I have just returned from a ten days’ ramble with Prof. Le Conte and his
students in the beyond, and oh, we have had a most glorious season of
terrestrial grace. I do wish I could ramble ten days of equal size in
very heaven, that I could compare its scenery with that of Bloody Cañon
and the Tuolumne meadows and Lake Tenaya and Mt. Dana. Our first camp
after leaving the valley was at Eagle Point, overlooking the valley on
the north side, from which a much better general view of the valley and
the high crest of the Sierra beyond is obtained than from Inspiration
Point. There we watched the long shadows of sunset upon the living map
at our feet, and, in the later darkness half silvered by the moon, went
far out of human cares and human civilization. Our next camp was at Lake
Tenaya, one of the countless multitudes of starry gems that make this
topmost mountain land to sparkle like a sky. After moonrise Le Conte
and I walked to the lake-shore and climbed upon a big sofa-shaped rock
that stood islet-like a little way out in the shallow water, and here we
found another bounteous throne of earthly grace, and I doubt if John in
Patmos saw grander visions than we. And you were remembered there and we
cordially wished you with us. Our next sweet home was upon the velvet
gentian meadows of the South Tuolumne. Here we feasted upon soda and
burnt ashy cakes and stood an hour in a frigid rain with our limbs bent
forward like Lombardy poplars in a gale, but ere sunset the black clouds
departed, our shins were straightened at a glowing fire, we forgot the
cold and all about half-raw mutton and alkaline cakes, the grossest of
our earthly coils was shaken off, and ere the last slant sunbeams left
the dripping meadow and spiry mountain peaks we were again in the third
alpine heaven and saw and heard things equal in glory to the purest and
best of Yosemite itself. Our next camp was beneath a big gray rock at the
foot of Mt. Dana. Here we had another rainstorm, which drove us beneath
our rock, where we lay in complicated confusion, our forty limbs woven
into a knotty piece of tissue compact as felt.
Next day we worshiped upon high places on the brown cone of Dana and
returned to our rock. Next day walked among the flowers and cascades of
Bloody Cañon and camped at the lake. Rode next day to the volcanic cone
nearest to the lake, and bade farewell to the party and climbed to the
highest crater in the whole range south of the Mono Lake. Well, I shall
not try to tell you anything, as it is unnecessary. Prof. Le Conte, whose
company I enjoyed exceedingly, will tell you all. Ask him in particular
to tell you about our camp-meeting on the Tenaya rock. I will send you
a few choice mountain plant children by Mrs. Yelverton. If there is
anything in particular that you want, let me know. Mrs. Yelverton will
not leave the valley for some weeks, and you have time to write. I am
Ever your friend,
J. MUIR.
Tuolumne River, two miles below La Grange,
November 4th, 1870.
Yours of October 2nd reached me a few days since. The Amazon and Andes
have been in all my thoughts for many years, and I am sure that I shall
meet them some day ere I die, or become settled and civilized and useful.
I am obliged to you for all this information. I have studied many paths
and plans for the interior of South America, but none so easy and sure
ever appeared as this of your letter. I thought of landing at Guayaquil
and crossing the mountains to the Amazon, floating to Para, subsisting
on berries and quinine, but to steam along the palmy shores with company
and comforts is perhaps more practical though not so pleasant. Hawthorne
says that steam spiritualizes travel, but I think that it squarely
degrades and materializes travel. However, flies and fevers have to be
considered in this case. I am glad that Ned has gone. The woods of the
Purús will be a grand place for the growth of men. It must be that I am
going soon, for you have shown me the way. People say that my wanderings
are very mazy and methodless, but they are all known to you in some way
before I think of them. You are a prophet in the concerns of my little
outside life, and pray, what says the spirit about my final escape from
Yosemite? You saw me at these rock altars years ago, and I think I shall
remain among them until you take me away. I reached this place last month
by following the Merced out of the valley and through all its cañons to
the plains above Snelling,--a most glorious walk.
I intended returning to the valley ere this, but Mr. Delaney, the man
with whom I am stopping at present, would not allow me to leave before I
had plowed his field, and so I will not be likely to see Yosemite again
before January, when I shall have a grand journey over the snow.
Mrs. Yelverton told me before I started upon my river explorations that
she would likely be in Oakland in two weeks, and so I made up a package
for you of lily bulbs, cones, ferns, etc., but she wrote me a few days
ago that she was still in the valley.
I find that a portion of my specimens collected in the last two years
and left at this place and Hopeton are not very well cared for, and I
have concluded to send them to you.
I will ship them in a few days by express, and I will be down myself
perhaps in about a year. If there is anything in these specimens that
the Doctor can make use of in his lectures, tell him to do so freely,
of course.
The purple of these plains and of this whole round sky is very
impressively glorious after a year in the deep rocks. People all
throughout this section are beginning to hear of Dr. Carr. He accomplishes
a wonderful amount of work.