Roughing It Deluxe Book

I had literally just finished reading Mark Twain's Roughing It when I stumbled upon this similarly named book by one of America's most recognisable writers from the first half if the 20th century. Surely the title wasn't arrived at by accident?

It wasn't. Roughing It De Luxe is both a copy and a homage to Twain's journey West fifty years previously, only the earlier humourist had to go by stagecoach, there was no railway back in the 1860's.

Cobb was well aware of the comparative modesty of his venture, as well as the inferior nature of the train to the coach when it came to immersing yourself in the scenery. However, there were benefits:

'Some objected to the plains because they were flat and plainlike, and some to the mountains because of their exceedingly mountainous aspect; but on one point we all agreed - on the uniform excellence of the dining-car service.'

This is only a short collection, a handful of newspaper articles about his vists to the Gran Canon, Los Angeles, San Francisco and just south of the border with Mexico. Twain hung around West for seven years after he got there.

Cobb's humour was very much in the style of his predecessor though. The blowhard and the tall tale interest him at least as much as the beautiful climate and the tall mountains.

I have noticed that one of the pieces about a mythical (i.e. made up) and malevolent creature called the Hydrophobic Skunk can be listened to online via a recorded narration. The nasty little fella supposedly resides at the bottom of the Gran Canon but is really nothing more than a wind-up aimed at tourists.

When in Tia Jauna he tried mescal for the first time. I liked his description of the experience:

'It goes down easily enough - that is not the trouble - but as soon as it goes down you have the sensation of having swallowed a comet.'