June 17 Wednesday – Sam arrived in Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony in the morning, and went to the Grand Hotel where he was reunited with Livy and Clara. In the afternoon he gave an interview to the Eastern Province Herald, which was published on June 19. The Clemens party would remain in Port Elizabeth until June 25. Parsons writes of their time at the Grand Hotel:
Mark kept from reporters his annoyance at “a great long tow-headed spider-legg[ed] jackass-voiced American girl” whose gabble could be heard by “60 other, silent people” in the dining room: “There is talk of taking up a collection to have her drowned” [“Traveler in S.A.” 28 quoting from NB].
Sam was in excellent health now and took an “enjoyable rest at the Grand Hotel.”
“Patronised by all the Elite and Nobility from Home,” the Grand rested on a hilltop in handsomely planted grounds overlooking the sea, a view that Livy Clemens called beautiful, even ravishing. In this, the best season of the year, the temperature ranged from 44 to 83 degrees outside; inside the hotel it was always right for billiards at one of the large English tables. So while the days slipped by from June 17 to 25 and other people might be celebrating anniversaries of the battle of Bunker Hill and the accession of Queen Victoria, Mark Twain grumbled about the “composition balls — as active as doughnuts” and having to take turns. He went down to defeat to such players as a sergeant-major, a rector, and his own tour manager. Of course, there was always the consolation of opening “another gratis cargo” of cigars…. “To some people the Transvaal tobacco is like friendship — the liking is more lasting through taking the longer to form” [28-9].
L.F. Austin’s article, “At Random,” ran in Sketch (London) p. 298. “Mark Twain has been telling an interviewer that international copyright ought to be used as a censorship for the exclusion of French novels”; he disregards the great contribution of the French to the art of writing, and “the author of ‘Joan of Arc’ is an untutored genius” [Tenney ALR supplement to the Reference Guide (Autumn, 1977) 331].