When 31-year-old journalist Samuel Clemens climbed aboard the transatlantic steamship Quaker City in New York harbor in June 1867 for a five-month-long pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land, he had only the vaguest notion of what lay ahead. He planned to write a series of travel dispatches for the San Francisco Alta California newspaper, which was funding his trip. Beyond that, he hoped to have a little fun along the way.
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