A Tramp Abroad: Day By Day

August 23 Saturday – The Clemens family sailed from Liverpool on the S.S.Gallia, bound for New York. Sam noted “about 9 PM brilliant moon, a calm sea, & a magnificent lunar rainbow.”  He noted the last time he’d seen one was in California [MTNJ 2: 340].

August 24 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

“…up, shaved breakfasted, before 8—everybody gone but us…visited Gasternthal—gushing waterspout from rock. Sun shining on green ice & blazing snow…Chased a chunk down stream” [MTNJ 2: 143]. (See this source for Twichell’s description of Sam boyishly and joyously chasing a stick downstream.)

August 25 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook:

…visted the King of the World’s palace [a natural cliff formation] & drew its outline, seated on a grassy bench (a precipice) 2 or 300 ft high,) with 2 or 3 trees projecting above its edge.

Gigantic French Countess—did wish I might venture to ask her for her dimensions. The fatlings bathe 3 hours in AM & 2 in PM [MTNJ 2: 145-6].

August 26 Monday – Sam and Joe took a train to Locchi-Suste (Visp). They met John Dawson and wife, an English family going their way. From Visp the two hiked “6 hours through mud & rain” the ten miles to St. Nicklaus, Switzerland [MTNJ 2: 148]. Rodney: “Ensconsed in a new hotel, they changed into dry clothes and revived with a good dinner” [107].

August 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote in his notebook that the hotel was a pleasant contrast to the villages and roads. But it was close to a village church which messed with their sleep:

St. Nicklaus Aug. 27—Awakened at 4:30 by the clang & jangle of a church bell wh rang 15 min. Went to sleep no more. At 7 it rang again 15.

It is an ugly little whitewashed church with a queer tin dome like a turnip growing with its root in the air.

Damn all ch bells! At 7.25 they rang again!

August 28 Wednesday – Sam and Joe walked six hours from Zermatt to Riffle and took rooms in a hotel there. Sam noted that

“The guide-book calls it 7 miles…but we found by the Pedometer it was only 800 yards. So in everything but distances the G.B. [guidebook] is to be depended on. It took us 6 hours to go the 800 yds, though” [MTNJ 2: 165].

August 28 Thursday – Sam’s entry in his notebook objected to a long title in the Nation—what he called “compounding-disease” [MTNJ 2: 341].

August 29 Thursday – Sam’s notebook:

“…we climbed up on the end of Gorner glacier which is joined in its course by 10 glaciers. The Visp issues from it” [MTNJ 2: 167].

Sam and Joe spent time observing the Matterhorn, the Riffleberg, the Gorner Grat and the adjacent mountains. They walked back to Zermatt either late this day or on the morning of the next day.

August 3 Sunday – The Clemens family ended their visit at Condover Hall and went to Oxford, arriving at about 6 PM. There they sent the children on to Brunswick House Hotel, London with Rosa and were shown the colleges by Edward Wyndham [MTNJ 2: 337&n93].

August 30 Friday – The two tramps “left Zermatt about 10 A.M in a wagon & a shower, for St. Nicholas”  [MTNJ 2: 167].

After a time they reached St. Nicklaus, where they lunched, then continued on foot ten miles to Visp, where they spent the night [Rodney 108].

August 31 Saturday – Sam and Twichell took the train at 10:51 AM to Breveret (Bouveret), accompanied by the Dawsons (see Aug.

August 4 Sunday – Sam and Joe took another one-day excursion from Baden Baden to Ebersteinburg to Nuehaus to Gernsbach, where they drank beer. Sam sent a telegram to Livy at the Hotel de France [MTNJ 2: 129]. The pair returned to Baden Baden in the evening.

August 4 Monday – Sam and Livy traveled on to London.

August 5 Monday – Sam and Joe left by rail for a week-long tramp. Sam wrote at 8:30 PM from Allerheiligen, Germany to Livy in Heidelberg. Sam wrote of almost being left at Baden Baden that morning, having waited on the wrong side of the train tracks. After having their day “mapped out” by a schoolmaster named Scheiding, the rest of the day was full:

August 6 Tuesday – Clemens and Twichell walked from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, Germany, ten miles [MTNJ 2: 47, 129]. They then took a train from Oppenau to Heidelberg “through clouds of dust” [129].

August 6 Wednesday – Sam inscribed a copy of the National Gallery of London’s A Complete Illustrated Catalogue (1879): “S.L. Clemens / London, Aug. 6 ’79” [Gribben 417].

August 7 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Lang’s Hotel in Heidelberg to Livy. He’d received her note and thanked her.

“We have had a long & most enjoyable day in a carriage up to Hirschhorn & back with Smith” [MTLE 3: 76].

August 8 Thursday – Joe and Sam took the train up the river valley to Wimpfen. They started out on foot, and took a peasant’s cart seven more miles to Heilbronn [Rodney 103]. They browsed around the town and admired the old buildings. They ordered red wine at the Hotel zum Falkan but got something different. They discovered the label was wet and had just been applied.

August 9 Friday – Twichell and Sam took a boat from Heilbronn for a trip down the Neckar River, stopping for beer and chicken at Jagtfeldt, then continuing toward Hirschhorn in a new and smaller boat [MTNJ 2: 132].

Aftermath of Disgrace – Orion Apes Jules Verne – Bliss Contract for Europe Travel Book Quick Jaunts to Fredonia & Elmira – Family Sails for Europe - Frankfort, Hamburg to Heidelberg – Mannheim Operas – Speech at Heidelberg University - Twichell Joined in Baden Baden – Excursions by Foot, Boat, Rail, and Cart – The Alps - Twichell Departs – Italy – Munich for the Winter

Paris Balloon Ride, Horse Races, French Morality & Fires All Summer - Onanism At The Stomach Club – Crowded By Visitors -  Dirty Brussells, Antwerp & Dinner On The Admiral’s Flagship -  Rotterdam, Amsterdam & London – Orion Excommunicated -  Spurgeon Preaches, Great Darwin Seen – Gallia For Home – Howells Sleepeth -  Writing Tramp – Grant “Fetched Up”– Patriotic Frenzy – Ingersoll, Freethinker -  Lavish Colt “Blowout” – Holmes’ 70 Th Redemption

December 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Munich to his mother, and sister Pamela:

I broke the back of life yesterday & started down-hill toward old age. This fact has not produced any effect upon me that I can detect.

December 14 Saturday – Sam wrote from Munich to Bayard Taylor. Sam had heard in Italy a few weeks back that Taylor was ill, but then saw it contradicted in a newspaper. This day he read that the contradiction was in error. Sam ended by saying they would try to “run over to Berlin in the spring.” [MTLE 3: 112]. Bayard Taylor, the “father of American travel literature,” died five days after Sam wrote him, on Dec. 19, 1878.

December 18 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

“On some of the large ocean steamers the old-fashioned settees have been replaced by revolving arm chairs—Harper’s Weekly gravely makes this preposterous statement. Who could stay in one in a storm?” [MTNJ 2: 252].

December – Sam inscribed in a copy of Joseph Norman Lockyer’s (1836-1920) Elementary Lessons in Astronomy (1877): “S.L. Clemens, Munich, Dec. 1878” [Gribben 415].