I have recently acquired the two editions of the Mark Twain Journal pertaining to The Innocents Abroad and through these I have been made aware of this astounding relationship - Fairbanks and Clemens. I had no real conception of just how much Clemens disliked many of his fellow passengers. I've read The Innocents Abroad more than a couple times and have recorded a reading. I had thought Mark Twain was amused by their religious pronouncements but truly upset only by their souvenir hunting and the cruelty they displayed to their animals in order to avoid traveling on the sabbath. His true feelings seem to be more fully expressed in two letters to Mary Mason Fairbanks on the 2nd and 12th of December 1867. His promises to her must have been of paramount importance to him to tone down his letters and the book to the degree he did.