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: 

Virginiacity, Nov. 1, 1866.  All the folks, affectionate greeting,—­You know the flush time’s are past, and it has long been impossible to more than half fill the Theatre here, with any sort of attraction, but they filled it for me, night before last—­full—­dollar all over the house.

I was mighty dubious about Carson, but the enclosed call and some telegrams set that all right—­I lecture there tomorrow night.

They offer a full house and no expense in Dayton—­go there next.  Sandy Baldwin says I have made the most sweeping success of any man he knows of.

I have lectured in San Francisco, Sacramento, Marysville, Grass Valley, Nevada, You Bet, Red Dog and Virginia.  I am going to talk in Carson, Gold Hill, Silver City, Dayton, Washoe, San Francisco again, and again here if I have time to re-hash the lecture.

Then I am bound for New York—­lecture on the Steamer, maybe.

I’ll leave toward 1st December—­but I’ll telegraph you. 
                                   Love to all. 
                                             Yrs. 
                                                  Mark.