July 19? Friday – Sam made a day-trip to Chiasso in nearby Switzerland. He did not mention the trip in Innocents [Rasmussen 86]. Note: A day-trip seems probable for this date.
July 20 Saturday – Sam and friends went by steamer from Bellagio to Lecco; left Lecco by carriage at 1 PM for Bergamo; took a train that passed through Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, arriving in Venice at 8 PM.
July 21 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE SEX IN NEW YORK,” which Sam had dated May 26. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 22 [bibliog.].
BLOOD
July 22 Monday – Sam and friends left Venice by train; passed through Bologna and Pistoia overnight.
We were a little fatigued with sight seeing, and so we rattled through a good deal of country by rail without caring to stop. I took few notes. I find no mention of Bologna in my memorandum book, except that we arrived there in good season, but saw none of the sausages for which the place is so justly celebrated. Pistoia awoke but a passing interest [IA Ch. 24].
July 23 Tuesday – Sam and friends arrived in Florence; QC departed Genoa at 7 PM.
July 24 Wednesday – In Leghorn on July 25?, Sam referred to “A visit paid in a friendly way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial invitation) by some of our passengers” [Ch. 24, IA]. Sam was not among these visitors, and he wrote nothing further of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), Italian patriot and soldier. The itinerary for the QC excursion had stated, if practical, a visit to the General would be made. (See “The Journal of the Quaker City Captain,” by Charles E. Shain, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 28 No. 3 (Sept.
July 25? Thursday – Sam and friends left Florence on the noon train for Pisa, where they spent two hours. They arrived at Leghorn in the evening and boarded the QC.
At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest structure the world has any knowledge of—the Leaning Tower.…this one leans more than thirteen feet out of the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years old, but neither history or tradition say whether it was built as it is, purposely, or whether one of its sides has settled. There is no record that it ever stood straight up….
July 26? Friday – Sam and friends avoided being quarantined on the QC at Naples by taking a French steamer to Civitavecchia, Italy, then a train to Rome.
July 27 Saturday – Sam and friends arrived in Rome.
July 28 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “ACADEMY OF DESIGN,” which Sam had dated May 28. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 23 [bibliog.].
July 30 Tuesday – Sam’s article, dated June 23, “The Mediterranean Excursion” ran in the New York Tribune [McKeithan 10-18].
July 31 Wednesday – QC departed Leghorn at 9 AM.
August 1 Thursday – Sam and friends probably left Rome for Naples by train, while the QC arrived at Naples. The QC was then quarantined a week.
August 2 Friday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number One” dated June 19 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 3-10]. Note 2nd edition: McKeithan reported Mark Twain’s “Number One” letter from the Holy Land excursion as Aug. 2 (p. 10), but the newspaper has been examined online and the correct date is Aug. 25, 1867. Evidently McKeithan dropped the “5”.
August 3 Saturday – Sam’s article, dated Aug. 2, “Mark Twain in Quarantine” ran in the Naples Observer; it ran Sept. 16 in the Alta California [McKeithan 74-6].
August 4 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE DOMES OF YOSEMITE,” dated June 2 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 24 [bibliog.].
August 7 Wednesday – Sam and friends left Naples in the morning for two days on the island of Ischia. Sam wrote from Naples to Frank Fuller, the man who had acted as his agent to secure the Cooper Union hall in New York for Sam’s lecture. Sam declined to agree to anything in writing about a lecture circuit offer that Fuller had relayed from Edwin Lee Brown of the Young Men’s Library Association of Chicago [MTL 2: 75-6 n2].
August 9 Friday – Sam and friends returned to Naples in the morning. At midnight Sam, Jackson, Nesbit, Newell, and 4 others unidentified, left for Mt. Vesuvius. Sam wrote from Naples to his mother and family. Sam wrote to William Morris Stewart (1827-1909) accepting a secretary position:
August 10 Saturday – Sam and friends visited Capri by chartered steamer.
August 11 Sunday – QC left Naples at 8 AM. From Sam’s notebook:
7 PM, with the western horizon all golden from the sunken sun, & specked with distant ships, the bright full moon shining like a silver shield high over head, & the deep dark blue of the Mediterranean under foot & a strange sort of twilight affected by all these different lights & colors, all around us & about us, we sighted old Stromboli [MTNJ 1: 383].
Alta California printed Sam’s article “NEW YORK,” dated June 5 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 25 [bibliog.].
August 12 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Passed through Straits of Messina between Southern Italy & Sicily—2 miles wide in narrowest places. Passed close to city of Messina—mass of gas lights” [MTNJ 1: 384].
August 13 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Been skirting along the Isles of Greece all day—western side—very mountainous—prevailing tints gray & brown approaching to red” [MTNJ 1: 385].
August 14 Wednesday – QC arrived at Piraeus, Greece at noon. The ship was quarantined again, but Sam, Dr. George Birch, William Denny, and Dr. Jackson snuck off the ship and visited Athens that night.
August 15 Thursday – QC departed Piraeus at noon. From Sam’s notebook: “Booming through the Grecian Archipelago with a splendid breeze. Many passengers sea-sick” [MTNJ 1: 391].
August 16 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
“TROY. We are now (11AM., right abreast) the Plains of Troy & a little rock 200 yds long with a light on it (Asia Minor) was the anchorage of the Greek vessels….Diogenes going about with his lantern in the moonlight, did not tackle our party” [MTNJ 1: 322-3].