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: