No one has seen the world quite like Mark Twain's eye, either before or since this account was written. At least, no other travel journal I've read described it in the same way. He had a unique mind, that is for sure. I feel like I've gotten to know Mark Twain on a more personal level reading this, and I like him all the more. He is intelligent, stubborn, and unapologetically funny. I can just picture him smoking his cheap American tobacco, complaining about the coffee (which, turns out, was actually tea), and trying not to fall asleep while Ferguson, his travel guide (he calls them all Ferguson so he doesn't have to bother with those foreign names), drones on about the surrounding history.

I don't think of Twain as a travel writer, but he was, and a good one! He took one of the earliest advertised cruises around the Mediterranean Sea in 1867. He flatly and cheerfully states what he liked and did not like, with occasional poking of fun, including at himself. He ends by hoping the cruise industry will take off.

This is a rather odd travelogue written by Mark Twain in 1867 as a series of newspaper columns he sent home while traveling. His trip consisted of an ocean voyage with land-based side trips to locations in Europe and the Holy Land. It is, on one hand, a fascinating insight to the way places looked and people acted 150 years ago. Much has been forgotten by our generation, and this account brings it all back. It was evidently the most widely sold of Mark Twain's books during his lifetime. However, from a literary point of view, it just cannot stack up with a novel like Huckleberry Finn. A lot of Mark Twain's personal prejudices come out in his narrative, including negative commentaries on various ethnic groups that would not be publishable today. Moreover, he views the world very much from his American viewpoint, with little sympathy for the actions of many of those he encounters. Then, surprisingly, he slips in a sensitive and insightful comment sympathetic to the plight of a particular person he observes. Throughout the book, I stumbled over unfamiliar terms for once common objects or customs from the nineteenth century that sent me to the dictionary, and that was part of the educational value of this book. I found I enjoyed reading it in small doses, as Mark Twain's sarcasm on what he didn't like could be grating at times.

As the United States was recovering from the devastating effects of the Civil War, a group of "pilgrims" (as Twain calls them) boarded a steamer for an extended five month picnic to Europe and the Holy Land. His passage was paid, about $1250, by a newspaper in California in return for a series of what turned out to be 50 letters documenting this tourist experience. In the process, he got a lot of mileage out of caricaturizing his inner circle amongst the some 65 pilgrims, making them famous...and the book made from the letters made him famous. Although his humor and irony is not as concentrated as that in "Huckleberry Finn" and later books, the suggestion of great literature is present. "Innocents" is rampant with characteristic understatement. In a day before political correctness, he notes, "The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant...in Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language." In Tiberius, he noted that the women wore their coins of dowry on their headdresses: "Most of these maidens were not wealthy, but some have been kindly dealt with by fortune. I saw heiresses there, worth, in their own right, - worth, well, I suppose I might venture to say as much as nine dollars and a half. But such cases are rare. When you come across one of these, she naturally puts on airs." He does not sugar-coat his view of the middle east and holy land - a thinly populated barren wasteland whose religion handicapped them then as now. During a trip to Jordan over roads supposedly subject to raids by roving Bedouins, he wrote, "I think we must all have determined upon the same line of tactics, for it did seem as if we never would get to Jerico. I had a notoriously slow horse; but somehow I could not keep him in the rear to save my neck. He was forever turning up in the lead. In such cases I trembled a little, and got down to fix my saddle. But it was not of any use. The others all got down to fix their saddles, too. I never saw such a time with saddles. It was the first time any of them had got out of order in three weeks, and now they had all broken down at once. I tried walking for exercise - I had not had enough in Jerusalem, searching for holy places. But it was a failure. The whole mob were suffering for exercise, and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on foot, and I had the lead again...We were moping along down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards, two gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, and daggers on board, were loafing ahead. 'Bedouins!' Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his clothes like a mud-turtle. My first impulse was to dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second was to dash to the rear to see if there were any coming in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. So did all the others. If any Bedouins had approached us then from that point of the compass, they would have paid dearly for their rashness." Delightful in every respect, this is still a chronicle of travel, and readers who have experienced any of the myriad of locations will be more consistently entertained. Astute readers may observe evidence of the history and experiences gained on this trip used frequently in Twain's subsequent writings. His more acclaimed "Roughing It" is a duplication of his travelogue efforts, but in the more familiar United States. Interesting (in "Innocents") is his positive view of stage coach travel in the US in comparison to train travel by steam engine in Europe. Can you imagine in today's world enjoying a thousand-mile trip over rut-filled excuses for roads behind a team of horses? Anyway, this is a great intro to the early Mark Twain - Five well-deserved stars!

I enjoy reading Mark Twain, and I especially enjoyed this book. It is Twain at his sarcastic and witty best; however, this book was written when he was still a relatively young writer and the barbs are sometimes a bit overboard, and the writing a bit loose. Nevertheless, it remains a delightful book to read, a discourse on the mid-nineteenth century American abroad, as well as a cutting commentary on his souvenir-stealing, "Ugly American" tourist companions. Indeed an often scathing commentary on the countries he visited as well as the ridiculous antics of the tourists he traveled with. Not his best book, but still an entertaining must-read.

Treat this book like a special dessert! Make it last! This book is full of surprises. If you know anything about Mark Twain, you will appreciate his dry wit. This classic is completely politically INCORRECT and entirely DELICIOUS! I would advise the reader to keep a notepad and pen handy because you will witness the old world through the author's eyes and learn points of history that are no longer taught. There will be things revealed which will cause you to do further research. There will be times when you will have to put the book down to LAUGH OUT LOUD! And that's even when he is not trying to be particularly humorous. I have a very old printing of this work in two volumes which I am preserving. I wanted a later printing because I will be in and out of this book, like visiting an old friend time and again.