Life on the Comstock came to an end for Mark Twain in May, 1864. It
was the time of The Flour Sack Sanitary Fund, the story of which he
has told in Roughing It. He does not, however, refer to the
troubles which this special fund brought upon himself. Coming into
the Enterprise office one night, after a gay day of “Fund”
celebration, Clemens wrote, for next day's paper, a paragraph
intended to be merely playful, but which proved highly offending to
certain ladies concerned with the flour-sack enterprise. No files
of the paper exist today, so we cannot judge of the quality of humor
that stirred up trouble.
The trouble, however, was genuine enough, Virginia's rival paper
seized upon the chance to humiliate its enemy, and presently words
were passed back and forth until nothing was left to write but a
challenge. The story of this duel, which did not come off, has been
quite fully told elsewhere, both by Mark Twain and the present
writer; but the following letter—a revelation of his inner feelings
in the matter of his offense—has never before been published.
To Mrs. Cutler, in Carson City:
VIRGINIA, May 23rd, 1864.
MRS. W. K. CUTLER:
MADAM,—I address a lady in every sense of the term. Mrs. Clemens has informed me of everything that has occurred in Carson in connection with that unfortunate item of mine about the Sanitary Funds accruing from the ball, and from what I can understand, you are almost the only lady in your city who has understood the circumstances under which my fault was committed, or who has shown any disposition to be lenient with me. Had the note of the ladies been properly worded, I would have published an ample apology instantly—and possibly I might even have done so anyhow, had that note arrived at any other time—but it came at a moment when I was in the midst of what ought to have been a deadly quarrel with the publishers of the Union, and I could not come out and make public apologies to any one at such a time. It is bad policy to do it even now (as challenges have already passed between myself and a proprietor of the Union, and the matter is still in abeyance,) but I suppose I had better say a word or two to show the ladies that I did not wilfully and maliciously do them a wrong.
But my chief object, Mrs. Cutler, in writing you this note (and you will pardon the liberty I have taken,) was to thank you very kindly and sincerely for the consideration you have shown me in this matter, and for your continued friendship for Mollie while others are disposed to withdraw theirs on account of a fault for which I alone am responsible.
Very truly yours,
SAM. L. CLEMENS.
The matter did not end with the failure of the duel. A very strict
law had just been passed, making it a felony even to send or accept
a challenge. Clemens, on the whole, rather tired of Virginia City
and Carson, thought it a good time to go across the mountains to San
Francisco. With Steve Gillis, a printer, of whom he was very fond
—an inveterate joker, who had been more than half responsible for
the proposed duel, and was to have served as his second—he took the
stage one morning, and in due time was in the California metropolis,
at work on the Morning Call.
Clemens had been several times in San Francisco, and loved the
place. We have no letter of that summer, the first being dated
several months after his arrival. He was still working on the Call
when it was written, and contributing literary articles to the
Californian, of which Bret Harte, unknown to fame, was editor.
Harte had his office just above the rooms of the Call, and he and
Clemens were good friends. San Francisco had a real literary group
that, for a time at least, centered around the offices of the Golden
Era. In a letter that follows Clemens would seem to have scorned
this publication, but he was a frequent contributor to it at one
period. Joaquin Miller was of this band of literary pioneers; also
Prentice Mulford, Charles Warren Stoddard, Fitzhugh Ludlow, and
Orpheus C. Kerr.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
Sept. 25, 1864.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—You can see by my picture that this superb climate agrees with me. And it ought, after living where I was never out of sight of snow peaks twenty-four hours during three years. Here we have neither snow nor cold weather; fires are never lighted, and yet summer clothes are never worn—you wear spring clothing the year round.
Steve Gillis, who has been my comrade for two years, and who came down here with me, is to be married, in a week or two, to a very pretty girl worth $130,000 in her own right—and then I shall be alone again, until they build a house, which they will do shortly.
We have been here only four months, yet we have changed our lodgings five times, and our hotel twice. We are very comfortably fixed where we are, now, and have no fault to find with the rooms or with the people—we are the only lodgers in a well-to-do private family, with one grown daughter and a piano in the parlor adjoining our room. But I need a change, and must move again. I have taken rooms further down the street. I shall stay in this little quiet street, because it is full of gardens and shrubbery, and there are none but dwelling houses in it.
I am taking life easy, now, and I mean to keep it up for awhile. I don't work at night any more. I told the “Call” folks to pay me $25 a week and let me work only in daylight. So I get up at ten every morning, and quit work at five or six in the afternoon. You ask if I work for greenbacks? Hardly. What do you suppose I could do with greenbacks here?
I have engaged to write for the new literary paper—the “Californian”—same pay I used to receive on the “Golden Era”—one article a week, fifty dollars a month. I quit the “Era,” long ago. It wasn't high-toned enough. The “Californian” circulates among the highest class of the community, and is the best weekly literary paper in the United States—and I suppose I ought to know.
I work as I always did—by fits and starts. I wrote two articles last night for the Californian, so that lets me out for two weeks. That would be about seventy-five dollars, in greenbacks, wouldn't it?
Been down to San Jose (generally pronounced Sannozay—emphasis on last syllable)—today fifty miles from here, by railroad. Town of 6,000 inhabitants, buried in flowers and shrubbery. The climate is finer than ours here, because it is not so close to the ocean, and is protected from the winds by the coast range.
I had an invitation today, to go down on an excursion to San Luis Obispo, and from thence to the city of Mexico, to be gone six or eight weeks, or possibly longer, but I could not accept, on account of my contract to act as chief mourner or groomsman at Steve's wedding.
I have triumphed. They refused me and other reporters some information at a branch of the Coroner's office—Massey's undertaker establishment, a few weeks ago. I published the wickedest article on them I ever wrote in my life, and you can rest assured we got all the information we wanted after that.
By the new census, San Francisco has a population of 130,000. They don't count the hordes of Chinamen.
Yrs aftly,
SAM.
I send a picture for Annie, and one for Aunt Ella—that is, if she will have it.
Relations with the Call ceased before the end of the year, though
not in the manner described in Roughing It. Mark Twain loved to
make fiction of his mishaps, and to show himself always in a bad
light. As a matter of fact, he left the Call with great
willingness, and began immediately contributing a daily letter to
the Enterprise, which brought him a satisfactory financial return.
In the biographical sketch with which this volume opens, and more
extendedly elsewhere, has been told the story of the trouble growing
out of the Enterprise letters, and of Mark Twain's sojourn with
James Gillis in the Tuolumne Hills. Also how, in the frowsy hotel
at Angel's Camp, he heard the frog anecdote that would become the
corner-stone of his fame. There are no letters of this period—only
some note-book entries. It is probable that he did not write home,
believing, no doubt, that he had very little to say.
For more than a year there is not a line that has survived. Yet it
had been an important year; the jumping frog story, published in New
York, had been reprinted East and West, and laughed over in at least
a million homes. Fame had not come to him, but it was on the way.
Yet his outlook seems not to have been a hopeful one.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 20, 1866.
MY DEAR MOTHER AND SISTER,—I do not know what to write; my life is so uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up and down the river again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth—save piloting.
To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on! “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”—a squib which would never have been written but to please Artemus Ward, and then it reached New York too late to appear in his book.
But no matter. His book was a wretchedly poor one, generally speaking, and it could be no credit to either of us to appear between its covers.
This paragraph is from the New York correspondence of the San Francisco Alta:
(Clipping pasted in.)
“Mark Twain's story in the Saturday Press of November 18th, called
'Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,' has set all New York in a roar,
and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty
times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and
near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the
Californian afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let
him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the
California press.”
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.
Yours affy,
SAM.
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.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
Yrs.
SAM.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
Yrs affy
SAM.
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.
To Mrs. Orion Clemens, in Carson City:
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.
So it is no use to wait for me to go home. Go on yourselves.
If I were in the east now, I could stop the publication of a piratical book which has stolen some of my sketches.
It is late-good-bye, Mollie,
Yr Bro
SAM.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
Yours Affect.
SAM.
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.
Part of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
Don't show this letter.
Yours affly
SAM.
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.
Extract from letter No. 4:
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.
From letter No. 15:
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.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:
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.
Yrs aff
SAM.
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