December 23 Monday – In Sydney Sam sent £200 to H.H. Rogers through Dibb’s Bank. At noon Sam wrote a short note to Cyprian A. Bridge:

We sail in an hour: I have been so rushed that I got no chance to acknowledge the honor of your visit till a quarter of an hour ago…I am sorry I missed you…[MTP].

At 1 p.m. the Clemens party (including Carlyle G. Smythe) sailed on the P&O liner Oceana for Ceylon.

Sam’s notebook includes an entry about twenty “male & female cranks — rivals of the Salvationists — in no uniform but waterproofs (it was raining) sang hymns on the dock,” begging for money. From FE:

A Lascar crew mans this ship — the first I have seen. White cotton petticoat and pants; barefoot; red shawl for belt; straw cap, brimless, on head, with red scarf wound around it; complexion a rich dark brown; short straight black hair; whiskers fine and silky; lustrous and intensely black. Mild, good faces; willing and obedient people; capable, too; but are said to go into hopeless panics when there is danger. They are from Bombay and the coast thereabouts….Left some of the trunks in Sydney, to be shipped to South Africa by a vessel advertised to sail three months hence. The proverb says: “Separate not yourself from your baggage.” …This Oceana is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed. She has spacious promenade decks. Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship. The officers’ library is well selected; a ship’s library is usually not that….For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a pleasant change from the terrible gong….Three big cats — very friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship; the white one follows the chief steward around like a dog [ch. XXXVII 331].

The Clemens family enjoyed dinner at the chief engineer’s table aboard the Oceana [Shillingsburg, “Down Under” 32; At Home 189].