February 7 Friday – The Clemens party ... arrived in Calcutta at 7 a.m. [NB 36 TS 39] . They took rooms at the Hotel Continental [Parsons “MT India” 85].

March 26 Thursday – At 7 a.m. the Clemens party sailed from Calcutta on the S.S. Wardha bound for Ceylon. Before reaching the sea, however, they had to negotiate the Hooghly River. Sam’s notebook:

At anchor at Garden Reach all night. When wind blew in, icy cold; the moment it stopped, blistering hot & mosquitoes. We all went up & slept on deck....
This morning the Hoogly is 1 to 1 1⁄2 mile wide, with low banks, wooded, & very muddy water. Bends, points, bars. When you are far enough away so that you cannot distinguish the cocoa tress & mud villages, you can’t tell it from the Lower Miss.
A fatal notion. For 6 hours now, it has been impossible to realize that this is India & the Hoogli. No, every few miles we see a great white-columned European house standing in the front of the vast levels, with a forest away back — La [Louisiana] planter? — & the thatched groups of native houses have turned themselves into the negro quarter familiar to me near 40 years ago & so for 6 hours this has been the sugar coast of the Mississippi ...
We are lying from noon all day at anchor below the shoalest place, waiting for high tide for tomorrow’s shoals. Getting below this shoal place (Mary & James) saves us 26 hours — it would be that long before w d be a high enough tide to float us over. We had short of 4 inches to spare this time [NB 36 TS 60-1].
(Fears)