February 16 Sunday – Clara Clemens remembered:

We were encouraged by guests in the hotel to rise the next morning at five o’clock and take a short trip in order better to see the Himalayan snows. I say “we” but that meant only Mother and me, because Father decided to absorb what view there might be from his comfortable bedroom window. I rode on horseback with a gentleman, and Mother was drawn in a ricksha by three men. We did not regret the effort or the early hour, for never again did we behold such a dazzling expanse of bluish-white snow. We were awed and humbled by the sight, but we did not succeed in making Father wish he had gone with us, because he had gained a couple of good morning hours in a comfortable bed, without risking the disappointment he would have suffered from a cantankerous fog [MFMT 162].

Later in the day Sam spent a couple of hours at the Planters’ Club, with a grand view of the mountains. The Standard reported, “he had a peg (brandy and soda), and was genial and entertaining, and kept the billiard-room so jolly, that, though it was full of members, no one could play” [Parsons “MT India” 89].

Sam’s notebook reveals some of his other activities:

Sunday all cloud. Went to bazaar — vast crowd came in from large distances

In sight are Bhotan, Brit, Sikkim; Thibet; & Napaul — 1/2 day, horseback, to the boundaries [NB 36 TS 48].

In Darjeeling, Sam responded to a letter (not extant) from Charles H. Webb, founder of the Californian and publisher of The Jumping Frog:

Certainly, write the article. My, how that January day in your rooms in Broadway comes back! There was a “reporter’s cobbler” there, & much cheer, & some young men who are old men now or dead — & all this was twenty-nine years ago [1867]. It was there that I first saw Ned House. He was superbly handsome, & looked as little like a perjurer & thief as any creature of his breed I have ever seen.

Sam related they were returning to Calcutta after their stay in Darjeeling; they’d seen the 29,000-foot Himalayan mountain. Sam had heard of a tiger who ate a man and they expected to “see that tiger to-day, for we have to pass right by that spot and he will probably want some more” [MTP].

Livy wrote to daughter Jean Clemens:

Look on the map, and try to realize that we who belong to you are away up here in the Himalayas, on the border of Thibet. I cannot myself believe that it can be true.

Clara has gone to bed, but not until she had given me a scolding for thinking of trying to write to you to-night. Our days are so full that she thought I ought to go to bed.

We get up many mornings at six, and as a rule are not in bed until twelve, and I very rarely lie down in the day-time. Don’t you think I must be pretty strong and well? To-morrow morning we are going to get up at five to try & see a sight of the mountains. We have had fogs and clouds since we reached here yesterday, so we have had no view of the snow-clad mountains. But the spot is fine and interesting even in this foggy weather, & the trip up the mountain (over 7000 feet) was glorious. We came up in an open carriage — very much such as we went up into the CatsKills in.

We are so royally treated every where we go that I cannot begin to command the time to write you beloved ones at home about it. On the trip the company (railway co.) just the fares at ½ rate, gave us the director’s car, with a car attached for servants. In the car were easy chairs, sofas, a good-sized table, &c. &c. We left Calcutta at 4:30; [Feb. 14] at about 5:30 there was sent into our car tea & bread & butter & cake &c., and two servants to serve us, who remained standing behind our tables until we had finished our tea [Ahluwalia 43-4]. Note: Livy went on to describe similar service on the boat and train and breakfast for the next day, Feb. 15.

Livy and Clara left for Calcutta, returning there at 5 a.m. on Feb. 17. Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe would go on to Darjeeling Feb. 17 [Livy to Jean Feb. 18].