SOUTHWARD:
20 April - depart St. Louis, MO aboard Gold Dust
21 April - paused at Menard, IL
21 April - stopped at Cairo, IL
23 April - toured Memphis, TN
24 April - passed Napoleon, AR
26 April - visited Vicksburg, MS and boarded Charles Morgan
27 April - stopped at Baton Rouge, LA
28 April - arrived New Orleans, LA

George Washington Cable and Samuel L. Clemens first met in 1881. It appeared that he stood at the threshold of a brilliant career. (pg3 Cardwell). Cable had just caught the attention of the public with his two fresh, promising volumes [from 1879 and 1880]. Although his thinking on questions of race and caste had taken a liberal bias in the 1860's he was not yet marked as a forthright, vocal advocate of civil rights for the Negro and had not yet been widely attacked by southerners for the nonconformist views which were to make him notorious and obnoxious among them. (pg2 Cardwell).