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Roughing It

by Mark Twain

Contents

• I. My brother had just been appointed Secretary of
• II. The first thing we did on that glad evening that
• III. About an hour and a half before daylight we were
• IV. As the sun went down and the evening chill came
• V. Another night of alternate tranquillity and
• VI. Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without
• VII. It did seem strange enough to see a town again
• VIII. In a little while all interest was taken up in
• IX. We passed Fort Laramie in the night
• X. Really and truly, two thirds of the talk of
• XI. And sure enough, two or three years afterward
• XII. Just beyond the breakfast-station we overtook a
• XIII. We had a fine supper
• XIV. Mr. Street was very busy with his telegraphic
• XV. It is a luscious country for thrilling evening
• XVI. All men have heard of the Mormon Bible
• XVII. At the end of our two days' sojourn
• XVIII. At eight in the morning we reached the remnant
• XIX. On the morning of the sixteenth day out from St
• XX. On the seventeenth day we passed the highest
• XXI. We were approaching the end of our long journey
• XXII. It was the end of August
• XXIII. If there is any life that is happier than the
• XXIV. I resolved to have a horse to ride
• XXV. Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah and was
• XXVI. By and by I was smitten with the silver fever
• XXVII. Hurry, was the word! We wasted no time
• XXVIII. After leaving the Sink
• XXIX. True knowledge of the nature of silver mining
• XXX. I met men at every turn who owned from one
• XXXI. There were two men in the company who caused me
• XXXII. We seemed to be in a road
• XXXIII. I do not know how long I was in a state of
• XXXIV. The mountains are very high and steep about
• XXXV. When we finally left for Esmeralda, horseback
• XXXVI. I had already learned how hard and long and
• XXXVII. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of Mono Lake
• XXXVIII. Mono Lake lies in a lifeless, treeless
• XXXIX. About seven o'clock one blistering hot
• XL. I now come to a curious episode--the most curious
• XLI. Captain Nye was very ill indeed
• XLII. What to do next?
• XLIII. However, as I grew better acquainted with the
• XLIV. My salary was increased to forty dollars a week
• XLV. The flush times held bravely on
• XLVI. There were nabobs in those days--in the flush
• XLVII. Somebody has said that in order to know a
• XLVIII. The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia
• XLIX. An extract or two from the newspapers of the day
• L. These murder and jury statistics remind me of a
• LI. Vice flourished luxuriantly during the hey-day of
• LII. Since I desire, in this chapter
• LIII. Every now and then, in these days
• LIV. Of course there was a large Chinese population in
• LV. I began to get tired of staying in one place so
• LVI. We rumbled over the plains and valleys
• LVII. It was in this Sacramento Valley
• LVIII. For a few months I enjoyed what to me was an
• LIX. For a time I wrote literary screeds for the
• LX. By and by, an old friend of mine, a miner
• LXI. One of my comrades there--another of those
• LXII. After a three months' absence
• LXIII. On a certain bright morning the Islands hove in
• LXIV. In my diary of our third day in Honolulu
• LXV. By and by, after a rugged climb
• LXVI. Passing through the market place we saw that
• LXVII. I still quote from my journal:
• LXVIII. While I was in Honolulu I witnessed the
• LXIX. Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles
• LXX. We stopped some time at one of the plantations
• LXXI. At four o'clock in the afternoon we were winding
• LXXII. In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited
• LXXIII. At noon, we hired a Kanaka to take us down to the
• LXXIV. We got back to the schooner in good time
• LXXV. The next night was appointed for a visit to the
• LXXVI. We rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii
• LXXVII. I stumbled upon one curious character in the
• LXXVIII. After half a year's luxurious vagrancy in the
• LXXIX. I launched out as a lecturer, now

ROUGHING IT by Mark Twain

Note

This book is merely a personal narrative, and not a pretentious history or a philosophical dissertation. It is a record of several years of variegated vagabondizing, and its object is rather to help the resting reader while away an idle hour than afflict him with metaphysics, or goad him with science. Still, there is information in the volume; information concerning an interesting episode in the history of the Far West, about which no books have been written by persons who were on the ground in person, and saw the happenings of the time with their own eyes. I allude to the rise, growth and culmination of the silver-mining fever in Nevada -a curious episode, in some respects; the only one, of its peculiar kind, that has occurred in the land; and the only one, indeed, that is likely to occur in it.

Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped: information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that I would give worlds if I could retain my facts; but it cannot be. The more I calk up the sources, and the tighter I get, the more I leak wisdom. Therefore, I can only claim indulgence at the hands of the reader, not justification.

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