Following the Equator

A happy and interesting jumble is this book of Mark Twain's. It is like a lucky-bag at a fair. In his zigzag journey around the world, the humorist has made a collection of odds and ends of fun, philosophy, and fantastic description, such as has never been gathered in the pages of a single book, and any one dipping in at random is sure of a prize. The heterogeneous mass has some pretense of being loosely strung together, but it is on a line as long as the Equator itself. It is a traveler's miscellany — a globe-trotter's hotch-potch — a sociologist's cabinet of specimens, all bearing the quaint labelings of the creator of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Here is a rare bit of humor surreptitiously picked up in a New Zealand drawing-room; there a sample fragment of a life-tragedy which the trophy-hunter knocked off Molokai. This division of the cabinet contains an incident from the stage-door of a New York theater; that, next to it, a unique string of anecdotes of tiger-hunting in Baroda. And according to the labels, many of the specimens were picked up in very unexpected places; as for instance, the yarn about Barnum which the collector found in Delagoa bay. But wherever found, or however incongruously grouped, this cabinet of odds and ends of life is one of the most interesting and unique collections ever made by a traveler.