April 24 Friday – In Curepipe, Mauritius Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers.
We have been here about ten days, and shall be here 3 or 4 more before our ship will be ready to receive us on board. This holiday comes very handy for me; I am very glad to have a resting spell; I was getting fagged with platform work….
April 23 Thursday – In Curepipe, Sam gave this date for a potpourri of information about Mauritius.
April 23. “The first year they gather shells; the second year they gather shells and drink; the third year they do not gather shells.” (Said of immigrants to Mauritius.)
Population 375,000. 120 sugar factories.
April 22 Wednesday – In Curepipe, Sam gave this date for a discussion of why the English allowed the French to colonize Madagascar.
April 20 Monday – In Curepipe, Mauritius, Sam wrote in FE:
April 20. — This is the only place in the world where no breed of matches can stand the damp. Only one match in 16 will light.
The roads are hard and smooth; some of the compounds are spacious, some of the bungalows commodious, and the roadways are walled by tall bamboo hedges, trim and green and beautiful; and there are azalea hedges, too, both the white and the red; I never saw that before.
April 18 Saturday – In Curepipe, Mauritius on a twelve-day rest, Sam wrote in FE:
April 16 Thursday – The best account of the Clemens party reaching Mauritius and traveling to the village of Curepipe, which Parsons calls a “mountain health resort,” where they would rest twelve days, is in FE:
April 15 Wednesday – At 2 a.m. the S.S. Wardha arrived and anchored off Port Louis. Sam wrote:
Rugged clusters of crags and peaks, green to their summits; from their bases to the sea a green plain with just tilt enough to it to make the water drain off. I believe it is in 56° E. and 22° S. — a hot tropical country. The green plain has an inviting look; has scattered dwellings nestling among the greenery. Some of the sentimental adventure of Paul and Virginia.
April 14 Tuesday – The Clemens family was at sea on the S.S. Wardha, bound for Port Louis, Mauritius. Sam wrote in FE:
April 14. It turns out that the astronomical apprentice worked off a section of the Milky Way on me for the Magellan Clouds. A man of more experience in the business showed one of them to me last night. It was small and faint and delicate, and looked like the ghost of a bunch of white smoke left floating in the sky by an exploded bombshell [nebula] [ch LXII 617].
April 13 Monday – The Clemens family was at sea on the S.S. Wardha, bound for Port Louis, Mauritius. Livy wrote home to Alice Day on their ninth day at sea that “this ocean trip has been most restful” [Rodney 187].
April 12 Sunday – On board the Wardha at sea, Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, principally about the Archer County, Texas land that Livy purchased. (See Oct. 27, Nov. 25, Dec. 30 1882 entries.)