June 28 Sunday – In Hartford the Clemenses old neighbor and Nook Farm saint, Harriet Beecher Stowe, died at age 85. Her funeral was held on July 2, at 73 Forest Street (see entry).

At 11: 40 a.m. in Grahamstown, the Clemens group were bound for Kimberley. Parsons writes,

…after ten hours broke their journey at Cradock for a day. They went to the neat and comfortable Victoria Hotel, which looked out on a “vast bare dust-blown square.” Ignoring the powerful wind and clouds of dust, the proprietor advertised, “Invalids specially cared for,” and the town regarded itself as “the best centre in the Colony for…health seekers.” And with some justification. At an altitude of 2856 feet, it enjoyed a very dry climate and was three miles south of anti-rheumatic sulphur baths. Less concerned at the moment with health than with comfort, the American guests tried to make their wants clear to the Negresses in English — and failed. When a Negro boy was told to build a wood fire, he brought fire on a shovel, a thing Mark had not seen “since I was a boy” [“Traveler in S.A” 31].