April 11 Saturday – The Clemens family was at sea on the S.S. Wardha, bound for Port Louis, Mauritius. In FE Sam wrote of the morning shipboard routine:

Customs in tropic seas. At 5 in the morning they pipe to wash down the decks, and at once the ladies who are sleeping there turn out and they and their beds go below. Then one after another the men come up from the bath in their pyjamas, and walk the decks an hour or two with bare legs and bare feet. Coffee and fruit are served. The ship cat and her kitten now appear and get about their toilets; next the barber comes and flays us on the breezy deck. Breakfast at 9.30, and the day begins [ch LXII 615-6].

Sam’s notebook entry for the day included his intention to quote Robert Browning’s poem “Clive” in FE. He’d included it in his readings at Bryn Mawr in Feb. 1891 [Gribben 92; NB 37 TS 36]. Gribben also cites “profuse notes that index his thoughts while ‘reading Sir John Lubbock’” about the ants and Sam’s note,

This is a good time to read up on scientific matters & improve the mind [428]