On Board Ship Smyrniote,
At Sea, July 30, 1866.
To
Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett
30 July, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 20 August 1866 • Smyrniote en route from Honolulu to San Francisco, and San Francisco, Calif.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00105)
Click to add citation to My Citations.
Dear Mother & Sister:
I write, now, because I must go hard at work as soon as I get to San Francisco, & 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 8 or ten days—or 12 days ago—I don’t know which, I have been so hard at work until to-day [(at least part of each day,) that the time has slipped away almost unnoticed.) ] [ At f 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—hundreds of miles—& came dead straight north until exactly abreast of San Francisco—precisely straight west of the city in a [ I bee-line]—but a long bee-line, as we are about eighteen hundred miles west ‸two thousand miles‸ [ it 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—[ y we ] through ‸throw‸ banana & orange peel overboard & it lies still on the water by the vessel’s side. Sometimes the ocean is as dead level as the [ m Mississippi ]river, & [ gla glitters ]glassily like it was [ possib polished]—but usually, of course, no matter how calm the weather is, we roll & surge over the grand [ground-swell]. We amuse ourselves catching vast sea-birds with a hook-&-line, & by tying pieces of tin to the ship’s log & sinking them to see how far we can distinguish them under water—86 feet was the deepest we could see a ‸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.1 The sea is very dark & blue here. I [played whist ]& euchre at night until the passengers all tire out & go to bed, & then walk the quarter-deck & smoke with the mates & swap lies with them till 2 [oclock ](as I call it) but [ “fore “four ]bells in the middle watch[”] (as they call it.) Get up at 8 in the morning—always the last man, & never quick enough for the first table—& breakfast with servants, children & subordinate officers. This is better than I do [ at hom in San ]Francisco, though—always get up at noon, there.
Ever since we got becalmed—[ 4 5 ]days—I have been copying the diary of one of the young Fergusons (the two boys who starved & suffered, with 13 others, in an open boat at sea for 43 days, lately, after their ship, the “Hornet,” was burned on the equator.) Both these boys, & Capt 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 F.] 2
I suppose, from present appearances,—light winds & calms—that we shall be two weeks or three weeks at sea, yet,—and I hope so—I am in no hurry to go to work.
This is rather slow. We still drift, drift, drift along—at intervals a spanking breeze, & then—drift again—hardly move for half a day. But I enjoy it. We have such snowy moonlight, & such gorgeous sunsets. And the ship is so easy—even in a gale, she rolls very little, compared to other vessels—& 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 & rip & tear around the place as if it had life in it, & I always had to take my clothes off in bed because I could not stand up & 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, & so anything like this that varies the vast solitude of the ocean makes all hands light-hearted & cheerful. We think the ship is the “Comet,” which left Honolulu several hours before we did. She is about twelve miles away, & so we cannot see her hull, but the sailors think its 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.3 Spread a flag on the [booby-hatch], which made a very good pulpit, & 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, & had the sun. I am leader of the choir on this ship, & a sorry lead its is. I hope they will have a better opinion [ in h of ]the music in [ h Heaven ]than I have down here. If they don’t a thunderbolt will come down & knock the vessel endways.
The other ship is the Comet—she is right abreast, 3 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 & women on her decks. I am [ ac well ]acquainted with nearly all her passengers, & being so close seems right sociable.
Monday 7—I had just gone to bed a little after midnight when the 2d mate came & roused up the captain & said “The Comet has come round & is standing away on the other tack.” I went up immediately, & so did all our passengers, without waiting to dress—men, women & children. There was a perceptible breeze. Pretty soon the other ship swept down upon us with all her sails set, & made a fine show in the luminous [star-light]. 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, & then [ the gallant vessels 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. [ 9 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 [main-mast]—stand off 3 steps, shut one eye, walk up & strike at it with the forefinger; (seldom hit it); also they lay a knife on the deck & walk 7 or 8 steps with eyes [close ]shut, & try to find it. They kneel—place elbows against knees—extends hands in front along the deck—place knife against end of fingers—then clasp hands behind back & bend forward & try to pick up the knife with their teeth & rise up from knees without rolling over or losing their balance. They tie a string to the shrouds—stand with back against it—walk 3 steps (eyes shut)—turn around 3 times and go & 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 3 vessels in sight. It is so sociable to have them hovering about us on this [ waste of broad ]waste of waters. It is sunny & pleasant, but blowing hard. Every rag about the ship is spread to the breeze & she is speeding over the sea like a bird. There is a large brig right astern of us with all her canvas set & chasing us at her best. She came up fast while the winds are 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.4 [ ‸I am sorry to know that we shall soon have to quit the vessel & go ashore if she keeps up this speed.‸ ]
Friday
Friday, Aug. 10—We have breezes & calms alternately. The brig is 2 miles to 3 astern, & 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 & black as coal in the midst of a ‸against a‸ background of fire & in the midst of a sea of blood.
San Francisco, Aug. 20.
We never saw the Comet again till the 13th, in the morning, 3 miles away. At 3 [oclock ]that afternoon, 25 days out from Honolulu, both ships entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco side by side, & 300 yards apart. There was a gale blowing, & both vessels clapped on every stitch of canvas & swept up through the channel & past the fortresses at a magnificent gait.
Under that day’s date I find the following terse & irreverent remark:
“Ashore again, & devilish sorry for it.”5
I have been up to Sacramento & squared accounts with the Union. They paid me a great deal more than they promised me. I suppose that means that I gave satisfaction, but they did not say so.6
Orion & Mollie are here. They leave for Santa Cruz tomorrow.7
I have sent Captain Mitchell’s log overland to the N.Y. Times, but told them not to put my name to it, because if I get time I am going to write the whole story of the Hornet disaster for Harper’s Magazine.] 8
[ I Looking ]over my note-book, I find the following:
“On board ship [Emmeline], off Hawaii, Sandwich Islands: [Corn-bread ]brick-bats for dinner today—I wonder what Margaret would think of such corn-bread?”9
That reminds me that I went to reading your letters a while ago at dinner, but there was so little cheerful news in them that I lost my appetite & came away with an empty stomach.10
Yrs aff
Sam
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Click to add citation to My Citations. 1
The First Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, on the corner of Fourteenth
Street and Lucas Place, “was, at the time of its erection,
the finest church edifice in the Mississippi Valley; it cost, for its
erection, alone, over $100,000. It was a stately Gothic
edifice, surmounted by a beautifully proportioned tower and spire. It
was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, on October 21,
1855” (Conard, 5:212). Construction of this lavish
church—which Pamela Moffett and Jane Clemens occasionally
attended—came during the “vigorous and efficient
ministry” (1838–55) of the Reverend Artemas
Bullard (b. 1802), a “wise master builder,” who
died in a railroad disaster less than two weeks after the dedication
(Conard, 5:212–13,
1:421–22, 3:3; Varble, 226–27).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 2
Clemens identified the Ferguson brothers, of Stamford, Connecticut, in a
notebook entry evidently made on 28 July: “Samℓ Ferguson is about
28—a graduate of Trinity College, Hartford—Henry
is 18—a student of same college” (N&J1, 142). Samuel Ferguson, who had sailed on the Hornet to restore his health after “a severe attack
of lung fever,” died at Santa Clara, California, on 1 October
1866, of “Consumption” that developed
“after his exposure” in the Hornet longboat (Henry Ferguson to SLC, 8 Dec 99, CU-MARK). Henry Ferguson lived
until 1917, becoming an Episcopal clergyman, a professor of history and
political science at Trinity College, and rector of St.
Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Captain Josiah A.
Mitchell, aged fifty-three, of Freeport, Maine, continued his maritime
career until his death in 1876 (Brown, 230–31; MTH, 102–3, 107–8 n. 5). Clemens’s
literary use of the Mitchell and Ferguson diaries is discussed in note
8.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 3
The Reverend Franklin S. Rising (1833?–68) was the prototype
of the “fragile, gentle, spirituel new fledgling”
minister in chapter 47 of Roughing It. He had
arrived in Virginia City in mid-April 1862 and had become rector of St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church. In February 1866, in ill health and
suffering from a badly sprained knee, Rising had sailed for Hawaii. He
reached Honolulu on 16 March, just two days before Clemens, who probably
in early April made a note of his condition: “Mr.
Rising—first sprained & nervous
prostration—worn out with study &
labor—health not much improved” (N&J1, 197). In June Rising had accepted the post of financial
secretary and general agent of the American Church Missionary Society.
He was now returning to San Francisco to embark for New York, where the
society had its offices. He died in December 1868 in the collision of
the steamers America and United
States on the Ohio River. (For a study of Rising’s
friendship with and possible influence on Clemens, see Muir, 317–22.)
Click to add citation to My Citations. 4
This paragraph and part of the paragraph beginning “Friday,
Aug. 10” appear, with some differences, in the notebook
Clemens was using aboard the Smyrniote—evidently copied from this letter (see N&J1, 162–63).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 5
In fact Clemens’s notebook entry reads: “Aug
13—San Francisco—Home again. No—not home again—in prison
again—and all the wild sense of freedom gone. The city seems
so cramped, & so dreary with toil & care
& business anxiety. God help me, I wish I were at sea
again!” (N&J1, 163).
When I returned to California by and by, I
went up to Sacramento and presented a bill for general
correspondence at twenty dollars a week. It was paid. Then I
presented a bill for “special” service on
the Hornet matter of three columns of
solid nonpareil at a hundred dollars a
column. The cashier did n’t faint, but he came
rather near it. He sent for the proprietors, and they came and
never uttered a protest. They only laughed in their jolly
fashion, and said it was robbery, but no matter; it was a grand
“scoop” (the bill or my Hornet report, I did n’t know which);
“pay it. It’s all right.” The
best men that ever owned a newspaper. (SLC 1899, 77) James Anthony (1823–76), Henry W. Larkin (1819–78),
and Paul Morrill—operating as James Anthony and
Co.—were the proprietors and publishers of the Union (masthead, Sacramento Union, 20 Aug 66, 1; “James Anthony,”
Sacramento Record-Union, 5 Jan 76, 4;
“Death of H. W. Larkin,” Sacramento Record-Union, 12 Nov 78, 3; Willis, 152–53).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 6
Although he had agreed to spend a month in the Sandwich Islands gathering
material for twenty or thirty letters and in fact had stayed four
months, Clemens clearly had given satisfaction. By 20 August the
Sacramento Union had published eighteen letters,
with another seven, at least some of them written by this time, to
appear between 24 August and 16 November (see MTH, 256). Years later, in “My Début as a
Literary Person,” Clemens recalled:
Click to add citation to My Citations. 7
[Orion and Mollie presumably were sightseeing before
leaving for the East on 30 August (see 22 May 66 to MEC,
n.1).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 8
The New York Times did not print
Clemens’s submission. He used lengthy extracts from the
diaries of Mitchell and the Ferguson brothers to tell the
“whole story” of the Hornet
disaster in “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat.”
That article appeared anonymously in the December 1866 number of Harper’s Monthly (SLC 1866, 104–13) and was credited to
“Mark Swain” in the magazine’s annual
index. Clemens later reworked the material in “My
Début as a Literary Person” (SLC 1899, 79–87). For an account of
Henry Ferguson’s objections to both articles, see N&J1, 149 n. 118. The Ferguson and Mitchell journals are published in
Brown, passim.
Click to add citation to My Citations. 9
This entry appears in neither of Clemens’s surviving Hawaiian
notebooks, but may have been in a notebook now lost which covered the
months of April and May 1866 (see N&J1, 100–101). The Emeline was the
schooner on which Clemens traveled from Honolulu to the island of Hawaii
in late May (MTH, 59). Margaret was “the German maid” in
the Moffett home in St. Louis (MTBus, 47), not Margaret Sexton, the Clemenses’ former
boarder, as previously conjectured (N&J1, 101).
Click to add citation to My Citations. 10
None of the letters that so disturbed Clemens is known to survive.
Source text(s):MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
Previous publication:
L1, 350–355; MTB, 1:289, brief excerpt; MTL, 1:115–19, with omissions.
Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.
Emendations and textual notes:
(at . . . day,) . . . unnoticed.) • [sic]
At f The • [‘T’ over ‘f’]
l bee-line • [‘b’ over ‘l’]
it at • i at [‘a’ over undotted ‘i’ of ‘it’]
y we • [‘w’ over ‘y’]
m Mississippi • [‘M’ over ‘m’]
gla glitters • glaitters [‘i’ over ‘a’]
possib polished • po‸lished‸ ssib [‘lished’ over ‘ssib’]
ground-|swell • ground-swell
played whist • [‘w’ over ‘d’]
oclock • [sic]
“fore “four • “fo‸ur‸ re [‘ur’ over ‘re’]
at hom in San • [‘in San’ over ‘at hom’]
4 5 • [‘5’ over ‘4’]
I am . . . San F. • [lightly lined through but not canceled, probably not by Clemens; see textual commentary]
5 6 • [‘6’ over ‘5’]
booby-|hatch • booby-hatch
in h of • [‘of’ over ‘in h’]
h Heaven • [Clemens started to write ‘h’ but completed the character as ‘H’]
ac well • [‘we’ over ‘ac’]
star-|light • starlight
minutes • [sic]
the gallant vessels she • [‘she’ over ‘the’]
9 8 • [‘8’ over ‘9’]
main-|mast • mainmast
close • [sic]
finger • fingesr [‘r’ over ‘s’]
waste of broad • [‘broad’ over ‘waste of’]
‸I am sorry . . . speed‸. [¶] Friday • [‘sorry’ over ‘Friday’]
oclock • [sic]
Orion . . . Magazine. • [lightly lined through but not canceled, probably not by Clemens; see textual commentary]
I Looking • [‘L’ over ‘I’]
Emmeline • [sic]
Corn-|bread • Corn-bread
