When I returned to San Francisco I projected a pleasure journey to Japan and thence westward around the world; but a desire to see home again changed my mind, and I took a berth in the steamship, bade good-bye to the friendliest land and livest, heartiest community on our continent, and came by the way of the Isthmus to New York—a trip that was not much of a pic-nic excursion, for the cholera broke out among us on the passage and we buried two or three bodies at sea every day.
December 15 Saturday – The San Francisco Morning Call reported that Sam collected $100 from Nudd, Lord & Co [MTL 1: 374n1]. Sam’s article, “Depart, Ye Accursed!” was published in the New York Weekly Review [MTL 1: 330n5]. It was reprinted in the Californian, Jan.19, 1867 as “Mark Twain on Chambermaids” [Camfield bibliog.].
December 16 Sunday – From Sam’s letter to the Alta of Dec. 18:
December 18 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“The young runaway couple, after co-habiting a night or two, were married last night by the Capt’s peremptory order, in presence of 5 witnesses” [MTNJ 1: 249].
December 19 Wednesday – From Sam’s letter to the Alta printed January 18, 1867:
SEQUEL TO THE ELOPEMENT / NOON, 19 th
December 20 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
"At noon, 5 days out from San Francisco, abreast high stretch of land at foot of Magdalena Bay, Capt came & said, ‘Come out here…I want to show you something’ –took the marine glass— (2 whaling ships with a catch)” [MTNJ 1: 250].
The Brooklyn Eagle ran a short note on page 4 about Sam’s “Lecture among Highwaymen,” and ended with “Mark failed to see the point” of the practical joke. [The Eagle is available online].
December 21 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Crossed tropic of Capricorn—Cape St Lucas—now abreast Gulf of California….Geniuses are people who dash off weird, wild, incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, & then go & get booming drunk & sleep in the gutter…people who have genius do not pay their board, as a general thing” [MTNJ 1: 250].
December 22 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Passengers have been singing several days—now the men have come down to leap-frog, boyish gymnastics & tricks of equilibrium—& sitting on a bottle with legs extended & X d , & threading a good sized needle” [MTNJ 1: 251-2].
December 23 Sunday – From Sam’s notebook:
Morning service on Prom deck by Fackler—organ & choir. I had rather travel with that old portly, hearty, jolly, boisterous, good-natured old sailor, Capt. Ned Wakeman than with any other man I ever came across. He never drinks, & never plays cards; he never swears, except in the privacy of his own quarters, with a friend or so, & then his feats of fancy blasphemy are calculated to fill the hearer with awe & the liveliest admiration [MTNJ 1: 253].
December 24 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:
Christmas Eve—9 P.M. Me & the Capt & Kingman out forward. Capt. Said—Don’t like the looks of that point with the mist outside of it—hold her a point free. Quartermaster (touching his hat)—“The child is dead sir (been sick 2 days.—) What are yr orders” [MTNJ 1: 257].
The death of a child onboard made for a solemn Christmas Eve.
December 25 Tuesday – Christmas – From Sam’s Mar. 15 Alta letter [Schmidt]:
December 27 Thursday – Sam wrote of a raffle for a dead wife’s jewelry (Mar. 15 Alta):
December 29 Saturday – From Sam’s letter to the Alta printed Mar. 15, 1867:
SAN JUAN AND CHOLERA
December 30 Sunday – The America completed the first leg of the trip, reaching San Juan del Sur. Cholera had claimed 35 passengers there awaiting transportation to San Francisco, so the passengers of America were not allowed ashore until later in the morning [Sanborn 312]. It was a three-hour trip by horses, mules, and mud wagons to Virgin Bay on Lake Nicaragua. Sam was impressed by the roadside stands of fruits and food, and especially by the pretty young women there.
December 31 Monday – Sam and passengers arrived at San Carlos, Nicaragua. From Sam’s notebook:
“Native thatched houses—coffee, eggs, bread, cigars & fruit for sale—delicious—10 cents buy pretty much anything & in great quantity. Californians can’t understand how 10 or 25 cents can buy a sumptuous lunch of coffee, eggs & bread….Saw at San Carlos the first osage trees of the trip—my favorite tree above all others” [MTNJ 1: 261-2].
January – Sam wrote a spoof of Victor Hugo’s novel, The Toilers of the Sea (1866) while aboard the steamer San Francisco [MTNJ 1: 280-4].
January 1 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Slept on the Cora on floor & hammocks at woodyard first night out from Castillo. Started at 2AM & got to Greytown at daylight” [MTNJ 1: 267].
From Sam’s Mar. 15 Alta letter:
January 2 Wednesday – Sam reported in his notebook that there were two cases of cholera on board. By the next morning two men were dead from cholera [MTNJ 1: 269; Sanborn 314].
January 3 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“9:30 PM. We are to be off the coast of Cuba to-morrow they say—I cannot believe it” [MTNJ 1: 273].
January 4 Friday – Three days into the voyage the ship had engine problems. An engine piece broke and took two hours to repair [Sanborn 314]. From Sam’s notebook:
Capt.—who came aboard at Greytown where in 3 years he had worn out his constitution & destroyed his health lingered until 10 this morning & then died & was shoved overboard half an hour afterward sowed up in a blanket with 60 pounds of iron. He leaves a wife at Rochester, N.Y. This makes the fourth death on shipboard since we left San Francisco [MTNJ 1: 273].
January 5 Saturday – The engine broke again and four hours were lost [Sanborn314]. From Sam’s notebook:
“We are to put in at Key West, Florida, to-day for coal for ballast—so they say—but rather for medicines, perhaps—the physic locker is about pumped dry” [MTNJ 1: 275].
Sam began to make a list of the dead on board and got to number eight [MTNJ 1: 279-80].
January 6 Sunday – Again, the engine broke down and they were dead in the water for another four hours. Even worse news, eight new cases of cholera. The doctor confessed to Sam that there was no medicine. Key West was a day or so away, and the doctor hoped to get medicine there. “I realize that I myself may be dead to-morrow” [Sanborn 314]. From Sam’s notebook:
January 7 Monday – In Key West the San Francisco stocked up on drugs and spare engine parts.
Sam stocked up on Havana cigars before the ship continued on.
“We bought 700 superb cigars at $4 a hundred—greenbacks—better cigars than could get in Cal for $25 a hundred in gold. Town is full of good cigars….21 passengers left the ship here, scared—among them the Jew, the Undertaker, & Goff…I am glad they are gone, d—n them” [MTNJ 1: 286-7; Sanborn 314].
January 8 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
That dirty Dutchwoman & her 2 children—none of them washed or taken off clothes since left Sanf—belong in 2 d cabin—ought to be in hell—purser started them out of the smoking room to make room for card party—Dutchman brought them back soon & said she was sick & should stay there. Well, the woman is sick, & if they don’t take sanitary measures, she’ll stay so—she needs scraping & washing [MTNJ 1: 191].
January 9 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook: “Belmayne died Jan. 8, & was buried at sea, abreast of Florida.”