I just finished reading Following the Equator by Mark Twain. It was an excellent book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves traveling as much as I do. I hope to one day get to experience the wonderful travels that Mark Twain did.
This was the last of five books he wrote about traveling the globe. He wrote this book late in his life after suffering bankruptcy, in attempts to make some money by touring the globe giving speeches. The book at times appears to have been written fairly quickly for he rambles on and on at times as if to just fill up pages. There are also many subtle thoughts of anti-imperialism of the British and American Empires, as well as negative thoughts towards missionary’s goals for the aboriginals that I partly did not agree with. And although he makes some good points that kick you in the gut, I wouldn’t agree with everything he had to say.
As I read the book I could just see and feel myself there along with Mark Twain on the boat as he crossed the globe. Oh what a great experience it must have been to travel like he did in the late 19th century! To be a on a boat traveling from Hawaii to Fiji to Australia to New Zealand to India to South Africa….it must have been incredible! I’d give anything to be out on the deck right now staring up at the Southern Cross with my dear friend, Mark Twain.
Jimmy Buffett is really who first got me interested in reading this book. In his song, “That’s What Living Is To Me”, he uses Mark Twain’s quote he started this book with, “Be good, and you will be lonesome.” Jimmy Buffett also wrote “Remittance Man” and “Take Another Road” about this Mark Twain voyage.
I will blog about some of the cool stories in this book at another time; it’s getting too late tonight. But the following is a quote from another one of Mark Twain’s books on his travels. Travel really is a valuable and important aspect of life.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
