Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Part 7Twain, Mark
General
Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Part 7
Twain, Mark
Equator -- Description and travel; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 -- Travel; Voyages around the world
One may take his choice. They are all the same price. One fact is sure:
he keeps his prominence and a vast following, no matter what he does. He
"deceives" the Duke of Fife--it is the Duke's word--but that does not
destroy the Duke's loyalty to him. He tricks the Reformers into immense
trouble with his Raid, but the most of them believe he meant well. He
weeps over the harshly--taxed Johannesburgers and makes them his friends;
at the same time he taxes his Charter-settlers 50 per cent., and so wins
their affection and their confidence that they are squelched with despair
at every rumor that the Charter is to be annulled. He raids and robs and
slays and enslaves the Matabele and gets worlds of Charter-Christian
applause for it. He has beguiled England into buying Charter waste paper
for Bank of England notes, ton for ton, and the ravished still burn
incense to him as the Eventual God of Plenty. He has done everything he
could think of to pull himself down to the ground; he has done more than
enough to pull sixteen common-run great men down; yet there he stands, to
this day, upon his dizzy summit under the dome of the sky, an apparent
permanency, the marvel of the time, the mystery of the age, an Archangel
with wings to half the world, Satan with a tail to the other half.
I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a
piece of the rope for a keepsake.
CONCLUSION.
I have traveled more than anyone else, and I have noticed that even the
angels speak English with an accent.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
I saw Table Rock, anyway--a majestic pile. It is 3,000 feet high. It is
also 17,000 feet high. These figures may be relied upon. I got them in
Cape Town from the two best-informed citizens, men who had made Table
Rock the study of their lives. And I saw Table Bay, so named for its
levelness. I saw the Castle--built by the Dutch East India Company three
hundred years ago--where the Commanding General lives; I saw St. Simon's
Bay, where the Admiral lives. I saw the Government, also the Parliament,
where they quarreled in two languages when I was there, and agreed in
none. I saw the club. I saw and explored the beautiful sea-girt drives
that wind about the mountains and through the paradise where the villas
are: Also I saw some of the fine old Dutch mansions, pleasant homes of
the early times, pleasant homes to-day, and enjoyed the privilege of
their hospitalities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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