April 24 Tuesday – Sam’s seventh letter, dated “Honolulu, March, 1866: THE EQUESTRIAN EXCURSION CONCLUDED” ran in the Union:
April 26 Thursday – Sam wrote from Wailuku, Maui, to the Kimball brothers who had been fellow passengers on the Ajax.
Messrs Kimball—
April 28 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Mark Twain on His Travels,” was printed in the Californian [Schmidt].
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 3 Thursday – Sam returned to Waikapu Sugar Plantation, owned by Henry Cornwell, where he spent the night. The Hornet sank in the Pacific, 108 days out and a little above the equator [Frear 103].
May 4 Friday – Sam wrote from the Wailuku Sugar Plantation, Maui to his mother, Jane Clemens and sister Pamela Moffett. This is the infernalist darkest country, when the moon don’t shine; I stumbled & fell over my horse’s lariat a minute ago & hurt my leg, & so I must stay here tonight. I went to Ulapalakua Plantation (25 miles,) few days ago, & returned yesterday afternoon to Mr.
May 7 Monday – Sam wrote from Wailuku Sugar Plantation, Maui to Will Bowen. He wrote about being mad at Will for so long that his anger had “about spent itself & I begin to feel friendly again.” Will had owed Sam money and they’d had a disagreement in the early 60s. Will was still a steamboat captain on the Mississippi. Sam also wrote about seeing Daniel Martin, an old Hannibal resident and saloon owner Sam had met in Como, Nevada, near Carson City. Martin billed himself as “Martin the Wizard” and did sleight of hand poorly.
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
May 22 Tuesday – Sam returned to Honolulu on the schooner Kai Moi (The King) [Frear 55; MTL 1: 335n5]. Frear writes, “During the few days between returning from Maui and sailing for Hawaii, he attended the legislature and wrote two letters on that subject” [56].
Sam wrote his sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, that he had just returned from Maui. He expressed resentment he still felt for Orion’s refusal to take Henry Camp’s offer for the Tennessee Land.
My Dear Sister:
May 23 Wednesday – Sam’s tenth letter dated “Honolulu, April, 1866: WHALING TRADE” ran in the Union:
May 23-25 Friday – In the few days between his return from Maui and sailing for the big island of Hawaii, Sam visited the Legislature and wrote two letters about it to the Union [Frear 56].
May 24 Thursday – Sam’s eleventh letter dated “Honolulu, April, 1866: PARADISE AND THE PARI (JOKE)” ran in the Union:
THE KING’S PALACE
May 26 Saturday – Sam left Honolulu for a three-week visit to the big island Hawaii and Kilauea volcano aboard the little schooner Boomerang [MTL 1: 335n5; Sanborn 285]. Sam’s article, “Mark Twain on His Travels,” (two by this title) ran in the Californian [Schmidt].
May 28 Monday – Sam arrived at Kailau Bay. He hired a horse and rode through the coffee and orange region of Kona. The Boomerang was to proceed to Kealakekua Bay, the spot where natives in 1779 murdered Captain Cook. Sam was to meet the schooner there. At sunset Sam stood on the same spot at the same hour where Cook was killed [Sanborn 286; Roughing It, Ch. 69]. Sam wrote: “Plain unvarnished history takes the romance out of Captain Cook’s assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide….Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook.
May 29 Tuesday –Sam saw a “bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea” [RI Ch. 72]. Note: at some point, perhaps at Kailau Bay, Sam joined up with his friend, Charles Warren Stoddard, who had family in the islands (see June 2 Frear entry.) Sam would at times write of “Mr. Brown,” referring to both Stoddard and Edward (Ned) T. Howard (1844?-1918).
In the evening the schooner Emeline and Captain Crane picked Sam up and resumed the sea voyage, since the Boomerang was becalmed [Frear 69].
May 30 Wednesday – Frear writes of the events of the day:
May 31 Thursday – “All the next day (Thursday) we fought the treacherous point and, after tacking far our that night, made it and came in and anchored the following day (Friday)…” [Frear 69].
June 1 Friday – Frear writes of this day’s events:
June 2 Saturday – Frear on the start of the journey to the volcano Kilauea:
June 3 Sunday – From Mrs. Lyman’s diary: “The strangers left after breakfast for the volcano” [Frear 71]. From Frear’s account:
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:
June 20 Wednesday – Sam’s twelfth letter dated “HONOLULU, MAY 23, 1866: HAWAIIAN LEGISLATURE” ran in the Union:
THE CAPITOL – AN AMERICAN SOVEREIGN SNUBBED
The Legislature meets in the Supreme Court-room, an apartment which is larger, lighter and better fitted and furnished than any Court room in San Francisco. A railing across the center separates the legislators from the visitors. When I got to the main entrance of the building, and was about to march boldly in, I found myself confronted by a large placard, upon which was printed: