MARK TWAIN

science, drowned himself in Lake Lucerne—hence, Mt.
Pilatus.

A part of the plan for gathering material for
the new travel book, A Tramp Abroad, was to
have Twichell come over as his guest, and
"tramp" with him. Twichell arrived August I,
and the tramping began at once, through the
Black Forest and down into Switzerland. They
really walked a good deal, but had taken no
ironclad pledge to do so. They were likely to
take a train, or a cart or a carriage, and they had
long days of talk and idle loafing. In the book
as published Twichell is "Harris."

The Clemens family spent the winter of 1878
and 1879 i*1 Munich, where Mark Twain worked
pretty steadily on his book. Later they went to
Paris and crossed over to London, returning to
America at the end of August, 1879. Details of
this European sojourn are set down, somewhat
illuminated, in A Tramp Abroad, and more lit-
erally in Mark Twain—a Biography, chapters
CXVII to CXXL

1879

The English ought not to patronize the Zulus, the
Livingstone River Cannibals, and say piously: "We are
better than thou," for it is very plain that they have been
better for no more than a hundred years. They are a very
fine and pure and elevated people, now, but what they
were between the Roman Invasion and the time within
the memory of a centenarian was but a small improve-
ment upon the Shoshone Indians. I select the Shoshones
because they have certain peculiar vices and also certain
peculiar conspicuous virtues.

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