November 27 Wednesday – Livy’s 50th birthday. Sam’s notebook on the event:

Nov. 27. Livy’s birthday. I claimed that her birthday has either passed or is to come; that it is the 27th as the 27th exists in America, not here where we have flung out a day & closed up the vacancy [NB 34 TS 42].

The family celebrated Livy’s birthday aboard the Rotomahana, which arrived in Hawke’s Bay a mile from Gisborne, and, some 20 hours from Auckland, three hours ahead of schedule. Sam described the ship as “roomy, comfortable, well-ordered, and satisfactory” [FE ch XXXIV 315]. Due to high seas the ship could not dock. Sam watched as the Greenwood Theatrical Co. and four prisoners, disembarked in a basket over the rough seas into the small steam launch Snark for transport to shore. As a result of the rough seas and the harrowing nature of deboarding, the lecture in Gisborne was cancelled.

Sam gave an interview aboard the ship with W. Good of the Poverty Bay Herald saying that the ship could not dock and he did not “fancy coming ashore in the Snark.” The interview, with almost no quotations, ran on Nov. 28 [Shillingsburg, At Home 162; “Down Under” 27].

B. McCarter wrote asking if he might send some stories to Sam for his comment, or if he was “trespassing” on Sam’s time, to “dismiss the matter entirely” [MTP].