December 6 Friday – Sam traveled from Hawera to New Plymouth, some 48 miles in four hours, “12 m per hour” riding through the garden region. “From Stratford to N.P. it was difficult to stay in your seat, so tremendously rough was the road” [NB 34 TS 48]. He’d been advertised for two weeks by The Budget to speak in Alexandra Hall, which held a thousand people. The hall was packed and included some Maoris: Shillingsburg quotes newspapers and writes,

“Seldom has the Alexandra Hall been so packed,” and seldom “perhaps has the audience so thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment.” He met “such a welcome as is usually accorded only to old favorites….to the general public…, but there was a strong admixture of curiosity” to see Twain. He used the excerpts which were so welcomed in the Victorian country towns — his Mississippi River childhood, Huck and Jim, and the German language lesson. These stories and his “droll witticisms kept the audience in a perpetual state of half-subdued laughter, disturbed now and then by a spontaneous and uncontrollable outburst as a particularly fetching point found its way home” [At Home 172].

After the lecture Sam was entertained at the men’s social club, the Taranaki Club. The Taranaki Herald reviewed the lecture on Dec. 7. In his notebook he commented on the ride through the “garden” country, with butter and creamery factories:

They ought to put the milk in the train — that would churn it. This was my only unpleasant experience [of a N.Z. train] [NB 34 TS 48].