Around the world

I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.

Mark Twain, Following the Equator

Truth or lies? There's probably some of each in Mark Twain's Following the Equator (1897), although I was more concerned with what was interesting and what was not. And most of Twain's account of his trip around the world is not that interesting, at least not to 21st century readers. There's a lot of stuffing — copied material from other sources,  dull stories told by fellow travelers and memories from previous journeys not special enough for other books, for example.

Yet it is a long, long book, and Twain strikes gold here and there. Some of the better portions consist of his diary entries, such as this one: "Sailed in the Rosetta. This is a poor old ship, and ought to be insured and sunk." That sounds like the Mark Twain we love. I was fascinated by his long list of odd town names in Australia, such as Goondiwindi, Tungkillo and Woolloomooloo. 

He goes into much detail in describing Thuggee and suttee practices in India. The former involved a religious cult of murderers and the latter widows who burned themselves with the bodies of their husbands. The British had mostly eliminated these practices by the time Twain visited.

Although Twain made the journey with his wife and daughter, he hardly mentions his family at all in his book, and never by name.

Much in the book will shock today's readers. He brags about killing 16 tigers in India. About South Africa, he writes, "The great bulk of the savages must go," and suggests humane ways of "diminishing the black population." Elsewhere he writes, "The world was made for man — the white man." One wonders why Adventures of Huckleberry is controversial, while Following the Equator isn't. Perhaps it's because few people still read the latter. And for good reason.