivingly. 
 It is not pleasant to see an American thrusting his 
 nationality forward obtrusively in a foreign land, but 
 oh, it is pitiable to see him making of himself a 
 thing that is neither male nor female, neither fish, 
 flesh, nor fowl a poor, miserable, hermaphrodite 
 Frenchman ! 
 
 Among a long list of churches, art galleries, and 
 such things, visited by us in Venice, I shall mention 
 only one the Church of Santa Maria dei Frari. 
 It is about five hundred years old, I believe, and 
 stands on twelve hundred thousand piles. In it lie 
 the body of Canova and the heart of Titian, under 
 magnificent monuments. Titian died at the age of 
 almost one hundred years. A plague which swept 
 away fifty thousand lives was raging at the time, and 
 
302 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 there is notable evidence of the reverence in which 
 the great painter was held, in the fact that to him 
 alone the state permitted a public funeral in all that 
 season of terror and death. 
 
 In this church, also, is a monument to the doge 
 Foscari, whose name a once resident of Venice, 
 Lord Byron, has made permanently famous. 
 
 The monument to the doge Giovanni Pesaro, in 
 this church, is a curiosity in the way of mortuary 
 adornment. It is eighty feet high and is fronted 
 like some fantastic pagan temple. Against it stand 
 four colossal Nubians, as black as night, dressed in 
 white marble garments. The black legs are bare, 
 and through rents in sleeves and breeches, the skin, 
 of shiny black marble, shows. The artist was as 
 ingenious as his funeral designs were absurd. There 
 are two bronze skeletons bearing scrolls, and two 
 great dragons uphold the sarcophagus. On high, 
 amid all this grotesqueness, sits the departed doge. 
 
 In the conventual buildings attached to this church 
 are the state archives of Venice. We did not see 
 them, but they are said to number millions of docu 
 ments. "They are the records of centuries of the 
 most watchful, observant, and suspicious government 
 that ever existed in which everything was written 
 down and nothing spoken out." They fill nearly 
 three hundred rooms. Among them are manuscripts 
 from the archives of nearly two thousand families, 
 monasteries, and convents. The secret history of 
 Venice for a thousand years is here its plots, its 
 
The Innocents Abroad 303 
 
 hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions ol 
 hireling spies and masked bravoes food, ready to 
 hand, for a world of dark and mysterious romances. 
 
 Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We 
 have seen, in these old churches, a profusion of 
 costly and elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such 
 as we never dreamt of before. We have stood in 
 the dim religious light of these hoary sanctuaries, in 
 the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments and 
 effigies of the great dead of Venice, until we seemed 
 drifting back, back, back, into the solemn past, and 
 looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peo 
 ples of a remote antiquity. We have been in a 
 half-waking sort of dream all the time. I do not 
 know how else to describe the feeling. A part of 
 our being has remained still in the nineteenth cen 
 tury, while another part of it has seemed in some 
 unaccountable way walking among the phantoms of 
 the tenth. 
 
 We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are 
 weary with looking at them and refuse to find inter 
 est in them any longer. And what wonder, when 
 there are twelve hundred pictures by Palma the 
 Younger in Venice and fifteen hundred by Tinto 
 retto? And behold, there are Titians and the works 
 of other artists in proportion. We have seen 
 Titian s celebrated Cain and Abel, his David and 
 Goliah, his Abraham s Sacrifice. We have seen 
 Tintoretto s monster picture, which is seventy-four 
 feet long and I do not know how many feet high, 
 
304 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and thought it a very commodious picture. We 
 have seen pictures of martyrs enough, and saints 
 enough, to regenerate the world. I ought not to 
 confess it, but still, since one has no opportunity in 
 America to acquire a critical judgment in art, and 
 since I could not hope to become educated in it in 
 Europe in a few short weeks, I may therefore as 
 well acknowledge with such apologies as may be 
 due, that to me it seemed that when I had seen one 
 of these martyrs I had seen them all. They all have 
 a marked family resemblance to each other, they 
 dress alike, in coarse monkish robes and sandals, 
 they are all bald-headed, they all stand in about 
 the same attitude, and without exception they are 
 gazing heavenward with countenances which the 
 Ainsworths, the Mortons, and the Williamses, etfils, 
 inform me are full of " expression." To me there 
 is nothing tangible about these imaginary portraits, 
 nothing that I can grasp and take a living interest 
 in. If great Titian had only been gifted with 
 prophecy, and had skipped a martyr, and gone 
 over to England and painted a portrait of Shake 
 speare, even as a youth, which we could all have 
 confidence in now, the world down to the latest 
 generations would have forgiven him the lost martyr 
 in the rescued seer. I think posterity could have 
 spared one more martyr for the sake of a great his 
 torical picture of Titian s time and painted by his 
 brush such as Columbus returning in chains from 
 the discovery of a world, for instance. The old 
 
The Innocents Abroad 305 
 
 masters did paint some Venetian historical pictures, 
 and these we did not tire of looking at, notwithstand 
 ing representations of the formal introduction of 
 defunct Doges to the Virgin Mary in regions beyond 
 the clouds clashed rather harshly with the proprieties, 
 it seemed to us. 
 
 But, humble as we are, and unpretending, in the 
 matter of art, our researches among the painted 
 monks and martyrs have not been wholly in vain. 
 We have striven hard to learn. We have had some 
 success. We have mastered some things, possibly 
 of trifling import in the eyes of the learned, but to 
 us they give pleasure, and we take as much pride in 
 our little acquirements as do others who have learned 
 far more, and we love to display them full as well. 
 When we see a monk going about with a lion and 
 looking tranquilly up to heaven, we know that that 
 is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book 
 and a pen, looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying 
 to think of a word, we know that that is St. Matthew. 
 When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking tran 
 quilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, 
 and without other baggage, we know that that is St. 
 Jerome. Because we know that he always went 
 flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see 
 a party looking tranquilly up to heaven, unconscious 
 that his body is shot through and through with 
 arrows, we know that that is St. Sebastian. When 
 we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, 
 but having no trademark, we always ask who those 
 20* 
 
306 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to 
 learn. We have seen thirteen thousand St. Jeromes, 
 and twenty-two thousand St. Marks, and sixteen thou 
 sand St. Matthews, and sixty thousand St. Sebas 
 tians, and four millions of assorted monks, undesig- 
 nated, and we feel encouraged to believe that when 
 we have seen some more of these various pictures, 
 and had a larger experience, we shall begin to take 
 an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated 
 countrymen from Amerique. 
 
 Now it does give me real pain to speak in this 
 almost unappreciative way of the old masters and 
 their martyrs, because good friends of mine in the 
 ship friends who do thoroughly and conscientiously 
 appreciate them and are in every way competent to 
 discriminate between good pictures and inferior 
 ones have urged me for my own sake not to make 
 public the fact that I lack this appreciation and this 
 critical discrimination myself. I believe that what I 
 have written and may still write about pictures will 
 give them pain, and I am honestly sorry for it. I 
 even promised that I would hide my uncouth senti 
 ments in my own breast. But alas ! I never could 
 keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this 
 weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical 
 organization. It is likely that such a very liberal 
 amount of space was given to the organ which 
 enables me to make promises, that the organ which 
 should enable me to keep them was crowded out. 
 But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had 
 
The Innocents Abroad 307 
 
 rather have one faculty nobly developed than two 
 faculties of mere ordinary capacity. I certainly 
 meant to keep that promise, but I find I cannot do 
 it. It is impossible to travel through Italy without 
 speaking of pictures, and can I see them through 
 others eyes? 
 
 If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that 
 are spread before me every day of my life by that 
 monarch of all the old masters, Nature, I should 
 come to believe, sometimes, that I had in me no 
 appreciation of the beautiful, whatsoever. 
 
 It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that 
 for once I have discovered an ancient painting that 
 is beautiful and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it 
 gives me is an infallible proof that it is not a beauti 
 ful picture and not in any wise worthy of commenda 
 tion. This very thing has occurred more times than 
 I can mention, in Venice. In every single instance 
 the guide has crushed out my swelling enthusiasm 
 with the remark: 
 
 * It is nothing it is of the Renaissance" 
 
 I did not know what in the mischief the Renais 
 sance was, and so always I had to simply say: 
 
 " Ah ! so it is I had not observed it before." 
 
 I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated 
 negro, the offspring of a South Carolina slave. But 
 it occurred too often for even my self-complacency, 
 did that exasperating " It is nothing it is of the 
 Renaissance. I said at last : 
 
 " Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come 
 
308 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 from? Who gave him permission to cram the 
 Republic with his execrable daubs?" 
 
 We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a 
 man; that renaissance was a term used to signify 
 what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of 
 art. The guide said that after Titian s time and the 
 time of the other great names we had grown so 
 familiar with, high art declined; then it partially 
 rose again an inferior sort of painters sprang up, 
 and these shabby pictures were the work of their 
 hands. Then I said, in my heat, that I " wished to 
 goodness high art had declined five hundred years 
 sooner." The Renaissance pictures suit me very 
 well, though sooth to say its school were too much 
 given to painting real men and did not indulge 
 enough in martyrs. 
 
 The guide I have spoken of is the only one we 
 have had yet who knew anything. He was born in 
 South Carolina, of slave parents. They came to 
 Venice while he was an infant. He has grown up 
 here. He is well educated. He reads, writes, and 
 speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and French, with 
 perfect facility; is a worshiper of art and thor 
 oughly conversant with it; knows the history of 
 Venice by heart and never tires of talking of her 
 illustrious career. He dresses better than any of us, 
 I think, and is daintily polite. Negroes are deemed 
 as good as white people, in Venice, and so this man 
 feels no desire to go back to his native land. His 
 judgment is correct. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 309 
 
 I have had another shave. I was writing in our 
 front room this afternoon and trying hard to keep 
 my attention on my work and refrain from looking 
 out upon the canal. I was resisting the soft in 
 fluences of the climate as well as I could, and 
 endeavoring to overcome the desire to be indolent 
 and happy. The boys sent for a barber. They 
 asked me if I would be shaved. I reminded them 
 of my tortures in Genoa, Milan, Como ; of my 
 declaration that I would suffer no more on Italian 
 soil. I said: " Not any for me, if you please." 
 
 I wrote on. The barber began on the doctor. I 
 heard him say: 
 
 "Dan, this is the easiest shave I have had since 
 we left the ship." 
 
 He said again, presently: 
 
 "Why, Dan, a man could go to sleep with this 
 man shaving him." 
 
 Dan took the chair. Then he said : 
 
 "Why, this is Titian. This is one of the old 
 masters." 
 
 I wrote on. Directly Dan said : 
 
 " Doctor, it is perfect luxury. The ship s barber 
 isn t anything to him." 
 
 My rough beard was distressing me beyond meas 
 ure. The barber was rolling up his apparatus. 
 The temptation was too strong. I said : 
 
 " Hold on, please. Shave me also." 
 
 I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes. The 
 barber soaped my face, and then took his razor and 
 
310 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 gave me a rake that well nigh threw me into convul 
 sions. I jumped out of the chair: Dan and the 
 doctor were both wiping blood off their faces and 
 laughing. 
 
 I said it was a mean, disgraceful fraud. 
 
 They said that the misery of this shave had gone 
 so far beyond anything they had ever experienced 
 before, that they could not bear the idea of losing 
 such a chance of hearing a cordial opinion from me 
 on the subject. 
 
 It was shameful. But there was no help for it. 
 The skinning was begun and had to be finished. 
 The tears flowed with every rake, and so did the 
 fervent execrations. The barber grew confused, 
 and brought blood every time. I think the boys 
 enjoyed it better than anything they have seen or 
 heard since they left home. 
 
 We have seen the Campanile, and Byron s house, 
 and Balbi s the geographer, and the palaces of all 
 the ancient dukes and doges of Venice, and we have 
 seen their effeminate descendants airing their nobility 
 in fashionable French attire in the Grand Square of 
 St. Mark, and eating ices and drinking cheap wines, 
 instead of wearing gallant coats of mail and destroy 
 ing fleets and armies as their great ancestors did in 
 the days of Venetian glory. We have seen no 
 bravoes with poisoned stilettoes, no masks, no wild 
 carnival ; but we have seen the ancient pride of 
 Venice, the grim Bronze Horses that figure in a 
 thousand legends. Venice may well cherish them, 
 
The Innocents Abroad 311 
 
 for they are the only horses she ever had. It is 
 said there are hundreds of people in this curious 
 city who never have seen a living horse in their lives. 
 It is entirely true, no doubt. 
 
 And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart to 
 morrow, and leave the venerable Queen of the Re 
 publics to summon her vanished ships, and marshal 
 her shadowy armies, and know again in dreams the 
 pride of her old renown. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SOME of the Quaker City* s passengers had ar 
 rived in Venice from Switzerland and other 
 lands before we left there, and others were expected 
 every day. We heard of no casualties among them, 
 and no sickness. 
 
 We were a little fatigued with sightseeing, and so 
 we rattled through a good deal of country by rail 
 without caring to stop. I took few notes. I find 
 no mention of Bologna in my memorandum book, 
 except that we arrived there in good season, but 
 saw none of the sausages for which the place is so 
 justly celebrated. 
 
 Pistoia awoke but a passing interest. 
 
 Florence pleased us for a while. I think we ap 
 preciated the great figure of David in the grand 
 square, and the sculptured group they call the Rape 
 of the Sabines. We wandered through the endless 
 collections of paintings and statues of the Pitti and 
 Uffizzi galleries, of course. I make that statement 
 in self-defense; there let it stop. I could not rest 
 under the imputation that I visited Florence and did 
 not traverse its weary miles of picture galleries. We 
 
The Innocents Abroad 313 
 
 tried indolently to recollect something about the 
 Guelphs and Ghibelines and the other historical cut* 
 throats whose quarrels and assassinations make up 
 so large a share of Florentine history, but the sub 
 ject was not attractive. We had been robbed of all 
 the fine mountain scenery on our little journey by a 
 system of railroading that had three miles of tunnel 
 to a hundred yards of daylight, and we were not 
 inclined to be sociable with Florence. We had seen 
 the spot, outside the city somewhere, where these 
 people had allowed the bones of Galileo to rest in 
 unconsecrated ground for an age because his great 
 discovery that the world turned around was regarded 
 as a damning heresy by the church ; and we know 
 that long after the world had accepted his theory 
 and raised his name high in the list of its great 
 men, they had still let him rot there. That we had 
 lived to see his dust in honored sepulture in the 
 Church of Santa Croce we owed to a society of 
 literati, and not to Florence or her rulers. We saw 
 Dante s tomb in that church, also, but we were glad 
 to know that his body was not in it; that the un 
 grateful city that had exiled him and persecuted him 
 would give much to have it there, but need not hope 
 to ever secure that high honor to herself. Medicis 
 are good enough for Florence. Let her plant 
 Medicis and build grand monuments over them to 
 testify how gratefully she was wont to lick the hand 
 that scourged her. 
 
 Magnanimous Florence ! Her jewelry marts are 
 
314 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 filled with artists in mosaic. Florentine mosaics 
 are the choicest in all the world. Florence loves to 
 have that said. Florence is proud of it. Florence 
 would foster this specialty of hers. She is grateful 
 to the artists that bring to her this high credit and 
 fill her coffers with foreign money, and so she en 
 courages them with pensions. With pensions ! 
 Think of the lavishness of it. She knows that peo 
 ple who piece together the beautiful trifles die early, 
 because the labor is so confining, and so exhausting 
 to hand and brain, and so she has decreed that all 
 these people who reach the age of sixty shall have 
 a pension after that ! I have not heard that any of 
 them have called for their dividends yet. One man 
 did fight along till he was sixty, and started after his 
 pension, but it appeared that there had been a mis 
 take of a year in his family record, and so he gave 
 it up and died. These artists will take particles of 
 stone or glass no larger than a mustard seed, and 
 piece them together on a sleeve-button or a shirt- 
 stud, so smoothly and with such nice adjustment of 
 the delicate shades of color the pieces bear, as to 
 form a pigmy rose with stem, thorn, leaves, petals 
 complete, and all as softly and as truthfully tinted 
 as though Nature had builded it herself. They will 
 counterfeit a fly, or a high-toned bug, or the ruined 
 Coliseum, within the cramped circle of a breastpin, 
 and do it so deftly and so neatly that any man might 
 think a master painted it. 
 
 I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in 
 
The Innocents Abroad 315 
 
 Florence a little trifle of a center-table whose 
 top was made of some sort of precious polished 
 stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure of a 
 flute, with bell-mouth and a mazy complication of 
 keys. No painting in the world could have been 
 softer or richer; no shading out of one tint into 
 another could have been more perfect; no work of 
 art of any kind could have been more faultless than 
 this flute, and yet to count the multitude of little 
 fragments of stone of which they swore it was formed 
 would bankrupt any man s arithmetic ! I do not 
 think one could have seen where two particles joined 
 each other with eyes of ordinary shrewdness. Cer 
 tainly we could detect no such blemish. This table 
 top cost the labor of one man for ten long years, so 
 they said, and it was for sale for thirty-five thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time 
 to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of 
 Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Machiavelli (I sup 
 pose they are buried there, but it may be that they 
 reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other 
 parties such being the fashion in Italy), and be 
 tween times we used to go and stand on the bridges 
 and admire the Arno. It is popular to admire the 
 Arno. It is a great historical creek with four feet 
 in the channel and some scows floating around. It 
 would be a very plausible river if they would pump 
 some water into it. They all call it a river, and 
 they honestly think it is a river, do these dark and 
 
316 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 bloody Florentines. They even help out the delu* 
 sion by building bridges over it. I do not see why 
 they are too good to wade. 
 
 How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one 
 with bitter prejudices sometimes ! I might enter 
 Florence under happier auspices a month hence and 
 find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do not 
 care to think of it now, at all, nor of its roomy 
 shops filled to the ceiling with snowy marble and 
 alabaster copies of all the celebrated sculptures in 
 Europe copies so enchanting to the eye that I 
 wonder how they can really be shaped like the dingy 
 petrified nightmares they are the portraits of. I 
 got lost in Florence at nine o clock, one night, and 
 stayed lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and 
 long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until 
 toward three o clock in the morning. It was a 
 pleasant night and at first there were a good many 
 people abroad, and there were cheerful lights about. 
 Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mys 
 terious drifts and tunnels and astonishing and inter 
 esting myself with com ng around corners expecting 
 to find the hotel staring me in the face, and not find 
 ing it doing anything of the kind. Later still, I felt 
 tired. I soon felt remarkably tired. But there was 
 no one abroad, now not even a policeman. I 
 walked till I was out of all patience, and very hot 
 and thirsty. At last, somewhere after one o clock, 
 I came unexpectedly to one of the city gates. I 
 knew then that I was very far from the hotel. The 
 
The Innocents Abroad 317 
 
 soldiers thought I wanted to leave the city, and they 
 sprang up and barred the way with their muskets,. 
 I said : 
 
 " Hotel d Europe!" 
 
 It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain 
 whether that was Italian or French. The soldiers 
 looked stupidly at each other and at me, and shook 
 their heads and took me into custody. I said I 
 wanted to go home. They did not understand me. 
 They took me into the guard-house and searched 
 me, but they found no sedition on me. They found 
 a small piece of soap (we carry soap with us now), 
 and I made them a present of it, seeing that they 
 regarded it as a curiosity. I continued to say Hotel 
 d Europe, and they continued to shake their heads, 
 until at last a young soldier nodding in the corner 
 roused up and said something. He said he knew 
 where the hotel was, I suppose, for the officer of 
 the guard sent him away with me. We walked 
 a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, it ap 
 peared to me, and then he got lost. He turned 
 this way and that, and finally gave it up and signi 
 fied that he was going to spend the remainder of 
 the morning trying to find the city gate again. At 
 that moment it struck me that there was something 
 familiar about the house over the way. It was the 
 hotel ! 
 
 It was a happy thing for me that there happened 
 to be a soldier there that knew even as much as he 
 did ; for they say that the policy of the government 
 
318 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 is to change the soldiery from one place to another 
 constantly and from country to city, so that they 
 cannot become acquainted with the people and grow 
 lax in their duties and enter into plots and con 
 spiracies with friends. My experiences of Florence 
 were chiefly unpleasant. I will change the subject. 
 At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest 
 structure the world has any knowledge of the 
 Leaning Tower. As every one knows, it is in the 
 neighborhood of one hundred and eighty feet high 
 and I beg to observe that one hundred and eighty 
 feet reach to about the height of four ordinary 
 three-story buildings piled one on top of the other, 
 and is a very considerable altitude for a tower of 
 uniform thickness to aspire to, even when it stands 
 upright yet this one leans more than thirteen feet 
 out of the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years 
 old, but neither history nor tradition say whether it 
 was built as it is, purposely, or whether one of its 
 sides has settled. There is no record that it ever 
 stood straight up. It is built of marble. It is an 
 airy and a beautiful structure, and each of its eight 
 stories is encircled by fluted columns, some of 
 marble and some of granite, with Corinthian capitals 
 that were handsome when they were new. It is a 
 bell tower, and in its top hangs a chime of ancient 
 bells. The winding staircase within is dark, but one 
 always knows which side of the tower he is on be 
 cause of his naturally gravitating from one side to 
 the other of the staircase with the rise or dip of the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 319 
 
 tower. Some of the stone steps are foot-worn only 
 on one end ; others only on the other end ; others 
 only in the middle. To look down into the tower 
 from the top is like looking down into a tilted well. 
 A rope that hangs from the center of the top 
 touches the wall before it reaches the bottom. 
 Standing on the summit, one does not feel altogether 
 comfortable when he looks down from the high 
 side ; but to crawl on your breast to the verge on 
 the lower side and try to stretch your neck out far 
 enough to see the base of the tower, makes your 
 flesh creep, and convinces you for a single moment, 
 in spite of all your philosophy, that the building is 
 falling. You handle yourself very carefully, all the 
 time, under the silly impression that if it is not fall 
 ing your trifling weight will start it unless you are 
 particular not to " bear down " on it. 
 
 The Duomo, close at hand, is one of the finest 
 cathedrals in Europe. It is eight hundred years 
 old. Its grandeur has outlived the high commercial 
 prosperity and the political importance that made it 
 a necessity, or rather a possibility. Surrounded by 
 poverty, decay, and ruin, it conveys to us a more 
 tangible impression of the former greatness of Pisa 
 than books could give us. 
 
 The Baptistery, which is a few years older than 
 the Leaning Tower, is a stately rotunda of huge 
 dimensions, and was a costly structure. In it hangs 
 the lamp whose measured swing suggested to Galileo 
 the pendulum. It looked an insignificant thing to 
 
320 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 have conferred upon the world of science and 
 mechanics such a mighty extension of their domin 
 ions as it has. Pondering, in its suggestive pres 
 ence, I seemed to see a crazy universe of swinging 
 disks, the toiling children of this sedate parent. He 
 appeared to have an intelligent expression about him 
 of knowing that he was not a lamp at all ; that he 
 was a Pendulum; a pendulum disguised, for pro 
 digious and inscrutable purposes of his own deep 
 devising, and not a common pendulum either, but 
 the old original patriarchal Pendulum the Abraham 
 Pendulum of the world. 
 
 This Baptistery is endowed with the most pleasing 
 echo of all the echoes we have read of. The guide 
 sounded two sonorous notes, about half an octave 
 apart ; the echo answered with the most enchanting, 
 the most melodious, the richest blending of sweet 
 sounds that one can imagine. It was like a long- 
 drawn chord of a church organ, infinitely softened 
 by distance. I may be extravagant in this matter, 
 but if this be the case my ear is to blame not my 
 pen. I am describing a memory and one that will 
 remain long with me. 
 
 The peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time, 
 which placed a higher confidence in outward forms 
 of worship than in the watchful guarding of the 
 heart against sinful thoughts and the hands against 
 sinful deeds, and which believed in the protecting 
 virtues of inanimate objects made holy by contact 
 with holy things, is illustrated in a striking manner 
 
The Innocents Abroad 321 
 
 in one of the cemeteries of Pisa. The tombs are 
 set in soil brought in ships from the Holy Land ages 
 ago. To be buried in such ground was regarded by 
 the ancient Pisans as being more potent for salvation 
 than many masses purchased of the church and the 
 vowing of many candles to the Virgin. 
 
 Pisa is believed to be about three thousand years 
 old. It was one of the twelve great cities of ancient 
 Etruria, that commonwealth which has left so many 
 monuments in testimony of its extraordinary ad 
 vancement, and so little history of itself that is 
 tangible and comprehensible. A Pisan antiquarian 
 gave me an ancient tear-jug which he averred was 
 full four thousand years old. It was found among 
 the ruins of one of the oldest of the Etruscan cities. 
 He said it came from a tomb, and was used by 
 some bereaved family in that remote age when even 
 the Pyramids of Egypt were young, Damascus a 
 village, Abraham a prattling infant and ancient Troy 
 not yet dreamt of, to receive the tears wept for 
 some lost idol of a household. It spoke to us in a 
 language of its own ; and with a pathos more tender 
 than any words might bring, its mute eloquence 
 swept down the long roll of the centuries with its 
 tale of a vacant chair, a familiar footstep missed from 
 the threshold, a pleasant voice gone from the chorus, 
 a vanished form ! a tale which is always so new to 
 us, so startling, so terrible, so benumbing to the 
 senses, and behold how threadbare and old it is! 
 No shrewdly-worded history could have brought the 
 21* 
 
322 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 myths and shadows of that old dreamy age before 
 us clothed with human flesh and warmed with 
 human sympathies so vividly as did this poor little 
 unsentient vessel of pottery. 
 
 Pisa was a republic in the Middle Ages, with a 
 government of her own, armies and navies of her 
 own, and a great commerce. She was a warlike 
 power, and inscribed upon her banners many a 
 brilliant fight with Genoese and Turks. It is said 
 that the city once numbered a population of four 
 hundred thousand ; but her scepter has passed from 
 her grasp now, her ships and her armies are gone, 
 her commerce is dead. Her battle-flags bear the 
 mold and the dust of centuries, her marts are de 
 serted, she has shrunken far within her crumbling 
 walls, and her great population has diminished to 
 twenty thousand souls She has but one thing left 
 to boast of, and that is not much; viz., she is the 
 second city of Tuscany. 
 
 We reached Leghorn in time to see all we wished 
 to see of it long before the city gates were closed 
 for the evening, and then came on board the ship. 
 
 We felt as though we had been away from home 
 an age. We never entirely appreciated, before, 
 what a very pleasant den our state-room is; nor 
 how jolly it is to sit at dinner in one s own seat in 
 one s own cabin, and hold familiar conversation 
 with friends in one s own language. Oh, the rare 
 happiness of comprehending every single word that 
 is said, and knowing that every word one says in 
 
The Innocents Abroad 323 
 
 return will be understood as well ! We would talk 
 ourselves to death now, only there are only about 
 ten passengers out of the sixty-five to talk to. The 
 others are wandering, we hardly know where. We 
 shall not go ashore in Leghorn. We are surfeited 
 with Italian cities for the present, and much prefer 
 to walk the familiar quarter-deck and view this one 
 from a distance. 
 
 The stupid magnates of this Leghorn government 
 cannot understand that so large a steamer as ours 
 could cross the broad Atlantic with no other purpose 
 than to indulge a party of ladies and gentlemen in a 
 pleasure excursion. It looks too improbable. It is 
 suspicious, they think. Something more important 
 must be hidden behind it all. They cannot under 
 stand it, and they scorn the evidence of the ship s 
 papers. They have decided at last that we are a 
 battalion of incendiary, blood-thirsty Garibaldians in 
 disguise! And in all seriousness they have set a 
 gunboat to watch the vessel night and day, with 
 orders to close down on any revolutionary movement 
 in a twinkling! Police-boats are on patrol duty 
 about us all the time, and it is as much as a sailor s 
 liberty is worth to show himself in a red shirt. 
 These policemen follow the executive officer s boat 
 from shore to ship and from ship to shore, and 
 watch his dark maneuvers with a vigilant eye. They 
 will arrest him yet unless he assumes an expression 
 of countenance that shall have less of carnage, insur 
 rection, and sedition in it. A visit paid in a friendly 
 u 
 
324 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial 
 invitation) by some of our passengers, has gone far 
 to confirm the dread suspicions the government har 
 bors toward us. It is thought the friendly visit was 
 only the cloak of a bloody conspiracy. These peo 
 ple draw near and watch us when we bathe in the 
 sea from the ship s side. Do they think we are 
 communing with a reserve force of rascals at the 
 bottom ? 
 
 It is said that we shall probably be quarantined at 
 Naples. Two or three of us prefer not to run this 
 risk. Therefore, when we are rested, we propose 
 to go in a French steamer to Civita Vecchia, and 
 from thence to Rome, and by rail to Naples. They 
 do not quarantine the cars, no matter where they 
 got their passengers from, 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THERE are a good many things about this Italy 
 which I do not understand and more espe 
 cially I cannot understand how a bankrupt government 
 can have such palatial railroad depots and such mar 
 vels of turnpikes. Why, these latter are as hard as 
 adamant, as straight as a line, as smooth as a floor, 
 and as white as snow. When it is too dark to see 
 any other object, one can still see the white turnpikes 
 of France and Italy ; and they are clean enough to 
 eat from, without a table-cloth. And yet no tolls 
 are charged. 
 
 As for the railways we have none like them. 
 The cars slide as smoothly along as if they were on 
 runners. The depots are vast palaces of cut marble, 
 with stately colonnades of the same royal stone 
 traversing them from end to end, and with ample 
 walls and ceilings richly decorated with frescoes. 
 The lofty gateways are graced with statues, and the 
 broad floors are all laid in polished flags of marble. 
 
 These things win me more than Italy s hundred 
 galleries of priceless art treasures, because I can 
 understand the one and am not competent to appre- 
 
 (325) 
 
326 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 ciate the other. In the turnpikes, the railways, the 
 depots, and the new boulevards of uniform houses 
 in Florence and other cities here, I see the genius of 
 Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see the works of that 
 statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that 
 in France there shall be a foundation for these im 
 provements money. He has always the where 
 withal to back up his projects; they strengthen 
 France and never weaken her. Her material pros 
 perity is genuine. But here the case is different. 
 This country is bankrupt. There is no real founda 
 tion for these great works. The prosperity they 
 would seem to indicate is a pretense. There is no 
 money in the treasury, and so they enfeeble her 
 instead of strengthening. Italy has achieved the 
 dearest wish of her heart and become an independent 
 state and in so doing she has drawn an elephant 
 in the political lottery. She has nothing to feed it 
 on. Inexperienced in government, she plunged into 
 all manner of useless expenditure, and swamped her 
 treasury almost in a day. She squandered millions 
 of francs on a navy which she did not need, and the 
 first time she took her new toy into action she got 
 it knocked higher than Gilderoy s kite to use the 
 language of the Pilgrims. 
 
 But it is an ill-wind that blows nobody good. A 
 year ago, when Italy saw utter ruin staring her in 
 the face and her greenbacks hardly worth the paper 
 they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon 
 a coup de main that would have appalled the stoutest 
 
The Innocents Abroad 327 
 
 of her statesmen under less desperate circumstances. 
 They, in a manner, confiscated the domains of the 
 Church ! This in priest-ridden Ita 1 y ! This in a 
 land which has groped in the midnight of priestly 
 superstition for sixteen hundred years ! It was a 
 rare good fortune for Italy, the stress of weather 
 that drove her to break from this prison-house. 
 
 They do not call it confiscating the church prop 
 erty. That would sound too harshly yet. But it 
 amounts to that. There are thousands of churches 
 in Italy, each with untold millions of treasures stored 
 away in its closets, and each with its battalion of 
 priests to be supported. And then there are the 
 estates of the Church league on league of the 
 richest lands and the noblest forests in all Italy all 
 yielding immense revenues to the Church, and none 
 paying a cent in taxes to the state. In some great 
 districts the Church owns all the property lands, 
 water-courses, woods, mills and factories. They buy, 
 they sell, they manufacture, and since they pay no 
 taxes, who can hope to compete with them ! 
 
 Well, the government has seized all this in effect, 
 and will yet seize it in rigid and unpoetical reality, 
 no doubt. Something must be done to feed a 
 starving treasury, and there is no other resource in 
 all Italy none but the riches of the Church. So the 
 government intends to take to itself a great portion 
 of the revenues arising from priestly farms, factories, 
 etc., and also intends to take possession of the 
 churches and carry them on, after its own fashion 
 
328 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and upon its own responsibility. In a few instances 
 it will leave the establishments of great pet churches 
 undisturbed, but in all others only a handful of 
 priests will be retained to preach and pray, a few will 
 be pensioned, and the balance turned adrift. 
 
 Pray glance at some of these churches and their 
 embellishments, and see whether the government is 
 doing a righteous thing or not. In Venice, to-day, 
 a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, there are 
 twelve hundred priests. Heaven only knows how 
 many there were before the Parliament reduced their 
 numbers. There was the great Jesuit Church. 
 Under the old regime it required sixty priests to 
 engineer it the government does it with five now, 
 and the others are discharged from service. All 
 about that church wretchedness and poverty abound. 
 At its door a dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to 
 us, as many heads were humbly bowed, and as many 
 hands extended, appealing for pennies appealing 
 with foreign words we could not understand, but 
 appealing mutely, with sad eyes, and sunken cheeks, 
 and ragged raiment, that no words were needed to 
 translate. Then we passed within the great doors, 
 and it seemed that the riches of the world were 
 before us! Huge columns carved out of single 
 masses of marble, and inlaid from top to bottom 
 with a hundred intricate figures wrought in costly 
 verde antique; pulpits of the same rich materials, 
 whose draperies hung down in many a pictured fold, 
 the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of 
 
The Innocents Abroad 329 
 
 the loom; the grand altar brilliant with polished 
 facings and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, 
 verde antique, and other precious stones, whose 
 names, even, we seldom hear and slabs of price 
 less lapis lazuli lavished everywhere as recklessly as 
 if the church had owned a quarry of it. In the 
 midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold and 
 silver furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial. 
 Even the floors and ceilings cost a princely fortune. 
 
 Now, where is the use of allowing all those riches 
 to lie idle, while half of that community hardly 
 know, from day to day, how they are going to keep 
 body and soul together? And, where is the wisdom 
 in permitting hundreds upon hundreds of millions of 
 francs to be locked up in the useless trumpery of 
 churches all over Italy, and the people ground to 
 death with taxation to uphold a perishing govern 
 ment? 
 
 As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred 
 years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, 
 and all her industry to the building up of a vast 
 array of wonderful church edifices, and starving half 
 her citizens to accomplish it. She is to-day one vast 
 museum of magnificence and misery. All the 
 churches in an ordinary American city put together 
 could hardly buy the jeweled frippery in one of he* 
 hundred cathedrals. And for every beggar in 
 America, Italy can show a hundred and rags and 
 vermin to match. It is the wretchedest, princeliest 
 land on earth. 
 
330 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 V 
 
 Look at the grand Duomo of Florence a vast 
 pile that has been sapping the purses of her citizens 
 for five hundred years, and is not nearly finished 
 yet. Like all other men, I fell down and wor 
 shiped it, but when the filthy beggars swarmed 
 around me the contrast was too striking, too sug 
 gestive, and I said, * Oh, sons of classic Italy, is 
 the spirit of enterprise, of self-reliance, of noble 
 endeavor, utterly dead within ye? Curse your 
 indolent worthlessness, why don t you rob your 
 church?" 
 
 Three hundred happy, comfortable priests are 
 employed in that cathedral. 
 
 And now that my temper is up, I may as well go 
 on and abuse everybody I can think of. They have 
 a grand mausoleum in Florence, which they built to 
 bury our Lord and Saviour and the Medici family 
 in. It sounds blasphemous, but tt is true, and here 
 they act blasphemy. The dead and damned Medicis 
 who cruelly tyrannized over Florence and were her 
 curse for over two hundred years, are salted away in 
 a circle of costly vaults, and in their midst the Holy 
 Sepulchre was to have been set up. The expedition 
 sent to Jerusalem to seize it got into trouble and 
 could not accomplish the burglary, and so the center 
 of the mausoleum is vacant now. They say the 
 entire mausoleum was intended for the Holy Sepul 
 chre, and was only turned into a family burying 
 place after the Jerusalem expedition failed but 
 you will excuse me. Some of those Medicis would 
 
The Innocents Abroad 331 
 
 have smuggled themselves in sure. What they had 
 not the effrontery to do, was not worth doing. 
 Why, they had their trivial, forgotten exploits on 
 land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes (as did 
 also the ancient doges of Venice) with the Saviour 
 and the Virgin throwing bouquets to them out of the 
 clouds, and the Deity himself applauding from his 
 throne in Heaven ! And who painted these things? 
 Why, Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Raphael 
 none other than the world s idols, the " old mas 
 ters/ 
 
 Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures 
 that must save them forever from the oblivion they 
 merited, and they let him starve. Served him right. 
 Raphael pictured such infernal villains as Catherine 
 and Marie de Medici seated in heaven and con 
 versing familiarly with the Virgin Mary and the 
 angels (to say nothing of higher personages), and 
 yet my friends abuse me because I am a little preju 
 diced against the old masters because I fail some 
 times to see the beauty that is in their productions. 
 I cannot help but see it, now and then, but I keep 
 on protesting against the groveling spirit that could 
 persuade those masters to prostitute their noble 
 talents to the adulation of such monsters as the 
 French, Venetian, and Florentine princes of two and 
 three hundred years ago, all the same. 
 
 I am told that the old masters had to do these 
 shameful things for bread, the princes and potentates 
 being the only patrons of art. If a grandly gifted 
 
332 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt 
 for bread rather than starve with the nobility that is 
 in him untainted, the excuse is a valid one. It 
 would excuse theft in Washingtons and Wellingtons, 
 and unchastity in women as well. 
 
 But, somehow, I cannot keep that Medici mauso 
 leum out of my memory. It is as large as a church ; 
 its pavement is rich enough for the pavement of a 
 king s palace; its great dome is gorgeous with fres 
 coes; its walls are made of what? Marble? 
 plaster ? wood ? paper ? No. Red porphyry 
 verde antique jasper oriental agate alabaster 
 mother-of-pearl chalcedony red coral lapis 
 lazuli ! All the vast walls are made wholly of these 
 precious stones, worked in and in and in together 
 in elaborate patterns and figures, and polished till 
 they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splen 
 dors reflected from the dome overhead. And before 
 a statue of one of those dead Medicis reposes a 
 crown that blazes with diamonds and emeralds 
 enough to buy a ship-of-the-line, almost. These 
 are the things the government has its evil eye upon, 
 and a happy thing it will be for Italy when they 
 melt away in the public treasury. 
 
 And now . However, another beggar ap 
 proaches. I will go out and destroy him, and then 
 come back and write another chapter of vituperation. 
 
 Having eaten the friendless orphan having 
 driven away his comrades having grown calm and 
 reflective at length I now feel in a kindlier mood. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 333 
 
 I feel that after talking so freely about the priests 
 and the churches, justice demands that if I know 
 anything good about either I ought to say it. I 
 have heard of many things that redound to the 
 credit of the priesthood, but the most notable matter 
 that occurs to me now is the devotion one of the 
 mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of 
 the cholera last year. I speak of the Dominican 
 friars men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe 
 and a cowl, in this hot climate, and go barefoot. 
 They live on alms altogether, I believe. They must 
 unquestionably love their religion, to suffer so much 
 for it. When the cholera was raging in Naples; 
 when the people were dying by hundreds and hun 
 dreds every day ; when every concern for the public 
 welfare was swallowed up in selfish private interest, 
 and every citizen made the taking care of himself 
 his sole object, these men banded themselves together 
 and went about nursing the sick and burying the 
 dead. Their noble efforts cost many of them their 
 lives. They laid them down cheerfully, and well 
 they might. Creeds mathematically precise, and 
 hair-splitting niceties of doctrine, are absolutely, 
 necessary for the salvation of some kinds of souls, 
 but surely the charity, the purity, the unselfishness 
 that are in the hearts of men like these would save 
 their souls though they were bankrupt in the true 
 religion which is ours. 
 
 One of these fat barefooted rascals came here to 
 Civita Vecchia with us in the little French steamer. 
 
334 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 There were only half a dozen of us in the cabin. 
 He belonged in the steerage. He was the life of the 
 ship, the bloody-minded son of the Inquisition ! He 
 and the leader of the marine band of a French man- 
 of-war played on the piano and sang opera turn 
 about; they sang duets together; they rigged im 
 promptu theatrical costumes and gave us extravagant 
 farces and pantomimes. We got along first-rate 
 with the friar, and were excessively conversational, 
 albeit he could not understand what we said, and 
 certainly he never uttered a word that we could 
 guess the meaning of. 
 
 This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt, 
 vermin, and ignorance we have found yet, except 
 that African perdition they call Tangier, which is 
 just like it. The people here live in alleys two 
 yards wide, which have a smell about them which is 
 peculiar but not entertaining. It is well the alleys 
 are not wider, because they hold as much smell now 
 as a person can stand, and, of course, if they were 
 wider they would hold more, and then the people 
 would die. These alleys are paved with stone, and 
 carpeted with deceased cats, and decayed rags, and 
 decomposed vegetable tops, and remnants of old 
 boots, all soaked with dish-water, and the people sit 
 around on stools and enjoy it. They are indolent, 
 as a general thing, and yet have few pastimes. 
 They work two or three hours at a time, but not 
 hard, and then they knock off and catch flies. This 
 does not require any talent, because they only have 
 
The Innocents Abroad 335 
 
 to grab if they do not get the one they are after, 
 they get another. It is all the same to them. They 
 have no partialities. Whichever one they get is the 
 one they want. 
 
 They have other kinds of insects, but it does not 
 make them arrogant. They are very quiet, unpre 
 tending people. They have more of these kind of 
 things than other communities, but they do not 
 boast. 
 
 They are very uncleanly these people in face, 
 in person, and dress. When they see anybody with 
 a clean shirt on, it arouses their scorn. The women 
 wash clothes, half the day, at the public tanks in 
 the streets, but they are probably somebody else s. 
 Or may be they keep one set to wear and another 
 to wash ; because they never put on any that have 
 ever been washed. When they get done wash 
 ing, they sit in the alleys and nurse their cubs. 
 They nurse one ash-cat at a time, and the others 
 scratch their backs against the door-post and are 
 happy. 
 
 All this country belongs to the Papal states. 
 They do not appear to have any schools here, and 
 only one billiard table. Their education is at a 
 very low stage. One portion of the men go into the 
 military, another into the priesthood, and the rest 
 into the shoemaking business. 
 
 They keep up the passport system here, but so 
 they do in Turkey. This shows that the Papal 
 states are as far advanced as Turkey. This fact will 
 
336 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 be alone sufficient to silence the tongues of malignant 
 calumniators. I had to get my passport vis<?d for 
 Rome in Florence, and then they would not let me 
 come ashore here until a policeman had examined it 
 on the wharf and sent me a permit. They did not 
 even dare to let me take my passport in my hands 
 for twelve hours, I looked so formidable. They 
 judged it best to let me cool down. They thought 
 I wanted to take the town, likely. Little did they 
 know me. I wouldn t have it. They examined my 
 baggage at the depot. They took one of my ablest 
 jokes and read it over carefully twice and then read 
 it backwards. But it was too deep for them. They 
 passed it around, and everybody speculated on it 
 awhile, but it mastered them all. 
 
 It was no common joke. At length a veteran 
 officer spelled it over deliberately and shook his head 
 three or four times and said that, in his opinion, it 
 was seditious. That was the first time I felt 
 alarmed. I immediately said I would explain the 
 document, and they crowded around. And so 
 I explained and explained and explained, and they 
 took notes of all I said, but the more I explained 
 the more they could not understand it, and when 
 they desisted at last, I could not even understand it 
 myself. They said they believed it was an incen 
 diary document, leveled at the government. I de 
 clared solemnly that it was not, but they only shook 
 their heads and would not be satisfied. Then they 
 consulted a good while ; and finally they confiscated 
 
The Innocents Abroad 337 
 
 it. I was very sorry for this, because I had worked 
 a long time on that joke, and took a good deal of 
 pride in it, and now I suppose I shall never see it 
 any more. I suppose it will be sent up and filed 
 away among the criminal archives of Rome, and 
 will always be regarded as a mysterious infernal 
 machine which would have blown up like a mine and 
 scattered the good Pope all around, but for a 
 miraculous providential interference. And I sup 
 pose that all the time I am in Rome the police will 
 dog me about from place to place because they 
 think I am a dangerous character. 
 
 It is fearfully hot in Civita Vecchia. The streets 
 are made very narrow and the houses built very 
 solid and heavy and high, as a protection against 
 the heat. This is the first Italian town I have seen 
 which does not appear to have a patron saint. I 
 suppose no saint but the one that went up in the 
 chariot of fire could stand the climate. 
 
 There is nothing here to see. They have not 
 even a cathedral, with eleven tons of solid silver 
 archbishops in the back room; and they do not 
 show you any moldy buildings that are seven thou 
 sand years old ; nor any smoke-dried old fire-screens 
 which are chef d oeuvres of Rubens or Simpson, or 
 Titian or Ferguson, or any of those parties; and 
 they haven t any bottled fragments of saints, and 
 not even a nail from the true cross. We are going 
 to Rome. There is nothing to see here. 
 22. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 WHAT is it that confers the noblest delight? 
 What is that which swells a man s breast with 
 pride above that which any other experience can 
 bring to him? Discovery! To know that you are 
 walking where none others have walked ; that you 
 are beholding what human eye has not seen before; 
 that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To 
 give birth to an idea to discover a great thought 
 an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a 
 field that many a brain-plow had gone over before. 
 To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find 
 the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. 
 To be \hzjirst that is the idea. To do some 
 thing, say something, see something, before anybody 
 else -these are the things that confer a pleasure 
 compared with which other pleasures are tame and 
 commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. 
 Morse, with his first message, brought by his 
 servant, the lightning; Fulton, in that long-drawn 
 century of suspense, when he placed his hand upon 
 the throttle-valve, and lo, the steamboat moved; 
 Jenner, when his patient with the cow s virus in his 
 
 (338) 
 
The Innocents Abroad 339 
 
 blood, walked through the small-pox hospitals un 
 scathed ; Howe, when the idea shot through his 
 brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the 
 eye had been bored through the wrong end of the 
 needle ; the nameless lord of art who laid down his 
 chisel in some old age that is forgotten now, and 
 gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when 
 he commanded the sun, riding in the zenith, to print 
 the landscape upon his insignificant silvered plate, 
 and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta s shrouds, 
 when he swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed 
 abroad upon an unknown world ! These are the 
 men who have really lived who have actually 
 comprehended what pleasure is who have crowded 
 long lifetimes of ecstasy into a single moment. 
 
 What is there in Rome for me to see that others 
 have not seen before me ? What is there for me to 
 touch that others have not touched ? What is there 
 for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall 
 thrill me before it pass to others? What can I dis 
 cover? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. One charm 
 of travel dies here. But if I were only a Roman ! 
 If, added to my own I could be gifted with modern 
 Roman sloth, modern Roman superstition, and 
 modern Roman boundlessness of ignorance, what 
 bewildering worlds of unsuspected wonders I would 
 discover! Ah, if I were only a habitant of the 
 Campagna five and twenty miles from Rome ! 
 Then I would travel. 
 
 I would go to America, and see, and learn, and 
 
340 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 return to the Campagna and stand before my 
 countrymen an illustrious discoverer. I would say : 
 " I saw there a country which has no overshadow 
 ing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I 
 saw a government which never was protected by 
 foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required 
 to carry on the government itself. I saw common 
 men and common women who could read ; I even 
 saw small children of common country people read 
 ing from books ; if I dared think you would believe 
 it, I would say they could write, also. In the cities 
 I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of 
 chalk and water, but never once saw goats driven 
 through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania avenue 
 or their Montgomery street and milked at the doors 
 of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the 
 houses of even the commonest people. Some of 
 the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks ; I 
 solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses 
 there will take fire and burn, sometimes actually 
 burn entirely down, and not leave a single vestige 
 behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my 
 death-bed. And as a proof that the circumstance is 
 not rare, I aver that they have a thing which they 
 call a fire-engine, which vomits forth great streams 
 of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night 
 and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. 
 You would think one engine would be sufficient, but 
 some great cities have a hundred; they keep men 
 hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing 
 
The Innocents Abroad 341 
 
 but put out fires. For a certain sum of money other 
 men will insure that your house shall not burn 
 down; and if it burns they will pay you for it. 
 There are hundreds and thousands of schools, and 
 anybody may go and learn to be wise, like a priest. 
 In that singular country, if a rich man dies a sinner, 
 he is damned ; he cannot buy salvation with money 
 for masses. There is really not much use in being 
 rich, there. Not much use as far as the other world 
 is concerned, but much, very much use, as concerns 
 this; because there, if a man be rich, he is very 
 greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a 
 governor, a general, a senator, no matter how igno 
 rant an ass he is just as in our beloved Italy the 
 nobles hold all the great places, even though some 
 times they are born noble idiots. There, if a man 
 be rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him 
 to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated 
 beverages ; but if he be poor and in debt, they re 
 quire him to do that which they term to * settle. 
 The women put on a different dress almost every 
 day; the dress is usually fine, but absurd in shape; 
 the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a 
 hundred years ; and did I but covet to be called an 
 extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed even 
 oftener. Hair does not grow upon the American 
 women s heads; it is made for them by cunning 
 workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled 
 into scandalous and ungodly forms. Some persons 
 wear eyes of glass which they see through with 
 
342 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 facility perhaps, else they would not use them; and 
 in the mouths of some are teeth made by the sacri 
 legious hand of man. The dress of the men is 
 laughably grotesque. They carry no musket in 
 ordinary life, nor no long-pointed pole ; they wear 
 no wide green-lined cloak; they wear no peaked 
 black felt hat, no leathern gaiters reaching to the 
 knee, no goatskin breeches with the hair side out, 
 no hob-nailed shoes, no prodigious spurs. They 
 wear a conical hat termed a nail-kag ; a coat of 
 saddest black; a shirt which shows dirt so easily 
 that it has to be changed every month, and is very 
 troublesome; things called pantaloons, which are 
 held up by shoulderstraps, and on their feet they 
 wear boots which are ridiculous in pattern and can 
 stand no wear. Yet dressed in this fantastic garb, 
 these people laughed at my costume. In that 
 country, books are so common that it is really no 
 curiosity to see one. Newspapers also. They have 
 a great machine which prints such things by thou 
 sands every hour. 
 
 "I saw common men there men who were 
 neither priests nor princes who yet absolutely 
 owned the land they tilled. It was not rented from 
 the church, nor from the nobles. I am ready to 
 take my oath of this. In that country you might 
 fall from a third-story window three several times, 
 and not mash either a soldier or a priest. The 
 scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities 
 you will see a dozen civilians for every soldier, and 
 
The Innocents Abroad 343 
 
 as many for every priest or preacher. Jews, there, 
 are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs. 
 They can work at any business they please ; they 
 can sell brand new goods if they want to ; they can 
 keep drugstores ; they can practice medicine among 
 Christians ; they can even shake hands with Chris 
 tians if they choose ; they can associate with them, 
 just the same as one human being does with another 
 human being; they don t have to stay shut up in 
 one corner of the towns ; they can live in any part 
 of a town they like best ; it is said they even have 
 the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning 
 them themselves, though I doubt that myself; they 
 never have had to run races naked through the 
 public streets, against jackasses, to please the people 
 in carnival time ; there they never have been driven 
 by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hun 
 dreds of years to hear themselves and their religion 
 especially and particularly cursed ; at this very day, 
 in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, 
 hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public 
 street and express his opinion of the government if 
 the government don t suit him ! Ah, it is wonder 
 ful. The common people there know a great deal ; 
 they even have the effrontery to complain if they 
 are not properly governed, and to take hold and 
 help conduct the government themselves; if they 
 had laws like ours, which give one dollar of every 
 three a crop produces to the government for taxes, 
 they would have that law altered ; instead of paying 
 
344 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 thirty-three dollars in taxes, out of every one hun 
 dred they receive, they complain if they have to pay 
 seven. They are curious people. They do not 
 know when they are well off. Mendicant priests do 
 not prowl among them with baskets begging for the 
 church and eating up their substance. One hardly 
 ever sees a minister of the Gospel going around 
 there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for 
 subsistence. In that country the preachers are not 
 like our mendicant orders of friars they have two 
 or three suits of clothing, and they wash sometimes. 
 In that land are mountains far higher than the Alban 
 mountains; the vast Roman Campagna, a hundred 
 miles long and full forty broad, is really small com 
 pared to the United States of America; the Tiber, 
 that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its 
 mighty course almost two hundred miles, and which 
 a lad can scarcely throw a stone across at Rome, is 
 not so long, nor yet so wide, as the American 
 Mississippi nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hud 
 son. In America the people are absolutely wiser 
 and know much more than their grandfathers did. 
 They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet 
 with a three-cornered block of wood that merely 
 scratches the top of the ground. We do that be 
 cause our fathers did, three thousand years ago, I 
 suppose. But those people have no holy reverence 
 for their ancestors. They plow with a plow that is 
 a sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts into the 
 earth full five inches. And this is not all. They 
 
The Innocents Abroad 345 
 
 cut their grain with a horrid machine that mows 
 down whole fields in a day. If I dared, I would say 
 that sometimes they use a blasphemous plow that 
 works by fire and vapor and tears up an acre of 
 ground in a single hour but but I see by your 
 looks that you do not believe the things I am telling 
 you. Alas, my character is ruined, and I am a 
 branded speaker of untruths." 
 
 Of course we have been to the monster Church of 
 St. Peter, frequently. I knew its dimensions. I 
 knew it was a prodigious structure. I knew it was 
 just about the length of the capitol at Washington 
 say seven hundred and thirty feet. I knew it was 
 three hundred and sixty-four feet wide, and conse 
 quently wider than the capitol. I knew that the 
 cross on the top of the dome of the church was four 
 hundred and thirty-eight feet above the ground, and 
 therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and 
 twenty-five feet higher than the dome of the capitol. 
 Thus I had one gauge. I wished to come as near 
 forming a correct idea of how it was going to look 
 as possible ; I had a curiosity to see how much I 
 would err. I erred considerably. St. Peter s did 
 not look nearly so large as the capitol, and certainly 
 not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the outside. 
 
 When we reached the door, and stood fairly within 
 the church, it was impossible to comprehend that it 
 was a very large building. I had to cipher a com 
 prehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for 
 some more similes. St. Peter s is bulky. Its height 
 
346 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 and size would represent two of the Washington 
 capitol set one on top of the other if the capitol 
 were wider ; or two blocks or two blocks and a half 
 of ordinary buildings set one on top of the other. 
 St. Peter s was that large, but it could and would 
 not look so. The trouble was that everything in it 
 and about it was on such a scale of uniform vastness 
 that there were no contrasts to judge by none but 
 the people, and I had not noticed them. They 
 were insects. The statues of children holding vases 
 of holy water were immense, according to the tables 
 of figures, but so was everything else around them. 
 The mosaic pictures in the dome were huge, and 
 were made of thousands and thousands of cubes of 
 glass as large as the end of my little finger, but 
 those pictures looked smooth, and gaudy of color, 
 and in good proportion to the dome. Evidently 
 they would not answer to measure by. Away down 
 toward the far end of the church (I thought it was 
 really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward 
 that it was in the center, under the dome) stood the 
 thing they call the baldacchino a great bronze 
 pyramidal frame-work like that which upholds a 
 mosquito-bar. It only looked like a considerably 
 magnified bedstead nothing more. Yet I knew it 
 was a good deal more than half as high as Niagara 
 Falls. It was overshadowed by a dome so mighty 
 that its own height was snubbed. The four great 
 square piers or pillars that stand equidistant from 
 each other in the church, and support the roof, I 
 
The Innocents Abroad 347 
 
 could not work up to their real dimensions by any 
 method of comparison. I knew that the faces of 
 each were about the width of a very large dwelling- 
 house front (fifty or sixty feet), and that they were 
 twice as high as an ordinary three-story dwelling, 
 but still they looked small. I tried all the different 
 ways I could think of to compel myself to under 
 stand how large St. Peter s was, but with small suc 
 cess. The mosaic portrait of an Apostle who was 
 writing with a pen six feet long seemed only an 
 ordinary Apostle. 
 
 But the people attracted my attention after a 
 while. To stand in the door of St. Peter s and look 
 at men down toward its further extremity, two blocks 
 away, has a diminishing effect on them; surrounded 
 by the prodigious pictures and statues, and lost in 
 the vast spaces, they look very much smaller than 
 they would if they stood two blocks away in the 
 open air. I "averaged" a man as he passed me 
 and watched him as he drifted far down by the 
 baldacchino and beyond watched him dwindle to 
 an insignificant school-boy, and then, in the midst 
 of the silent throng of human pigmies gliding about 
 him, I lost him. The church had lately been 
 decorated, on the occasion of a great ceremony in 
 honor of St. Peter, and men were engaged now in 
 removing the flowers and gilt paper from the walls 
 and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great 
 heights, the men swung themselves down from 
 balustrades and the capitals of pilasters by ropes, to 
 
348 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 do this work. The upper gallery which encircles 
 the inner sweep of the dome is two hundred and 
 forty feet above the floor of the church very few 
 steeples in America could reach up to it. Visitors 
 always go up there to look down into the church 
 because one gets the best idea of some of the 
 heights and distances from that point. While we 
 stood on the floor one of the workmen swung loose 
 from that gallery at the end of a long rope. I had 
 not supposed, before, that a man could look so 
 much like a spider. He was insignificant in size, 
 and his rope seemed only a thread. Seeing that he 
 took up so little space, I could believe the story, 
 then, that ten thousand troops went to St. Peter s 
 once to hear mass, and their commanding officer 
 came afterward, and not finding them, supposed 
 they had not yet arrived. But they were in the 
 church, nevertheless they were in one of the 
 transepts. Nearly fifty thousand persons assembled 
 in St. Peter s to hear the publishing of the dogma of 
 the Immaculate Conception. It is estimated that the 
 floor of the church affords standing room for for a 
 large number of people ; I have forgotten the exact 
 figures. But it is no matter it is near enough. 
 
 They have twelve small pillars, in St. Peter s, 
 which came from Solomon s Temple. They have, 
 also which was far more interesting to me a 
 piece of the true cross, and some nails, and a part 
 of the crown of thorns. 
 
 Of course, we ascended to the summit of the 
 
The Innocents Abroad 349 
 
 dome, and, of course, we also went up into the gilt 
 copper ball which is above it. There was room 
 there for a dozen persons, with a little crowding, and 
 it was as close and hot as an oven. Some of those 
 people who are so fond of writing their names in 
 prominent places had been there before us a 
 million or two, I should think. From the dome of 
 St. Peter s one can see every notable object in 
 Rome, from the Castle of St. Angelo to the 
 Coliseum. He can discern the seven hills upon 
 which Rome is built. He can see the Tiber, and 
 the locality of the bridge which Horatius kept " in 
 the brave days of old when Lars Porsena attempted 
 to cross it with his invading host. He can see the 
 spot where the Horatii and the Curiatii fought their 
 famous battle. He can see the broad green Cam- 
 pagna, stretching away toward the mountains, with 
 its scattered arches and broken aqueducts of the 
 olden time, so picturesque in their gray ruin, and so 
 daintily festooned with vines. He can see the Alban 
 Mountains, the Apennines, the Sabine Hills, and 
 the blue Mediterranean. He can see a panorama 
 that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and 
 more illustrious in history than any other tn Europe. 
 About his feet is spread the remnant of a city that 
 once had a population of four million souls; and 
 among its massed edifices stand the ruins of temples, 
 columns, and triumphal arches that knew the 
 Caesars, and the noonday of Roman splendor; and 
 close by them, in unimpaired strength, is a drain of 
 
350 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 arched and heavy masonry that belonged to that 
 older city which stood here before Romulus and 
 Remus were born or Rome thought of. The Appian 
 Way is here yet, and looking much as it did, per 
 haps, when the triumphal processions of the emper 
 ors moved over it in other days bringing fettered 
 princes from the confines of the earth. We cannot 
 see the long array of chariots and mail-clad men 
 laden with the spoils of conquest, but we can 
 imagine the pageant, after a fashion. We look out 
 upon many objects of interest from the dome of St. 
 Peter s; and last of all, almost at our feet, our eyes 
 rest upon the building which was once the Inquisi 
 tion. How times changed, between the older ages 
 and the new ! Some seventeen or eighteen centuries 
 ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put 
 Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and 
 turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It 
 was for a lesson as well. It was to teach the people 
 to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of 
 Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims 
 limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of 
 them in the twinkling of an eye. But when the 
 Christians came into power, when the holy Mother 
 Church became mistress of the barbarians, she 
 taught them the error of their ways by no such 
 means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisi 
 tion and pointed to the Blessed Redeemer, who was 
 so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they 
 urged the barbarians to love him ; and they did all 
 
The Innocents Abroad 351 
 
 they could to persuade them to love and honor him 
 first by twisting their thumbs out of joint with a 
 screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers 
 red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable 
 in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a 
 little, and finally by roasting them in public. They 
 always convinced those barbarians. The true reli 
 gion, properly administered, as the good Mother 
 Church used to administer it, is very, very soothing. 
 It is wonderfully persuasive, also. There is a great 
 difference between feeding parties to wild beasts and 
 stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. 
 One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other 
 of enlightened, civilized people. It is a great pity 
 the playful Inquisition is no more. 
 
 I prefer not to describe St. Peter s. It has been 
 done before. The ashes of Peter, the disciple of 
 the Saviour, repose in a crypt under the baldacchino, 
 We stood reverently in that place ; so did we also in 
 the Mamertine Prison, where he was confined, where 
 he converted the soldiers, and where tradition says 
 he caused a spring of water to flow in order that he 
 might baptize them. But when they showed us the 
 print of Peter s face in the hard stone of the prison 
 wall and said he made that by falling up against it, 
 we doubted. And when, also, the monk at the 
 Church of San Sebastian showed us a paving stone 
 with two great footprints in it and said that Peter s 
 feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such 
 things do not impress one. The monk said that 
 
352 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 angels came and liberated Peter from prison by 
 night, and he started away from Rome by the Ap- 
 pian Way. The Saviour met him and told him to 
 go back, which he did. Peter left those footprints 
 in the stone upon which he stood at the time. It 
 was not stated how it was ever discovered whose 
 footprints they were, seeing the interview occurred 
 secretly and at night. The print of the face in the 
 prison was that of a man of common size ; the foot 
 prints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. 
 The discrepancy confirmed our unbelief. 
 
 We necessarily visited the Forum, where Caesar 
 was assassinated, and also the Tarpeian Rock. We 
 saw the Dying Gladiator at the Capitol, and I think 
 that even we appreciated that wonder of art; as 
 much, perhaps, as we did that fearful story wrought 
 in marble, in the Vatican the Laocoon. And 
 then the Coliseum. 
 
 Everybody knows the picture of the Coliseum; 
 everybody recognizes at once that " looped and 
 windowed " band-box with a side bitten out. Being 
 rather isolated, it shows to better advantage than 
 any other of the monuments of ancient Rome. 
 Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose pagan altars 
 uphold the cross now, and whose Venus, tricked out 
 in consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty as a 
 Virgin Mary to-day, is built about with shabby 
 houses and its stateliness sadly marred. But the 
 monarch of all European ruins, the Coliseum, 
 maintains that reserve and that royal seclusion which 
 
The Innocents Abroad 353 
 
 is proper to majesty. Weeds and flowers spring 
 from its massy arches and its circling seats, and 
 vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An 
 impressive silence broods over the monstrous struc 
 ture where such multitudes of men and women were 
 wont to assemble in other days. The butterflies 
 have taken the places of the queens of fashion and 
 beauty of eighteen centuries ago, and the lizards sun 
 themselves in the sacred seat of the emperor. More 
 vividly than all the written histories, the Coliseum 
 tells the story of Rome s grandeur and Rome s 
 decay. It is the worthiest type of both that exists. 
 Moving about the Rome of to-day, we might find it 
 hard to believe in her old magnificence and her 
 millions of population ; but with this stubborn evi 
 dence before us that she was obliged to have a 
 theater with sitting room for eighty thousand per 
 sons and standing room for twenty thousand more, 
 to accommodate such of her citizens as required 
 amusement, we find belief less difficult. The Coli* 
 seum is over one thousand six hundred feet long, 
 seven hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and 
 sixty-five high. Its shape is oval. 
 
 In America we make convicts useful at the same 
 time that we punish them for their crimes. We 
 farm them out and compel them to earn money for 
 the state by making barrels and building roads. 
 Thus we combine business with retribution, and all 
 things are lovely. But in ancient Rome they com 
 bined religious duty with pleasure. Since it wag 
 23. 
 
354 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 necessary that the new sect called Christians should 
 be exterminated, the people judged it wise to make 
 this work profitable to the state at the same time, 
 and entertaining to the public. In addition to the 
 gladiatorial combats and other shows, they some 
 times threw members of the hated sect into the 
 arena of the Coliseum and turned wild beasts in 
 upon them. It is estimated that seventy thousand 
 Christians suffered martyrdom in this place. This 
 has made the Coliseum holy ground, in the eyes of 
 the followers of the Saviour. And well it might; 
 for if the chain that bound a saint, and the footprints 
 a saint has left upon a stone he chanced to stand 
 upon, be holy, surely the spot where a man gave up 
 his life for his faith is holy. 
 
 Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum 
 was the theater of Rome, and Rome was mistress of 
 the world. Splendid pageants were exhibited here, 
 in presence of the emperor, the great ministers of 
 state, the nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of 
 smaller consequence. Gladiators fought with gladi 
 ators and at times with warrior prisoners from many 
 a distant land. It was the theater of Rome of the 
 wor ld and the man of fashion who could not let 
 fall in a casual and unintentional manner something 
 about " my private box at the Coliseum " could not 
 move in the first circles. When the clothing-store 
 merchant wished to consume the corner-grocery 
 man with envy, he bought secured seats in the front 
 row and let the thing be known. When the irre- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 355 
 
 sistible drygoods clerk wished to blight and destroy, 
 according to his native instinct, he got himself up 
 regardless of expense and took some other fellow s 
 young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the 
 affront by cramming her with ice-cream between the 
 acts, or by approaching the cage and stirring up the 
 martyrs with his whalebone cane for her edification. 
 The Roman swell was in his true element only when 
 he stood up against a pillar and fingered his mous 
 tache unconscious of the ladies; when he viewed the 
 bloody combats through an opera-glass two inches 
 long ; when he excited the envy of provincials by 
 criticisms which showed that he had been to the 
 Coliseum many and many a time and was long ago 
 over the novelty of it; when he turned away with a 
 yawn at last and said : 
 
 He a star ! handles his sword like an apprentice 
 brigand ! he ll do for the country, maybe, but he 
 don t answer for the metropolis!" 
 
 Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit 
 at the Saturday matinee, and happy the Roman 
 street boy who ate his peanuts and guyed the gladi 
 ators from the dizzy gallery. 
 
 For me was reserved the high honor of discover 
 ing among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the 
 cnly playbill of that establishment now extant. 
 There was a suggestive smell of mint drops about it 
 still, a corner of it had evidently been chewed, and 
 on the margin, in choice Latin, these words were 
 written in a delicate female hand : 
 w* 
 
356 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 "Meet me on the Tarpeian Rock to-morrow evening^ dear, at 
 sharp seven. Mother will be absent on a visit to her friends in the 
 Sabine Hills. CLAUDIA." 
 
 Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where 
 the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust 
 and ashes these seventeen hundred years ! 
 
 Thus reads the bill : 
 
 ROMAN COLISEUM. 
 UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION I 
 
 NEW PROPERTIES! NEW LIONS! NEW GLADIATORS I 
 
 Engagement of the renowned 
 
 MARCUS MARCELLUS VALERIAN! 
 
 FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY! 
 
 The management beg leave to offer to the public an entertainment 
 surpassing in magnificence anything that has heretofore been attempted 
 on any stage. No expense has been spared to make the opening season 
 one which shall be worthy the generous patronage which the manage 
 ment feel sure will crown their efforts. The management beg leave to 
 state that they have succeeded in securing the services of a 
 
 GALAXY OF TALENT! 
 such as has not been beheld in Rome before. 
 
 The performance will commence this evening with a 
 GRAND BROADSWORD COMBAT! 
 
 between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthian 
 gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the Camp of Verus. 
 This will be followed by a grand moral 
 
 BATTLE- AX ENGAGEMENT! 
 
 between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him) and 
 two gigantic savages from Britain. 
 
 After which the renowned Valerian (if he survive) will fight with 
 the broadsword, 
 
 LEFT HANDED! 
 against six Sophomores and a Freshman from the Gladiatorial College f 
 
The Innocents Abroad 357 
 
 A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the finest 
 talent of the Empire will take part. 
 
 After which the celebrated Infant Prodigy known as 
 
 1f "THE YOUNG ACHILLES," 
 
 will engage four tiger whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon 
 than his little spear ! 
 
 The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant 
 
 GENERAL SLAUGHTER! 
 
 In which thirteen African Lions and twenty-two Barbarian Prisoners 
 will war with each other until all are exterminated. 
 BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN. 
 
 Dress Circle One Dollar; Children and Servants half price. 
 An efficient police force will be on hand to preserve order and keep 
 the wild beasts from leaping the railings and discommoding the audience. 
 Doors open at 7; performance begins at 8. 
 POSITIVELY NO FREE LIST. 
 
 Diodorus Job Press. 
 
 It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was 
 also so fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the 
 arena a stained and mutilated copy of the Roman 
 Daily Battle-Axe y containing a critique upon this 
 very performance. It comes to hand too late by 
 many centuries to rank as news, and therefore I 
 translate and publish it simply to show how very 
 little the general style and phraseology of dramatic 
 criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged 
 their slow length along since the carriers laid this 
 one damp and fresh before their Roman patrons : 
 
 "THE OPENING SEASON. COLISEUM. Notwithstanding the in 
 clemency of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and 
 fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon metro 
 politan boards of the young tragedian who has of late been winning such 
 golden opinions in the amphitheaters of the provinces. Some sixty 
 
J58 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the streets were 
 almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the house would have been 
 full. His august Majesty, the Emperor Aurelius, occupied the impenal 
 box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many illustrious nobles and 
 generals of the Empire graced the occasion with their presence, and not 
 the least among them was the young patrician lieutenant whose laurels, 
 won in the ranks of the Thundering Legion, are still so green upon 
 his brow. The cheer which greeted his entrance was heard beyond the 
 Tiber ! 
 
 " The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and 
 the comfort of the Coliseum. The new cushions are a great improve 
 ment upon the hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. 
 The present management deserve well of the public. They have re 
 stored to the Coliseum the gilding, the rich upholstery, and the uniform 
 magnificence which old Coliseum frequenters tell us Rome was so proud 
 of fifty years ago. 
 
 "The opening scene last night the broadsword combat between 
 two young amateurs and a famous Parthian gladiator who was sent here 
 a prisoner was very fine. The elder of the two young gentlemen 
 handled his weapon with a grace that marked the possession of extraor 
 dinary talent. His feint of thrusting, followed instantly by a happily 
 delivered blow which unhelmeted the Parthian, was received with hearty 
 applause. He was not thoroughly up in the backhanded stroke, but it 
 was very gratifying to his numerous friends to know that, in time, prac 
 tice would have overcome this defect. However, he was killed. His 
 sisters, who were present, expressed considerable regret. His mother 
 left the Coliseum. The other youth maintained the contest with such 
 spirit as to call forth enthusiastic bursts of applause. When at last he 
 fell a corpse, his aged mother ran screaming, with hair disheveled and 
 tears streaming from her eyes, and swooned away just as her hands were 
 clutching at the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by 
 the police. Under the circumstances the woman s conduct was pardon 
 able, perhaps, but we suggest that such exhibitions interfere with the 
 decorum which should be preserved during the performances, and are 
 highly improper in the presence of the Emperor. The Parthian prisoner 
 fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he was fighting for both 
 life and liberty. His wife and children were there to nerve his arm with 
 their love, and to remind him of the old home he should see again if he 
 conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped her chil- 
 
The Innocents Abroad 559 
 
 dren to her breast and wept for joy. But it was only a transient happi 
 ness. The captive staggered toward her and she saw that the liberty he 
 had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto death. Thus 
 the first act closed in a manner which was entirely satisfactory. Fhe 
 manager was called before the curtain and returned his thanks for the 
 honor done him, in a speech which was replete with wit and humor, and 
 closed by hoping that his humble efforts to afford cheerful and instruc 
 tive entertainment would continue to meet with the approbation of the 
 Roman public. 
 
 " The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applause 
 and the simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus 
 Marcellus Valerian (stage name his real name is Smith) is a splendid 
 specimen of physical development, and an artist of rare merit. His 
 management of the battle-axe is wonderful. His gayety and his playful 
 ness are irresistible, in his comic parts, and yet they are inferior to his 
 sublime conceptions in the grave realm of tragedy. When his axe was 
 describing fiery circles about the heads of the bewildered barbarians, in 
 exact time with his springing body and his prancing legs, the audience 
 gave way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter; but when the back of his 
 weapon broke the skull of one and almost in the same instant its edge 
 clove the other s body hi twain, the howl of enthusiastic applause that 
 shook the building was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage 
 that he was a master of the noblest department of his profession. If he 
 has a fault (and we are sorry to even intimate that he has), it is that of 
 glancing at the audience, in the midst of the most exciting moments of 
 the performance, as if seeking admiration. The pausing in a fight to 
 bow when bouquets are thrown to him is also in bad taste. In the great 
 left-handed combat he appeared to be looking at the audience half the 
 time, instead of carving his adversaries; and when he had slain all the 
 sophomores and was dallying with the freshmen, he stooped and snatched 
 a bouquet as it fell, and offered it to his adversary at a time when a blow 
 was descending which promised favorably to be his death-warrant. 
 Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we make no doubt, but 
 it ill suits the dignity of the metropolis. We trust our young friend will 
 take these remarks in good part, for we mean them solely for his benefit. 
 All who know us are aware that although we are at times justly severe 
 upon tigers and martyrs, we never intentionally offend gladiators. 
 
 "The Infant Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his foui 
 tiger whelps with ease, and with no other hurt than the loss of a portion 
 
360 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 of his scalp. The General Slaughter was rendered with a faithfulness 
 to details which reflects the highest credit upon the late participants in it. 
 
 "Upon the whole, last night s performances shed honor not only 
 upon the management but upon the city that encourages and sustains such 
 wholesome and instructive entertainments. We would simply suggest 
 that the practice of vulgar young boys in the gallery of shying peanuts 
 and paper pellets at the tigers, and saying Hi-yi ! and manifesting 
 approbation or dissatisfaction by such observations as Bully for the 
 lion ! Go it, Gladdy ! Boots ! Speech ! Take a walk round 
 the block ! and so on, are extremely reprehensible, when the Emperor 
 is present, and ought to be stopped by the police. Several times last 
 night, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the 
 bodies, the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, Supe ! supe ! and 
 also, Oh, what a coat ! and Why don t you pad them shanks? and 
 made use of various other remarks expressive of derision. These things 
 are very annoying to the audience. 
 
 " A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on 
 which occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The regular 
 performance will continue every night till further notice. Material 
 change of programme every evening. Benefit of Valerian, Tuesday, 
 29th, if he lives." 
 
 I have been a dramatic critic myself, in my time, 
 and I was often surprised to notice how much more 
 I knew about Hamlet than Forrest did; and it 
 gratifies me to observe, now, how much better my 
 brethren of ancient times knew how a broadsword 
 battle ought to be fought than the gladiators. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 SO far, good. If any man has a right to feel 
 proud of himself, and satisfied, surely it is I. 
 For I have written about the Coliseum and the 
 gladiators, the martyrs and the lions, and yet have 
 never once used the phrase "butchered to make a 
 Roman holiday." I am the only free white man 
 of mature age who has accomplished this since 
 Byron originated the expression. 
 
 Butchered to make a Roman holiiiay sounds well 
 for the first seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand 
 times one sees it in print, but after that it begins to 
 grow tiresome. I find it in all the books concerning 
 Rome and here latterly it reminds me of Judge 
 Oliver. Oliver was a young lawyer, fresh from the 
 schools, who had gone out to the deserts of Nevada 
 to begin life. He found that country, and our 
 ways of life there, in those early days, different 
 from life in New England or Paris. But he put on 
 a woolen shirt and strapped a navy revolver to his 
 person, took to the bacon and beans of the country, 
 and determined to do in Nevada as Nevada did. 
 Oliver accepted the situation so completely that. 
 
562 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 although he must have sorrowed over many of his 
 trials, he never complained that is, he never com 
 plained but once. He, two others, and myself, 
 started to the new silver mines in the Humboldt 
 mountains he to be Probate Judge of Humboldt 
 county, and we to mine. The distance was two 
 hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought 
 a two-horse wagon and put eighteen hundred pounds 
 of bacon, flour, beans, blasting powder, picks, and 
 shovels in it ; we bought two sorry-looking Mexican 
 * plugs," with the hair turned the wrong way and 
 more corners on their bodies than there are on the 
 mosque of Omar; we hitched up and started. It 
 was a dreadful trip. But Oliver did not complain. 
 The horses dragged the wagon two miles from town 
 and then gave out. Then we three pushed the 
 wagon seven miles, and Oliver moved ahead and 
 pulled the horses after him by the bits. We com 
 plained, but Oliver did not. The ground was frozen, 
 and it froze our backs while we slept; the wind 
 swept across our faces and froze our noses. Oliver 
 did not complain. Five days of pushing the wagon 
 by day and freezing by night brought us to the bad 
 part of the journey the Forty Mile Desert, or the 
 Great American Desert, if you please. Still, this 
 mildest-mannered man that ever was had not com 
 plained. We started across at eight in the morning, 
 pushing through sand that had no bottom ; toiling 
 all day long by the wrecks of a thousand wagons, 
 the skeletons of ten thousand oxen ; by wagon-tires 
 
The Innocents Abroad 36) 
 
 enough to hoop the Washington Monument to the 
 top, and ox-chains enough to girdle Long Island ; by 
 human graves ; with our throats parched always with 
 thirst; lips bleeding from the alkali dust; hungry, 
 perspiring, and very, very weary so weary that 
 when we dropped in the sand every fifty yards to 
 rest the horses, we could hardly keep from going to 
 sleep no complaints from Oliver; none the next 
 morning at three o clock, when we got across, tired 
 to death. Awakened two or three nights afterward 
 at midnight, in a narrow canon, by the snow falling 
 on our faces, and appalled at the imminent danger 
 of being " snowed in," we harnessed up and pushed 
 on till eight in the morning, passed the "Divide" 
 and knew we were saved. No complaints. Fifteen 
 days of hardship and fatigue brought us to the end 
 of the two hundred miles, and the judge had not 
 complained. We wondered if anything could exas 
 perate him. We built a Humboldt house. It is 
 done in this way. You dig a square in the steep 
 base of the mountain, and set up two uprights and 
 top them with two joists. Then you stretch a great 
 sheet of * cotton domestic " from the point where 
 the joists join the hillside down over the joists to the 
 ground ; this makes the roof and the front of the 
 mansion ; the sides and back are the dirt walls your 
 digging has left. A chimney is easily made by 
 turning up one corner of the roof. Oliver was sit 
 ting alone in this dismal den, one night, by a sage 
 brush fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of 
 
364 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 digging poetry out of himself or blasting it out 
 when it came hard. He heard an animal s footsteps 
 close to the roof; a stone or two and some dirt 
 came through and fell by him. He grew uneasy 
 and said: "Hi! clear out from there, can t 
 you!" from time to time. But by and by he 
 fell asleep where he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell 
 down the chimney ! The fire flew in every direc 
 tion, and Oliver went over backwards. About ten 
 nights after that he recovered confidence enough to 
 go to writing poetry again. Again he dozed off to 
 sleep, and again a mule fell down the chimney. 
 This time, about half of that side of the house came 
 in with the mule. Struggling to get up, the mule 
 kicked the candle out and smashed most of the 
 kitchen furniture, and raised considerable dust. 
 These violent awakenings must have been annoying 
 to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved to 
 a mansion on the opposite side of the cafion, be 
 cause he had noticed the mules did not go there. 
 One night about eight o clock he was endeavoring to 
 finish his poem, when a stone rolled in then a 
 hoof appeared below the canvas then part of a 
 cow the after part. He leaned back in dread, 
 and shouted "Hooy! hooy! get out of this!" and 
 the cow struggled manfully lost ground steadily 
 dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver 
 could get well away, the entire cow crashed through 
 on to the table and made a shapeless wreck of every 
 thing! 
 
The Innocents Abroad 365 
 
 Then, for the first time in his life, I think, Oliver 
 complained. He said: 
 
 4 * This thing is growing monotonous / 
 
 Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt 
 county. " Butchered to make a Roman holiday" 
 has grown monotonous to me. 
 
 In this connection I wish to say one word about 
 Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the 
 mighty genius of Michael Angelo that man who 
 was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture 
 great in everything he undertook. But I do not 
 want Michael Angelo for breakfast for luncheon 
 for dinner for tea for supper for between 
 meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa f 
 he designed everything; in Milan he or his pupils 
 designed everything; he designed the Lake of Como ; 
 in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we 
 ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In 
 Florence, he painted everything, designed every 
 thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to 
 sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed 
 us the stone. In Pisa he designed everything but 
 the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed 
 that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the 
 perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn 
 and the custom-house regulations of Civita Vecchia. 
 But, here here it is frightful. He designed St. 
 Peter s; he designed the Pope; he designed the 
 Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope s soldiers, the 
 
 Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the 
 
 34 
 
366 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John 
 Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven 
 Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, 
 the Cloaca Maxima the eternal bore designed the 
 Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, 
 he painted everything in it ! Dan said the other day 
 to the guide, " Enough, enough, enough! Say no 
 more ! Lump the whole thing ! say that the Creator 
 made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo !" 
 
 I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so 
 tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yes 
 terday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead. 
 
 But we have taken it out of this guide. He has 
 marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture 
 in the vast corridors of the Vatican ; and through 
 miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other 
 palaces; he has shown us the great picture in the 
 Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to fresco the 
 heavens pretty much all done by Michael Angelo, 
 So with him we have played that game which has 
 vanquished so many guides for us imbecility and 
 idiotic questions. These creatures never suspect 
 they have no idea of a sarcasm, 
 
 He shows us a figure and says: * Statoo brunzo." 
 (Bronze statue.) 
 
 We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks : 
 "By Michael Angelo?" 
 
 " No not know who." 
 
 Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum, 
 The doctor asks: " Michael Angelo?" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 367 
 
 A stare from the guide. " No a thousan* year 
 before he is born." 
 
 Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again: "Michael 
 Angelo?" 
 
 " Oh, mon dieu, genteelmen! Zis is two thousan 
 year before he is born!" 
 
 He grows so tired of that unceasing question 
 sometimes, that he dreads to show us anything at 
 all. The wretch has tried all the ways he can think 
 of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is 
 only responsible for the creation of a part of the 
 world, but somehow he has not succeeded yet. Re 
 lief for overtasked eyes and brain from study and 
 sightseeing is necessary, or we shall become idiotic 
 sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue 
 to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, so much the 
 worse for him. We do. 
 
 In this place I may as well jot down a chapter 
 concerning those necessary nuisances, European 
 guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he 
 could do without his guide ; but knowing he could 
 not, has wished he could get some amusement out 
 of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his 
 society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if 
 our experience can be made useful to others they 
 are welcome to it. 
 
 Guides know about enough English to tangle 
 everything up so that a man can make neither head 
 nor tail of it. They know their story by heart the 
 history of every statue, painting, cathedral, or other 
 
568 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 wonder they show you. They know it and tell it aa 
 a parrot would and if you interrupt, and throw 
 them off the track, they have to go back and begin 
 over again. All their lives long, they are employed 
 in showing strange things to foreigners and listening 
 to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature 
 to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what 
 prompts children to say "smart" things, and do 
 absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when 
 company is present. It is what makes gossips turn 
 out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a 
 startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion 
 it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every 
 day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them 
 into perfect ecstasies of admiration ! He gets so 
 that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer 
 atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never 
 went into ecstasies any more we never admired 
 anything we never showed any but impassible 
 faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the 
 sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had 
 found their weak point. We have made good use of 
 it ever since. We have made some of those people 
 savage, at times, but we have never lost our own 
 serenity. 
 
 The doctor asks the questions, generally, because 
 he can keep his countenance, and look more like an 
 inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the 
 tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes 
 natural to him. 
 
The Innocents Abroad 369 
 
 The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an 
 American party, because Americans so much won 
 der, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion 
 before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there 
 fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mat 
 tress. He was full of animation full of impa 
 tience. He said : 
 
 Come wis me, genteelmen ! come ! I show yoc 
 ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo ! write 
 it himself ! write it wis his own hand ! - come I" 
 
 He took us to the municipal palace. After much 
 impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, 
 the stained and aged document was spread before 
 us. The guide s eyes sparkled. He danced about 
 us and tapped the parchment with his finger : 
 
 "What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? 
 See ! handwriting Christopher Colombo ! write it 
 himself!" 
 
 We looked indifferent unconcerned. The doc 
 tor examined the document very deliberately, during 
 a painful pause. Then he said, without any show of 
 interest : 
 
 * * Ah Ferguson what what did you say was 
 the name of the party who wrote this?" 
 
 * Christopher Colombo ! ze great Christopher 
 Colombo!" 
 
 Another deliberate examination. 
 
 " Ah did he write it himself, or or how?" 
 
 "He write it himself! Christopher Colombo I 
 he s own handwriting, write by himself!" 
 U, 
 
370 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 Then the doctor laid the document down and said : 
 
 * Why, I have seen boys in America only four 
 teen years old that could write better than that." 
 
 * But zis is ze great Christo " 
 
 " I don t care who it is! It s the worst writing I 
 ever saw. Now you mustn t think you can impose 
 on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, 
 by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of 
 penmanship of real merit, trot them out ! and if 
 you haven t, drive on!" 
 
 We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken 
 up, but he made one more venture. He had some 
 thing which he thought would overcome us. He said : 
 
 44 Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show 
 you beautiful, oh, magnificent bust Christopher 
 Colombo! splendid, grand, magnificent!" 
 
 He brought us before the beautiful bust for it 
 was beautiful and sprang back and struck an 
 attitude : 
 
 44 Ah, look, genteelmen! beautiful, grand, 
 bust Christopher Colombo ! beautiful bust, beau 
 tiful pedestal !" 
 
 The doctor put up his eyeglass procured for 
 such occasions : 
 
 44 Ah what did you say this gentleman s name 
 was?" 
 
 4 * Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher 
 Colombo!" 
 
 "Christopher Colombo the great Christopher 
 Colombo. Well, what did he do?" 
 
The Innocents Abroad 371 
 
 " Discover America ! discover America, oh, ze 
 devil!" 
 
 " Discover America. No that statement will 
 hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves. 
 We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo 
 pleasant name is is he dead?" 
 
 " Oh, corpo di Baccho ! three hundred year 1 * 
 
 "What did he die of?" 
 
 " I do not know ! I cannot tell." 
 
 "Small-pox, think?" 
 
 " I do not know, genteelmen ! I do not know 
 what he die of!" 
 
 " Measles, likely?" 
 
 "Maybe maybe I do not know I think 
 he die of somethings." 
 
 " Parents living?" 
 
 "Im-posseeble!" 
 
 "Ah which is the bust and which is the 
 pedestal?" 
 
 " Santa Maria ! zis ze bust ! zis ze pedestal !" 
 
 " Ah, I see, I see happy combination very 
 happy combination, indeed. Is is this the first 
 time this gentleman was ever on a bust?" 
 
 That joke was lost on the foreigner guides can 
 not master the subtleties of the American joke. 
 
 We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. 
 Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vati* 
 can again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We 
 came very near expressing interest, sometimes 
 even admiration it was very hard to keep from it, 
 x* 
 
372 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 We succeeded though. Nobody else ever did, in 
 the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered 
 nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunt 
 ing up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his 
 ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never 
 showed any interest in anything. He had reserved 
 what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the 
 last a royal Egyptian mummy, the best-preserved 
 in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt, 
 so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm 
 came back to him : 
 
 14 See, genteelmen ! Mummy! Mummy!" 
 
 The eyeglass came up as calmly, as deliberately 
 as ever, 
 
 * Ah, Ferguson what did I understand you 
 to say the gentleman s name was?" 
 
 "Name? he got no name! Mummy! 
 "Cyprian mummy!" 
 
 "Yes, yes. Born here?" 
 
 1 * No ! f Gyptian mummy ! 
 
 " Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?" 
 
 <c No ! not Frenchman, not Roman ! born in 
 Egypta!" 
 
 " Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta be 
 fore. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy mummy. 
 How calm he is how self-possessed. Is, ah is 
 he dead?" 
 
 " Oh, sacrt bleu, been dead three thousan year!" 
 
 The doctor turned on him savagely: 
 
 " Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct 
 
"IS HE DEAD ? 
 
The Innocents Abroad 37J 
 
 as this ! Playing us for Chinamen because we are 
 strangers and trying to learn ! Trying to impose 
 your vile second-hand carcasses on us / thunder 
 and lightning, I ve a notion to to if you ve got 
 a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out! or, by George, 
 we ll brain you!" 
 
 We make it exceedingly interesting for this 
 Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, 
 without knowing it. He came to the hotel this 
 morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as 
 well as he could to describe us, so that the landlord 
 would know which persons he meant He finished 
 with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The 
 observation was so innocent and so honest that it 
 amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say. 
 
 There is one remark (already mentioned) which 
 never yet has failed to disgust these guides. We 
 use it always, when we can think of nothing else to 
 say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm 
 pointing out to us and praising the beauties of some 
 ancient bronze image or broken-legged statue, we 
 look at it stupidly and in silence for five, ten, fifteen 
 minutes as long as we can hold out, in fact- and 
 then ask: 
 
 " Is is he dead?" 
 
 That conquers the serenest of them. It is not 
 what they are looking for especially a new guide. 
 Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspect 
 ing, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We 
 shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed 
 
374 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed 
 ours, but we are harassed with doubts. 
 
 We have been in the catacombs. It was like 
 going down into a very deep cellar, only it was a 
 cellar which had no end to it. The narrow passages 
 are roughly hewn in the rock, and on each hand, as 
 you pass along, the hollowed shelves are carved out, 
 from three to fourteen deep; each held a corpse 
 once. There are names, and Christian symbols, and 
 prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian hopes, 
 carved upon nearly every sarcophagus. The dates 
 belong away back in the dawn of the Christian era, 
 of course. Here, in these holes in the ground, the 
 first Christians sometimes burrowed to escape perse 
 cution. They crawled out at night to get food, but 
 remained under cover in the daytime. The priest 
 told us that St. Sebastian lived under ground for 
 some time while he was being hunted ; he went out 
 one day, and the soldiery discovered and shot him 
 to death with arrows. Five or six of the early 
 Popes those who reigned about sixteen hundred 
 years ago held their papal courts and advised with 
 their clergy in the bowels of the earth. During 
 seventeen years from A. D. 235 to A. D. 252 
 the Popes did not appear above ground. Four were 
 raised to the great office during that period. Four 
 years apiece, or thereabouts. It is very suggestive 
 of the unhealthiness of underground graveyards as 
 places of residence. One Pope afterward spent his 
 entire pontificate in the catacombs eight years 
 
The Innocents Abroad 375 
 
 Another was discovered in them and murdered in 
 the episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction in 
 being a Pope in those days. There were too many 
 annoyances. There are one hundred and sixty 
 catacombs under Rome, each with its maze of 
 narrow passages crossing and recrossing each other 
 and each passage walled to the top with scooped 
 graves its entire length. A careful estimate makeg 
 the length of the passages of all the catacombs com* 
 bined foot up nine hundred miles, and their graves 
 number seven millions. We did not go through all 
 the passages of all the catacombs. We were very 
 anxious to do it, and made the necessary arrange 
 ments, but our too limited time obliged us to give 
 up the idea. So we only groped through the dismal 
 labyrinth of St. Calixtus, under the Church of St. 
 Sebastian. In the various catacombs are small 
 chapels rudely hewn in the stones, and here the 
 early Christians often held their religious services by 
 dim, ghostly lights. Think of mass and a sermon 
 away down in those tangled caverns under ground ! 
 In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St. 
 Agnes, and several other of the most celebrated of 
 the saints. In the catacomb of St. Calixtus, St. 
 Bridget used to remain long hours in holy contem 
 plation, and St. Charles Borromeo was wont to 
 spend whole nights in prayer there. It was also the 
 scene of a very marvelous thing. 
 
 " Here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed with divine love 
 as to burst his ribs." 
 
376 The Innocents Abroad 
 
 I find that grave statement in a book published in 
 New York in 1858, and written by * Rev. William 
 H. Neligan, LL.D., M.A., Trinity College, Dub 
 lin ; Member of the Archaeological Society of Great 
 Britain." Therefore, I believe it. Otherwise, I 
 could not. Under other circumstances I should 
 have felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for 
 dinner. 
 
 This author puts my credulity on its mettle every 
 now and then. He tells of one St. Joseph Cala- 
 sanctius whose house in Rome he visited ; he visited 
 only the house the priest has been dead two hun 
 dred years. He says the Virgin Mary appeared to 
 this saint. Then he continues : 
 
 " His tongue and his heart, which were found after nearly a century 
 to be whole, when the body was disinterred before his canonization, are 
 still preserved in a glass case, and after two centuries the heart is still 
 whole. When the French troops came to Rome, and when Pius VII. 
 was carried away prisoner, blood dropped from it.* 
 
 To read that in a book written by a monk far back 
 in the Middle Ages, would surprise no one; it would 
 sound natural and proper; but when it is seriously 
 stated in the middle of the nineteenth century, by a 
 man of finished education, an LL.D., M.A., and 
 an archaeological magnate, it sounds strangely 
 enough. Still, I would gladly change my unbelief 
 for Neligan s faith, and let him make the conditions 
 as hard as he pleased. 
 
 The old gentleman s undoubting, unquestioning 
 simplicity has a rare freshness about it in these 
 
The Innocents Abroad 377 
 
 matter-of-fact railroading and telegraphing days. 
 Hear him, concerning the Church of Ara Coeli : 
 
 "In the roof of the church, directly above the high altar, is en 
 graved, Regina Cceli hztare Alleluia. 1 In the sixth century Rome 
 was visited by a fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great urged the people 
 to do penance, and a general procession was formed. It was to proceed 
 from Aia Coeli to St. Peter s. As it passed before the mole of Adrian, 
 now the Castle of St. Angelo, the sound of heavenly voices was heard 
 singing (it was Easter morn ) Regina Cceli, latare f alleluia / 
 quia quern meruisti portare^ alleluia ! resurrexit sicut dixit ; 
 alleluia I The Pontiff, carrying in his hands the portrait of the Virgin 
 (which is over the high altar and is said to have been painted by St. 
 Luke), answered, with the astonished people, Ora pro nobis Deum t 
 alleluia / At the same time an angel was seen to put up a sword in 
 a scabbard, and the pestilence ceased on the same day. There are four 
 circumstances which confirm* this miracle : the annual procession which 
 takes place in the western church on the feast of St. Mark : the statue 
 of St. Michael, placed on the mole of Adrian, which has since that 
 time been called the Castle of St. Angelo ; the antiphon Regina Coeli, 
 which the Catholic church sings during paschal time ; and the inscrip 
 tion in the church." 
 
 *Th italics are mine M. T. 
 
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