This was the 31 st of August.  Two days later they were off again, sailing over the serene Pacific, bearing to the southwest for Australia.  They crossed the equator, which he says was wisely put where it is, because if it had been run through Europe all the kings would have tried to grab it.  They crossed it September 6th, and he notes that Clara kodaked it.  A day or two later the north star disappeared behind them and the constellation of the Cross came into view above the southern horizon.  Then presently they were among the islands of the southern Pacific, and landed for a little time on one of the Fiji group.  They had twenty-four days of halcyon voyaging between Vancouver and Sydney with only one rough day.  A ship’s passengers get closely acquainted on a trip of that length and character.  They mingle in all sorts of diversions to while away the time; and at the end have become like friends of many years.

On the night of September 15th-a night so dark that from the ship’s deck one could not see the water—­schools of porpoises surrounded the ship, setting the water alive with phosphorescent splendors:  “Like glorified serpents thirty to fifty feet long.  Every curve of the tapering long body perfect.  The whole snake dazzlingly illumined.  It was a weird sight to see this sparkling ghost come suddenly flashing along out of the solid gloom and stream past like a meteor.”

They were in Sydney next morning, September 16, 1895, and landed in a pouring rain, the breaking up of a fierce drought.  Clemens announced that he had brought Australia good-fortune, and should expect something in return.

Mr. Smythe was ready for them and there was no time lost in getting to work.  All Australia was ready for them, in fact, and nowhere in their own country were they more lavishly and royally received than in that faraway Pacific continent.  Crowded houses, ovations, and gorgeous entertainment—­public and private—­were the fashion, and a little more than two weeks after arrival Clemens was able to send back another two thousand dollars to apply on his debts.  But he had hard luck, too, for another carbuncle developed at Melbourne and kept him laid up for nearly a week.  When he was able to go before an audience again he said: 

“The doctor says I am on the verge of being a sick man.  Well, that may be true enough while I am lying abed all day trying to persuade his cantankerous, rebellious medicines to agree with each other; but when I come out at night and get a welcome like this I feel as young and healthy as anybody, and as to being on the verge of being a sick man I don’t take any stock in that.  I have been on the verge of being an angel all my life, but it’s never happened yet.”

In his book Clemens has told us his joy in Australia, his interest in the perishing native tribes, in the wonderfully governed cities, in the gold-mines, and in the advanced industries.  The climate he thought superb; “a darling climate,” he says in a note-book entry.