April 22 Saturday – The Gold Dust left Cairo early in the morning. When Sam “turned out” the packet had passed Columbus, Ky. and was approaching Hickman. Sam noted the damage that the “flood of 1882” had caused to New Madrid, Mo. and the unprotected lowlands from Cairo south.

“We met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once! An infrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The loneliness of this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive—and depressing” [Ch 27 LM].

Sam saw a steamboat named Mark Twain, “the first time” he’d “ever encountered this species of honor.”

The Gold Dust arrived at Memphis in the evening, and was “to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning” [Ch 29 LM]. Sam recalled the yellow fever epidemic of years ago, and noted the town’s admirable new sewage system.

Sam wrote aboard the Gold Dust to Livy. After telling about being recognized, Sam added:

We are having a powerful good time & picking up & setting down volumes of literary stuff. I take a trick at the wheel occasionally, & find the mechanical work of steering a steamboat as familiar as if I had never ceased from it. But the “Upper” river! It was as new to me if I had never heard of it before. However, I recognize the river below Cairo—I know it pretty fairly, though some of the changes are marvelous….Telegraphed you from Cairo last night. Shall telegraph you from Memphis to-morrow morning [LLMT 208].