November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 60th Birthday.
In Napier, N.Z. on Frank Moeller’s Masonic Hotel letterhead, Sam responded to a letter (not extant) from J.B. Pond asking if he’d be interested in 50 lectures in England the next year.
No; fifty lectures in England would not be worth my while.
November 29 Friday – Sam’s second lecture in Napier was canceled due to a fourth carbuncle threatening. His doctor called on him again at the hotel “and told him about some drunkards reclaimed by the Salvation Army, and a ‘citizen’ told him that the colonists, rather than having their teeth filled, merely pulled them out and substituted false ones.” Stuck in bed, Sam read railroad timetables and Indian histories [Shillingsburg, At Home 165; “Down Under” 27-8].
November 28 Thursday – Early in the morning the Rotomahana reached Napier (pop. 9,000), a stop scheduled for two of Sam’s lectures. Sam noted a new pier, and “beautiful green bluffs” below the town, and “A handsome beach of prodigious length” [NB 34 TS 43]. They took rooms at Frank Moeller’s Masonic Hotel overlooking the sea. Sam didn’t care for three cages of canaries that decorated the long porch. He wrote in his notebook:
November 27 Wednesday – Livy’s 50th birthday. Sam’s notebook on the event:
Nov. 27. Livy’s birthday. I claimed that her birthday has either passed or is to come; that it is the 27th as the 27th exists in America, not here where we have flung out a day & closed up the vacancy [NB 34 TS 42].
November 26 Tuesday – The Clemens party sailed from Auckland at 3 p.m. on the Union Co.’s Rotomahana. Shillingsburg: “They had arrived at Auckland’s western port near Onehunga, crossed through the city and departed from the northeastern shore on their way to Gisborne and Napier on the east coast” [At Home 161]. Sam wrote:
November 25 Monday – At the Star Hotel in Auckland, Sam stayed in bed to rest up for his evening performance, his last in Auckand. He’d been plagued by more carbuncles, as he related in a letter to Dr. R.H. Bakewell, a prominent New Zealand scientist, so he was taking it easy,
November 24 Sunday – In Auckland, Livy wrote to her sister, Sue Crane:
Saturday we [lunched] at Bishopscourt, which is the bishop’s palace here…the bishop was interesting, but I found his wife still more so.
November 23 Saturday – In Auckland, N.Z.: Sam’s notebook: to Kauri Gum establishment of Ameri firm of Arnold, Cheney & Co — large exporters to Amer [NB 34 TS 40].
November 22 Friday – In Auckland the Clemens family went to the Public Library with the librarian and town clerk. In the afternoon they took a drive with W. Douglas, President of the Journalists’ Institute, to “the grassy crater-summit of Mount Eden.” In the evening Sam gave his (No.2) “morals” lecture “At Home” to another 1,100 at Auckland City Hall. On this occasion he included the Australian poem but left out the “Golden Arm” tale. Reviews published Nov.
November 21 Thursday – In Auckland once again, Sam went sightseeing with unnamed friends and liked what he saw: