June 30 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook:

June 30, Tuesday. Left Cradock 7 p.m. [June 29] Cold night. 10 hours without a urinal. Damnation! [Parsons, “Travelers in S.A.” 32].

In Kimberley, elevation 4,012 ft., the Clemenses arrived “shortly after noon” and took rooms at the Central Hotel, where word of his arrival preceded him and an American flag was bunted over the entry. Parsons writes, “When the Great Yankee passed up the pathway…a gentle breeze stirred the bunting, and lo! it was a signal of distress — it was upside down.” Parsons continues:

Twain was in a position to see that Kimberley itself was somehow upside down, for he was in the heart of things at the corner of Dutoitspan and Jones Street, equidistant from the Town Hall, where he would perform, the great Market Square, and the Kimberley Club, and about a five-minute walk from the DeBeers office and the Big Hole or Kimberley Mine. The buildings, mostly corrugated iron, were low and ugly, and the only suggestion of elevation was in reverse, the steep rim, then the frightening drop, of the Big Hole, whose vast throat could swallow the Coliseum and several other Wonders of the Word with room to spare for countless tons of lifted blue rock — and white stone…. Much of the grace and charm of life had sunk to the bottom in the greed for diamonds. But the American humorist was expected to restore the balance “in Kimberley, where men are loath to take life grimly” [“Traveler in S.A.” 33].

In the evening Sam gave his “At Home” (No.1) performance at the Kimberley Town Hall on Old Main St. The Midland News and Karroo Farmer published an interview on p.4 with Mark Twain, “Midland and Local Gleanings” [Philippon 23; Scharnhorst 313].