October 31 Wednesday – Sam gave one performance in Virginia City—the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Maguire’s Opera House. It was a glorious homecoming. The Enterprise wrote, “an immense success” [Sanborn 302]. Sam met with old friends, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman and Steve Gillis. Gillis urged Sam to speak again at the Opera House, but Sam did not want to repeat himself in any one town. Steven hatched a plot to pull a fake robbery of Sam in Gold Hill as a way of getting Sam to lecture again on a new topic [303].

October 25 Thursday – Sam’s 24 th letter to the Union dated “Kilauea, June 1866: A NOTABLE DISCOVERY” ran in the Union:
FREE-AND-EASY FASHIONS OF NATIVE WOMEN

November 17 Saturday – Sam’s sketch “The Story of a Scriptural Panoramist” ran in the Californian. It was later included in Sketches, New and Old (1875) [Camfield bibliog.]. Scharnhorst writs that the receipts from Sam’s lecture of Nov. 16 were garnished to “satisfy part of the judgment” from posting bond for “a friend who then fled to Nevada” two years before (Steve Gillis) [“Mark Twain’s Imbroglio with the San Francisco Police” American Literature (Dec 1990) p.691]. Sanborn claims there “are no facts to support” the story of Sam posting a bond for Gillis [255].

November 3 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Carson Theatre in Carson City.

October 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Robert M. Howland, an old friend from his Nevada mining days, asking if Carson City would turn out to hear Sam lecture. Sam was unsure of the reception he would get there, due to the Sanitary Ball miscegenation prank [MTL 1: 362].
Sam also wrote to Henry R. Mighels to arrange a hall for his lecture:

October 24 Wednesday – Sam and McCarthy rode horseback to the old mining camp of Red Dog, California and gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Odd Fellows Hall.

October 17 Wednesday – Sam’s article dated “Sept. 24, San Francisco, An Epistle from Mark Twain THE QUEEN’S ARRIVAL / ALPHABET WARREN / MISC.” ran in the Daily Hawaiian Herald [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

October 2 Tuesday – Sam’s first stage appearance took place at the Academy of Music on Pine Street in San Francisco, a new hall owned by Tom Maguire, who suggested Sam try to make his fortune by entering the lecture field and offering his experiences in the Sandwich Islands. He’d offered the hall to Sam at half price, 50 dollars, in exchange for half the profits. Sam agreed and spent 150 dollars on advertising. He had posters made up announcing the Honolulu Correspondent for the Sacramento Union, “Mark Twain,” would be speaking. “Doors open at 7 o’clock.

September 10 to 15 Saturday – Sam covered the thirteenth annual fair of the California State Agricultural Society, held in Sacramento, for the Sacramento Union [MTL 1: 361].

August 25 Saturday – Sam was probably staying at the Occidental Hotel [MTL 1: 359n2; Sanborn 295]. Sam received and answered a letter from his old Hannibal and pilot friend, Will Bowen. You write me of the boats, thinking I may yet feel an interest in the old business. You bet your life I do. It is about the only thing I do feel any interest in & yet I can hear least about it. If I were two years younger, I would come back & learn the river over again. But it is too late now.