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Roughing It

by Mark Twain

Contents

• I. My brother had just been appointed
• II. The first thing we did
• III. About an hour and a half before daylight
• IV. As the sun went down
• V. Another night of alternate tranquillity
• VI. Our new conductor (just shipped)
• VII. It did seem strange enough
• VIII. In a little while all interest was taken up
• IX. We passed Fort Laramie in the night
• X. Really and truly, two thirds of the talk
• XI. And sure enough, two or three years afterward
• XII. Just beyond the breakfast- station
• XIII. We had a fine supper
• XIV. Mr. Street was very busy
• XV. It is a luscious country
• 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
• XIX. On the morning of the sixteenth
• XX. On the seventeenth day we passed
• XXI. We were approaching the end
• XXII. It was the end of August
• XXIII. If there is any life that is happier
• XXIV. I resolved to have a horse to ride
• XXV. Originally, Nevada was a part of Utah
• 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
• XXXI. There were two men in the company
• XXXII. We seemed to be in a road
• XXXIII. I do not know how long I was in a state
• XXXIV. The mountains are very high
• XXXV. When we finally left for Esmeralda
• XXXVI. I had already learned how hard
• 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
• XLI. Captain Nye was very ill indeed
• XLII. What to do next?
• XLIII. However, as I grew better acquainted
• XLIV. My salary was increased to forty dollars
• XLV. The flush times held bravely on
• XLVI. There were nabobs in those days
• XLVII. Somebody has said that in order to know
• XLVIII. The first twenty- six graves
• XLIX. An extract or two from the newspapers
• L. These murder and jury statistics
• LI. Vice flourished luxuriantly
• LII. Since I desire, in this chapter
• LIII. Every now and then, in these days
• LIV. Of course there was a large Chinese population
• LV. I began to get tired of staying in one place
• LVI. We rumbled over the plains and valleys
• LVII. It was in this Sacramento Valley
• LVIII. For a few months I enjoyed
• 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
• LXII. After a three months' absence
• LXIII. On a certain bright morning
• LXIV. In my diary of our third day
• LXV. By and by, after a rugged climb
• LXVI. Passing through the market place
• LXVII. I still quote from my journal:
• LXVIII. While I was in Honolulu
• LXIX. Bound for Hawaii
• LXX. We stopped some time
• LXXI. At four o'clock in the afternoon
• LXXII. In the breezy morning
• LXXIII. At noon, we hired a Kanaka
• LXXIV. We got back to the schooner
• LXXV. The next night was appointed for a visite
• LXXVI. We rode horseback all around the island
• LXXVII. I stumbled upon one curious character
• LXXVIII. After half a year's luxurious vagrancy
• LXXIX. I launched out as a lecturer

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.

THE AUTHOR.

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