Roughing It - Chapter 79

Submitted by scott on Thu, 11/17/2011 - 13:19
A Predicament

This is the final chapter of Roughing It. His friends play a practical joke on him by staging a midnight highway robbery, on a very cold night. It backfires. He decides to "go home" again, but then again one never can and he decides to head on on the adventure recounted in his book The Innocents Abroad.

Roughing It - Chapter 78

Submitted by scott on Thu, 11/17/2011 - 11:49
Our Amusements

Twain returns from Hawaii, a relatively uneventful trip. Now being unemployed he decides to try out public speaking. We hear how he dealt with stagefright.

Roughing It - Chapter 77

Submitted by scott on Wed, 11/16/2011 - 11:03
Eleven Miles to See

Twain recounts his encounters with an extreme liar and tells of the liar's strange fate.

Roughing It - Chapter 76

Submitted by scott on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 23:34
Trip on the Milky Way

Mark tells stories to an aristocratic lady and gets caught out by a milk wagon horse. He rolls boulders into the Haleakala crater to watch them disppear into the hidden depths.

Roughing It - Chapter 75

Submitted by scott on Mon, 11/14/2011 - 01:12
Breaking Through

The story of a journey across the floor of the Kilauea volcano crater. Twain and a man named Marlette hike to the North Lake at night.

Roughing It - Chapter 74

Submitted by scott on Sat, 11/12/2011 - 14:12
Pillar of Fire

A wonderful description of the inside of the Kilauea volcanic crater.

Mark Twain and the Ottoman Empire

Submitted by scott on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 12:18

My avatar, SLClemens, in Second Life has been reading chapters from Mark Twain's book "The Innocents Abroad". I have been recording these readings and producing slideshow videos of them, published here on my web site. The videos are hosted by YouTube. One of these chapters, Chapter 13, elicited a response from a listener of surprise at how much Twain seemed to dislike the Ottoman Empire. The chapter itself contains a rather negative description of on Abdul Aziz, emperor of the Ottoman Empire. Twain had seen him in the company of Napoleon III, on parade.

Roughing It - Chapter 73

Submitted by scott on Thu, 11/10/2011 - 13:03
Surf Bathing

Lots of adventures in this chapter from learning how to surf to climbing through lava tubes. Here also is an example of a place of refuge, sanctuary, for any criminal able enough to get to it before capture by pursuers.

Roughing It - Chapter 72

Submitted by scott on Wed, 11/09/2011 - 14:04
Ghostly Builders

Twain tells of the fall of the old Hawaiian religion just prior to the arrival of the missionaries. He also guards the clothing of several native girls as they swim.