Letters From the Sandwich Islands: Day By Day

June 4 to 6 Wednesday – Sam and a “stranger Marlette” walked on hot lava fields at night. A few days later Sam witnessed a great eruption [RI Ch. 75]. Note: no further account of Marlette was found —another imaginary like Mr. Brown? Or was Stoddard now called Marlette?

June 7 Thursday – Sam left the Volcano House Hotel [MTL 1: 344 n1]. Frear writes, “They didn’t charge him anything at the Volcano House—perhaps another evidence of his ingratiating himself wherever he went. Scenically and spectacularly the Volcano was of course the highlight of his Hawaiian visit” [74]. Frear also writes of a new traveling companion, Ned Howard:

June 8 Friday – Sam and Ned Howard continued their journey on horseback. Frear estimates they made “at least” Hakalau, “as originally intended, and probably” Laupahoehoe, “where a few days later the survivors of the Hornet disaster landed” [79].

June 9 to 16 Saturday – Sam and party “rode horseback all around the island of Hawaii” some 200 miles by his estimate. “…our Kanaka horses would not go by a house or a nut without stopping.” Frear writes:

March, Late – Sam Undertook His “Equestrian Excursion” Around The Island. Young Henry Macfarlane Was Along For Much Of The Ride [Day 44-65]. Frear, Ch. III, Discusses Sam’s Poor Horsemanship. See Also MTD 1: 371n2.

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After a three months’ absence, I found myself in San Francisco again, without a cent.

March 10 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

March 11 Sunday – Sam made several brief notebook entries on situations and customs of Hawaii the crew and passengers told him about. “…sea as smooth as a river. Nearly everybody out to breakfast this morning—not more than ½ dozen sick now” [MTNJ 1: 113].
Frear writes of Twain’s preparations during the voyage:

March 13 Tuesday – Having put their Carson City house up for sale and most of their worldly possessions, Orion and Mollie Clemens left Carson for points west. Orion would settle at Meadow Lake, in the Excelsior mining district of Nevada Co., California; Mollie continued on to Sacramento and San Francisco. They rejoined on June 16 and continued liquidating possessions and raising money for the trip home to Keokuk [MTL 1: 342n1]. (See Aug. 30 entry.)

March 14 Wednesday – Sam developed the mumps. He would quickly recover once in the islands [Sanborn 278; Frear 5].

March 18 Sunday – The Ajax arrived at Honolulu at 11:30 AM, to the peals of “six different church bells” [Frear 5, 18]. A crowd of four or five hundred colorfully dressed natives and tourists met the boat. Sam was duly impressed [Sanborn 277].
From Sam’s first letter to the Union On Board Steamer AJAX, HONOLULU (H. I.), MARCH 18 — ran in the Union April 16 1866:
CLIMATIC

March 19 Monday – From Sam’s second letter to the Union dated “Honolulu, March 19, 1866” Ran in the Union Apr. 17 1866: THE AJAX VOYAGE CONTINUED:
“We passengers are all at home now — taking meals at the American Hotel, and sleeping in neat white cottages, buried in noble shade trees and enchanting tropical flowers and shrubbery” [Day 17; Frear 19-20].
“Hotels gouge Californians—charges sailing passengers eight dollars a week for board, but steamer passengers ten” [MTNJ 1: 195].
Frear writes of the American Hotel:

March 22 Thursday – Sam wrote in pencil on the flyleaf of a copy of Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (in Hawaiian): “Sam. L. Clemens / From Rev. S. C. Damon / Honolulu, Hawaii, / March 22, 1866” [Gribben 112]. Note: Samuel Chenery Damon (1815-1885) pastor of the Oahu Bethel Church and chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen’s Friend Society. 

March 24 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Complaint About Correspondents” was printed in the Californian [Schmidt].

March 25 Sunday – Frear Writes of Sam's Church Attendance the day:
On the next Sunday after his arrival Mark Twain attended church and heard his fellow passenger, T.G. Thurston, deliver his first sermon. “Young Thurston made his first sermon in Fort Street Church Sunday evening 25th—his old father and mother (missionary 46 years) present—feeling remarks of minister in his prayer about the old people being spared to hear the son they had dedicated to the Lord —very affecting” [25]. Note: see Mar. 11 entry.

March 3 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A New Biography of George Washington,” was printed in the Californian [reprinted from the Territorial Enterprise] [Schmidt].

March 3? Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Billy Gillis (William R. Gillis, who paraphrased this letter from Sam later), telling him that he was leaving in a “short time for Sandwich Islands in company with a party of U.S. surveyors, a special correspondent of the Alta California” [MTL 1: 332]. (Sam had made a deal with the Sacramento Union, not the Alta.)

March 4 Sunday – The Golden Era printed two articles by Sam: “A New Wildcat Religion,” and “Biographical Sketch of George Washington” [Walker 106].

March 5 Monday – Sam wrote a short letter from San Francisco to his mother, Jane Clemens and sister Pamela:
I start to the Sandwich Islands day after to-morrow…I am to remain there a month & ransack the islands, the great cataracts & the volcanoes completely, & write twenty or thirty letters to the Sacramento Union—for which they pay me as much money as I would get if I staid at home [MTL 1: 333].

March 7 Wednesday – Sam left for the Sandwich Islands aboard the steamer Ajax. The ship left port at four o’clock in the afternoon on a pleasant breezy day. Passage took ten days, 19 ½ hours [Frear 5].
Sam’s friends had given him letters of introduction to important persons on the island, including the King. They also gave him a case of wine, several boxes of cigars, and a “small assortment of medicinal liquors and brandy” [Sanborn 275-6; MTL 1: 334n1]. From Sam’s notebook:

March 8 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Strong gale all night—ship rolled heavily—heavy sea on this evening—& black sky overhead. Nearly everybody sick abed yet” [MTNJ 1: 112].

March 9 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:

March 9–17 Saturday – The weather was stormy for three days. While aboard the Ajax, Sam jotted in his notebooks what information about the islands he gained from talk with passengers who lived there. He recorded anecdotes, bits of conversation, regional dialect, and occupational vernacular, such as the euchre game he watched between three whaling captains. From his notes he wrote the first letter to the Union, in which he included himself in the euchre contest. Sam would write 25 letters for the Union on this trip. Sam again used his alter ego in these letters, “Mr.

May 1 Tuesday ca. – Sam visited Ulapalakua Plantation. Sam wrote about sugar production on the islands in his twenty-third Union letter published Sept. 26, “The High Chief of Sugardom,” and so visited several plantations.

May 21 Monday – Sam’s eighth letter, dated “Honolulu (S.I), April, 1866: OFF” ran in the Union: At night they feasted and the girls danced the lascivious hula hula—a dance that is said to exhibit the very perfection of educated motion of limb and arm, hand, head and body, and the exactest uniformity of movement and accuracy of “time.” It was performed by a circle of girls with no raiment on them to speak of, who went through with an infinite variety of motions and figures without prompting, and yet so true was their “time,” and in such perfect concert did they move that when they were place