Following the Equator: A Journey Around the WorldTwain, Mark
General
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Twain, Mark
Equator -- Description and travel; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Travel; Voyages around the world
There were two hundred persons in the ship, and but one survived the
disaster. He was a sailor. A huge sea flung him up the face of the
precipice and stretched him on a narrow shelf of rock midway between the
top and the bottom, and there he lay all night. At any other time he
would have lain there for the rest of his life, without chance of
discovery; but the next morning the ghastly news swept through Sydney
that the Duncan Dunbar had gone down in sight of home, and straightway
the walls of the Heads were black with mourners; and one of these,
stretching himself out over the precipice to spy out what might be seen
below, discovered this miraculously preserved relic of the wreck. Ropes
were brought and the nearly impossible feat of rescuing the man was
accomplished. He was a person with a practical turn of mind, and he
hired a hall in Sydney and exhibited himself at sixpence a head till he
exhausted the output of the gold fields for that year.
We entered and cast anchor, and in the morning went oh-ing and ah-ing in
admiration up through the crooks and turns of the spacious and beautiful
harbor—a harbor which is the darling of Sydney and the wonder of the
world. It is not surprising that the people are proud of it, nor that
they put their enthusiasm into eloquent words. A returning citizen asked
me what I thought of it, and I testified with a cordiality which I judged
would be up to the market rate. I said it was beautiful—superbly
beautiful. Then by a natural impulse I gave God the praise. The citizen
did not seem altogether satisfied. He said:
“It is beautiful, of course it's beautiful—the Harbor; but that isn't
all of it, it's only half of it; Sydney's the other half, and it takes
both of them together to ring the supremacy-bell. God made the Harbor,
and that's all right; but Satan made Sydney.”
Of course I made an apology; and asked him to convey it to his friend.
He was right about Sydney being half of it. It would be beautiful
without Sydney, but not above half as beautiful as it is now, with Sydney
added. It is shaped somewhat like an oak-leaf—a roomy sheet of lovely
blue water, with narrow off-shoots of water running up into the country
on both sides between long fingers of land, high wooden ridges with sides
sloped like graves. Handsome villas are perched here and there on these
ridges, snuggling amongst the foliage, and one catches alluring glimpses
of them as the ship swims by toward the city. The city clothes a cluster
of hills and a ruffle of neighboring ridges with its undulating masses of
masonry, and out of these masses spring towers and spires and other
architectural dignities and grandeurs that break the flowing lines and
give picturesqueness to the general effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account