Mark Twain's Roughing It read by Grover Gardner offers up Mark Twain's observations of the American West during the 1860's. I highly recommend the audio version of this book as a few of the passages are full of archaic slang. Reading the text silently does not provide as rich an experience as listening to entertaining work of Grover Gardner.
Mark Twain deftly illustrates the development of slang in the mining community made up of people from around the world. A miner makes a simple slang filled request for a local parson to conduct a funeral for a friend. The two of them enter into a mighty struggle in an attempt to comprehend what the other person is saying. The parson in particular grasping, dodging and weaving through the slang filled thicket of words attempting to understand the miner. The miner in turn can not comprehend the parson's studied choice of words. The parson searches for a way to offer words the miner can comprehend.
At the beginning of the book a young Mark Twain sets out to the Carson City Nevada on a stage coach from Missouri. He provides a great description of ride, the passengers and the employees of the stage company. The mail bags on the coach provided make shift beds for passengers on the coach. Twain does not shy away from describing the brutal violence of the west and young readers may wish to bypass these sections.
While they stay over for several nights in Salt Lake City, Mark describes the Mormon Culture and offers a less than flattering critique of the Book of Mormon. He equates reading the text to taking a dose of chloroform. He also offers a second hand account of a discussion with Brigham Young on the downside of polygamy. In particular, he lays out the hazards of a guest giving only one child a penny whistle. The multiple wives request equal treatment of their offspring and the misery ends only when the newness of the musical instrument has worn off for the more than 60 children.
Twain's less than successful attempts at being a silver/gold prospector are laid out in detail. He also works briefly in a gold and silver ore processing plant. Mark lasted a week but accurately described the use of mercury to extract the gold and silver metals out of the raw ore. The mercury was saved by heating, vaporizing and then condensing the metal for reuse.
He also ventures over to San Francisco and offers an eyewitness account of the great earthquake of 1865.
His trip to the Sandwich Islands (modern day Oahu, Hawaii) as a news reporter provides a look at the Islands in the 1860's. He describes the island being overrun by cats of all kinds. This matches my observations over a hundred years later on my two trips to the islands. He also describes walking on trails and noting a vast graveyard of human bones with no certain description of how they got there. He describes the Saturday festivals where native men and women would ride horses down the street dressed in festive attire. At the time of his arrival the government was clamping down on this practice along with restrictions on hula dancing.
This is a great piece of writing providing a glimpse into the origin of Twain's growth as an author with his excellent historical description of the American West. I found it entertaining and informative.
Google Earth Tour of the book - 52 minutes
Part one of the full audio book 8 hours and 14 minutes
Part two of the full audio book 8 hours and 50 minutes
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