Mark Twain's Letters--1853-1866, by Mark Twain

The New York publishing house of Carleton & Co. gave the sketch to the Saturday Press when they found it was too late for the book.

Though I am generally placed at the head of my breed of scribblers in this part of the country, the place properly belongs to Bret Harte, I think, though he denies it, along with the rest. He wants me to club a lot of old sketches together with a lot of his, and publish a book. I wouldn't do it, only he agrees to take all the trouble. But I want to know whether we are going to make anything out of it, first. However, he has written to a New York publisher, and if we are offered a bargain that will pay for a month's labor we will go to work and prepare the volume for the press.

     Bret Harte and Clemens had by this time quit the Californian,
     expecting to contribute to Eastern periodicals. Clemens, however,
     was not yet through with Coast journalism. There was much interest
     just at this time in the Sandwich Islands, and he was selected by
     the foremost Sacramento paper to spy out the islands and report
     aspects and conditions there. His letters home were still
     infrequent, but this was something worth writing.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 5th, 1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I start to do Sandwich Islands day after tomorrow, (I suppose Annie is geographer enough by this time to find them on the map), in the steamer “Ajax.” We shall arrive there in about twelve days. My friends seem determined that I shall not lack acquaintances, for I only decided today to go, and they have already sent me letters of introduction to everybody down there worth knowing. I am to remain there a month and ransack the islands, the great cataracts and the volcanoes completely, and write twenty or thirty letters to the Sacramento Union—for which they pay me as much money as I would get if I staid at home.

If I come back here I expect to start straight across the continent by way of the Columbia river, the Pend d'Oreille Lakes, through Montana and down the Missouri river,—only 200 miles of land travel from San Francisco to New Orleans.

                              Goodbye for the present.
                                        Yours,
                                                  SAM.

     His home letters from the islands are numerous enough; everything
     there being so new and so delightful that he found joy in telling of
     it; also, he was still young enough to air his triumphs a little,
     especially when he has dined with the Grand Chamberlain and is going
     to visit the King!

     The languorous life of the islands exactly suited Mask Twain. All
     his life he remembered them—always planning to return, some day, to
     stay there until he died. In one of his note-books he wrote: “Went
     with Mr. Dam to his cool, vine-shaded home; no care-worn or eager,
     anxious faces in this land of happy contentment. God, what a
     contrast with California and the Washoe!”

     And again:

          “Oh, Islands there are on the face of the deep
          Where the leaves never fade and the skies never weep.”

     The letters tell the story of his sojourn, which stretched itself
     into nearly five months.

HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, April 3, 1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I have been here two or three weeks, and like the beautiful tropical climate better and better. I have ridden on horseback all over this island (Oahu) in the meantime, and have visited all the ancient battle-fields and other places of interest. I have got a lot of human bones which I took from one of these battle-fields—I guess I will bring you some of them. I went with the American Minister and took dinner this evening with the King's Grand Chamberlain, who is related to the royal family, and although darker than a mulatto, he has an excellent English education and in manners is an accomplished gentleman. The dinner was as ceremonious as any I ever attended in California—five regular courses, and five kinds of wine and one of brandy. He is to call for me in the morning with his carriage, and we will visit the King at the palace—both are good Masons—the King is a Royal Arch Mason. After dinner tonight they called in the “singing girls,” and we had some beautiful music; sung in the native tongue.

The steamer I came here in sails tomorrow, and as soon as she is gone I shall sail for the other islands of the group and visit the great volcano—the grand wonder of the world. Be gone two months.

WAILUKU SUGAR PLANTATION,

ISLAND OF MAUI, H. I., May 4,1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—11 O'clock at night.—This is the infernalist darkest country, when the moon don't shine; I stumbled and fell over my horse's lariat a minute ago and hurt my leg, so I must stay here tonight.

I got the same leg hurt last week; I said I hadn't got hold of a spirited horse since I had been on the island, and one of the proprietors loaned me a big vicious colt; he was altogether too spirited; I went to tighten the cinch before mounting him, when he let out with his left leg (?) and kicked me across a ten-acre lot. A native rubbed and doctored me so well that I was able to stand on my feet in half an hour. It was then half after four and I had an appointment to go seven miles and get a girl and take her to a card party at five.

I have been clattering around among the plantations for three weeks, now, and next week I am going to visit the extinct crater of Mount Haleakala—the largest in the world; it is ten miles to the foot of the mountain; it rises 10,000 feet above the valley; the crater is 29 miles in circumference and 1,000 feet deep. Seen from the summit, the city of St. Louis would look like a picture in the bottom of it.

As soon as I get back from Haleakala (pronounced Hally-ekka-lah) I will sail for Honolulu again and thence to the Island of Hawaii (pronounced Hah-wy-ye,) to see the greatest active volcano in the world—that of Kilauea (pronounced Kee-low-way-ah)—and from thence back to San Francisco—and then, doubtless, to the States. I have been on this trip two months, and it will probably be two more before I get back to California.

     He was having a glorious time—one of the most happy, carefree
     adventures of his career. No form of travel or undertaking could
     discountenance Mark Twain at thirty.

HONOLULU, May 22, 1866.

MY DEAR SISTER,—I have just got back from a sea voyage—from the beautiful island of Maui, I have spent five weeks there, riding backwards and forwards among the sugar plantations—looking up the splendid scenery and visiting the lofty crater of Haleakala. It has been a perfect jubilee to me in the way of pleasure.

I have not written a single line, and have not once thought of business, or care or human toil or trouble or sorrow or weariness. Few such months come in a lifetime.

I set sail again, a week hence, for the island of Hawaii, to see the great active volcano of Kilauea. I shall not get back here for four or five weeks, and shall not reach San Francisco before the latter part of July.

If I were in the east now, I could stop the publication of a piratical book which has stolen some of my sketches.

HONOLULU, SANDWICH ISLANDS, June 21,1866.

MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I have just got back from a hard trip through the Island of Hawaii, begun on the 26th of May and finished on the 18th of June—only six or seven days at sea—all the balance horse-back, and the hardest mountain road in the world. I staid at the volcano about a week and witnessed the greatest eruption that has occurred for years. I lived well there. They charge $4 a day for board, and a dollar or two extra for guides and horses. I had a pretty good time. They didn't charge me anything. I have got back sick—went to bed as soon as I arrived here—shall not be strong again for several days yet. I rushed too fast. I ought to have taken five or six weeks on that trip.

A week hence I start for the Island of Kauai, to be gone three weeks and then I go back to California.

The Crown Princess is dead and thousands of natives cry and wail and dance and dance for the dead, around the King's Palace all night and every night. They will keep it up for a month and then she will be buried.

Hon. Anson Burlingame, U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, Minister to Japan, with their families and suites, have just arrived here en route. They were going to do me the honor to call on me this morning, and that accounts for my being out of bed now. You know what condition my room is always in when you are not around—so I climbed out of bed and dressed and shaved pretty quick and went up to the residence of the American Minister and called on them. Mr. Burlingame told me a good deal about Hon. Jere Clemens and that Virginia Clemens who was wounded in a duel. He was in Congress years with both of them. Mr. B. sent for his son, to introduce him—said he could tell that frog story of mine as well as anybody. I told him I was glad to hear it for I never tried to tell it myself without making a botch of it. At his request I have loaned Mr. Burlingame pretty much everything I ever wrote. I guess he will be an almighty wise man by the time he wades through that lot.

If the New United States Minister to the Sandwich Islands (Hon. Edwin McCook,) were only here now, so that I could get his views on this new condition of Sandwich Island politics, I would sail for California at once. But he will not arrive for two weeks yet and so I am going to spend that interval on the island of Kauai.

I stopped three days with Hon. Mr. Cony, Deputy Marshal of the Kingdom, at Hilo, Hawaii, last week and by a funny circumstance he knew everybody that I ever knew in Hannibal and Palmyra. We used to sit up all night talking and then sleep all day. He lives like a Prince. Confound that Island! I had a streak of fat and a streak of lean all over it—got lost several times and had to sleep in huts with the natives and live like a dog.

Of course I couldn't speak fifty words of the language. Take it altogether, though, it was a mighty hard trip.

     Burlingame and Van Valkenburgh were on their way to their posts,
     and their coming to the islands just at this time proved a most
     important circumstance to Mark Twain. We shall come to this
     presently, in a summary of the newspaper letters written to the
     Union. June 27th he wrote to his mother and sister a letter, only a
     fragment of which survives, in which he tells of the arrival in
     Honolulu of the survivors of the ship Hornet, burned on the line,
     and of his securing the first news report of the lost vessel.

HONOLULU, June 27, 1866

... with a gill of water a day to each man. I got the whole story from the third mate and two of the sailors. If my account gets to the Sacramento Union first, it will be published first all over the United States, France, England, Russia and Germany—all over the world; I may say. You will see it. Mr. Burlingame went with me all the time, and helped me question the men—throwing away invitations to dinner with the princes and foreign dignitaries, and neglecting all sorts of things to accommodate me. You know how I appreciate that kind of thing—especially from such a man, who is acknowledged to have no superior in the diplomatic circles of the world, and obtained from China concessions in favor of America which were refused to Sir Frederick Bruce and Envoys of France and Russia until procured for them by Burlingame himself—which service was duly acknowledged by those dignitaries. He hunted me up as soon as he came here, and has done me a hundred favors since, and says if I will come to China in the first trip of the great mail steamer next January and make his house in Pekin my home, he will afford me facilities that few men can have there for seeing and learning. He will give me letters to the chiefs of the great Mail Steamship Company which will be of service to me in this matter. I expect to do all this, but I expect to go to the States first—and from China to the Paris World's Fair.

P. S. The crown Princess of this Kingdom will be buried tomorrow with great ceremony—after that I sail in two weeks for California.

     This concludes Mark Twain's personal letters from the islands.
     Of his descriptive news letters there were about twenty, and they
     were regarded by the readers of the Union as distinctly notable.
     Re-reading those old letters to-day it is not altogether easy to
     understand why. They were set in fine nonpareil type, for one
     thing, which present-day eyes simply refuse at any price, and the
     reward, by present-day standards, is not especially tempting.

     The letters began in the Union with the issue of April the 16th,
     1866. The first—of date March 18th—tells of the writer's arrival
     at Honolulu. The humor in it is not always of a high order; it
     would hardly pass for humor today at all. That the same man who
     wrote the Hawaiian letters in 1866 (he was then over thirty years
     old) could, two years later, have written that marvelous book, the
     Innocents Abroad, is a phenomenon in literary development.

     The Hawaiian letters, however, do show the transition stage between
     the rough elemental humor of the Comstock and the refined and subtle
     style which flowered in the Innocents Abroad. Certainly Mark
     Twain's genius was finding itself, and his association with the
     refined and cultured personality of Anson Burlingame undoubtedly
     aided in that discovery. Burlingame pointed out his faults to him,
     and directed him to a better way. No more than that was needed at
     such a time to bring about a transformation.

     The Sandwich Islands letters, however, must have been precisely
     adapted to their audience—a little more refined than the log
     Comstock, a little less subtle than the Atlantic public—and they
     added materially to his Coast prestige. But let us consider a
     sample extract from the first Sandwich Islands letter:

Our little band of passengers were as well and thoughtfully cared for by the friends they left weeping upon the wharf, as ever were any similar body of pilgrims. The traveling outfit conferred upon me began with a naval uniform, continued with a case of wine, a small assortment of medicinal liquors and brandy, several boxes of cigars, a bunch of matches, a fine-toothed comb, and a cake of soap, and ended with a pair of socks. (N. B. I gave the soap to Brown, who bit into it, and then. shook his head and said that, as a general thing, he liked to prospect curious, foreign dishes, and find out what they were made of, but he couldn't go that, and threw it overboard.)

     It is nearly impossible to imagine humor in this extract, yet it is
     a fair sample of the entire letter.

     He improves in his next, at least, in description, and gives us a
     picture of the crater. In this letter, also, he writes well and
     seriously, in a prophetic strain, of the great trade that is to be
     established between San Francisco and Hawaii, and argues for a line
     of steamers between the ports, in order that the islands might be
     populated by Americans, by which course European trade in that
     direction could be superseded. But the humor in this letter, such
     as it is, would scarcely provoke a smile to-day.

     As the letters continue, he still urges the fostering of the island
     trade by the United States, finds himself impressed by the work of
     the missionaries, who have converted cannibals to Christians, and
     gives picturesque bits of the life and scenery.

     Hawaii was then dominated chiefly by French and English; though the
     American interests were by no means small.

Cap. Fitch said “There's the king. That's him in the buggy. I know him as far as I can see him.”

I had never seen a king, and I naturally took out a note-book and put him down: “Tall, slender, dark, full-bearded; green frock-coat, with lapels and collar bordered with gold band an inch wide; plug hat, broad gold band around it; royal costume looks too much like livery; this man is not as fleshy as I thought he was.”

I had just got these notes when Cap. Fitch discovered that he'd got hold of the wrong king, or rather, that he'd got hold of the king's driver, or a carriage driver of one of the nobility. The king wasn't present at all. It was a great disappointment to me. I heard afterwards that the comfortable, easy-going king, Kamehameha V., had been seen sitting on a barrel on the wharf, the day before, fishing. But there was no consolation in that. That did not restore me my lost king.

     This has something of the flavor of the man we were to know later;
     the quaint, gentle resignation to disappointment which is one of the
     finest touches in his humor.

     Further on he says: “I had not shaved since I left San Francisco.
     As soon as I got ashore I hunted up a striped pole, and shortly
     found one. I always had a yearning to be a king. This may never
     be, I suppose, but, at any rate, it will always be a satisfaction to
     me to know that, if I am not a king, I am the next thing to it.
     I have been shaved by the king's barber.”

     Honolulu was a place of cats. He saw cats of every shade and
     variety. He says: “I saw cats—tomcats, Mary-Ann cats, bobtailed
     cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats,
     gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats,
     spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats,
     groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, armies of cats,
     multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat,
     and lazy, and sound asleep.” Which illustrates another
     characteristic of the humor we were to know later—the humor of
     grotesque exaggeration, in which he was always strong.

     He found the islands during his periods of inaction conducive to
     indolence. “If I were not so fond of looking into the rich mass of
     green leaves,” he says, “that swathe the stately tamarind right
     before my door, I would idle less, and write more, I think.”

     The Union made good use of his letters. Sometimes it printed them
     on the front page. Evidently they were popular from the beginning.
     The Union was a fine, handsome paper—beautiful in its minute
     typography, and in its press-work; more beautiful than most papers
     of to-day, with their machine-set type, their vulgar illustrations,
     and their chain-lightning presses. A few more extracts:

     “The only cigars here are those trifling, insipid, tasteless,
     flavorless things they call Manilas—ten for twenty-five cents—and
     it would take a thousand of them to be worth half the money. After
     you have smoked about thirty-five dollars' worth of them in the
     forenoon, you feel nothing but a desperate yearning to go out
     somewhere and take a smoke.”

     “Captains and ministers form about half the population. The third
     fourth is composed of Kanakas and mercantile foreigners and their
     families. The final fourth is made up of high officers of the
     Hawaiian government, and there are just about enough cats to go
     round.”

     In No. 6, April the 2d, he says: “An excursion to Diamond Head, and
     the king's cocoanut grove, was planned to-day, at 4.30 P. M., the
     party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They
     all started at the appointed hour except myself. Somebody remarked
     that it was twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that woke me up.
     It was a fortunate circumstance that Cap. Phillips was there with
     his 'turn-out,' as he calls his top buggy that Cap. Cook brought
     here in 1778, and a horse that was here when Cap. Cook came.”

     This bit has something the savor of his subsequent work, but, as a
     rule, the humor compares poorly with that which was to come later.

     In No. 7 he speaks of the natives singing American songs—not always
     to his comfort. “Marching Through Georgia” was one of their
     favorite airs. He says: “If it had been all the same to Gen.
     Sherman, I wish he had gone around by the way of the Gulf of Mexico,
     instead of marching through Georgia.”

     Letters Nos. 8, 9, and 10 were not of special importance. In No. 10
     he gives some advice to San Francisco as to the treatment of
     whalers. He says:

     “If I were going to advise San Francisco as to the best strategy to
     employ in order to secure the whaling trade, I should say, 'Cripple
     your facilities for “pulling” sea captains on any pretence that
     sailors can trump up, and show the whaler a little more
     consideration when he is in port.'”

     In No. 11, May 24th, he tells of a trip to the Kalehi Valley, and
     through historic points. At one place he looked from a precipice
     over which old Kamehameha I. drove the army of Oahu, three-quarters
     of a century before.

     The vegetation and glory of the tropics attracted him. “In one open
     spot a vine of a species unknown had taken possession of two tall
     dead stumps, and wound around and about them, and swung out from
     their tops, and twined their meeting tendrils together into a
     faultless arch. Man, with all his art, could not improve upon its
     symmetry.”

     He saw Sam Brannan's palace, “The Bungalow,” built by one Shillaber
     of San Francisco at a cost of from thirty to forty thousand dollars.
     In its day it had outshone its regal neighbor, the palace of the
     king, but had fallen to decay after passing into Brannan's hands,
     and had become a picturesque Theban ruin by the time of Mark Twain's
     visit.

     In No. 12, June 20th (written May 23d), he tells of the Hawaiian
     Legislature, and of his trip to the island of Maui, where, as he
     says, he never spent so pleasant a month before, or bade any place
     good-by so regretfully.

     In No. 13 he continues the Legislature, and gives this picture of
     Minister Harris: “He is six feet high, bony and rather slender;
     long, ungainly arms; stands so straight he leans back a little; has
     small side whiskers; his head long, up and down; he has no command
     of language or ideas; oratory all show and pretence; a big washing
     and a small hang-out; weak, insipid, and a damn fool in general.”

     In No. 14, June 22d, published July 16th, he tells of the death and
     burial ceremonies of the Princess Victoria K. K., and, what was to
     be of more importance to him, of the arrival of Anson Burlingame,
     U. S. Minister to China, and Gen. Van Valkenburgh, U. S. Minister to
     Japan. They were to stay ten or fourteen days, he said, but an
     effort would be made to have them stay over July 4th.

     Speaking of Burlingame: “Burlingame is a man who could be esteemed,
     respected, and popular anywhere, no matter whether he was among
     Christians or cannibals.” Then, in the same letter, comes the great
     incident. “A letter arrived here yesterday, giving a meagre account
     of the arrival, on the Island of Hawaii, of nineteen poor, starving
     wretches, who had been buffeting a stormy sea, in an open boat, for
     forty-three days. Their ship, the Hornet, from New York, with a
     quantity of kerosene on board had taken fire and burned in Lat. 2d.
     north, and Long. 35d. west. When they had been entirely out of
     provisions for a day or two, and the cravings of hunger become
     insufferable, they yielded to the ship-wrecked mariner's fearful and
     awful alternative, and solemnly drew lots to determine who of their
     number should die, to furnish food for his comrades; and then the
     morning mists lifted, and they saw land. They are being cared for
     at Sanpahoe (Not yet corroborated).”

     The Hornet disaster was fully told in his letter of June 27th. The
     survivors were brought to Honolulu, and with the assistance of the
     Burlingame party, Clemens, laid up with saddle boils, was carried on
     a stretcher to the hospital, where, aided by Burlingame, he
     interviewed the shipwrecked men, securing material for the most
     important piece of serious writing he had thus far performed.
     Letter No. 15 to the Union—of date June 25th—occupied the most of
     the first page in the issue of July 19. It was a detailed account
     of the sufferings of officers and crew, as given by the third
     officer and members of the crew.

In the postscript of a letter which I wrote two or three days ago, and sent by the ship “Live Yankee,” I gave you the substance of a letter received here from Hilo, by Walker Allen and Co., informing them that a boat, containing fifteen men in a helpless and starving condition, had drifted ashore at Sanpahoe, Island of Hawaii, and that they had belonged to the clipper ship “Hornet”—Cap. Mitchell, master—had been afloat since the burning of that vessel, about one hundred miles north of the equator, on the third of May—forty-three days.

The Third Mate, and ten of the seamen have arrived here, and are now in the hospital. Cap. Mitchell, one seaman named Antonio Passene, and two passengers, Samuel and Henry Ferguson, of New York City, eighteen and twenty-eight years, are still at Hilo, but are expected here within the week. In the Captain's modest epitome of the terrible romance you detect the fine old hero through it. It reads like Grant.

     Here follows the whole terrible narrative, which has since been
     published in more substantial form, and has been recognized as
     literature. It occupied three and a half columns on the front page
     of the Union, and, of course, constituted a great beat for that
     paper—a fact which they appreciated to the extent of one hundred
     dollars the column upon the writer's return from the islands.

     In letters Nos. 14. and 15. he gives further particulars of the
     month of mourning for the princess, and funeral ceremonials. He
     refers to Burlingame, who was still in the islands. The remaining
     letters are unimportant.

     The Hawaiian episode in Mark Twain's life was one of those spots
     that seemed to him always filled with sunlight. From beginning to
     end it had been a long luminous dream; in the next letter, written
     on the homeward-bound ship, becalmed under a cloudless sky, we
     realize the fitting end of the experience.

ON BOARD SHIP Smyrniote,

AT SEA, July 30, 1866.

DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I write, now, because I must go hard at work as soon as I get to San Francisco, and then I shall have no time for other things—though truth to say I have nothing now to write which will be calculated to interest you much. We left the Sandwich Islands eight or ten days—or twelve days ago—I don't know which, I have been so hard at work until today (at least part of each day,) that the time has slipped away almost unnoticed. The first few days we came at a whooping gait being in the latitude of the “North-east trades,” but we soon ran out of them. We used them as long as they lasted-hundred of miles—and came dead straight north until exactly abreast of San Francisco precisely straight west of the city in a bee-line—but a long bee-line, as we were about two thousand miles at sea-consequently, we are not a hundred yards nearer San Francisco than you are. And here we lie becalmed on a glassy sea—we do not move an inch-we throw banana and orange peel overboard and it lies still on the water by the vessel's side. Sometimes the ocean is as dead level as the Mississippi river, and glitters glassily as if polished—but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is, we roll and surge over the grand ground-swell. We amuse ourselves tying pieces of tin to the ship's log and sinking them to see how far we can distinguish them under water—86 feet was the deepest we could see a small piece of tin, but a white plate would show about as far down as the steeple of Dr. Bullard's church would reach, I guess. The sea is very dark and blue here.

Ever since we got becalmed—five days—I have been copying the diary of one of the young Fergusons (the two boys who starved and suffered, with thirteen others, in an open boat at sea for forty-three days, lately, after their ship, the “Hornet,” was burned on the equator.) Both these boys, and Captain Mitchell, are passengers with us. I am copying the diary to publish in Harper's Magazine, if I have time to fix it up properly when I get to San Francisco.

I suppose, from present appearances,—light winds and calms,—that we shall be two or three weeks at sea, yet—and I hope so—I am in no hurry to go to work.

Sunday Morning, Aug. 6.

This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along—at intervals a spanking breeze and then—drift again—hardly move for half a day. But I enjoy it. We have such snowy moonlight, and such gorgeous sunsets. And the ship is so easy—even in a gale she rolls very little, compared to other vessels—and in this calm we could dance on deck, if we chose. You can walk a crack, so steady is she. Very different from the Ajax. My trunk used to get loose in the stateroom and rip and tear around the place as if it had life in it, and I always had to take my clothes off in bed because I could not stand up and do it.

There is a ship in sight—the first object we have seen since we left Honolulu. We are still 1300 or 1400 miles from land and so anything like this that varies the vast solitude of the ocean makes all hands light-hearted and cheerful. We think the ship is the “Comet,” which left Honolulu several hours before we did. She is about twelve miles away, and so we cannot see her hull, but the sailors think it is the Comet because of some peculiarity about her fore-top-gallant sails. We have watched her all the forenoon.

Afternoon We had preaching on the quarter-deck by Rev. Mr. Rising, of Virginia City, old friend of mine. Spread a flag on the booby-hatch, which made a very good pulpit, and then ranged the chairs on either side against the bulwarks; last Sunday we had the shadow of the mainsail, but today we were on the opposite tack, close hauled, and had the sun. I am leader of the choir on this ship, and a sorry lead it is. I hope they will have a better opinion of our music in Heaven than I have down here. If they don't a thunderbolt will come down and knock the vessel endways.

The other ship is the Comet—she is right abreast three miles away, sailing on our course—both of us in a dead calm. With the glasses we can see what we take to be men and women on her decks. I am well acquainted with nearly all her passengers, and being so close seems right sociable.

Monday 7—I had just gone to bed a little after midnight when the 2d mate came and roused up the captain and said “The Comet has come round and is standing away on the other tack.” I went up immediately, and so did all our passengers, without waiting to dress-men, women and children. There was a perceptible breeze. Pretty soon the other ship swept down upon us with all her sails set, and made a fine show in the luminous starlight. She passed within a hundred yards of us, so we could faintly see persons on her decks. We had two minutes' chat with each other, through the medium of hoarse shouting, and then she bore away to windward.

In the morning she was only a little black peg standing out of the glassy sea in the distant horizon—an almost invisible mark in the bright sky. Dead calm. So the ships have stood, all day long—have not moved 100 yards.

Aug. 8—The calm continues. Magnificent weather. The gentlemen have all turned boys. They play boyish games on the poop and quarter-deck. For instance: They lay a knife on the fife-rail of the mainmast—stand off three steps, shut one eye, walk up and strike at it with the fore-finger; (seldom hit it;) also they lay a knife on the deck and walk seven or eight steps with eyes close shut, and try to find it. They kneel—place elbows against knees—extend hands in front along the deck—place knife against end of fingers—then clasp hands behind back and bend forward and try to pick up the knife with their teeth and rise up from knees without rolling over or losing their balance. They tie a string to the shrouds—stand with back against it walk three steps (eyes shut)—turn around three times and go and put finger on the string; only a military man can do it. If you want to know how perfectly ridiculous a grown man looks performing such absurdities in the presence of ladies, get one to try it.

Afternoon—The calm is no more. There are three vessels in sight. It is so sociable to have them hovering about us on this broad waste of water. It is sunny and pleasant, but blowing hard. Every rag about the ship is spread to the breeze and she is speeding over the sea like a bird. There is a large brig right astern of us with all her canvas set and chasing us at her best. She came up fast while the winds were light, but now it is hard to tell whether she gains or not. We can see the people on the forecastle with the glass. The race is exciting. I am sorry to know that we shall soon have to quit the vessel and go ashore if she keeps up this speed.

Friday, Aug. 10—We have breezes and calms alternately. The brig is two miles to three astern, and just stays there. We sail directly east—this brings the brig, with all her canvas set, almost in the eye of the sun, when it sets—beautiful. She looks sharply cut and black as a coal, against a background of fire and in the midst of a sea of blood.

San Francisco, Aug. 20.—We never saw the Comet again till the 13th, in the morning, three miles away. At three o'clock that afternoon, 25 days out from Honolulu, both ships entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco side by side, and 300 yards apart. There was a gale blowing, and both vessels clapped on every stitch of canvas and swept up through the channel and past the fortresses at a magnificent gait.

I have been up to Sacramento and squared accounts with the Union. They paid me a great deal more than they promised me.

VI. LETTERS 1866-67. THE LECTURER. SUCCESS ON THE COAST. IN NEW YORK. THE GREAT OCEAN EXCURSION.

     It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco and wrote in his
     note-book, “Home again. No—not home again—in prison again, and
     all the wild sense of freedom gone. City seems so cramped and so
     dreary with toil and care and business anxieties. God help me, I
     wish I were at sea again!”

     The transition from the dreamland of a becalmed sailing-vessel to
     the dull, cheerless realities of his old life, and the uncertainties
     of his future, depressed him—filled him with forebodings. At one
     moment he felt himself on the verge of suicide—the world seemed so
     little worth while.

     He wished to make a trip around the world, a project that required
     money. He contemplated making a book of his island letters and
     experiences, and the acceptance by Harper's Magazine of the revised
     version of the Hornet Shipwreck story encouraged this thought.

     Friends urged him to embody in a lecture the picturesque aspect of
     Hawaiian life. The thought frightened him, but it also appealed to
     him strongly. He believed he could entertain an audience, once he
     got started on the right track. As Governor of the Third House at
     Carson City he had kept the audience in hand. Men in whom he had
     the utmost confidence insisted that he follow up the lecture idea
     and engage the largest house in the city for his purpose. The
     possibility of failure appalled him, but he finally agreed to the
     plan.

     In Roughing It, and elsewhere, has been told the story of this
     venture—the tale of its splendid success. He was no longer
     concerned, now, as to his immediate future. The lecture field was
     profitable. His audience laughed and shouted. He was learning the
     flavor of real success and exulting in it. With Dennis McCarthy,
     formerly one of the partners in the Enterprise, as manager, he made
     a tour of California and Nevada.

VIRGINIA CITY, Nov. 1, 1866.

ALL THE FOLKS, AFFECTIONATE GREETING,—You know the flush time's are past, and it has long been impossible to more than half fill the Theatre here, with any sort of attraction, but they filled it for me, night before last—full—dollar all over the house.

I was mighty dubious about Carson, but the enclosed call and some telegrams set that all right—I lecture there tomorrow night.

They offer a full house and no expense in Dayton—go there next. Sandy Baldwin says I have made the most sweeping success of any man he knows of.

I have lectured in San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, Grass Valley, Nevada, You Bet, Red Dog and Virginia. I am going to talk in Carson, Gold Hill, Silver City, Dayton, Washoe, San Francisco again, and again here if I have time to re-hash the lecture.