Perhaps the death of Captain James Cook was justified after all.

Nothing much to do with Hawaii. This is a short study on the results of a compulsion for turnips and interpreting a hand written letter from Horace Greeley.

This chapter provides a cautionary tale of French tour guides for Americans. The three friends have chosen Billfinger as a guide and soon discover he works on commission for the various shops. Twain also describes Napoleon III, the emperor of France and Abdul Aziz, the sultan of Turkey. Descriptions of these two men can be found in Twain's Letter Number 5 to the Daily Alta California but completely rewritten for this book. See McKeithan (1957) for a comparison.

This chapter does not appear to derive from Twain's letters to the Daily Alta California except for the final paragraph of letter number 5, published September 5.

Capt. Stormfield died and it took him thirty years to reach heaven, racing along like a comet. Indeed racing other comets. Finally arriving at the wrong door, his planet of origin is unknown. The clerk eventually identifies where the good captain should be, a million leagues away. He goes to the red wishing-carpet and instantly arrives at the proper gate. What follows is the destruction of every belief the captain had about heaven and a new perspective on humanity's place in the universe.

This chapter is important in terms of Twain's dealing with culture shock and his early perception of what was at one time referred to as "the Ugly American". Of particular interest is Twain's description of the dungeons of the heroes of Dumas. On a lighter side is a description of dining in France and the friendship between and elephant and a cat.

Initially I thought this was just a humorous sketch but then I found some interesting connections with the current OWS (Occupy Wall Street) movement. This was first published the Buffalo Express, of which Mark Twain was a part owner. It was published again in the Internal Revenue Record of Customs Journal, April 9, 1870 (according to www.twainquotes.com/19610409.html)

This chapter is apparently not a product of any letter posted to the Daily Alta California. It covers the celebration of the 4th of July on board the Quaker City, landing in Marseilles and his first dinner in France. They were rather disappointed in that their hostess spoke English. Of special interest is speculation by The Oracle on atmospheric physics and his dislike of poetry.

An interesting chapter of Twains impressions of Moorish customs. This was originally published as Letter Number Four in the Daily Alta California on September 1, 1867. An image of this column is provided on this page. McKeithan (1958) remarks that "Twain tried to improve the diction" of the original letter for the text here in chapter 9 of the book. Here we have a discussion of various means of exacting punishment employed by the Moors.