To Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
3 April 1866 • Honolulu, Sandwich Islands
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00097)

Honolulu, Sandwich
Islands, April 3, 1866.

My Dear Mother & Sister:

I have been here two or three weeks, & like the beautiful tropical climate better & better. I have [ w ridden ]on horseback all over this island (Oahu) in the meantime, & have visited all the ancient battle-fields & 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.1 I went with the American Minister to & took dinner this evening with the King’s Grand Chamberlain, who is related to the royal family, & although darker than a mulatto, he has an excellent English education & in manners is an accomplished gentleman.2 The dinner was as ceremonious as any I ever attended in California—five regular courses, & five kinds of wine and one of brandy. [ I am to He is to ]call for me in the morning with his carriage, & we will visit the King at the palace3—both are good Masons—the King is a Royal Arch Mason.4 After dinner [to-night ]they called in the “singing girls,” & we had some beautiful music, sung in the native tongue.

The steamer I came here in sails tomorrow, & [ s as ]soon as she is gone I shall [ se sail ]for the other islands of the group & visit the great volcano—the grand wonder of the world. Be gone 2 months.5

Yrs.

Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Clemens described his “equestrian excursion” around Oahu, with a party of friends, in letters published in the Sacramento Union on 21 and 24 April (SLC 1866 [MT00451], 3, and SLC 1866 [MT00452], 4). He reported that at one old battleground “the bleached bones of men gleamed white in the moonlight. We picked up a lot of them for mementoes” (SLC 1866 [MT00452], 4).

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2 The United States minister resident to Hawaii was James McBride (1802–75), commissioned on 9 March 1863. McBride had been replaced on 21 March 1866, just three days after Clemens’s arrival, but continued to serve until late July while awaiting his successor (NCAB, 13:470; U.S. Department of State, 46; see 22 May 66 to MEC, n. 4). The Hawaiian king was Kamehameha V (1830–72), who reigned from 1863 to 1872. His grand chamberlain, David Kalakaua (1836–91), who later became king (1874–91), was unrelated to the royal family (Day, 201).

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3 Clemens’s signature in the guest book at Iolani Palace testifies to his visit there on 4 April.

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4 “This degree is indescribably more august, sublime and important, than all which precede it; and is the summit and perfection of ancient Masonry” (Macoy, 145). As a Master Mason at this time, Clemens was ten degrees short of the king’s thirteenth-degree sublimity. Yet even Kamehameha V had not quite reached the summit: depending on which Masonic rite he followed, there may have been as many as fifty-nine degrees beyond his Royal Arch (Macoy, 282–86).

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5 In fact Clemens left in mid-April for Maui, where he visited Haleakala volcano. He returned to Honolulu on 22 May, then left again on 26 May for a three-week visit to Hawaii and Kilauea volcano (see N&J1, 100–101).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L1, 334–335; MTB, 1:283, 284, excerpts; MTL, 1:104.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.

Emendations and textual notes:

w ridden • [‘r’ over ‘w’]

I am to He is to • [‘He is to’ over ‘I am to’]

to-night • to-|night

s as • [‘a’ over ‘s’]

se sail • seail [‘a’ over ‘e’]