Wailuku Sugar Plantation 1866 Island of Maui, Sandwich Island, May 7. Dear Bill — I have been mad at you so long that the old anger has about spent itself & I begin to feel friendly again. But you ought to have your d----d neck broken anyhow, my boy. I expected to be in the States long before this but things fell out otherwise. I contracted with the Sacramento Union to go wherever they chose & correspond for a few months. & I had a sneaking notion that they would start me east — but behold how fallible is human judgment! — they sent me to the Sandwich Islands. I look for a recall by the next mail, though, because I have written them that I cannot go all over the eight inhabited islands of the group in less than five months & do credit to myself & them & I don't want to spend so much time. I have been here two months & yet have only "done" the island of Oahu & part of this island of Maui… &it is going to take me two weeks more to finish this one & at least a month to “do” the island of Hawaii & the great volcanoes — & by that time, surely, I can hear from them. But I have had a gorgeous time of it so far. I wish you & Sam were here. We would sail from island to island for a year & have a merry hell of a time. We would get more invitations from sea captains. Honolulu is a great stopping point for ships, & during the month I was there I was invited to go to every blamed place on the habitable globe, I think. The last was from the captain of a fine ship, — he was going round the world — & if either of you bilks had been here I would have thrown up my berth & gone with him. I have seen a fellow here that you & I knew in Hannibal in childhood — named Martin — he was a carpenter; he came here busted a year ago & called himself the Wizard of the East & gave a sleight of hand entertainment, — & it was the d--dest sleight of hand entertainment you ever heard of. He tried to shoot a pocket handkerchief into a closed oyster-can, & he pretty nearly shot the d—d head off of a Kanaka spectator. None of his apparatus would work. He had a learned pig, which he gave out could speak 7 languages too — a striped learned pig. He told me he caught that hog in the extinct crater of Haleakala, 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, where the son of a sea horse had been running wild for three generations; he brought him down here into the valley, shaved him close, painted stripes on him with iodine & then greased him & advertised that he would give any person in the audience ten dollars who would come into the ring & catch the pig & hold him two minutes. A big brawny Kanaka & a gigantic Missourian each got the hog by a hind leg, & the brute held on, notwithstanding the grease, but the hog turned & bit a square meal out of the Kanaka & made him let go, & then started, & took the bold Missourian straight through the audience, squealing & upsetting people & benches, & raising more hell, & scaring women to death, & broke for high ground on Haleakala, & neither he nor the Missourian were ever heard of afterwards — & Martin wasn't for some time, for in the melee he took his little cash-box & "shoved." He says he likes to live here "because," says he, "when I'm busted I can go through a Kanaka lord of the soil; & when I can't do that, I can always rig a purchase to swindle one of them d---d Missionaries." I am of the opinion that Mr Martin is a brick. I wouldn't write you so much about Martin, only I haven't anything else to write about — except the islands, & that is cash, you know, & goes in the "Union." Give my regards to my Christian friends Sam & Bart especially & drop me a line to San Francisco, "Care of Occidental Hotel." Yr old friend Sam L. Clemens