3 April 1866 • Honolulu, Sandwich Islands (MS: NPV, UCCL 00097)
I have been here two or three weeks, & like the beautiful tropical climate better & better. I have w ridden Ⓐemendationon 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.1explanatory note 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.2explanatory note 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 Ⓐemendationcall for me in the morning with his carriage, & we will visit the King at the palace3explanatory note—both are good Masons—the King is a Royal Arch Mason.4explanatory note After dinner to-night Ⓐemendationthey 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 Ⓐemendationsoon as she is gone I shall se sail Ⓐemendationfor the other islands of the group & visit the great volcano—the grand wonder of the world. Be gone 2 months.5explanatory note
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, 3, and SLC 1866, 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, 4).
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. 4click to open link). 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).
Clemens’s signature in the guest book at Iolani Palace testifies to his visit there on 4 April.
“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).
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).
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L1 , 334–335; MTB , 1:283, 284, excerpts; MTL , 1:104.
see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.