CHAPTER 20
On the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain peaks we had yet seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to useless.
On the eighteenth day we encountered the eastward-bound telegraph-constructorsⒺexplanatory note at Reese riverⒶemendation station and sent a message to his Excellency Gov. NyeⒺexplanatory note at Carson City (distant one hundred and fifty-six miles).
On the nineteenth day we crossed the Great American Desert—forty memorable miles of bottomless sand, into which the coach wheels sunk from six inches to a foot. We worked our passage most of the way across. That is to say, we got out and walked. It was a dreary pull and a long and thirsty one, for we had no water. From one extremity of this desert to the other, the road was white with the bones of oxen and horses. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we could have walked the forty miles and set our feet on a bone at every step! The desert was one prodigious graveyard. And the log-chains, wagon tyres, and rotting wrecks of vehicles were almost as thick as the bones. I think we saw log-chains enough rusting there in the desert, to reach across any State in the Union. Do not these relics suggest something of an idea of the fearful suffering and privation the early emigrants to California endured?
At the border of the desertⒶemendation lies Carson Lake, or theⒶemendation “Sink” of the CarsonⒺexplanatory note, a shallow, melancholy sheet of water some eighty or a hundred miles in circumference. Carson riverⒶemendation empties into it and is lost—sinks mysteriously into the earth and never appears in the light of the sun again—for the lake has no outlet whatever.
There are several rivers in Nevada, and they all have this mysterious fate. They end in various lakes or “sinks,” and that is the last [begin page 131] of them. Carson Lake, Humboldt Lake, Walker Lake, Mono Lake, are all great sheets of water without any visible outlet. Water is always flowing into them; none is ever seen to flow out of them, and yet they remain always level full, neither receding nor overflowing. What they do with their surplus is only known to the Creator.
On the western verge of the desertⒶemendation we halted a moment at RagtownⒺexplanatory note. It consisted of one log houseⒶemendation and is not set down on the map.
This reminds me of a circumstance. Just after we left Julesburg, on the Platte, I was sitting with the driver, and he said:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace GreeleyⒺexplanatory note went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was a whileⒶemendation ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!Ⓐtextual note Ⓐemendation’—and you bet you he did, too, what was left of himⒺexplanatory note!”
A day or two after that we picked up a Denver man at the cross roads, and he told us a good deal about the country and the Gregory DiggingsⒺexplanatory note. He seemed a very entertaining person and a man well posted in the affairs of Colorado. By and by he remarked:
“I can tell you a mostⒶemendation laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific [begin page 132] way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was a whileⒶemendation ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”
At Fort Bridger, some days after this, we took on board a cavalry sergeant, a very proper and soldierly person indeed. From no other man during the whole journey, did we gather such a store of concise and well-arranged military information. It was surprising to find in the desolate wilds of our country a man so thoroughly acquainted with everything useful to know in his line of life, and yet of such inferior rank and unpretentious bearing. For as much as three hours we listened to him with unabated interest. Finally he got upon the subject of trans-continental travel, and presently said:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture at Placerville and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off [begin page 133] at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was a whileⒶemendation ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”
When we were eight hours out from Salt Lake City a Mormon preacher got in with us at a way station—a gentle, soft-spoken, kindly man, and one whom any stranger would warm to at first sight. I can never forget the pathos that was in his voice as he told, in simple language, the story of his people’s wanderings and unpitied sufferings. No pulpit eloquence was ever so moving and so beautiful as this outcast’s picture of the first Mormon pilgrimage across the plains, struggling sorrowfully onward to the land of its banishment and marking its desolate way with graves and watering it with tears. His words so wrought upon us that it was a relief to us all when the conversation drifted into a more cheerful channel and the natural features of the curious country we were in came under treatment. One matter after another was pleasantly discussed, and at length the stranger said:
“I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley went over this road once. When he was leaving Carson City he told the driver, Hank Monk, that he had an engagement to lecture atⒶemendation PlacervilleⒶemendation and was very anxious to go through quick. Hank Monk cracked his whip and started off at an awful pace. The coach bounced up and down in such a terrific way that it jolted the buttons all off of Horace’s coat, and finally shot his head clean through the roof of the stage, and then he yelled at Hank Monk and begged him to go easier—said he warn’t in as much of a hurry as he was a whileⒶemendation ago. But Hank Monk said, ‘Keep your seat, Horace, and I’ll get you there on time!’—and you bet you he did, too, what was left of him!”
Ten miles out of Ragtown we found a poor wanderer who had lain down to die. He had walked as long as he could, but his limbs had failed him at last. Hunger and fatigue had conquered him. It would have been inhuman to leave him there. We paid his fare to [begin page 134] Carson and lifted him into the coach. It was some little time before he showed any very decided signs of life; but by dint of chafing him and pouring brandy between his lips we finally brought him to a languid consciousness. Then we fed him a little, and by and by he seemed to comprehend the situation and a grateful light softened his eye. We made his mail-sack bed as comfortable as possible, and constructed a pillow for him with our coats. He seemed very thankful. Then he looked up in our faces, and said in a feeble voice that had a tremble of honest emotion in it:
“Gentlemen, I know not who you are, but you have saved my life; and although I can never be able to repay you for it, I feel that I can at least make one hour of your long journey lighter. I take it you are strangers to this great thoroughfare, but I am entirely familiar with it. In this connection I can tell you a most laughable thing indeed, if you would like to listen to it. Horace Greeley—”
I said, impressively:
“Suffering stranger, proceed at your peril. You see in me the melancholy wreck of a once stalwart and magnificent manhood. What has brought me to this? That thing which you are about to tell. Gradually but surely, that tiresome old anecdote has sapped my strength, undermined my constitution, withered my life. Pity my [begin page 135] helplessness. Spare me only just this once, and tell me about young George Washington and his little hatchet for a change.”
We were saved. But not so the invalid. In trying to retain the anecdote in his system he strained himself and died in our arms.
I am aware, now, that I ought not to have asked of the sturdiest citizen of all that region, what I asked of that mere shadow of a man; for, after seven years’ residence on the Pacific coast, I know that no passenger or driver on the Overland ever corked that anecdote in, when a stranger was by, and survived. Within a period of six years I crossed and recrossed the Sierras between Nevada and California thirteen times by stage and listened to that deathless incident four hundred and eighty-one or eighty-two timesⒺexplanatory note. I have the list somewhere. Drivers always told it, conductors told it, landlords told it, chance passengers told it, the very Chinamen and vagrant Indians recounted it. I have had the same driver tell it to me two or three times in the same afternoon. It has come to me in all the multitude of tongues that Babel bequeathed to earth, and flavored with whiskyⒶemendation5.18 cologne, sozodontⒺexplanatory note, tobacco, garlic, onions, grasshoppers—everything that has a fragrance to it through all the long list of things that are gorged or guzzled by the sons of men. I never have smelt any anecdote as often as I have smelt that one; never have smelt any anecdote that smelt so variegated as that one. And you never could learn to know it by its smell, because every time you thought you had learned the smell of it, it would turn up with a different smell. Bayard Taylor has written about this hoary anecdote, Richardson has published it; so have Jones, Smith, Johnson, Ross Browne, and every other correspondence-inditing beingⒺexplanatory note that ever set his foot upon the great overland road anywhere between Julesburg and San Francisco; and I have heard that it is in the Talmud. I have seen it in print in nine different foreign languages; I have been told that it is employed in the inquisition in Rome; and I now learn with regret that it is going to be set to music. I do not think that such things are right.
Stage-coaching on the Overland is no more, and stage-driversⒶemendation are a race defunct. I wonder if they bequeathed that bald-headed anecdote to their successors, the railroad brakemenⒶemendation and conductors, [begin page 136] and if these latter still persecute the helpless passenger with it until he concludes, as did many a tourist of other days, that the real grandeurs of the Pacific coast are not Yo Semite and the Big Trees, but Hank Monk and his adventure with Horace Greeley.*
*And what makes that worn anecdote the more aggravating, is, that the adventure it celebrates never occurred Ⓔexplanatory note. If it were a good anecdote, that seeming demerit would be its chiefest virtue, for creative power belongs to greatness; but what ought to be done to a man who would wantonly contrive so flat a one as this? If I were to suggest what ought to be done to him, I should be called extravagant—but what does the thirteenthⒶemendation chapter of DanielⒶtextual note say? Aha!Ⓔexplanatory note
his Excellency Gov. Nye] James Warren Nye (1815–76), an outspoken Republican politician from New York, served in the late 1850s as police commissioner and first president of the New York City Metropolitan Board of Police. In 1860 he campaigned vigorously for Lincoln, who rewarded him the following year with an appointment as governor of the newly formed Nevada Territory. Nye arrived at Carson City early in July 1861. After Nevada became a state, he was elected United States senator from 1864 to 1873. During his frequent absences from the territory, Orion, as territorial secretary, served as acting governor. Both the Clemenses enjoyed consistently friendly relations with Nye during their stay in Nevada, although he later reportedly dismissed Clemens as “nothing but a damned Secessionist” (Frank Fuller to A. B. Paine, 7 Dec 1910, Chester L. Davis 1956d, 1; Mack 1961a, 9–11; BDUSC , 1579; L1 , 145–46 n. 2). Clemens later recalled,
Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New York—politician, not statesman. He had white hair. He was in fine physical condition. He had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous brown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every feeling, every passion, every emotion. His eyes could outtalk his tongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable talker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man. He generally saw through surfaces and perceived what might be going on inside without being suspected of having an eye on the matter. (AD, 2 Apr 1906, CU-MARK, in MTA , 2:305)
I . . . listened to that deathless incident four hundred and eighty-one or eighty-two times] Lillard and Hood make clear that the Greeley-Monk anecdote was indeed an exceedingly familiar story on the West Coast for many years. Mark Twain evidently first experimented with repeating the story for the sake of humorous satire sometime after delivering his first Sandwich Islands lecture in San Francisco on 2 October 1866, trying it out during his October-November lecture tour in California and Nevada (“Robbery of Mark Twain,” Virginia City Union, 12 Nov 66, 3; L1 , 361–62, 366–67 n. 4; Lorch 1966, 45–46). He then included the anecdote in his second San Francisco lecture, on 16 November, an occasion he described in detail many years later:
For repetition is a mighty power in the domain of humor. If frequently used, nearly any precisely worded and unchanging formula will eventually compel laughter if it be gravely & earnestly repeated, at intervals, five or six times. I undertook to prove the truth of this, forty years ago, in San Francisco, on the occasion [begin page 610] of my second attempt at lecturing. My first lecture had succeeded to my satisfaction. Then I prepared another one, but was afraid of it because the first fifteen minutes of it was not humorous. I felt the necessity of preceding it with something which would break up the house with a laugh and get me on pleasant and friendly terms with it at the start, instead of allowing it leisure to congeal into a critical mood, since that could be disastrous. With this idea in mind, I prepared a scheme of so daring a nature that I wonder now that I ever had the courage to carry it through. San Francisco had been persecuted for five or six years with a silly and pointless and unkillable anecdote which everybody had long ago grown weary of—weary unto death. It was as much as a man’s life was worth to tell that moldy anecdote to a citizen. I resolved to begin my lecture with it, and keep on repeating it until the mere repetition should conquer the house and make it laugh. That anecdote is in one of my books. . . .
I told it in a level voice, in a colorless and monotonous way, without emphasizing any word in it, and succeeded in making it dreary and stupid to the limit. Then I paused and looked very much pleased with myself, and as if I expected a burst of laughter. Of course there was no laughter, nor anything resembling it.
Mark Twain told the story three times in all; after the third telling, the audience finally broke into a “tempest” of laughter:
It was a heavenly sound to me, for I was nearly exhausted with weakness and apprehension, and was becoming almost convinced that I should have to stand there and keep on telling that anecdote all night, before I could make those people understand that I was working a delicate piece of satire. I am sure I should have stood my ground and gone on favoring them with that tale until I broke them down, under the unconquerable conviction that the monotonous repetition of it would infallibly fetch them some time or other. (AD, 31 Aug 1906, CU-MARK, in AMT , 143–46)
The following spring, Mark Twain again included the anecdote in his New York lecture, delivered in Cooper Union on 6 May 1867,
remarking when he did so that it had not the slightest connection with the subject of his lecture; but that every one who had been to California held it to be a solemn duty to inflict this story on any innocent Eastern man whom fate might place in his power. (Review of Richardson’s Beyond the Mississippi in the New York Citizen, 24 Aug 67,3)
the adventure it celebrates never occurred] It was Joseph Goodman (see the note at 274.25–26) who initially informed Clemens that Greeley had denied the truth of the anecdote. Shortly after the publication of Roughing It; when Greeley was running for president, Goodman wrote an anti-Greeley editorial for the Enterprise, which read in part:
In the Fall of 1869, we met Hank Monk at Reno, as we were about leaving for the East. With the recollection of that ride fresh in his memory, and a sentiment of fellowship toward his illustrious passsenger, with whom he had passed hand in hand into literature and fame, Hank requested us to call upon Mr. Greeley and tell him that in memory of their celebrated mountain ride he wished him to procure a pass that would enable him to visit his friends in the East. . . . We met the philosopher at the Astor House, and briefly delivered our message. The reply was concise and emphatic. “Damn him! that fellow has done me more harm than any man in America!” We protested our ignorance of any injury. “But there was not a damned word of truth in the whole story!” rejoined Mr. Greeley. . . .
In telling the story of the Placerville ride, will Democratic orators append this sequel, illustrative of the overbearing and illiberal nature of Mr. Greeley? . . . Hank Monk still handles the whip and reins, but we fancy he has more friends on this coast than Horace Greeley—though he is running for President. (Goodman 1872, 2; see also MTB , 1:303 n. 1)
On 24 March 1871—not long after the present chapter was written—Goodman began a visit with Clemens in Elmira, where he read part of the Roughing It manuscript. Presumably he then reported his 1869 encounter with Greeley. In August, when Clemens probably read this chapter in proof, he decided to ask Greeley himself whether the disclaimer was accurate, explaining that “a newspaper editor, who said he got it from you,” had told him that it had “never occurred” (SLC to Greeley, 17 Aug 71, NN; “City and Neighborhood,” Elmira Advertiser, [begin page 612] 25 Mar 71, 4). Greeley’s reply, if any, is not known to survive, but it is clear that he had ample reason to resent the story, which had been used by his political enemies to ridicule him. In March 1866 a congressman from New York who disagreed with a Tribune editorial had caused Artemus Ward’s version to be read aloud to the entire House of Representatives (Lillard and Hood, 17).