February 5 Wednesday – In Benares The Clemens family was up at 6 a.m. and spent the whole day sightseeing [Feb. 8 to Rogers]. It was likely, then, that this was the day they hired a “commodious hand-propelled ark” and took several trips up and down the Ganges. Parsons writes,

Seated in awning-shaded chairs, they surveyed the fifty major ghats, or landing stairs, the shrines, temples, and palaces covering the stone-lined northern bluff, which bent in a crescent almost four miles long. Little cracks in the masonry massed at the top were the openings of narrow, winding, malodorous streets of red houses and peeling temples.

…Twain was eager to see how they did things at the Burning Ghat, a macabre three-ring circus with several flaming funerals going on at once. In half an hour, he had gone through nine cremations and was ready for a change.

When he rowed to a landing, Twain went with his folk to the monkey-infested temple of black Kali (or Durga) [Thug goddess], with flower-garlanded goddess of death….Perhaps to clear his head, Mark climbed up the dark, spiral stairs of one of the 147-foot, leaning minarets, from whose cage he had a breathless view of the city, river, and plain [“MT India” 83].

Two letters from Sam survive for this day, and were likely written in the evening after the long day of sightseeing. The first was to Kumar Shri Samatsinghji in Bombay, thanking him for his recent hospitality.

It was our first glimpse of the home of an eastern prince; & the charm of it, the grace & beauty & dignity of it realized to use the pictures which we had long ago gathered from books of travel & oriental tales…

We make our salutations to your Highness & to the members of your family — including, with affectionate regard, that littlest little sprite of a princess…[MTP].

The second letter was to H.H. Rogers.

I was delighted to see by enclosure from Langdon a few days ago, that you had decided to take the creditors individually & get releases from them at 50 cents on the dollar. And I was glad to see the first to respond was that Boston firm. They were always nice men to deal with; their only fault was that they were too easy with [Fred] Hall — they ought to have made him pay up occasionally.

Sam further discussed the possible sale of his Uniform Edition and of negotiations with Frank Bliss. He repeated that he meant to write his book (or books) before he decided on another American lecture tour. He also repeated that Pond was “such an idiot” but he knew no other American lecture agent. He summarized the places in India he’d lectured and his general schedule ahead. He also said that Rogers had “an excellent man in Bombay — Major Comfort” [MTP]. Note: Major Samuel Comfort was the manager of Standard Oil’s business in western India, headquartered in Bombay. He would soon become the American consul to Bombay.