Following the Equator, Mark Twain [best free e reader TXT] 📗

India the Most Extraordinary Country on EarthNothing ForgottenThe Land of WondersAnnual Statistics Everywhere about ViolenceTiger vs. ManA Handsome FightAnnual Man Killing and Tiger KillingOther AnimalsSnakesInsurance and Snake TablesThe Cobra BiteMuzaffurpore DinaporeA Train that Stopped for GossipSix Hours for Thirty-five MilesA Rupee to the EngineerNinety Miles an HourAgain to Benares, the Piety Hive To Lucknow


CHAPTER LVIII. The Great MutinyThe Massacre in CawnporeTerrible Scenes in Lucknow The ResidencyThe Siege


CHAPTER LIX. A Visit to the ResidencyCawnporeThe Adjutant Bird and the Hindoo CorpseThe Tai MahalThe True ConceptionThe Ice StormTrue Gems Syrian FountainsAn Exaggerated Niagara


CHAPTER LX. To LahoreThe Governor's ElephantTaking a Ride-No Danger from CollisionRawal PindiBack to DelhiAn Orientalized Englishman Monkeys and the Paint-potMonkey Crying over my Note-bookArrival at JeyporeIn RajputanaWatching ServantsThe Jeypore HotelOur Old and New SatanSatan as a LiarThe MuseumA Street ShowBlocks of Houses A Religious Procession


CHAPTER LXI. Methods in American Deaf and Dumb AsylumsMethods in the Public Schools A Letter from a youth in PunjabHighly Educated ServiceA Damage to the CountryA Little Book from CalcuttaWriting Poor English Embarrassed by a Beggar GirlA Specimen LetterAn Application for EmploymentA Calcutta School ExaminationTwo Samples of Literature


CHAPTER LXII. Sail from Calcutta to MadrasThence to CeylonThence for Mauritius The Indian OceanOur Captain's Peculiarity The Scot Has one tooThe Flying-fish that Went Hunting in the FieldFined for SmugglingLots of pets on BoardThe Color of the SeaThe Most Important Member of Nature's FamilyThe Captain's Story of Cold WeatherOmissions in the Ship's LibraryWashing DecksPyjamas on DeckThe Cat's ToiletNo Interest in the BulletinPerfect RestThe Milky Way and the Magellan CloudsMauritiusPort LouisA Hot CountryUnder French Control A Variety of People and ComplexionsTrain to CurepipeA Wonderful Office-holderThe Wooden Peg OrnamentThe Prominent Historical Event of Mauritius"Paul and Virginia"One of Virginia's Wedding GiftsHeaven Copied after MauritiusEarly History of MauritiusQuarantines Population of all KindsWhat the World Consists ofWhere Russia and Germany areA Picture of Milan CathedralNewspapersThe LanguageBest Sugar in the WorldLiterature of Mauritius


CHAPTER LXIII. Port LouisMatches no GoodGood RoadsDeath NoticesWhy European Nations Rob Each OtherWhat Immigrants to Mauritius DoPopulation Labor WagesThe CamaronThe Palmiste and other EatablesMonkeysThe Cyclone of 1892Mauritius a Sunday Landscape


CHAPTER LXIV. The Steamer "Arundel Castle"Poor Beds in ShipsThe Beds in Noah's Ark Getting a Rest in EuropeShip in SightMozambique ChannelThe Engineer and the BandThackeray's "Madagascar"Africanders Going Home Singing on the After DeckAn Out-of-Place StoryDynamite Explosion in JohannesburgEntering Delagoa BayAshoreA Hot WinterSmall TownNo SightsNo CarriagesWorking WomenBarnum's Purchase of Shakespeare's Birthplace, Jumbo, and the Nelson MonumentArrival at Durban


CHAPTER LXV. Royal Hotel DurbanBells that Did not RingEarly Inquiries for Comforts Change of Temperature after Sunset-RickhawsThe Hotel Chameleon Natives not out after the BellPreponderance of Blacks in NatalHair Fashions in NatalZulus for PoliceA Drive round the BereaThe Cactus and other TreesReligion a Vital MatterPeculiar Views about Babies Zulu KingsA Trappist MonasteryTransvaal PoliticsReasons why the Trouble came About


CHAPTER LXVI. Jameson over the BorderHis Defeat and CaptureSent to England for TrialArrest of Citizens by the BoersCommuted sentencesFinal Release of all but TwoInteresting Days for a StrangerHard to Understand Either SideWhat the Reformers Expected to AccomplishHow They Proposed to do itTestimonies a Year LaterA "Woman's Part"The Truth of the South African Situation"Jameson's Ride"A Poem


CHAPTER LXVIL Jameson's RaidThe Reform Committee's Difficult TaskPossible Plans Advice that Jameson Ought to HaveThe War of 1881 and its Lessons Statistics of Losses of the CombatantsJameson's BattlesLosses on Both SidesThe Military ErrorsHow the Warfare Should Have Been Carried on to Be Successful


CHAPTER LXVIII. Judicious Mr. RhodesWhat South Africa Consists ofJohannesburgThe Gold MinesThe Heaven of American EngineersWhat the Author Knows about MiningDescription of the BoerWhat Should be Expected of HimWhat Was A Dizzy Jump for RhodesTaxesRhodesian Method of Reducing Native PopulationJourneying in Cape ColonyThe CarsThe CountryThe WeatherTamed BlacksFamiliar Figures in King William's TownBoer DressBoer Country LifeSleeping AccommodationsThe Reformers in Boer PrisonTorturing a Black Prisoner


CHAPTER LXIX. An Absorbing NoveltyThe Kimberley Diamond MinesDiscovery of Diamonds The Wronged StrangerWhere the Gems AreA Judicious Change of BoundaryModern Machinery and AppliancesThrilling Excitement in Finding a DiamondTesting a DiamondFencesDeep Mining by Natives in the CompoundStealingReward for the Biggest DiamondA Fortune in WineThe Great DiamondOffice of the De Beer Co.Sorting the Gems Cape TownThe Most Imposing Man in British ProvincesVarious Reasons for his SupremacyHow He Makes Friends


CONCLUSION. Table RockTable BayThe CastleGovernment and ParliamentThe Club Dutch Mansions and their HospitalityDr. John Barry and his DoingsOn the Ship NormanMadeiraArrived in Southampton


FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR


CHAPTER I.

A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, where we had been living a year or two.

We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary.

We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke at the seaboard, where we were obliged awhile for our ship. She had been getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and repaired.

We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, which had lasted forty days.

We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and summer sea; an enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all on board; it certainly was to the distressful dustings and smokings and swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, just as in the old forgotten Atlantic timesthose Dark Ages of sea travel.

Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the customary sea-going fare plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil. The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seasat least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very figure to show up a smart uniform's best effects. He was a man of the best intentions and was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft and finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in seem for the moment a drawing room. He avoided the smoking room. He had no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff; he did not swear, or use slang or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and effect the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there as late as the ladies and their friends might desire; but they were not allowed to burn in the smoking-room after eleven. There were many laws on the ship's statute book of course; but so far as I could see, this and one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick. I did not see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew; and besides there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even imaginary smoke can convey damage.

The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate.

He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble, and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks. A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies. The captain had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner court would examine the case in Sydneythe Court of Directors, the lords of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number of years. This was his first voyage as captain.

The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was equipped with a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a person in robust health; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the attack continued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance he stood on his feet twenty-four hours fighting for his life with these sharp agonies, and yet was as full of life and cheer and