January 29 Wednesday – Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe made a “flying trip” to Poona, returning to Bombay the following morning. Sam’s notebook:
Jan. 29. Left for Poona — (southeast).
At the mountain station of Lonauli — 12.30 am, was given that remarkable circus bill.
Been passing through ghats since 10 or 11 (now 12.30) [NB 36 TS 28].
January 30 Thursday – Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe returned to Bombay at 11 a.m. Sam spent “Two interesting hours with this prince” Kumar Shri Samatsinghji of Politana State, “& his young daughter — along with Merewether. The others saw the Rani his Wife” [NB 36 TS 29].
Sam and Smythe left at 10 p.m. for Baroda, some 245 miles north. Sam wrote of leaving:
January 31 Friday – At Baroda Station, some 245 miles north of Bombay, Sam was treated to a “ride on a lurching elephant, without a mahout at the controls” [Parsons “MT India” 80]. Clara recalled this as in Colombo, but her later recollections of time and place were often faulty, and the Clemens party had less than 24 hours in Colombo with Sam mostly in bed.
March 1 Sunday – In Jaipur the Clemens party took ill — first Sam, then Smythe, then Clara. Sam’s notebook of Mar. 4:
Arrived here next morning at 9 or 10. Immediately ordered by Dr. Hendley to throw up Delhi & other engagements & rest a week or 10 days. Smythe arrived Feb. 1 [Mar. 1] & in bed ill ever since. Clara ditto [NB 36 TS 54-5].
March 10 Tuesday – In Jaipur, Livy began a letter to daughter Jean that she finished Mar. 12.
Jean Darling: / We are having a very quiet, restful time here. Papa was not well at first. [Ahluwalia 46]
Livy wrote to Chatto & Windus: “Will you kindly send to me at Natal, South Africa a copy of ‘Punch’ for Jan. 4th ?” She wrote they’d heard there was a pleasant article about Sam in it [MTP].
March 11 Wednesday – The Clemens party was in Jaipur waiting for all to be well enough to travel.
March 12 Thursday – In Jaipur Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder to inform him of a book on Indian architecture being made available under Colonel Jacob’s supervision and funded by the Maharajah in Jaipur.
With a fine liberality the Maharajah proposes to give this costly book to public institutions, and my idea in writing this note is to convey the fact to our art-schools and universities in America. I quote:
March 13 Friday – At 7 p.m. in Jaipur at the Kaiser-i-Hind Hotel, Sam wrote another notice to Mr. Bickers, the station master, that this time they would really leave for Delhi the following evening (Mar. 14). He didn’t anticipate another change of plans but if there were he would notify. Significantly, he listed Livy and Clara, along with himself and Carlyle G.
March 14 Saturday – The Clemens party was delayed one more day in Jaipur due to Sam having some additional health problems. As he wrote H.H. Rogers on Mar. 15, “I was going to start last night for Lahore but wasn’t yet in condition” [MTHHR 199].
March 15 Sunday – H.H. Rogers, probably after reading of Sam’s “serious illness” in the N.Y. newspapers, wired Sam with an offer of support (wire not extant), and also cabled Major Samuel Comfort in Bombay to inquire on Sam’s condition [MTHHR 201]. Sam responded from Jaipur before leaving that city at 6 p.m.:
March 16 Monday – The Clemens party arrived in Delhi at half-past midnight. They stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Burne of the Bank of Bengal, “in the great old mansion built by a rich orientalized Englishman” [Ahluwalia 19; NB 36 TS 57].
March 17 Tuesday – The Clemens party was in Delhi, guests of Mr. and Mrs. Burne. Parsons writes,
March 18 Wednesday – The Clemens party arrived in Lahore at 5 a.m. [NB 36 TS 57]. Parsons writes,
March 19 Thursday – Susy Clemens’ 24th birthday. Sam’s notebook recorded the event:
Mch. 19. Susy’s birthday — 24 yr old. [“And we did not know it was to be her last,” added later in ink.]
March 2 Monday – In Jaipur, Sam was ill in bed. Clara also ill. During his convalescence Sam consulted George Robert Aberigh-Mackay’s Serious Reflections and Other Contributions, etc. (1881), calling it this “brilliant little book…the beset & delightfulest work in its line that I have seen in many a day.” The book concerned rank and prerogatives of Indian royalty [Gribben 5-6].
March 20 Friday – Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe traveled 174 miles to Rawalpindi. Livy and Clara likely stayed behind, as the men returned to Lahore the next day. Parsons calls Rawalpindi the “most heavily garrisoned of British Indian military stations” [“MT India” 92]. Sam’s notebook:
March 21 Saturday – At 12:45 p.m. Sam and Carlyle G. Smythe left Rawalpindi and returned the 174 miles to Lahore [Ahluwalia 19].
March 22 Sunday – At 10 a.m. the entire Clemens party left Lahore on a 1,443 mile train trip to Calcutta [Ahluwalia 19].
March 23 Monday – A travel day on the cars for the Clemens party, en route to Calcutta.
March 24 Tuesday – The Clemens party reached Howrah and crossed the Hooghly River by way of a floating bridge, arriving in Calcutta at sunrise. They took rooms at the Hotel Continental [Parsons “MT India” 92; NB 36 TS 59].
March 25 Wednesday – In Calcutta at the Hotel Continental, Clara Clemens was confined to her room by a touch of malarial fever. Both cholera and malaria were rampant in the city. Sam had recovered from the trip enough to submit to an interview by a journalist from The Indian Daily News, which ran Mar. 26.
March 26 Thursday – At 7 a.m. the Clemens party sailed from Calcutta on the S.S. Wardha bound for Ceylon. Before reaching the sea, however, they had to negotiate the Hooghly River. Sam’s notebook:
March 26. At anchor at Garden Reach all night. When wind blew in, icy cold; the moment it stopped, blistering hot & mosquitoes. We all went up & slept on deck….
March 27 Friday – The S.S. Wardha negotiated the last stretch of the Hooghly River and by 11:15 a.m. was in the blue of the Bay of Bengal. Again Sam was nursing a cold. Sam’s notebook:
Mch. 27. We have slept on deck these 2 nights. Very hot, & mosquitoes troublesome elsewhere.
10 a.m. The Hoogli here is 5 miles wide, the shores a low fringe of forest — a ribbon….
March 28 Saturday – En route on the Wardha in the Bay of Bengal, Sam wrote in his notebook:
Our captain (Robinson) is a handsome Hercules; young, resolute, manly … he cannot tell the truth in a plausible way. He is the very opposite of the austere Scot who sits midway of the table: he cannot tell a lie in an unplausible way [NB 37 TS 8-11].
March 29 Sunday – The Clemens family was en route on the Wardha in the Bay of Bengal, headed for Colombo, Ceylon. During the Mar. 28 to 31 voyage Sam wrote a short essay burlesquing missionaries in a parody of Sir John Lubbock’s Ants, Bees, and Wasps: A Record of Observations on the Hapbits of the Social Hymenoptera (1882). Gribben writes,