February 21 Friday – The Clemens party left Benares for Lucknow, some 261 miles. Sam’s notebook:

Feb. 21. Left for Lucknow about 1 p.m., hot as the nation, the flat plains the color of pale dust, & the dust flying. Tiffin [lunch] at 2, at Jawnpur City. No doubt all those native grayheads remember the Mutiny [NB 36 TS 49-50].

Parson writes,

Having red up on “the crushing of the Mutiny,” Mark wanted to recapture its tension and heroism by visiting the “sacred” ruins. What drew him most to Lucknow, therefore, was the sixty acre site of the residency, which was shaken by frequent native attacks and mining operations from June to November, 1857 [90].