December 15 Sunday – The Clemens party was en route to Sydney in the Mararoa in the Tasman sea. Shillingsburg writes:

“The trip across the Tasman Sea from Wellington to Sydney was so pleasant that Twain said only poetry was appropriate. He read Mrs. Julia A. Moore’s The Sentimental Song Book, which, along with Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘deathless story’ The Vicar of Wakefield, he always carried with him….In fact he read both of these and a work by Jane Austen, which he called ‘thoroughly artificial.’ …While the Clemenses were still at sea, the Sydney newspapers again began heralding his arrival” [At Home 181; Gribben 32]. (Editorial emphasis.)