March 26 Thursday – At 7 a.m. the Clemens party sailed from Calcutta on the S.S. Wardha bound for Ceylon. Before reaching the sea, however, they had to negotiate the Hooghly River. Sam’s notebook:

March 26. At anchor at Garden Reach all night. When wind blew in, icy cold; the moment it stopped, blistering hot & mosquitoes. We all went up & slept on deck….

This morning the Hoogly is 1 to 1 ½ mile wide, with low banks, wooded, & very muddy water. Bends, points, bars. When you are far enough away so that you cannot distinguish the cocoa tress & mud villages, you can’t tell it from the Lower Miss.

A fatal notion. For 6 hours now, it has been impossible to realize that this is India & the Hoogli. No, every few miles we see a great white-columned European house standing in the front of the vast levels, with a forest away back — La [Louisiana] planter? — & the thatched groups of native houses have turned themselves into the negro quarter familiar to me near 40 years ago & so for 6 hours this has been the sugar coast of the Mississippi …

We are lying from noon all day at anchor below the shoalest place, waiting for high tide for tomorrow’s shoals. Getting below this shoal place (Mary & James) saves us 26 hours — it would be that long before wd be a high enough tide to float us over. We had short of 4 inches to spare this time [NB 36 TS 60-1].