Mark Twain · 1869 · sea

Mark Twain's 1869 travelogue. He joins a shipload of American tourists on a grand pleasure cruise across the Atlantic and around the Mediterranean and Holy Land - the Azores, Gibraltar, France, Italy, Greece, Constantinople, and on to Jerusalem and Egypt - skewering both the pretensions of the Old World and the naivety of his fellow 'innocents' at every port.

1. 1
   New York

   The steamship Quaker City sets out with its cargo of pilgrims and pleasure-seekers on the first great American cruise.

2. 2
   Azores

   A first exotic landfall in the mid-Atlantic, where the innocents haggle and gawk at Fayal.

3. 3
   Gibraltar

   The great rock guarding the gate of the Mediterranean, and a side-trip to Tangier in Morocco.

4. 4
   Marseille

   Landfall in France and the railway north to marvel, and grumble, at Paris.

5. 5
   Genoa

   Into Italy, where Twain skewers the guides, the relics and the endless Old Masters.

6. 6
   Naples

   Vesuvius and the buried streets of Pompeii, with Rome and its ruins inland.

7. 7
   Athens

   A forbidden moonlight scramble up to the Acropolis, past the quarantine guards.

8. 8
   Constantinople

   The teeming bazaars and mosques of the Ottoman capital astride the Bosphorus.

9. 9
   Beirut

   The pilgrims disembark for the long overland ride through Syria and the Holy Land.

10. 10
    Jerusalem

    The goal of the pilgrims, walked at last with a mixture of reverence and Twain's dry disenchantment.

11. 11
    Jaffa

    The ancient port where the weary travellers rejoin the Quaker City.

12. 12
    Alexandria

    Egypt, and the obligatory pilgrimage to the Pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza.

13. 13
    New York

    Homeward across the Atlantic, the innocents abroad returned and none too changed.