DBD: World Tour

March 31 Tuesday – The Wardha was piloted into the harbor of Madras, India at daybreak for a 24 hour stop. Sam was again suffering from a cold and cough. He was interviewed by the Madras Standard; the interview ran on Apr. 1; a longer version on Apr. 11 in the Calcutta Reis and Rayyet (see Budd, “Interviews” (119) p. 69). From the interview, Sam was quoted:

March 4 Wednesday – In Jaipur, Sam ill in bed. Clara also ill. Sam’s notebook:

Neat little hotel, kept by 9 Indian brothers, & wonderfully noisy….Mr. Aklom looked in, this morning, from Ajmere — his wife is not well. Brought an armful of books. Col. Jacob sent very fine oranges & bananas [NB 36 TS 54-5].

March 5 Thursday – In Jaipur, Sam and Clara recovering.

March 6 Friday – In Jaipur, Sam had recovered enough to ride into town, to “the city of victory,” founded by Maharajah Jai Singh II in 1728. Parsons writes,

March 7 Saturday – In Jaipur (which Sam spelled “Jeypore”) Sam wrote to Mr. Acklom and A.J. Acklom, thanking them for two books and a poem sent. Sam divulged that Carlyle Smythe was still confined to his bed, so they didn’t know just when they’d move on [MTP].

Sam then wrote a second letter to Mr. Acklom.

March 8 Sunday – In Jaipur the Clemenses, especially Carlyle Smythe, were recuperating.

March 9 Monday – In Jaipur Sam started and signed a letter taken down by Livy to an unidentified man, whose invitation had reached the Clemenses too late to accept. Sam explained there had been illness in his party but that they hoped to get to Lahore on Mar. 15 and leave there on Mar. 18. The invitation was evidently for accommodations.

May 1 Friday – The Clemens party was at sea aboard the Arundel Castle bound for South Africa. In his May 2 entry in FE, Sam related this night’s story:

May 11 Monday – Durbin, Natal. Parsons writes,

May 12 Tuesday – In Durban, Natal Sam gave his “At Home” No. 1 lecture at the Theatre Royal. The house held about 1,000 and was full, tickets from 1s to 4s, with an approximate gross of £105. Sam spoke for 95 minutes, including the boy and the corpse, Civil War soldiering, Mexican plug, German language, and his Australian Poem [Philippon 15]. 

After the lecture he went to the Princess Café and gave a Savage Club supper speech. Fatout writes,

May 13 Wednesday – In Durban, Natal Sam gave his “At Home” No. 2 (morality) lecture at the Theatre Royal. Extra seats were brought in to accommodate an overflow crowd. Reviews published: May 15: Transvaal Advertiser; May 16: Natal Witness; Pretoria Press.

Sam gave an impromptu speech for the Durban Savage Club, Dr. Samuel George Campbell, chairman [Philippon 15]. Parsons writes,

May 14 Thursday – Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe left Durban at 6 p.m. on the Natal Govt. Railway for “the heat and turmoil” of the Transvaal. They were seen off at the station by David Hunter and A. Milligan. They traveled 71 miles to Pietermaritzburg, arriving at 10 p.m..

May 15 Friday – In Peitermaritzburg, S. Africa, Sam was awakened at 7 a.m. He bathed and had coffee and shaved, then rested in bed rehearsing for the night’s lecture. Before lunch he wrote to Livy:

May 16 Saturday – At 10 a.m. in Pietermaritzburg Sam wrote to Livy:

I have just had my bath & coffee, Sweetheart, & am back in bed again. My proposed program is the one I used in Calcutta:

First Night. Dead Man, Plug, Ram, Smallpox, Christening.

Second. Watermelon, Duel, Crusade, Interviewer, Poem, Whistle.

Third. Punch, McWilliams, Sandpile, German. (And possibly Golden Arm.)

May 17 Sunday – Sam and Smythe arrived in Johannesburg at Park Station at 8:50 p.m. and were greeted by a “large number of admirers and curious spectators.” They took rooms at the Grand National Hotel at Rissik and Pritchard Streets. Journalists from the Johannesburg Times and the Standard Diggers’ News interviewed Mark Twain, these published on May 18 [Philippon 16].

May 18 Saturday – The S.S. New York arrived in New York at 9 a.m. with the Clemens family aboard. [N.Y. Times, May 18, 1895, p.6 “Incoming Steamships. To-day, (Saturday) May 18”; NB 34 TS 9; MTHHR 134]. Note: the latter source says the family “went immediately to Elmira,” but Sam wrote Frank Mayo on May 19 and gave a curtain speech on May 22; his first letter from Elmira was May 24 to J.B.

May 18 Monday – In Johannesburg, a journalist from the Johannesburg Star interviewed Sam in bed for an hour at the Grand National Hotel. The interview was taken in the forenoon; it ran this same day [Scharnhorst 300]. A. Bonamici of Bonamici & Co. was Sam’s manager in Johannesburg gave Sam a small, engraved gold brick. At 3:30 in the afternoon Sam took a drive with Mrs.

May 19 Sunday – In New York at H.H. Rogers’ office, Sam wrote to Frank Mayo, asking for three tickets to the PW play. Evidently he’d asked for two prior to this, his first request not extant:

I made a mistake. I wanted to ask for 3 seats for Miss Harrison, instead of 2. If not too late, won’t you mail 3 to her, Care H.H. Rogers, 26 Broadway?

May 19 Tuesday – In Johannesburg, S. Africa, Sam wrote at 12:30 p.m. to Livy:

Livy dear, I have just finished bathing & shaving — I slept straight through ten hours — for the fatigue of that sleepless night in the train had arrived at last, though there had been no suggestion of it before [MTP].

Sam wrote a second letter to Livy later in the afternoon, as he waited for Mrs. Adele Chapin’s carriage to drive him out.

May 2 Saturday – The Clemens party was at sea aboard the Arundel Castle bound for South Africa. Sam wrote in FE:

May 2, A.M. A fair, great ship in sight, almost the first we have seen in these weeks of lonely voyaging. We are now in the Mozambique Channel, between Madagascar and South Africa, sailing straight west for Delagoa Bay [ch LXIV 631].

May 20 Monday – The Boston Daily Globe, p.5 ran an unsigned New York interview done with Sam at the Everett House (not in Scharnhorst):

IT PAYS TO KICK.

Mark Twain Says So in All Seriousness.

Believes in Complaining to the Responsible Head.

Cites Discourtesies in Our Every Day Life.

Approves of Reform and Tells How to Get Redress.

“I Suppose We Are Born Timid,” He Says.

May 20 Wednesday – In Johannesburg, S. Africa Sam began a letter to Livy he added to on May 21.

Livy darling I love you, & that is about all I can find time to say this morning. I am driven — driven — driven — & without you to save me from blunders I make them all the time. I think I have engaged myself to lunch with 2 different crowds at 1 o’clock today. This would not have happened if you had been there….A visitor is announced [MTP].

May 21 Thursday – In Johannesburg, S. Africa Sam finished a letter to Livy he began May 20.

Livy darling, your dear letters are arriving now & glad am I to get them. It is noon, & I am not yet dressed or shaved. I got to bed (from a lovely supper given to Smythe & me by the theatre manager at one oclock this morning & slept like a log until eleven. Am refreshed. I was dreading lecture No.3. But it came out just as handsomely as the others [MTP].

May 22 Wednesday – In New York Sam gave a curtain Speech for Frank Mayo’s production of Pudd’nhead Wilson at the Herald Square Theatre. The New York Times reported it on May 23. See also Fatout, MT Speaking 276-8, based upon the N.Y. Herald’s May 23 article. The former:

MARK TWAIN IN THE PLAYHOUSE

May 22 Friday – Close to midnight in Johannesburg, S. Africa, Sam wrote to daughter Clara:

Dear Ash-Cat:

I got your rattling good letter yesterday, you must relieve Mamma often of the task of writing me.