September 6 Friday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo, Sam’s notebook records scores from a “First Championship” of deck shuffleboard, with daughter Clara’s 109 score the winner [NB 35 TS 45].
September 5 Thursday – Sept. 5. Closing in on the equator this noon. A sailor explained to a young girl that the ship’s speed is poor because we are climbing up the bulge toward the center of the globe; but that when we should once get over, at the equator, and start down-hill, we should fly. …
Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers kodak’d it. We had no fool ceremonies, no fantastics, no horseplay [FE Ch. IV p.65-6].
September 4 Wednesday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo. Sept. 4. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At 7.30 it began to go off. A total — or about that — it was like a rich rosy cloud with a tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it — a bulge of strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the moon was like a gilded acorn in its cup [FE Ch. IV p.65].
The N.Y. World, p.8 ran “Twain Very Ill,” an interview datelined Vancouver, B.C, Aug. 28 [Scharnhorst, Interviews 192-6].
September 3 Tuesday – Sept. 3. In 9° 50’ north latitude, at breakfast. Approaching the equator on a long slant. Those of us who have never seen the equator are a good deal excited. I think I would rather see it than any other thing in the world. We entered the “doldrums” last night — variable winds, bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and drunken motion to the ship — a condition of things findable in other regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always.
September 2 Monday – Sept. 2. Flocks of flying fish — slim, shapely, graceful, and intensely white. With the sun on them they look like a flight of silver fruit-knives. They are able to fly a hundred yards [FE Ch. IV p.65].
September 1 Sunday – At sea from Honolulu on the R.M.S. Warrimoo en route to Fiji and Australia. Sam’s notebook reveals they were “lying at anchor till midnight” [NB 35 TS 41].
September – “Mental Telegraphy Again” first ran in Harper’s Magazine. McCullough traces the evolution of both “Mental Telegraphy” articles in the Mark Twain Encyclopedia, p.510. Review of Reviews (London) ran “Mark Twain’s Serious Stories,” p.231, which briefly summarized the “Mental Telegraphy” article in Harper’s [Tenney 23].
August 31 Saturday – Livy finished her Aug 30 letter to daughter Susy.
August 30 Friday – At sea on the Warrimoo Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers:
In a couple of hours after dark we shall be in Honolulu — too late to lecture, & I am not sorry. We sail at 11 in the morning — too early to lecture. I got mighty tired platforming before we left America, & shall be glad to remain quiet till we reach Australia [MTP, not in MTHHR].
August 29 Thursday – From FE, Ch. II:
One or two days later [after four days out] we crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. The prevalence of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool and cheerful and picnicky aspect [35].