November 28 Thursday – Early in the morning the Rotomahana reached Napier (pop. 9,000), a stop scheduled for two of Sam’s lectures. Sam noted a new pier, and “beautiful green bluffs” below the town, and “A handsome beach of prodigious length” [NB 34 TS 43]. They took rooms at Frank Moeller’s Masonic Hotel overlooking the sea. Sam didn’t care for three cages of canaries that decorated the long porch. He wrote in his notebook:

Canary birds are the passion of Australasia, apparently. There were three cages on this long portico. Got them removed. To me, a ca[na]ry’s “music” is but the equivalent of scratching a nail on a window-pane. I wonder what sort of disease it is that enables a person to enjoy the canary [NB 34 TS 43].

Sam was suffering again from carbuncles and fatigue, and Drs. de Lisle and Bernau checked him out before his performance, advising him to “spare his audience by sparing himself,” but Sam went on stage anyway, giving his No. 1 program of “At Home” at the Theatre Royal, to an enthusiastic audience. Sam called it a “lovely time with the audience” [NB 34 TS 43]. The Hawke’s Bay Herald ran a review on Nov. 29 [Shillingsburg, At Home 163; “Down Under” 27].