Day By Day Dates

June 14 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Shipped a sea through the open dead-light that damaged cigars, books, &c—comes of being careless when room is on weather side of the ship….Mrs. C.C. Duncan’s 46 birth-day festival in the after-cabin” [Ibid.]
Emily Severance recorded most of what Sam said at the festivities:

June 15 Saturday – Sam entertained some of the passengers by holding a mock trial of the purser for “stealing an overcoat belonging to Sam Clemens” [MTNJ 1: 336].

June 16 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “JEFF DAVIS,” which Sam dated May 17 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 17 [bibliog.].

June 17 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:
Blackfish, whales, an occasional shark & lots of Portuguese men-of-war in sight. Brown distressed for fear the latter would attack the ship….Caught a flying fish—it flew 50 yards & came aboard—can’t fly after wind & sun dry their wings….Lat. 40, long. 43W—1/2 way between America & Portugal & away south of Cape Farewell, Greenland. Large school of spouting blackfish—make the water white with their spouting spray [MTNJ 1: 337].
One of three dances was held on board the Quaker City [MTL 70n5].

June 19 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:
June 19—Within 136 miles of the Azores at noon. / D r & S get sea-sick at table—go out & throw up & return for more….

June 20 Thursday – A violent storm drove the QC to Fayal (see June 21 entry.) Sam’s notebook:
“Questions for debate. Which is the most powerful motive—Duty or Ambition?
Is or is not Capt. Duncan responsible for the head winds?” [MTNJ 1: 340].

June 21 Friday – The Quaker City (subsequently noted here as QC) arrived at Horta, island of Fayal, in the Azores at daylight.
At three o’clock on the morning of the 21 of June we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in islands at three o’clock in the morning. But another persecutor came, and then another and another, and finally believing that the general enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck [Innocents Abroad, Ch 5].

June 22 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

June 23 Sunday – QC departed Horta at 11 AM
“The group on the pier was a rusty one—men and women, boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, education, an profession, beggars. …and never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of them” [Innocents Abroad, Ch. 5].
Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE NUISANCE OF ADVICE,” which Sam had dated May 18 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 18 [bibliog.].

June 24 to June 27 Thursday – The New York Weekly published the last of five of Sam’s Sandwich Islands Letters. From Sam’s notebook:

“Had Ball No. 2 on promenade deck, under lanterns (no awning but heaven) but ship pitched so & dew kept deck so slippery, was little more fun than comfort about it” [MTNJ 1: 348].

June 26 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook: “Met a great clipper ship under a perfect cloud of canvas” [MTNJ 1: 348].

June 27 Thursday – The last of five letters from Hawaii, reprints of five early Sacramento Union letters with “a few minor omissions” ran in the New York Weekly. Dated Honolulu, March, 1866 and beginning “I am probably the most sensitive man in the kingdom of Hawaii…” this article “stops about half-way through the corresponding article in the Union, perhaps for consideration of space” [The Twainian, Mar. 1944 p2-3].
From Emily Severance’s notebook:

June 28 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Sat up all night playing dominoes in the smoking room with the purser & saw the sun rise—woke up Dan & the Dr. & called everybody else to see it.—Don’t feel very bright. “Must be 150 miles from Gibraltar yet, this morning & shall hardly have coal enough to make the port” [MTNJ 1: 348].

June 29 Saturday – QC arrived at Gibraltar at 10 AM.
“In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock, standing seemingly in the center of the wide strait and apparently washed on all sides by the sea, swung magnificently into view, and we needed no tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could not be two rocks like that in one kingdom” [Innocents Abroad, Ch 7].

Sam wrote from Gibraltar to his mother and family.

June 30 Sunday – Sam and seven others, including Dan Slote, boarded a steamer to Tangier. THIS is royal! Let those who went up through Spain make the best of it—these dominions of the Emperor of Morocco suit our little party well enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar for the present. Tangier is the spot we have been longing for all the time. Elsewhere we have found foreign-looking things and foreign-looking people, but always with things and people intermixed that we were familiar with before, and so the novelty of the situation lost a deal of its force.

July 1 Monday – Sam and others returned from Tangier to re-board the QC for a 6 PM departure. 

July 2 Tuesday – Sam wrote “from sea” to his mother, Jane Clemens and family. “…we are just passing the island of Minorca” [MTL 2: 68]. He wrote part of the letter the next day [70-1n5].
The passengers held a masquerade ball under the awnings of the quarterdeck, dressing in Moorish garb they’d purchased in the bazaars of Tangier. Sam wore a fez for the party and would wear it for a disguise when he stole ashore in Athens and hiked up the Acropolis on Aug.14 and 15 [Hirst & Rowles 29; MTL 1: 68, 70n5].

July 3 Wednesday – Sam finished his July 2 letter to Jane Clemens and family [MTL 1:70-1n5].

July 4 Thursday – At sunrise on the Quaker City, 13 guns saluted the day with blowing of steam whistles. Lucius Moody recorded the event in his diary published in the Canton, Ohio Plain Dealer for July 25, 1867. Clemens could not have helped to hear or have been on deck for the goings on.

QC arrived at Marseilles, France at 7 PM.

July 5 Friday – Sam, Jackson, and Slote left Marseilles for Paris on an evening train.

July 6 Saturday – Sam and friends arrived in Paris in the evening. The next morning we were up and dressed at ten o’clock. We went to the commissionaire of the hotel —I don’t know what a commissionaire is, but that is the man we went to—and told him we wanted a guide. He said the national Exposition had drawn such multitudes of Englishmen and Americans to Paris that it would be next to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he only had three now. He called them. One looked so like a very pirate that we let him go at once.

July 7 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “FOR CHRISTIANS TO READ,” which Sam had dated May 20 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 20 [bibliog.]. Sam’s article “First Interview with Artemus Ward” (alt. Title: “A Reminiscence of Artemus Ward”) ran in the Sunday Mercury [Camfield bibliog.].

July 11 Thursday – Sam and friends left Paris for Marseilles on a morning train.

July 12 Friday – Sam and friends arrived in Marseilles in the morning. Sam wrote from Marseilles to his mother and family.
“Oh, confound it, I can’t write–I am full of excitement—have to make a trip in the harbor—haven’t slept for 24 hours” [MTL 2: 72].
Jackson, Slote, and Sam again stayed at the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix [72n1].

July 13 Saturday – QC departed Marseilles at noon.