Mark Twain, his wife Olivia and daughter Clara, along with his agent Mr. R.S. Smythe took the seventeen hour overland express from Melbourne to Adelaide, October 11, 1895 at 4:30 p.m. Not far from Melbourne, Dr. N. T. FitzGerald detrained at "one of those mighty estates" where the surgeon lived.
From Fatout (p 256): On October 11 the tourists left Melbourne for five days in Adelaide. The carbuncle, said Mark Twain to an interviewer, “sits on me like the nation; it keeps quiet awhile, but at times it gathers itself together and gives an almighty hard twist.” Adelaide, he told another, “possessed advantages over America in the fact that the city government was honest.” Speaking of scenery, he said that he “recognized the grass, but the trees were new to him.” Having received much information about flora and fauna, he remarked that he did not care whether it was correct, “for all he wanted was information and plenty of it.” Avoiding the usual tourist gush about natural beauty, he entered in his notebook the private opinion that Australia was an “unpretty country,” of which “the native Australian is as vain . . . as if it were the final masterpiece of God, achieved by Him from designs by that Australian.”