March 28 Saturday – En route on the Wardha in the Bay of Bengal, Sam wrote in his notebook:
Our captain (Robinson) is a handsome Hercules; young, resolute, manly … he cannot tell the truth in a plausible way. He is the very opposite of the austere Scot who sits midway of the table: he cannot tell a lie in an unplausible way [NB 37 TS 8-11].
March 27 Friday – The S.S. Wardha negotiated the last stretch of the Hooghly River and by 11:15 a.m. was in the blue of the Bay of Bengal. Again Sam was nursing a cold. Sam’s notebook:
Mch. 27. We have slept on deck these 2 nights. Very hot, & mosquitoes troublesome elsewhere.
10 a.m. The Hoogli here is 5 miles wide, the shores a low fringe of forest — a ribbon….
March 26 Thursday – At 7 a.m. the Clemens party sailed from Calcutta on the S.S. Wardha bound for Ceylon. Before reaching the sea, however, they had to negotiate the Hooghly River. Sam’s notebook:
March 26. At anchor at Garden Reach all night. When wind blew in, icy cold; the moment it stopped, blistering hot & mosquitoes. We all went up & slept on deck….
March 25 Wednesday – In Calcutta at the Hotel Continental, Clara Clemens was confined to her room by a touch of malarial fever. Both cholera and malaria were rampant in the city. Sam had recovered from the trip enough to submit to an interview by a journalist from The Indian Daily News, which ran Mar. 26.
March 24 Tuesday – The Clemens party reached Howrah and crossed the Hooghly River by way of a floating bridge, arriving in Calcutta at sunrise. They took rooms at the Hotel Continental [Parsons “MT India” 92; NB 36 TS 59].
March 23 Monday – A travel day on the cars for the Clemens party, en route to Calcutta.
March 22 Sunday – At 10 a.m. the entire Clemens party left Lahore on a 1,443 mile train trip to Calcutta [Ahluwalia 19].
March 21 Saturday – At 12:45 p.m. Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe left Rawalpindi and returned the 174 miles to Lahore [Ahluwalia 19].
March 20 Friday – Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe traveled 174 miles to Rawalpindi. Livy and Clara likely stayed behind, as the men returned to Lahore the next day. Parsons calls Rawalpindi the “most heavily garrisoned of British Indian military stations” [“MT India” 92]. Sam’s notebook:
March 19 Thursday – Susy Clemens’ 24th birthday. Sam’s notebook recorded the event:
Mch. 19. Susy’s birthday — 24 yr old. [“And we did not know it was to be her last,” added later in ink.]