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.
VI. LETTERS 1866-67. THE LECTURER. SUCCESS ON THE COAST. IN NEW YORK. THE GREAT OCEAN EXCURSION.
It was August 13th when he reached San Francisco and wrote in his
note-book, “Home again. No—not home again—in prison again, and
all the wild sense of freedom gone. City seems so cramped and so
dreary with toil and care and business anxieties. God help me, I
wish I were at sea again!”
The transition from the dreamland of a becalmed sailing-vessel to
the dull, cheerless realities of his old life, and the uncertainties
of his future, depressed him—filled him with forebodings. At one
moment he felt himself on the verge of suicide—the world seemed so
little worth while.
He wished to make a trip around the world, a project that required
money. He contemplated making a book of his island letters and
experiences, and the acceptance by Harper's Magazine of the revised
version of the Hornet Shipwreck story encouraged this thought.
Friends urged him to embody in a lecture the picturesque aspect of
Hawaiian life. The thought frightened him, but it also appealed to
him strongly. He believed he could entertain an audience, once he
got started on the right track. As Governor of the Third House at
Carson City he had kept the audience in hand. Men in whom he had
the utmost confidence insisted that he follow up the lecture idea
and engage the largest house in the city for his purpose. The
possibility of failure appalled him, but he finally agreed to the
plan.
In Roughing It, and elsewhere, has been told the story of this
venture—the tale of its splendid success. He was no longer
concerned, now, as to his immediate future. The lecture field was
profitable. His audience laughed and shouted. He was learning the
flavor of real success and exulting in it. With Dennis McCarthy,
formerly one of the partners in the Enterprise, as manager, he made
a tour of California and Nevada.
To Mrs. Jane Clemens and others, in St. Louis: