The Innocents Abroad

“Napoleon III, the representative of the highest modern civilization, progress, and refinement; Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious—and government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, the first century greets the nineteenth!” 

These comments refer to a public appearance in Paris of Emperor Louis Napoleon and Sultan Abdul-Aziz of Turkey to conduct a review of soldiers. Twain takes the two rulers as symbols of the West and the East, respectively—the West dynamic, progressive, and cultured, and the East backward, primitive, and despotic. 

“‘Call him Ferguson,’ said Dan.” 

This line signals the beginning of a long-running joke. The travelers are dismayed that their French guide is named “Billfinger” and propose to give him a fancier French name instead. They eventually settle on calling him “Ferguson” and proceed to call all their guides by that name, rather than bother learning their foreign names. Later, the travelers rename various Middle Eastern locales with American place names like “Jacksonville.” These episodes illustrate the chauvinism of the “ugly American,” one of Twain’s satirical targets in the book. 

“Alas! Those good old times are gone when a murderer could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks and mortar and building an addition to a church.” 

Twain’s attacks on religious hypocrisy constitute a notable theme in the book. Twain implies that in the era when the Catholic Church was dominant, the external forms of religion were used to negate inner corruption.