Roughing it, by Mark Twain,
begins with two brothers making preparations to travel to the West. One of them
was appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory and, in his brother´s point of
view, he would be like a hero. He would see buffaloes and Indians and have all
kinds of adventures…
My brother had
just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty
that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer,
Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence.
A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr.
Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing
grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his
distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and especially the
long, strange journey he was going to make, and the curious new world he was
going to explore. He was going to travel! I never had been away from home, and
that word "travel" had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would
be hundreds and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and Indians, and
prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of adventures, and may be get
hanged or scalped, and have ever such a fine time, and write home and tell us
all about it, and be a hero. And he would see the gold mines and the silver
mines, and maybe go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up
two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the
hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, and
be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and the ocean, and "the
isthmus" as if it was nothing of any consequence to have seen those
marvels face to face.