October 2 Tuesday – Sam’s first stage appearance took place at the Academy of Music on Pine Street in San Francisco, a new hall owned by Tom Maguire, who suggested Sam try to make his fortune by entering the lecture field and offering his experiences in the Sandwich Islands. He’d offered the hall to Sam at half price, 50 dollars, in exchange for half the profits. Sam agreed and spent 150 dollars on advertising. He had posters made up announcing the Honolulu Correspondent for the Sacramento Union, “Mark Twain,” would be speaking. “Doors open at 7 o’clock.

September 10 to 15 Saturday – Sam covered the thirteenth annual fair of the California State Agricultural Society, held in Sacramento, for the Sacramento Union [MTL 1: 361].

August 25 Saturday – Sam was probably staying at the Occidental Hotel [MTL 1: 359n2; Sanborn 295]. Sam received and answered a letter from his old Hannibal and pilot friend, Will Bowen. You write me of the boats, thinking I may yet feel an interest in the old business. You bet your life I do. It is about the only thing I do feel any interest in & yet I can hear least about it. If I were two years younger, I would come back & learn the river over again. But it is too late now.

August 18 Saturday – Sam’s eighteenth letter to the Union dated “HONOLULU, JULY, 1866: AT SEA AGAIN”:

August 8 Wednesday – Sam continued the letter he began July 30.
Afternoon—The calm is no more. There are 3 vessels in sight. It is so sociable to have them hovering about us on this broad waste of waters. It is sunny & pleasant, but blowing hard. Every rag about the ship is spread to the breeze & she is speeding over the sea like a bird. There is a large brig right astern of us with all her canvas set & chasing us at her best [MTL 1: 353].
From Sam’s notebook:

August 5 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook: “Everybody cheerful—at daylight saw the Comet in the distance on our lee—it is pleasant in this tremendous solitude to have company.” In persistent solitude, Sam recalled childhood incidents, and jotted down superstitions of his boyhood days. Among these:
Wash face in rain water standing on fresh cow dung to remove freckles.

July 23 Monday – From Sam’s notebook: “5 day—lat. 31.34—longitude 157.30—distance 202 miles.”

July 21 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook: “On 21 made 179 miles” [MTNJ 1: 133].

July 18 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:
Honolulu, July 18/66 - Have got my passport from the Royal d—d Hawaiian Collector of Customs & paid a dollar for it, & tomorrow we sail for America in the good ship Smyrniote, Lovett, master—& I have got a devlish saddle-boil to sit on for the first two weeks at sea [MTNJ 1: 132].

July 3 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:

“Saw star to-night on which counted 12 distinct & flaming points—very large star—shone with such a pure, rich, diamond luster—lustrous—on a field on dead solid black—no star very close—where I sat saw no other—Moonlight here is fine, but nowhere so fine as Washoe” [MTNJ 1: 119].