March 27 Thursday – The Kanawha made its way to Kingston, Jamaica.

Sam’s notebook: “7 a.m. took pilot. Black, with 3 young blacks. Quite indifferent to their peril. Had to take their boat aboard—it would never have towed—sea too rough. Island densely wooded—can’t insert a knife between the trees. 9—noon. Ashore & drove. Captain of the Galena—$1” [NB 45 TS 7].

Sam’s ship log:

Took a pilot, far at sea, at 7 a.m. Black, with 3 young blacks for crew; their boat rather a canoe than anything else. They had been cruising in rough seas, (out of sight of land, part of the time,) two or three days. It may have been dangerous, but they did not seem to have suspected it. The young fellows get $5 a month apiece; also board (cocoanuts) & lodging (in the canals.) They had a dozen cocoanuts with them, & not a thing else.

Picked up this pilot 40 miles from Kingston, & sailed along the island, at a distance. Densely wooded— can’t insert a knife between the trees.

KINGSTON.

Ashore, & drove. The town has 60,000 population, 50,000 of them black. In the rest of the island there are 5,000 whites.

Visited the botanical garden. Returned to the ship.

Pedlers, with cheap cigars, guava jelly, etc. When all had made a harvest & gone, a gray-headed Negro who had sold nothing, recognized Mr. Rogers, with a joyful shout—

“Members you, suh, puffeckly!—seed you a hund’d times when you uz captain o’ de battleship Galena!” Ths gross & bald-headed flattery pulled a Spanish dollar out of the late Captain of the Galena [MTP].

Hélène Elisabeth Picard wrote to Sam. She’d just received photos of Joan and the little house in Domremy and they were “sent by the same mail”—if he wanted “more he only had to say the word….The photos are taken from frescoes in the Pantheon, and it is always the same woman that stood for Joan of Arc. Lenepveu painted them, and you have some of his, at least two, in the Recollections” She was anxious to receive the rules of the Juggernaut Club [MTP]. Note: Jules Eugene Lenepveu (1819-1898), born Jules Eugène Lenepveu Boussaroque de Lafont, French Neoclassical painter who became famous for his vast canvasses and the ceilings of the Opera de Paris.