The self-styled ?Ghost of Mark Twain? visited Bermuda on the famous author?s 170th birthday this week.

McAvoy Layne of Incline Village, Nevada has spent the last 13 years impersonating American humorist Mark Twain and has even posed as Mr. Twain on A&E and the Discovery Channel.

Mr. Layne makes a living touring schools and colleges giving students a chance to experience the wit and southern wisdom of the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn who died in 1910.

?This happens to be my 170th birthday, I can think of nowhere I would rather celebrate it than right here in Bermuda,? Mr. Layne said impersonating Mark Twain. ?You can go to heaven if you like, I?ll stay here.

?My first trip here was on the SS Quaker City excursion in 1867. We stopped on the way back from Europe,? Mr. Layne said. ?My second trip was in 1877 and it was a long time until 1907 between visits.

?Then I tried to get back here as much as I could. In fact I was here just before Christmas then when I went home, my daughter Jean died and when I came back you can see a picture of me with my black armband on and I was to follow her April 21.?

Mark Twain ? whose real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens ? wrote or was inspired to write several of his most significant and last literary pieces in Bermuda.

He also played miniature golf ? which he styled gooney golf ? and contributed to a petition wanting to ban cars in Bermuda.

Mark Twain entertained some of his famous literary and political friends including his great friend Woodrow Wilson, before Mr. Wilson became 28th President of the US in 1913 and helped establish Bermuda as a tourism destination for Americans.

?Woodrow Wilson turned to me on that beautiful fairway, which is actually a gooney golf course, and said ?Sam, good sportsmanship is not picking up lost golf balls while they?re still rolling?. He was a wit that Woodrow,? Mr. Clemens said.

He also actively promoted Bermuda as a tourist and social paradise.

?I did the same thing for the Hawaiian islands. In 1866 I went out to what we called the Sandwich Islands then and by the time I returned four months later I was the best known honest man on the Pacific coast.?

Mr. Clemens was outraged when the first ever automobile arrived in Bermuda in 1906 and campaigned for Bermuda to remain a motor-less Eden.

?Woodrow and I signed a petition to disallow automobiles and it stood from 1910 ? for 30 years ? until 1940,? he said. ?I wish it was still horse and buggy but with the price of gas at $6.75 a gallon it might be horse and buggy again soon.?

Mr. Layne said he enjoyed being in Bermuda again, visiting old haunts like Tom Moore?s Tavern and even admired the bronze statues of himself in Hamilton, adding: ?Even Mark Twain needs a holiday.?