April 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from St. Louis to Howard Tucker, treasurer of the Keokuk Library Association, which sponsored Sam’s lecture, confirming receipt of $35 as his fee [MTL 2: 20].

Sam also wrote to a fellow passenger on the Ajax from his Hawaii trip, Alice J. Hyde (1844?-1878). Alice was a single woman; Sam had promised her a silver sword leaf (a plant growing only in altitude in Hawaii) upon climbing Haleakala. Packing my trunk to-night (for I leave to-morrow for New York, &, I suppose, for Europe a month later,) I came across the old swords, & hasten to send them, begging at the same time that you will excuse my characteristic negligence. I had to send them—I wouldn’t consider the Island trip complete with so chivalrous a promise, so knightly a deed as the disarming of a crater many times larger than myself & the laying of his weapons at the feet of a lady, unaccomplished. How’s that? I think I’ll put that in my lecture [MTL 2: 21].
The third of five letters from Hawaii, reprints of five early Sacramento Union letters with “a few minor omissions” ran in the New York Weekly. Dated Honolulu, March, 1866 and beginning “We came in sight of two of this group of islands, Oahu and Molokai…” this article had no omissions [The Twainian, Mar. 1944 p2-3]. Note: These letters are notable for their promotional value to Sam’s upcoming lecture.