Roughing It

Note: The contents of Chapter 4 correspond to Chapters 52-72 in print editions of the book.

Twain begins this chapter with a long description of the silver mining process in Virginia City and in Nevada as a whole. Mule train caravans operate continuously between the territory and California, carrying the precious metal to the coast and bringing back necessary supplies for the residents. There is no other industry in the region, so the population is entirely dependent on mining for its economic prosperity. Twain estimates that in 1863, Nevada produces $20,000,000 in silver. This would be equivalent to half a billion dollars in today’s currency. Producing this quantity of silver requires a massive operation. In Virginia City, the mines and mills employ thousands of men working in shifts both above and below ground.

Twain then introduces some of his colorful acquaintances in town. One is a man named Jim Blaine, whom Twain is encouraged to visit when the former is drunk, as this is the only time when Blaine will tell the tale of his grandfather’s ram. Obsessed with hearing the story, Twain visits Blaine one night when conditions are right, and Blaine launches into a long, rambling tale about everything but the ram. The highpoint of his discourse is a story about an old lady with a glass eye who generously lends it to a friend who needs one when she receives company, but the glass ball is too small for her eye socket: “When Miss Wagner warn’t noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while t’ other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass” (385). This oddity has the effect of making children cry. By the time Blaine ends his tale, no one is any wiser about his grandfather’s ram.

Next, Twain takes up the subject of the Chinese men who have come to the Pacific coast to find work. He highly approves of them: “They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist” (391). In company with friends, Twain goes to visit the Chinese district in Virginia City and discusses the lifestyle of the immigrants and the curious items to be found in their shops. He also criticizes the government’s attempts to limit opportunities for Chinese workers in this country.

At this juncture, Twain grows restless and expresses a desire to move on. A friend offers him a potential commission to sell some silver stock in New York. Leaving the negotiations in his friend’s hands, Twain goes off to San Francisco to await the outcome of the deal. He holds some valuable silver stock that ought to tide him over and contemplates cashing it in when Nevada joins the union. He says, “I wanted to get away. I believed that the mining stocks I had on hand would soon be worth $100,000, and thought if they reached that before the Constitution was adopted, I would sell out” (398). Once more a traveler, Twain is struck by the climate changes he encounters as he visits new locations. Nevada is caked in salty dust, San Francisco is chilly, and Sacramento is parched. He notes, “One never sees Summer-clothing or mosquitoes in San Francisco—but they can be found in Sacramento. Not always and unvaryingly, but about one hundred and forty-three months out of twelve years, perhaps” (412).

After arriving in San Francisco, Twain briefly lives the high life in anticipation of his stock sale and impending silver transaction. Both prospects fail spectacularly. He delays selling his stock until after the bubble bursts and the Nevada silver boom ends. Around the same time, he learns that his friend in Virginia City arranged the silver deal with another of their mutual acquaintances. As if this weren’t enough of a calamity, Twain also experiences his first earthquake:

Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was vomiting a stream of human beings; and almost before one could execute a wink and begin another, there was a massed multitude of people stretching in endless procession down every street my position commanded (423).

After recovering from this event, Twain finds himself once again broke. He tries to avoid his creditors in town and returns to prospecting. This time, he engages in pocket mining for gold around Tuolumne, California. The Gold Rush has long since ended in the area, leaving ghost towns in its wake, but pocket mining depends on the ability to find a small cache of gold concentrated in a single area. The miners who engage in it can become wealthy overnight, though their reckless spending typically leaves them broke again within a few weeks. Twain remarks, “This is the most fascinating of all the different kinds of mining, and furnishes a very handsome percentage of victims to the lunatic asylum” (437). After engaging in this fruitless activity for some time and learning a few interesting facts about a mine-loving cat named Tom Quartz, Twain moves on to his next adventure.

For once, fortune favors the author. He is offered a job as a newspaperman once again: “I got a new berth and a delightful one. It was to go down to the Sandwich Islands [now known as Hawai’i] and write some letters for the Sacramento Union, an excellent journal and liberal with employés” (444). Twain describes his sea voyage and the characters he meets onboard. One of these is a crusty retired whaling captain known as the Admiral. This gentleman is opinionated and tends to concoct historical facts to back up his outrageous assertions. Another passenger finally gets the last word by spinning even more ridiculous stories than the Admiral himself.

Twain is favorably impressed by his first glimpse of Honolulu: “In place of roughs and rowdies staring and blackguarding on the corners, I saw long-haired, saddle-colored Sandwich Island maidens sitting on the ground in the shade of corner houses” (456). He also enjoys the tropical climate and the variety of beautiful vegetation it contains, but he is bemused by the coconut trees. He says, “I once heard a gouty northern invalid say that a cocoanut tree might be poetical, possibly it was; but it looked like a feather-duster struck by lightning” (462).

The arrival of missionaries put an end to some of the more barbaric practices on the island, such as human sacrifice and female infanticide, but it also introduced the notion of hell, which Twain finds troublesome: “How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a hell!” (463). The Indigenous Hawaiians are called kanakas—from the Hawaiian word for “man”—and Twain finds them to be devious horse traders. It is difficult to find a good horse on the islands, and the white people who want to rent or buy one are generally outsmarted by the locals.

The author is equally amused by the tendency of the Hawaiians to wear Western clothing in eccentric ways, such as a man sporting a woman’s hat backward. On Saturdays, the islanders all hold a grand promenade on horseback through the middle of town. The native government consists of an enormous number of individuals possessing grand-sounding titles who have very few duties to perform. While on Oahu, Twain tours some ancient temples and the site of a battle where bones are strewn everywhere, but no one can remember when the slaughter occurred. The author then describes the odd funeral customs of the Indigenous people, most of whom haven’t given way to Christianity but have blended their rituals with the lore they are taught at the mission schools.

Twain next makes a trip to the big island of Hawaii. He describes the crowded conditions on the sailing ship that makes the two-day journey. To begin, all the good cabins are booked, and most of the deck is crowded with native Hawaiians, so Twain beds down in a cramped cabin below decks for the night. His sleep is interrupted by a noisy rooster and an assortment of vermin including cockroaches and fleas.

After arriving on the island, Twain’s good humor is restored. He describes the volcanoes, the vegetation, and the plentiful rainbows that appear at regular intervals. While touring sugar plantations with a group of planters, the author encounters an eccentric man who holds forth about his correspondence with Horace Greeley on the subject of raising turnips as vines. Twain notes, “The planters whispered us not to mind him—crazy […] we must humor his fancy that this correspondence was the talk of the world” (504). From here, Twain goes to visit Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook was killed by angry islanders. Despite the way contemporary history books describe the event, Twain sides with the put-upon native Hawaiians rather than the high-handed British explorer, arguing that Cook brought his demise on himself by mistreating the islanders.

Twain concludes the chapter with a discussion of the rebel king Liholiho, who breaks several taboos that have been upheld for a hundred generations. This defiance of the gods without any sign of divine retribution convinces the islanders that their deities have grown weak and ought not to be worshipped anymore. The introduction of this change inadvertently allows American missionaries easy access to the minds and hearts of the local population: “Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whiskey preach the first sermon and prepare the way for the new gospel that was speeding southward over the waves of the Atlantic” (522).