The Portland daily press., 1869-10-27
NEW YORK. Oct IN

Around ,he World.
NEW YORK, Oct. 10.
II am Just starting on pleasure trip aroI nd
the Globe, bV DrOIy That is to say Proies or
ID. F)RD of Elmira College, is now making
the Journey for me, AMI will write the news
paper account OF his (our) trip. No. not that
exactly-but he will travel and wlite letters,
and L shall stay at home and add dozen pa
ges to each of his letters. One OF MS VIII iur-
nish the fancy and the jokes, and the other
VIII furnish tue facts. am equal to either de-
paftment, though statistics are my best hold.
am perfectly satisfied now have long had
4 desire 10 travel clear around the world in
one n ma, comprehensive picnic excursion,
but the fatigue aud vexatiOn OF il formed
one drawback, and the expense another. The
necessary thing was TO get somebody to diviGe
these discomiOrts with, and so make tEem
bearable 1his is now accomplished. stay
at home and stand the fatigue, and the Pro-
fessor travels and stands the expense. While
my double is roaming about the Great Pa MS,
and Nevada and California, my half OF tue
letters will be at disadvantage, because l
shall be hampered b, an intimate personal
know,ege Of tDose local ties; but when ne
gets into Japan, and China aud India, L can
soar with gorgeous freedom, because don't
know anything abont those lands.
Professor Ford is a scholar Y man; a man
whose attachments cover a vast field OF knowl-
edge. His knowledge is singularly curate,
too; what he knows ne is certdtn of, and like
wise what he knows he has a faculty OF COM
municating to others. He is a man Of high
social standing ana unspotted character. he
is VAIN personal friend of mine-wh Gu is
to his discledt, perhaps, but would you have
a man perfect? He is minister Of the Cos
pei, and HUe one-a man whose religion
broadens and adorns his nature; moi a reli-
giOn that dates a man back into the last CEN
tury and saps his charity and makes him
bgot. Mr.. Fords letters viii be written in all
good faith and honesty, and | shall not mar
them. / shall merely have q good deal TO say.
| trust that the discriminating reader viii
always be able to discover where FoId leaves
off and | begin-though | don't really intend
he shalt be able TO do that. As Mr.. f. iogs
along, mean to write paragraph for para
graph with him, and | shall set down all that
L know about the country he visits, together
with good deal that neither L nor any body
else knows about them.
Mr.. Ford had reached Salt Lake City a
few days ago, and by this time is prowiirg
among the silver mines of Nevada. His let
tiers are on their way, no doubt, but in the
l will begin the journey unassisted,
with sketch or so of my own about the Dead
Sea of California, and some other curious tea
lures of that country. The Professor will sail
for Japan in the steamer America. which
leaves San Francisco on the 4th OF November.
A twenty-five or thirty day sea-voyage, doub-
led, makes long interregnum, and so his
japanese letters will not begin to arrive be-
fore January. However, L can run this du-
plicate correspondence by myself till then.
With the readers permission l will now begin
and what | say about Mono Lake may be
accepted as strictly true. shall tell no lies
about it. MARK TWAIN.
THE DEAD SEA.
Mono Lake or the Dead sea of California,
is one of her most extraordinary curiosilles,
but being situated in a very Out-of- the-way
corner of the country, and away up among tue
eternal SHOWS OF the SIerras, it is little known
aud very seldom visited. A mining excite
ment carried me there once, and l spent sew
eral months in its vicinity. 1t lies IN life
less, treeless, hideous desert, 5000 leet above
the level of the sea, and is guarded by noun
tains 1000 feet higher, whose SUBMITS are hid-
den always in the clouds. This solemn. silent,
sailless sea-this lonely tenant of the lone lest
spot on earth-is little graeed with the pictur-
esque. 1t is an unpretending expanse OF gtey-
ish water, about a hundred miles in circun-
terence, with two Islands in its centre, mere
upheavals of rent, and scorched and blistered
lava showed over with grey banks and drills
OF pumice stone and ashes, the winding sheet
of the dead voicano, whose vast crater the
lake has seized upon and occnp ed.
This lake is 200 feet deep, and its sluggish
waters are so strong with alkali that II you
only dip the most hopelessly SOied garment
into them once or twice, and wiring it ont, it
will be found as clean as if it had been through
your ablest washer woman'S hands Wht @
we camped there our laundry WORK was easy.
We tied the weeks washing astern OF our
boat, and sailed quarter of mile, and the
job was complete, all to the wringng out. II
we threw out the water on our heads and
gave them rub or so the white laIher would
pie up three incher high. This water is not
good for bruised places al d abrasions oil the
skin. We had valuable dog. He had raw
places Oh him. He had more raw places on
him than sound ones. lie was the rawest
dog l almost ever saw. He jumped overload d
one day to get away from flies. But it was bad
judgment. In his condition it would have
been inst as comfortable to jump in the bre.
The akali water nipped him in all raw places
simultaneously, and he struck out Tor the shore
with considerable interest. He yelped and
bowed as he went-and by the time he got
to the shore there was no bark to h m-ior he
had barkcd the bark all out of his inside, aud
the alkali wafer had cleaned the bark all off
his outside, ard he probably wished be bad
never embarked in any such enterprise. He
ran round and round ia circle and paved
The earth and clawed the air, and threw dou-
Bile summersets, sometimes backwards and
sometimes forwards, in the most frantic and
extra ordinary manner. He was not demon
stIative dog, as a general thing but rather of
grave and serious turn of mind, and L never
saw him take so much interest in any thing
before. He finally struck out over the noun
tains, at a gate which we estimated at about
25O miles an hour, and he is going yet. This
was about five years ago. We look fer what
there is lett of him along here every day.
A white man cannot dlink the water 81
hUio Lake for IL 10 rr-affy pure lye. IL IS
said that the Indians in the vicinitl drink It
sometimes, though. 1t is not improbable for
they are among the purest liars ever saw.
There will be no additional charge for this
joke, except t. parties requiring an explana-
tim of it. This joke has received hlgn COM
mendation from some OF the ablest minds OF
the age. Horace Greeley remarked to friend
of mine that if ever he were TO make joke
like tuat, he would not desire to live any
longer.
There are no fish in Mono Lake-no frogs,
no snakes, no polywogs-Lothng. in fact,
that goes to make lie desirable. Millions of
wild ducks and sea sulls swim about the sur
face, but no living thiLg exists under the sur
lace, except white, lea'hery sort of worm,
one-half an inch long, which looks like bit
of white thread frayed out at the sides. If
you dip up a gallon of water, you will get
about fifteen thousand OF these. They give
10 the water sort OF SraylSli-Wnlte appear
ance. Then there is fly, which looks some-
thing like our house fly. These settle on the
beach to eat the worms that wash ashore
aud any time YOU can see there a belt OF flies
an inch deep and six feet wide, and this belt
extends clear around the lake-a belt OF flies
one hundred miles long. IL you throw
stone among them. they swarm up so thlcE
they look dense. like cloud. You can hold
them undel water as long as you please
they don't mind it-they are only proud OF 1t.
When you let them go, they pop up to the
surface as dry as patent office report, and
walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been
educated especially with view to affording
instructive entertainment to man in that par
ticular way. Providence leaves nothing TO go
ty chance. All things have their uses and
their part and proper place in Natures econ
omy. The ducks and sulls eat the flies-the
flies eat the worms the Indians e;t the flies
the wild cats eat the Indians-the white
folks eat the wild cats when the crops tall
and thus all things are lovely.
Mono Lake is $50 miles in a straight line
from the ocean-and between it and the ocean
are one or two ranges OF mountains-yet
thousands OF sea-gulls go there every season
to lay their eggs and rear their young. one
would as soon expect to find sea-@uns IN
Tennessee. And in this connection lel us
observe another instance OF NatuIes WI Sl uoll'
The islands in the lake beng hnereiy a"ge
masses of lava. coated over WIN ashes anu
. " "a utterly innocent OF veoeta-