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.
We left Melbourne by rail for Adelaide, the capital of the vast Province of South Australia—a seventeen-hour excursion. On the train we found several Sydney friends; among them a Judge who was going out on circuit, and was going to hold court at Broken Hill, where the celebrated silver mine is. It seemed a curious road to take to get to that region. Broken Hill is close to the western border of New South Wales, and Sydney is on the eastern border.