February 22 Saturday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Mollie Clemens about his book contract and that he expected to go with Anson Burlingame on the Chinese Embassy trip, once he left for Europe [MTL 2: 198-9].

February 23 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-three” dated Sept. 1867 “At Large in Palestine” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 254-60].

February 24 Monday – The Washington Morning Chronicle said that the Feb. 22 audience, “including many of the most prominent persons of Georgetown and this city…was in almost continuous roars of laughter,” the amusing effect heightened by “his peculiarly slow and inimitable drawl” [Fatout, Circuit 86].

February 27 Thursday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER VII dated Jan. 30 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “More Westonism,” “Impeachment,” “Harry Worthington,” “Mormonism,” and:

Judge McCorkle.

March 1 Sunday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER VIII dated Feb. 5 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Office Hunting,” “The Man Who Stopped at Gadsby’s,” “Mrs. Lincoln,” “Felix O’Byrne,” and “Stewart’s Speech” [Schmidt].

March 3 Tuesday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN ON HIS TRAVELS, dated Feb. 1, ran in the Alta California . Subtitles: The White Fawn; Hartford; The Charter Oak; and:

March 4 Wednesday – Sam’s satiric poem, “Rock Him to Sleep” ran in the Cincinnati Evening Chronicle [Camfield, bibliog.]. The work ridiculed Alexander M.W. Ball, one of the claimants of authorship for the popular poem, “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother” [Gribben 21].

March 7 Saturday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON,  NUMBER IX dated Feb. 1868 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “Washington Rascality,” “The Delegation,” “Postmaster,” “Sandwich Islands Reciprocity,” “Miscellaneous” (McGrorty,) “Hay,” “Wood,” “Rough,” and

Impeachment.

March 8 Sunday – On or about this date Sam received a negative reply from the editors of the Alta to his request to reuse the Holy Land letters in his new book [MTL 2: 200].

Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-five” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 266-72].

March 8–10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother and family. Paine paraphrases this letter, evidently not extant, about Sam’s decision to travel to San Francisco and talk to “those Alta thieves face to face” [MTB 361]. He knew Colonel John McComb and Frederick MacCrellish well.

March 9 Monday – The Washington Evening Star announced:

“Mark Twain”—Clemens—has left Washington for California to make arrangements for the publication of his work [Muller 137].

March 10 Tuesday – Sam traveled to New York, where he wrote Mary Mason Fairbanks:

“I am so glad of an excuse to go to sea again, even for three weeks. My mother will be grieved—but I must go. If the Alta’s book were to come out with those wretched, slangy letters unrevised, I should be utterly ruined” [MTL 2: 202].

March 11 Wednesday – Sam left New York on the steamer Henry Chauncey, bound for San Francisco [Sanborn 391].

Sam’s undated letter to the editor, “The Chinese Mission” ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.].

March 13 Friday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER X dated Feb. 22 ran in the Enterprise. Sections included: “The Grand Coup d’Etat,” and “How the Delegations” [MTP].

March 15 Sunday – Sam wrote from the Henry Chauncey en route from New York to Aspinwall, Panama to his mother and family.

March 18 Wednesday – Sam wrote at sea to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

“Dear Mother—We shall reach the Isthmus tomorrow morning. It is getting very hot. Cuba was such a vision!—a perfect garden!” [MTL 2: 204-5].

March 19 Thursday – The Henry Chauncey reached Aspinwall, Panama. Sam traveled across the Isthmus by train and boarded the Sacramento at Panama City at night [MTL 2: 205n1].

March 20–April 1 Wednesday – Sam made a speech on board sometime between these dates, entitled “Charade” [Fatout, MT Speaking 649].

March 22 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-seven” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 277-81].

March 29 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-eight” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 281-7].

April 2 Thursday – The Sacramento arrived in San Francisco and Sam stayed at the Occidental Hotel [MTL 2: 205; Sanborn 391]. Sam wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks of his safe arrival:

“The Prodigal in a far country chawing of husks, P.S.—& with nobody to molest or keep him straight. (!) mild exultation.”

April 3 Friday – The Alta reported that Sam had arrived and proposed to lecture a few days [MTL 2: 205]. In the morning, Sam went to the offices of the Alta to negotiate with the owners over reusing his Holy Land letters. Frederick MacCrellish was no more flexible in person than he’d been in letters. He refused Sam’s request, but made a compromise offer of ten percent royalty on a published work by the Alta.

April 4 Saturday – The Critic printed that Sam’s lecture topic would be “the results of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land” [MTL 2: 205].

April 5 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-two” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 302-6].

April 6 Monday – The Alta reported that on Apr. 6 Sam was in the audience of a literary society meeting of Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth’s Calvary Presbyterian Church. Sam was called upon to give an informal, impromptu speech, “which was received with the liveliest applause” [MTL 2: 206].