My most cordial love to all.
Near Snelling, Merced Co.,
California, July 26th, [1868.]
I have had the pleasure of but one letter since leaving home from you.
That I received at Gainesville, Georgia.
I have not received a letter from any source since leaving Florida, and
of course I am very lonesome and hunger terribly for the communion of
friends. I will remain here eight or nine months and hope to hear from
all my friends.
Fate and flowers have carried me to California, and I have reveled
and luxuriated amid its plants and mountains nearly four months. I am
well again, I came to life in the cool winds and crystal waters of the
mountains, and, were it not for a thought now and then of loneliness
and isolation, the pleasure of my existence would be complete.
I have forgotten whether I wrote you from Cuba or not. I spent four
happy weeks there in January and February.
I saw only a very little of the grandeur of Panama, for my health was
still in wreck, and I did not venture to wait the arrival of another
steamer. I had but half a day to collect specimens. The Isthmus train
rushed on with camel speed through the gorgeous Eden of vines and palms,
and I could only gaze from the car platform and weep and pray that the
Lord would some day give me strength to see it better.
After a delightful sail among the scenery of the sea I arrived in San
Francisco in April and struck out at once into the country. I followed
the Diablo foothills along the San José Valley to Gilroy, thence over the
Diablo Mountains to valley of San Joaquin by the Pacific pass, thence
down the valley opposite the mouth of the Merced River, thence across
the San Joaquin, and up into the Sierra Nevada to the mammoth trees of
Mariposa and the glorious Yosemite, thence down the Merced to this place.
The goodness of the weather as I journeyed towards Pacheco was beyond
all praise and description, fragrant and mellow and bright. The air
was perfectly delicious, sweet enough for the breath of angels; every
draught of it gave a separate and distinct piece of pleasure. I do not
believe that Adam and Eve ever tasted better in their balmiest nook.
The last of the Coast Range foothills were in near view all the way to
Gilroy. Their union with the valley is by curves and slopes of inimitable
beauty, and they were robed with the greenest grass and richest light
I ever beheld, and colored and shaded with millions of flowers of every
hue, chiefly of purple and golden yellow; and hundreds of crystal rills
joined songs with the larks, filling all the valley with music like a
sea, making it an Eden from end to end.
The scenery, too, and all of Nature in the pass is fairly
enchanting,--strange and beautiful mountain ferns, low in the dark cañons
and high upon the rocky, sunlit peaks, banks of blooming shrubs, and
sprinklings and gatherings of [ ] flowers, precious and pure as ever
enjoyed the sweets of a mountain home. And oh, what streams are there!
beaming, glancing, each with music of its own, singing as they go in
the shadow and light, onward upon their lovely changing pathways to the
sea; and hills rise over hills, and mountains over mountains, heaving,
waving, swelling, in most glorious, overpowering, unreadable majesty;
and when at last, stricken with faint like a crushed insect, you hope
to escape from all the terrible grandeur of these mountain powers, other
fountains, other oceans break forth before you, for there, in clear view,
over heaps and rows of foothills is laid a grand, smooth outspread plain,
watered by a river, and another range of peaky snow-capped mountains
a hundred miles in the distance. That plain is the valley of the San
Joaquin, and those mountains are the great Sierra Nevadas. The valley
of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one
vast level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea ruffled a
little by the tree fringing of the river and here and there of smaller
cross streams from the mountains. Florida is indeed a land of flowers,
but for every flower creature that dwells in its most delightsome places
more than a hundred are living here. Here, here is Florida. Here they
are not sprinkled apart with grass between, as in our prairies, but
grasses are sprinkled in the flowers; not, as in Cuba, flowers piled
upon flowers heaped and gathered into deep, glowing masses, but side
by side, flower to flower, petal to petal, touching but not entwined,
branches weaving past and past each other, but free and separate, one
smooth garment, mosses next the ground, grasses above, petaled flowers
between.
Before studying the flowers of this valley, and their sky and all of
the furniture and sounds and adornments of their home, one can scarce
believe that their vast assemblies are permanent, but rather that,
actuated by some plant purpose, they had convened from every plain, and
mountain, and meadow of their kingdom, and that the different coloring
of patches, acres, and miles marked the bounds of the various tribe and
family encampments. And now just stop and see what I gathered from a
square yard opposite the Merced. I have no books and cannot give specific
names:--
_Orders_ _Open flowers_ _Species_
Compositæ 132,125 2 yellow, 3305 heads
Leguminosæ 2620 2 purple and white
Scrophulariaceæ 169 1 purple
Umbellaceæ 620 1 yellow
Geraniaceæ 22 1 purple
Rubiaceæ 40 1 white
85 Natural order unknown
60 Plants unflowered
Polemoniaceæ 407 2 purple
Gramineæ 29,830 3; stems about 700; spikelets 10,700
Musci 10,000,000 2 purples, _Dicranum_, _Tunar_
Total of open flowers, 165,912
“ “ flowers in bud, 100,000
“ “ withered, 40,000
“ “ natural orders, 9-11
“ “ species, 16-17
The yellow of these _Compositæ_ is extremely deep and rich and bossy,
as though the sun had filled their petals with a portion of his very
self. It exceeds the purple of all the others in superficial quantity
forty or fifty times their whole amount, but to an observer who first
looks downward and then takes a more distant view, the yellow gradually
fades and purple predominates because nearly all of the purple flowers
are higher. In depth the purple stratum is about ten or twelve inches,
the yellow seven or eight, and second purple of mosses one.
I’m sorry my page is done. I have not told anything. I thought of you,
Mrs. Carr, when I was in the glorious Yosemite and of the prophecy of
“the Priests” that you would see it and worship there with your Doctor and
Priest and I. It is by far the grandest of all of the special temples of
Nature I was ever permitted to enter. It must be the _sanctum sanctorum_
of the Sierras, and I trust that you will all be led to it.
Remember me to the Doctor. I hope he has the pleasure of sowing in good
and honest hearts the glorious truth of science to which he has devoted
his life. Give my love to all your boys and my little Butler.
Adieu.
J. MUIR.
Address:
Hopeton, Merced Co., Cala.
At a sheep ranch between the
Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers,
November 1st, [1868.]
I was extremely glad to receive yet one more of your ever welcome
letters. It found me two weeks ago. I rode over to Hopeton to seek for
letters. I had to pass through a bed of _Compositæ_ two or three miles
in diameter. They were in the glow of full prime, forming a lake of the
purest _Compositæ_ gold I ever beheld. Some single plants had upwards of
three thousand heads. Their petal-surface exceeded their leaf-surface
thirty or forty times. Because of the constancy of the winds all these
flowers faced in one direction (southeast), and I thought, as I gazed
upon myriads of joyous plant beings clothed in rosy golden light, What
would _old Linnæus_ or Mrs. Carr say to this?
I was sorry to think of the loss of your letters, but it is just what
might be expected from the wretched mail arrangements of the South.
I am not surprised to hear of your leaving Madison and am anxious to
know where your lot will be cast. If you go to South America soon, I
shall hope to meet you, and if you should decide to seek the shores
of the Pacific in California before the end of the year, I shall find
you and be glad to make another visit to the Yosemite with your Doctor
and Priest, according to the old plan. I know the way up the rocks to
the falls, and I know too the abode of many a precious mountain fern.
I gathered plenty for you, but you must see them at home. Not an angel
could tell a tithe of these glories.
If you make your home in California, I know from experience how keenly
you will feel the absence of the _special_ flowers you love. No others
can fill their places; Heaven itself would not answer without _Calypso_
and _Linnæa_.
I think that you will find in California just what you desire in climate
and scenery, for both are so varied. March is the springtime of the
plains, April the summer, and May the autumn. The other months are dry
and wet winter, uniting with each other, and with the other seasons by
splices and overlappings of very simple and very intricate kinds. I rode
across the seasons in going to the Yosemite last spring. I started from
the Joaquin in the last week of May. All the plain flowers, so lately
fresh in the power of full beauty, were dead. Their parched leaves
crisped and fell to powder beneath my feet, as though they had been “cast
into the oven.” And they had not, like the plants of our West, weeks
and months to grow old in, but they died ere they could fade, standing
together holding out their branches erect and green as life. But they
did not die too soon; they lived a whole life and stored away abundance
of future life-principle in the seed.
After riding for two days in this autumn I found summer again in the
higher foothills. Flower petals were spread confidingly open, the grasses
waved their branches all bright and gay in the colors of healthy prime,
and the winds and streams were cool. Forty or fifty miles further into
the mountains, I came to spring. The leaves on the oak were small and
drooping, and they still retained their first tintings of crimson and
purple, and the wrinkles of their bud folds were distinct as if newly
opened, and all along the rims of cool brooks and mild sloping places
thousands of gentle mountain flowers were tasting life for the first time.
A few miles farther “onward and upward” I found the edge of winter. Scarce
a grass could be seen. The last of the lilies and spring violets were
left below; the winter scales were still shut upon the buds of the dwarf
oaks and alders; the grand Nevada pines waved solemnly to cold, loud
winds among rushing, changing stormclouds. Soon my horse was plunging
in snow ten feet in depth, the sky became darker and more terrible,
many-voiced mountain winds swept the pines, speaking the dread language
of the cold north, snow began to fall, and in less than a week from the
burning plains of the San Joaquin autumn was lost in the blinding snows
of mountain winter.
Descending these higher mountains towards the Yosemite, the snow gradually
disappeared from the pines and the sky, tender leaves unfolded less and
less doubtfully, lilies and violets appeared again, and I once more found
spring in the grand valley. Thus meet and blend the seasons of these
mountains and plains, beautiful in their joinings as those of lake and
land or of the bands of the rainbow. The room is full of talking men;
I cannot write, and I only attempt to scrawl this note to thank you for
all the good news and good thoughts and friendly wishes and remembrances
you send.
My kindest wishes to the Doctor. I am sure you will be directed by
Providence to the place where you will best serve the end of existence.
My love to all your family.
Ever yours most cordially,
J. M.
Near Snellings, Merced Co., [Cal.]
February 24th, 1869.
Your two California notes from San Francisco and San Mateo reached me last
evening, and I rejoice at the glad tidings they bring of your arrival
in this magnificent land. I have thought of you hundreds of times in my
seasons of deepest joy, amid the flower purple and gold of the plains,
the fern fields in gorge and cañon, the sacred waters, tree columns, and
the eternal unnameable sublimities of the mountains. Of all my friends
you are the only one that understands my motives and enjoyments. Only a
few weeks ago a true and liberal-minded friend sent me a large sheetful
of terrible blue-steel orthodoxy, calling me from clouds and flowers to
the practical walks of politics and philanthropy. Mrs. Carr, thought I,
never lectured thus. I am glad, indeed, that you are here to read for
yourself these glorious lessons of sky and plain and mountain, which no
mortal power can ever speak. I thought when in the Yosemite Valley last
spring that the Lord had written things there that you would be allowed
to read some time.
I have not made a single friend in California, and you may be sure I
strode home last evening from the post office feeling rich indeed. As
soon as I hear of your finding a home, I shall begin a plan of visiting
you. I have frequently seen favorable reports upon the silk-culture in
California. The climate of Los Angeles is said to be as well tempered
for the peculiar requirements of the business as any in the world. I
think that you have brought your boys to the right field for planting.
I doubt if in all the world man’s comforts and necessities can be more
easily and abundantly supplied than in California. I have often wished
the Doctor near me in my rambles among the rocks. Pure science is a most
unmarketable commodity in California. Conspicuous, energetic, unmixed
materialism rules supreme in all classes. Prof. Whitney, as you are
aware, was accused of heresy while conducting the State survey, because
in his reports he devoted some space to fossils and other equally dead
and un-Californian objects instead of columns of discovered and measured
mines.
I am engaged at present in the very important and patriarchal business
of sheep. I am a gentle shepherd. The gray box in which I reside is
distant about seven miles northwest from Hopeton, two miles north of
Snellings. The Merced pours past me on the south from the Yosemite;
smooth, domey hills and the tree fringe of the Tuolumne bound me on the
north; the lordly Sierras join sky and plain on the east; and the far
coast mountains on the west. My mutton family of eighteen hundred range
over about ten square miles, and I have abundant opportunities for reading
and botanizing. I shall be here for about two weeks, then I shall be
engaged in shearing sheep between the Tuolumne and Stanislaus from the
San Joaquin to the Sierra foothills for about two months. I will be in
California until next November, when I mean to start for South America.
I received your Castleton letter and wrote you in November. I suppose
you left Vermont before my letter had time to reach you. You must prepare
for your Yosemite baptism in June.
Here is a sweet little flower that I have just found among the rocks
of the brook that waters Twenty-Hill Hollow. Its anthers are curiously
united in pairs and form stars upon its breast. The calyx seems to have
been judged too plain and green to accompany the splendid corolla, and
so is left behind among the leaves. I first met this plant among the
Sierra Nevadas. There are five or six species. For beauty and simplicity
they might be allowed to dwell within sight of Calypso. There are about
twenty plants in flower in the gardens of my daily walks. The first was
born in January. I give them more attention than I give the dirty mongrel
creatures of my flock, that are about half made by God and half by man.
I have not yet discovered the poetical part of a shepherd’s duties.
Spring will soon arrive to the plants of Madison, and surely they will
miss you. In Yosemite you will find cassiopes and laurels and azaleas,
and luxuriant mosses and ferns, but I know that even these can never
take the place of the long-loved ones of your Vermont hills.
Forgive me this long writing. I know that you are in a fever of joy from
the beauty pouring upon you; nevertheless you seem so near I can hardly
stop.
My most cordial regards to the Doctor. Californians do not deserve such
as he.
A lawyer by the name of Wigonton or Wigleton, a graduate of Madison,
resides in Snellings. I suppose you know him.
I am your friend,
JOHN MUIR.
920 Valencia St.,
San Francisco, April 24th, 1869.
I enclose at last the name of the big orange book. Either Paqot & Co. or
Grégoire & Co. will import it for Mr. Carr at the price he named,--for
less if intended for the library.
I thought you would have been to make at least one of your small
businesslike calls to see me ere this, but I suppose the office and
conventions and your farm leave you precious little time. Your days all
go by in little beats and bits, while you move so fast you are nearly
invisible.
Had a moment’s talk with the Doctor. Am glad he is looking so much like
himself again. The summer is coming. Don’t know how it will be spent.
Did you hear the Butlers the other day? Glassy leaves tilted at all angles.
Cordially yours,
JOHN MUIR.
Seven miles north from Snellings,
May 16th, 1869.
The thoughts of again meeting with you and with the mountains make me
scarce able to hold my pen. If you can let me know by the first of June
when you will leave Stockton, I will meet you in the very valley itself.
When the grass of the plains is dead, most owners of sheep drive their
flocks to the pastures green of the mountains, and as my soul is athirst
for mountain things, I have engaged to take charge of a flock all summer
between the head waters of the Tuolumne and Yosemite, within a few hours’
walk of the valley. For the next two weeks I will be at Hopeton. Some
time in the first week of June, I will start from this place (Patrick
Delaney’s ranch) for the mountains. By the middle of June or a little
later we will have our flock settled in the new home, and, having made
special arrangements for a two weeks’ ramble with you, I will then be
ready and free. Any time, say between the 20th of June and the 15th of
July, will suit me. I intended to enjoy another baptism in the sanctuaries
of Yosemite, whether with companions of like passions or alone. Surely,
then, my cup will be full when blessed with such company.
Last May I made the trip on horseback, going by Coulterville and returning
by Mariposa. A passable carriage-road reached about twelve miles beyond
Coulterville; the rest of the distance to the valley was crossed only
by a narrow trail. On the Mariposa route a point is reached twelve or
fourteen miles beyond Mariposa by carriages; the rest of the journey,
about forty miles, must be made on horseback. Tourists are generally
advised to go one way and return the other, that as much as possible
may be seen, but I think that more is seen by going and returning by
the same route, because all of the magnitudes of the mountains are so
great that unless seen and submitted to a good long time they are not
seen or felt at all.
I think that you had better take the Mariposa route, for the grandest
grove of sequoias ever discovered is upon it, and it is much the best
route in many respects. You can reach Mariposa direct from Stockton
by stage. At Mariposa you can procure saddle-horses and all necessary
supplies,--provisions, cooking utensils, etc. Provisions can also be
obtained at “Clark’s” and in the valley. Clark’s Hotel is midway between
the valley and Mariposa. It would be far more pleasant to camp out--to
alight like birds in beautiful groves of your own choosing--than to
travel by rule and make forced marches to fixed points of common resort
and common confusion.
You will require a light tent made of cotton sheeting, also a strong
dress and strong pair of shoes for rock service. You will, of course,
bring a good supply of paper for plants. I suppose, too, that you will
all bring a supply of drawing-material, but I hardly think that drawing
will be done. People admitted to heaven would most likely “wonder and
adore” for at least two weeks before sketching its scenery, and I don’t
think that you will sketch Yosemite any sooner.
Here is, I think, a fair estimate of the cost of the round trip from
Stockton, allowing, say, ten days from time of departure from Mariposa
till arrival at same point. Stage fare and way expenses to and from
Mariposa, say $40.00; saddle horse, $20.00; provisions, cooking utensils,
etc., $15.00; total, direct expense for one person, $75.00. Each
additional day spent in the valley would cost about $3.00. If you and all
the members of your company are good riders, and there are among you one
or two men practical travelers, and you could purchase, or hire, horses
at a reasonable rate in San José or Gilroy, you could cross the Coast
Range via the Pacheco Pass or Livermore Valley, thence direct to the
Yosemite across the Joaquin and up the Merced, passing through Hopeton
and Snellings. This kind of a trip would be less costly, and you would
enjoy it, but unless your company was all composed of the same kind of
material it would not answer.
I hope the Doctor will come too. I want to see him and ask him a great
many questions.
There is a kind of hotel in the valley, but it is incomparably better to
choose your own camp among the rocks and waterfalls. The time of highest
water in the valley varies very much in different seasons. Last year it
was highest about the end of June. I think, perhaps, the falls would be
seen to as good advantage towards the end of June as at another time,
and at any rate there will be a thousand times more of grandeur than
any person can absorb.
Here, then, in a word is the plan which I propose: That you take the
stage at Stockton for Mariposa. At Mariposa you procure saddle-horses
and one pack-animal for your tent, blankets, provisions, etc., (a guide
will be furnished by the keeper of the livery-stable to take charge of
the horses,) and that I meet you in the valley, which I can do without
difficulty provided you send me word by the first of June what day you
will set out from Stockton. Address to Hopeton.
When you arrive in the valley, please register your name at Mr. Hutchings’
hotel. I will do the same. If you should wish to reach me by letter
after I have started with the sheep to the mountains, you may perhaps
do so by addressing to Coulterville.
When you write, state whether you will visit the big trees on your way
to the valley or whether you will do so on your return.
I bid you good-bye, thanking the Lord for the hope of seeing you and for
his goodness to you in turning your face towards his most holy mansion
of the mountains.
Hopeton, May 20th, 1869.
I forgot to state in my last concerning the Yosemite that I did not
receive yours until many days after its arrival, as I was shearing sheep
a considerable distance from here in the foothills, and the postmaster,
knowing where I was, could not forward it; but I will remain here until
the 1st of June, or possibly a few days later, and will receive any
letters arriving for me at once either in Snelling or Hopeton.
The grove of sequoias is only six miles from the Yosemite trail, about
midway between Mariposa and the valley. The trail leading through the
groves leaves the Yosemite trail at Mr. Clark’s, where you can obtain
all necessary directions, etc. It is not many years since this grove was
discovered. The sequoias so often described and so well known throughout
the world belong to the Calaveras grove. The Mariposa grove has a much
larger number of trees than the Calaveras, and it is in all the majesty
and grandeur of nature undisturbed.
You will likely make the journey from Mariposa to the valley in two days.
No member of your company need be afraid of this mountain ride, as you
will be provided with sure-footed horses accustomed to the journey and
an experienced guide.
Most persons visiting the sequoia grove spend only a few hours in it and
depart without seeing a single tree, for the chiefest glories of these
mountain kings are wholly invisible to hasty or careless observers. I hope
you may be able to spend a good long time in worship amid the glorious
columns of this mountain temple. I fancy they are aware of your coming
and are waiting. I fondly hope that nothing will occur to prevent your
coming. I will endeavor to reach the valley a day or so before you. The
night air of the mountains is very cold. You will require plenty of warm
blankets.
I am sorry that the Doctor has been so suddenly smothered up in business.
If he and the priest were in the company according to the _prophecy_
our joy would be full.
I am in a perfect tingle with the memories of a year ago and with
anticipation glowing bright with all that I love.
Farewell.
JOHN MUIR.
I received your letter containing “The Song of Nature” by Emerson and
derived a great deal of pleasure from it.