Whatever his first emotions concerning
the success of “Jim Smiley’s Frog”
may have been, the sudden astonishing leap of that
batrachian into American literature gave the author
an added prestige at home as well as in distant parts.
Those about him were inclined to regard him, in some
degree at least, as a national literary figure and
to pay tribute accordingly. Special honors began
to be shown to him. A fine new steamer, the Ajax,
built for the Sandwich Island trade, carried on its
initial trip a select party of guests of which he was
invited to make one. He did not go, and reproached
himself sorrowfully afterward.
If the Ajax were back I would go quick,
and throw up my correspondence. She had fifty-two
invited guests aboard the cream of the
town gentlemen and ladies, and a splendid
brass band. I could not accept because there
would be no one to write my correspondence while I
was gone.
In fact, the daily letter had grown
monotonous. He was restless, and the Ajax excursion,
which he had been obliged to forego, made him still
more dissatisfied. An idea occurred to him:
the sugar industry of the islands was a matter of
great commercial interest to California, while the
life and scenery there, picturesquely treated, would
appeal to the general reader. He was on excellent
terms with James Anthony and Paul Morrill, of the
Sacramento Union; he proposed to them that they send
him as their special correspondent to report to their
readers, in a series of letters, life, trade, agriculture,
and general aspect of the islands. To his vast
delight, they gave him the commission. He wrote
home joyously now:
I am to remain there a month and ransack
the islands, the cataracts and volcanoes completely,
and write twenty or thirty letters, for which they
pay as much money as I would get if I stayed at home.
He adds that on his return he expects
to start straight across the continent by way of the
Columbia River, the Pend Oreille Lakes, through Montana
and down the Missouri River. “Only two hundred
miles of land travel from San Francisco to New Orleans.”
So it is: man proposes, while
fate, undisturbed, spins serenely on.
He sailed by the Ajax on her next
trip, March 7 (1866), beginning his first sea voyage a
brand-new experience, during which he acquired the
names of the sails and parts of the ship, with considerable
knowledge of navigation, and of the islands he was
to visit whatever information passengers
and sailors could furnish. It was a happy, stormy
voyage altogether. In ‘Roughing It’
he has given us some account of it.
It was the 18th of March when he arrived
at Honolulu, and his first impression of that tranquil
harbor remained with him always. In fact, his
whole visit there became one of those memory-pictures,
full of golden sunlight and peace, to be found somewhere
in every human past.
The letters of introduction he had
brought, and the reputation which had preceded him,
guaranteed him welcome and hospitality. Officials
and private citizens were alike ready to show him
their pleasant land, and he fairly reveled in its
delicious air, its summer warmth, its soft repose.
Oh, islands there are on the
face of the deep
Where the leaves never fade
and the skies never weep,
he quotes in his note-book, and adds:
Went with Mr. Damon to his
cool, vine-shaded home; no careworn or
eager, anxious faces in this
land of happy contentment. God, what a
contrast with California and
the Washoe!
And in another place:
They live in the S. I. no
rush, no worry merchant goes down to his
store like a gentleman at
nine goes home at four and thinks no more
of business till next day.
D n San F. style of wearing out life.
He fitted in with the languorous island
existence, but he had come for business, and he lost
not much time. He found there a number of friends
from Washoe, including the Rev. Mr. Rising, whose health
had failed from overwork. By their direction,
and under official guidance, he set out on Oahu, one
of the several curious horses he has immortalized in
print, and, accompanied by a pleasant party of ladies
and gentlemen, encircled the island of that name,
crossed it and recrossed it, visited its various battle-fields,
returning to Honolulu, lame, sore, sunburnt, but triumphant.
His letters home, better even than his Union correspondence,
reveal his personal interest and enthusiasms.
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 though darker
than a mulatto he has an excellent English education,
and in manners is an accomplished gentleman.
He is to call for me in the morning; we will visit
the King in the palace, After dinner they called
in the “singing girls,” and we had some
beautiful music, sung in the native tongue.
It was his first association with
royalty, and it was human that he should air it a
little. In the same letter he states: “I
will sail in a day or two on a tour of the other islands,
to be gone two months.”
‘In Roughing It’ he has
given us a picture of his visits to the islands, their
plantations, their volcanoes, their natural and historic
wonders. He was an insatiable sight-seer then,
and a persevering one. The very name of a new
point of interest filled him with an eager enthusiasm
to be off. No discomfort or risk or distance
discouraged him. With a single daring companion a
man who said he could find the way he crossed
the burning floor of the mighty crater of Kilauea
(then in almost constant eruption), racing across
the burning lava floor, jumping wide and bottomless
crevices, when a misstep would have meant death.
By and by Marlette shouted “Stop!”
I never stopped quicker in my life. I asked what
the matter was. He said we were out of the path.
He said we must not try to go on until we found it
again, for we were surrounded with beds of rotten
lava, through which we could easily break and plunge
down 1,000 feet. I thought Boo would answer for
me, and was about to say so, when Marlette partly
proved his statement, crushing through and disappearing
to his arm-pits.
They made their way across at last,
and stood the rest of the night gazing down upon a
spectacle of a crater in quivering action, a veritable
lake of fire. They had risked their lives for
that scene, but it seemed worth while.
His open-air life on the river, and
the mining camps, had prepared Samuel Clemens for
adventurous hardships. He was thirty years old,
with his full account of mental and physical capital.
His growth had been slow, but he was entering now
upon his golden age; he was fitted for conquest of
whatever sort, and he was beginning to realize his
power.