I inherited a copy of the first edition of this book, owned by my Second Great Grandfather (who passed away in 1920). I have mentioned him and his family in previous posts.
The volume sat in my bookcase for a few years before I decided to read it---I think Covid-shut down exasperation spurred me on to submerge myself in another world.
And this is another world! To read the book is like taking a long Victorian journey as well as a ride in a time machine. I recommend it. I like Twain as a travel writer better than I did (when I was forced to read some of his novels in school).
He starts his journey in Paris, where the family was living for a while in the 1890's, sails for America and crossed the continent; there were raging forest fires in the west then, as now.
Across the Pacific to Hawaii, though there was an outbreak of some virulent plague (just like now) and the through-passengers were not able to leave the ship. Lots of interesting observations about passengers, crew, etc.
Onward to Australia; the most detail in the book was about Australia and India. Twain was on a speaking tour, of course, so he stopped at each of the major population centers.
India: as I was reading each section, I YouTubed for videos about each of this stops. Except for Darjeeling and one or two others, I bet Twain would not recognize modern Indian cities if he returned today. The Australian cities, he might.
One YouTube I shouldn't have watched: The Towers of Silence; funeral repositories for one of the many religious groups of India. This process involves ceremony, a massive but low circular stone tower, priests, dead bodies and vultures. Use your imagination. Twain describes this as a clean, neat procedure for disposing of the dead. What about the smell? So I YouTubed it: sure enough, someone flew a drone above one of these pits! It is not clean and neat at all--the vultures don't pick the corpses clean in minutes as Twain claimed.
Much more attention to India: the low-down on Thugs and Suttee: gangs of roving stranglers and widow burning. The Mutiny in 1857--never heard of it before (since I never paid any attention to English history after 1781.)
On to South Africa, where I learned more about the diamond trade and mining practices that I ever did.
Cecil Rhodes, The Boer War, and so much more.
On a ship again, and headed back to Europe. Within the next year, he sat down and wrote this interesting book. It was as if he was speaking directly to me, across the distance and the years.
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