In 1899 Clemens remembered the Sacramento Union as “a rich and influential daily journal which had n’t any use” for his letters from the Sandwich Islands “but could afford to spend twenty dollars a week for nothing” (SLC 1899, 76–77). He had gone to Sacramento on 24 February, doubtless to formalize this assignment, which may have been conceived as long ago as 20 January when he complained to his mother and sister about missing the first trip of the Ajax. Charles Henry Webb, editor of the Californian, in 1900 recalled expediting the commission for Clemens: “Didn’t I pilot him to Sacramento for an engagement with the Union to write letters from the Sandwich Islands? Didn’t I get his hat checked to the Islands and back when the Union wouldn’t advance the money for his fare?” (Webb to Edmund Clarence Stedman, [14? Nov 1900], Stedman and Gould, 2:275). Years later, however, the daughter of Union proprietor James Anthony remembered that Clemens was sent to Honolulu “by Papa and Mr Morrill [Paul Morrill, one of Anthony’s partners] to write a series of letters for the paper, which he did most effectively—was to receive $50.00 for each letter. He squandered his means to such an extent—that they were obliged to pay his passage home” (Mary Josephine Anthony to Mrs. Bishop, portion of 1925 letter in CU-MARK). Whatever his exact arrangements with the Union, Clemens left San Francisco aboard the Ajax on 7 March and arrived in Honolulu eleven days later. He remained four months and produced twenty-five letters. These formed the basis for his unpublished 1867 Sandwich Islands book (see p. 361) and, ultimately, for chapters 62–77 of Roughing It. (Clemens’s Union letters are reprinted in MTH , 262–420; his Sandwich Islands notebooks are in N&J1 , 91–237.)

This trip was to be a prelude to the writing of a book, apparently about the Mississippi (see 20 Jan 66 to JLC and PAM, n. 8click to open letter).