Day By Day Dates

August 17 Saturday – In Vancouver, Canada, J.B. Pond wrote in his diary:

Saturday, August 17th, Vancouver.

We are all waiting for the news as to when the Warrimoo will be off the dry dock and ready to sail. “Mark” is getting better. I have booked Victoria for Tuesday, the 20th.

“Mark” has lain in bed all day, as usual, spending much time writing. Reporters have been anxious to meet and interview him, and I urged it, He finally said: “If they’ll excuse my bed, show them up.”

August 18 Sunday – A rest day in Vancouver, B.C. for the Clemens party.

August 19 Monday – From J.B. Pond’s diary:

August 20 Tuesday – In Vancouver, B.C. before boarding the ship to Victoria, Sam and Livy each wrote a paragraph to Franklin G. Whitmore.

It may be that a full length portrait of Clara will arrive at our Hartford house addressed to you. It will come from the artist, John W. Alexander.

Livy thanked Whitmore for a statement sent of Hartford finances. She disclosed that Sam had been in bed “for a day or two with a cold” but was better [MTP].

August 21 Wednesday – The Clemens party arrived in Victoria, B.C. shortly after midnight and took rooms at the Driard Hotel. From J.B. Pond’s diary:

Wednesday, August 21st, Victoria, B.C. — The Driad [sic: Driard].

“Mark” has been in bed all day; he doesn’t seem to get strength. He smokes constantly, and I fear too much also; still, he may stand it. Physicians say it will eventually kill him.

August 22 Thursday – The Clemens party was still in Victoria, B.C. From J.B. Pond’s diary:

August 23 Friday – In Victoria, J. B. Pond’s diary on the day of departure:

August 24 Saturday – Sam, Livy and daughter Clara were en route to Honolulu on the Warrimoo, captain R.E. Arundel. Sam wrote of the ship and captain in the first chapter of FE:

August 25 Sunday – In his Aug. 30 to H.H. Rogers, Sam wrote it had “been an uneventful voyage”:

The weather has been divine. For the past three days the sea with the sun on it has counterfeited the intense & luminous blue of the Mediterranean. We have done nothing but play hearts & read & smoke [MTP].

August 26 Monday – The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu.

August 27 Tuesday – The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu. From FE Ch. II:

About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all the male passengers put on white linen clothes [35].

August 28 Wednesday –The Clemens party were en route on the R.M.S. Warrimoo to Honolulu. Only two letters from Sam are extant from the voyage to Honolulu. The first is to Jack Harrington (identity not established but NB 35 TS 37 gives his age as 13), this day.

We are going to celebrate your birth-day to-night; and out of affection for you & for your father we shall do the occasion all the credit we can, & make all the noise the captain will allow.

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].

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 31 Saturday – Livy finished her Aug 30 letter to daughter Susy.

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].

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 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 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 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 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 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 7 Saturday – On the R.M.S. Warrimoo, Sam’s notebook records scores from a “Sept. 7” of deck shuffleboard, this time with Sam winning’s score of 111. “There were others. The winners being reduced to 2 — Thomas & me, we played it off & he won” [NB 35 TS 45].

Shillingsburg writes,

September 8 Sunday – Sam’s notebook on the R.M.S. Warrimoo:

Sept. 8. To-day’s Sunday & tomorrow’s Tuesday. It is said that Monday is dropt out because the sailors don’t like to lose their Sunday holiday — as if they couldn’t have it just as well as an ostensible Sunday as on a real one [NB 35 TS 46]

September 9 Monday – FE Ch. IV p.75 denotes this day skipped for crossing the international date line.

Yesterday afternoon [Sept. 9] we passed two islands of the Horne Group — Alofa & Fortuna. On the large one are two rival native kings. There is no harbor, & the islands are not hogged by any European power. All the natives are Catholics — several French missionaries [NB 35 TS 48].