We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and sparkling summer sea; an enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all on board; it certainly was to me, after the distressful dustings and smokings and swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable.
August 23 Friday – In Victoria, J. B. Pond’s diary on the day of departure:
August 24 Saturday – Sam, Livy and daughter Clara were en route to Honolulu on the Warrimoo, captain R.E. Arundel. Sam wrote of the ship and captain in the first chapter of FE:
August 25 Sunday – In his Aug. 30 to H.H. Rogers, Sam wrote it had “been an uneventful voyage”:
The weather has been divine. For the past three days the sea with the sun on it has counterfeited the intense & luminous blue of the Mediterranean. We have done nothing but play hearts & read & smoke [MTP].
August 26 Monday – The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu.
August 27 Tuesday – The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu. From FE Ch. II:
About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all the male passengers put on white linen clothes [35].
August 28 Wednesday –The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu. Only two letters from Sam are extant from the voyage to Honolulu. The first is to Jack Harrington (identity not established but NB 35 TS 37 gives his age as 13), this day.
We are going to celebrate your birth-day to-night; and out of affection for you & for your father we shall do the occasion all the credit we can, & make all the noise the captain will allow.
August 29 Thursday – From FE, Ch. II:
One or two days later [after four days out] we crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. The prevalence of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool and cheerful and picnicky aspect [35].
August 30 Friday – At sea on the Warrimoo Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers:
In a couple of hours after dark we shall be in Honolulu — too late to lecture, & I am not sorry. We sail at 11 in the morning — too early to lecture. I got mighty tired platforming before we left America, & shall be glad to remain quiet till we reach Australia [MTP, not in MTHHR].
August 31 Saturday – Livy finished her Aug 30 letter to daughter Susy.
September 1 Sunday – At sea from Honolulu on the R.M.S. Warrimoo en route to Fiji and Australia. Sam’s notebook reveals they were “lying at anchor till midnight” [NB 35 TS 41].
September 2 Monday – Sept. 2. Flocks of flying fish — slim, shapely, graceful, and intensely white. With the sun on them they look like a flight of silver fruit-knives. They are able to fly a hundred yards [FE Ch. IV p.65].
September 3 Tuesday – Sept. 3. In 9° 50’ north latitude, at breakfast. Approaching the equator on a long slant. Those of us who have never seen the equator are a good deal excited. I think I would rather see it than any other thing in the world. We entered the “doldrums” last night — variable winds, bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and drunken motion to the ship — a condition of things findable in other regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always.
September 4 Wednesday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo. Sept. 4. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At 7.30 it began to go off. A total — or about that — it was like a rich rosy cloud with a tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it — a bulge of strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the moon was like a gilded acorn in its cup [FE Ch. IV p.65].
The N.Y. World, p.8 ran “Twain Very Ill,” an interview datelined Vancouver, B.C, Aug. 28 [Scharnhorst, Interviews 192-6].
September 5 Thursday – Sept. 5. Closing in on the equator this noon. A sailor explained to a young girl that the ship’s speed is poor because we are climbing up the bulge toward the center of the globe; but that when we should once get over, at the equator, and start down-hill, we should fly. …
Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers kodak’d it. We had no fool ceremonies, no fantastics, no horseplay [FE Ch. IV p.65-6].
September 6 Friday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo, Sam’s notebook records scores from a “First Championship” of deck shuffleboard, with daughter Clara’s 109 score the winner [NB 35 TS 45].
September 7 Saturday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo, Sam’s notebook records scores from a “Sept. 7” of deck shuffleboard, this time with Sam winning’s score of 111. “There were others. The winners being reduced to 2 — Thomas & me, we played it off & he won” [NB 35 TS 45].
Shillingsburg writes,
September 8 Sunday – Sam’s notebook on the R.M.S. Warrimoo:
Sept. 8. To-day’s Sunday & tomorrow’s Tuesday. It is said that Monday is dropt out because the sailors don’t like to lose their Sunday holiday — as if they couldn’t have it just as well as an ostensible Sunday as on a real one [NB 35 TS 46]
September 9 Monday – FE Ch. IV p.75 denotes this day skipped for crossing the international date line.
Yesterday afternoon [Sept. 9] we passed two islands of the Horne Group — Alofa & Fortuna. On the large one are two rival native kings. There is no harbor, & the islands are not hogged by any European power. All the natives are Catholics — several French missionaries [NB 35 TS 48].
September 10 Tuesday – Next Day. Sure enough, it has happened. Yesterday it was September 8, Sunday; to-day it is September 10, Tuesday. There is something uncanny about it. And uncomfortable. In fact, nearly unthinkable, and wholly unrealizable, when one comes to consider it [FE Ch. IV p.75].
September 11 Wednesday – Sept. 11. We are moving steadily southward — getting further and further down under the projecting paunch of the globe. Yesterday evening we saw the Big Dipper and the north star sink below the horizon and disappear from our world. No, not “we,” but they. They saw it — somebody saw it — and told me about it. …My interest was all in the Southern Cross. I had never seen that….We saw the Cross to-night, and it is not large. Not large but strikingly bright.
September 13 Friday – At sea on the Warrimoo, Sam’s notebook:
September 14 Saturday – At sea on the Warrimoo, Sam added to his Sept. 13 a letter to H.H. Rogers, that he would finish Sept. 15: “Shuffleboarding is rather violent exercise for me,” and related that he won the best two of three games with another tournament winner, and was dubbed “Champion of the South Seas” [MTHHR 187: See NB 35 TS 49].
September 15 Sunday – At sea on the Warrimoo, Sam finished his Sept. 13-14 letter to H.H. Rogers:
Atlantic seas on to-day — the first we have had. And yet not really rough. Satchels keep their places and do not go browsing around….Clara “fetched away” from the piano stool while playing the hymns at divine service.