At three o’clock on the morning of the twenty-first of June, we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o’clock in the morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was five and a half o’clock now, and a raw, blustering morning. The passengers were huddled about the smoke-stacks and fortified behind ventilators, and all were wrapped in wintry costumes and looking sleepy and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching spray. I think the Azores must be very little known in America. Out of our whole ship’s company there was not a solitary individual who knew anything whatever about them. Some of the party, well read concerning most other lands, had no other information about the Azores than that they were a group of nine or ten small islands far out in the Atlantic, something more than halfway between New York and Gibraltar. That was all.
June 20 Thursday – A violent storm drove the QC to Fayal (see June 21 entry.) Sam’s notebook:
“Questions for debate. Which is the most powerful motive—Duty or Ambition?
Is or is not Capt. Duncan responsible for the head winds?” [MTNJ 1: 340].
June 21 Friday – The Quaker City (subsequently noted here as QC) arrived at Horta, island of Fayal, in the Azores at daylight.
At three o’clock on the morning of the 21 of June we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o’clock in the morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck [Innocents Abroad, Ch 5].
June 22 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:
June 23 Sunday – QC departed Horta at 11 AM
“The group on the pier was a rusty one—men and women, boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, an profession, beggars. …and never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of them” [Innocents Abroad, Ch. 5].
Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE NUISANCE OF ADVICE,” which Sam had dated May 18 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 18 [bibliog.].