To think that, after writing many an article a man might be excused for thinking tolerably good, those New York people should single out a villainous backwoods sketch to compliment me on!—­“Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog”—­a squib which would never have been written but to please Artemus Ward.

However, somewhat later he changed his mind considerably, especially when he heard that James Russell Lowell had pronounced the story the finest piece of humorous writing yet produced in America.

XXV.

HAWAII AND ANSON BURLINGAME

Mark Twain remained about a year in San Francisco after his return from the Gillis cabin and Angel’s Camp, adding to his prestige along the Coast rather than to his national reputation.  Then, in the spring of 1866 he was commissioned by the “Sacramento Union” to write a series of letters that would report the life, trade, agriculture, and general aspects of the Hawaiian group.  He sailed in March, and his four months in those delectable islands remained always to him a golden memory—­an experience which he hoped some day to repeat.  He was young and eager for adventure then, and he went everywhere—­horseback and afoot—­saw everything, did everything, and wrote of it all for his paper.  His letters to the “Union” were widely read and quoted, and, though not especially literary, added much to his journalistic standing.  He was a great sight-seer in those days, and a persevering one.  No discomfort or risk discouraged him.  Once, with a single daring companion, he crossed the burning floor of the mighty crater of Kilauea, racing across the burning lava, leaping wide and bottomless crevices where a misstep would have meant death.  His open-air life on the river and in the mining-camps had nerved and hardened him for adventure.  He was thirty years old and in his physical prime.  His mental growth had been slower, but it was sure, and it would seem always to have had the right guidance at the right time.

Clemens had been in the islands three months when one day Anson Burlingame arrived there, en route to his post as minister to China.  With him was his son Edward, a boy of eighteen, and General Van Valkenburg, minister to Japan.  Young Burlingame had read about Jim Smiley’s jumping frog and, learning that the author was in Honolulu, but ill after a long trip inland, sent word that the party would call on him next morning.  But Mark Twain felt that he could not accept this honor, and, crawling out of bed, shaved himself and drove to the home of the American minister, where the party was staying.  He made a great impression with the diplomats.  It was an occasion of good stories and much laughter.  On leaving, General Van Valkenburg said to him: 

   “California is proud of Mark Twain, and some day the American people
   will be, too, no doubt.”  Which was certainly a good prophecy.

It was only a few days later that the diplomats rendered him a great service.  Report had come of the arrival at Sanpahoe of an open boat containing fifteen starving men, who had been buffeting a stormy sea for forty-three days—­sailors from the missing ship Hornet of New York, which, it appeared, had been burned at sea.  Presently eleven of the rescued men were brought to Honolulu and placed in the hospital.