December 1 Sunday – In Napier, N.Z. at Frank Moeller’s Masonic Hotel, Sam rested his carbuncles. Shillingburg gathers from the following Dec. 1 notebook entry that Sam may have been treated by a Dr. John Brown [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 28].

Dr. John Brown—“Somebody you are acquainted with?” “No, dog, I’m not acquainted with” [NB 34 TS 45] Note: more likely Sam recalled his late friend the Scot Dr. John Brown.

Sam wrote to William Evarts Benjamin through H.H. Rogers offering to sell 5 years’ use of his new book, which would become Following the Equator, for $40,000, but not less [MTP].

Sam’s notebook entry noted it was “hot — & plenty flies”; also the title, “Ranke’s History of the Popes,” referring to Leopold von Ranke’s The History of the Popes, Their Church and State, etc. (1876) [NB 34 TS 45; Gribben 569; MTNJ 2: 244].