June 9 to 16 Saturday – Sam and party “rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii” some 200 miles by his estimate. “…our Kanaka horses would not go by a house or a nut without stopping.” Frear writes:
“Then, pushing on through the Hamakua District, up along the great Waipio Valley and across the island over the saddle between Mauna Kea and the Kohala mountains, they caught the little steamer Kilauea at Kawaihae and reached Honolulu June 16” [79]. Note: editorial emphasis. Frear adds a footnote here: “Twain wrote that it was the 18 th [In RI] but the newspapers gave the 16 th as the date of the steamer’s arrival with Twain and Howard in the passenger lists. No wonder they had to “push” to catch the steamer.” [79]
They ended their tour at Kawaihae [RI Ch. 76]. Sam returned to Honolulu [MTL 1: 344n1]. It was during this stay in the city that Sam became bedridden with boils. He passed the time by reading, including Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Songs in Many Keys (1862) [Gribben 319]. Note: Holmes (1809-1894).