Chapter II. Crossing the Cumberland Mountains
Chapter III. Through the River Country of Georgia
Chapter IV. Camping among the Tombs
Chapter V. Through Florida Swamps and Forests
Chapter VI. Cedar Keys
Chapter VII. A Sojourn in Cuba
Chapter VIII. By a Crooked Route to California
Chapter IX. Twenty Hill Hollow
Illustrations
John Muir about 1870
_From a photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco, Cal._
Map showing Route of Walk to the Gulf
Lime Key, Florida
_From Mr. Muir’s sketch in the original journal_
Twenty Hill Hollow, Merced County, California
_From a sketch by Mr. Muir_
Introduction
“John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.”—These words are written on the
inside cover of the notebook from which the contents of this volume
have been taken. They reflect the mood in which the late author and
explorer undertook his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico a
half-century ago. No less does this refreshingly cosmopolitan address,
which might have startled any finder of the book, reveal the temper and
the comprehensiveness of Mr. Muir’s mind. He never was and never could
be a parochial student of nature. Even at the early age of twenty-nine
his eager interest in every aspect of the natural world had made him a
citizen of the universe.
While this was by far the longest botanical excursion which Mr. Muir
made in his earlier years, it was by no means the only one. He had
botanized around the Great Lakes, in Ontario, and through parts of
Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois. On these expeditions he had
disciplined himself to endure hardship, for his notebooks disclose the
fact that he often went hungry and slept in the woods, or on the open
prairies, with no cover except the clothes he wore.
“Oftentimes,” he writes in some unpublished biographical notes, “I had
to sleep out without blankets, and also without supper or breakfast.
But usually I had no great difficulty in finding a loaf of bread in the
widely scattered clearings of the farmers. With one of these big
backwoods loaves I was able to wander many a long, wild mile, free as
the winds in the glorious forests and bogs, gathering plants and
feeding on God’s abounding, inexhaustible spiritual beauty bread. Only
once in my long Canada wanderings was the deep peace of the wilderness
savagely broken. It happened in the maple woods about midnight, when I
was cold and my fire was low. I was awakened by the awfully dismal
howling of the wolves, and got up in haste to replenish the fire.”
It was not, therefore, a new species of adventure upon which Mr. Muir
embarked when he started on his Southern foot-tour. It was only a new
response to the lure of those favorite studies which he had already
pursued over uncounted miles of virgin Western forests and prairies.
Indeed, had it not been for the accidental injury to his right eye in
the month of March, 1867, he probably would have started somewhat
earlier than he did. In a letter written to Indianapolis friends on the
day after the accident, he refers mournfully to the interruption of a
long-cherished plan. “For weeks,” he writes, “I have daily consulted
maps in locating a route through the Southern States, the West Indies,
South America, and Europe—a botanical journey studied for years. And so
my mind has long been in a glow with visions of the glories of a
tropical flora; but, alas, I am half blind. My right eye, trained to
minute analysis, is lost and I have scarce heart to open the other. Had
this journey been accomplished, the stock of varied beauty acquired
would have made me willing to shrink into any corner of the world,
however obscure and however remote.”
The injury to his eye proved to be less serious than he had at first
supposed. In June he was writing to a friend: “I have been reading and
botanizing for some weeks, and find that for such work I am not very
much disabled. I leave this city [Indianapolis] for home to-morrow,
accompanied by Merrill Moores, a little friend of mine. We will go to
Decatur, Illinois, thence northward through the wide prairies,
botanizing a few weeks by the way. . . . I hope to go South towards the
end of the summer, and as this will be a journey that I know very
little about, I hope to profit by your counsel before setting out.”
In an account written after the excursion he says: “I was eager to see
Illinois prairies on my way home, so we went to Decatur, near the
center of the State, thence north [to Portage] by Rockford and
Janesville. I botanized one week on the prairie about seven miles
southwest of Pecatonica. . . . To me all plants are more precious than
before. My poor eye is not better, nor worse. A cloud is over it, but
in gazing over the widest landscapes, I am not always sensible of its
presence.”
By the end of August Mr. Muir was back again in Indianapolis. He had
found it convenient to spend a “botanical week” among his University
friends in Madison. So keen was his interest in plants at this time
that an interval of five hours spent in Chicago was promptly turned to
account in a search for them. “I did not find many plants in her
tumultuous streets,” he complains; “only a few grassy plants of wheat,
and two or three species of weeds,—amaranth, purslane, carpet-weed,
etc.,—the weeds, I suppose, for man to walk upon, the wheat to feed him
I saw some green algæ, but no mosses. Some of the latter I expected to
see on wet walls, and in seams on the pavements. But I suppose that the
manufacturers’ smoke and the terrible noise are too great for the
hardiest of them. I wish I knew where I was going. Doomed to be
‘carried of the spirit into the wilderness,’ I suppose. I wish I could
be more moderate in my desires, but I cannot, and so there is no rest.”
The letter noted above was written only two days before he started on
his long walk to Florida. If the concluding sentences still reflect
indecision, they also convey a hint of the overmastering impulse under
which he was acting. The opening sentences of his journal, afterwards
crossed out, witness to this sense of inward compulsion which he felt.
“Few bodies,” he wrote, “are inhabited by so satisfied a soul that they
are allowed exemption from extraordinary exertion through a whole
life.” After reciting illustrations of nature’s periodicity, of the
ebbs and flows of tides, and the pulsation of other forces, visible and
invisible, he observes that “so also there are tides not only in the
affairs of men, but in the primal thing of life itself. In some persons
the impulse, being slight, is easily obeyed or overcome. But in others
it is constant and cumulative in action until its power is sufficient
to overmaster all impediments, and to accomplish the full measure of
its demands. For many a year I have been impelled toward the Lord’s
tropic gardens of the South. Many influences have tended to blunt or
bury this constant longing, but it has out-lived and overpowered them
all.”
Muir’s love of nature was so largely a part of his religion that he
naturally chose Biblical phraseology when he sought a vehicle for his
feelings. No prophet of old could have taken his call more seriously,
or have entered upon his mission more fervently. During the long days
of his confinement in a dark room he had opportunity for much
reflection. He concluded that life was too brief and uncertain, and
time too precious, to waste upon belts and saws; that while he was
pottering in a wagon factory, God was making a world; and he determined
that, if his eyesight was spared, he would devote the remainder of his
life to a study of the process. Thus the previous bent of his habits
and studies, and the sobering thoughts induced by one of the bitterest
experiences of his life, combined to send him on the long journey
recorded in these pages.
Some autobiographical notes found among his papers furnish interesting
additional details about the period between his release from the dark
room and his departure for the South. “As soon as I got out into
heaven’s light,” he says, “I started on another long excursion, making
haste with all my heart to store my mind with the Lord’s beauty, and
thus be ready for any fate, light or dark. And it was from this time
that my long, continuous wanderings may be said to have fairly
commenced. I bade adieu to mechanical inventions, determined to devote
the rest of my life to the study of the inventions of God. I first went
home to Wisconsin, botanizing by the way, to take leave of my father
and mother, brothers and sisters, all of whom were still living near
Portage. I also visited the neighbors I had known as a boy, renewed my
acquaintance with them after an absence of several years, and bade each
a formal good-bye. When they asked where I was going I said, ‘Oh! I
don’t know—just anywhere in the wilderness, southward. I have already
had glorious glimpses of the Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, and
Canada wildernesses; now I propose to go South and see something of the
vegetation of the warm end of the country, and if possible to wander
far enough into South America to see tropical vegetation in all its
palmy glory.’
“The neighbors wished me well, advised me to be careful of my health,
and reminded me that the swamps in the South were full of malaria. I
stopped overnight at the home of an old Scotch lady who had long been
my friend and was now particularly motherly in good wishes and advice.
I told her that as I was sauntering along the road, just as the sun was
going down, I heard a darling speckled-breast sparrow singing, ‘The
day’s done, the day’s done.’ ‘Wheel, John, my dear laddie,’ she
replied, ‘your day will never be done. There is no end to the kind of
studies you like so well, but there’s an end to mortals’ strength of
body and mind, to all that mortals can accomplish. You are sure to go
on and on, but I want you to remember the fate of Hugh Miller.’ She was
one of the finest examples I ever knew of a kind, generous,
great-hearted Scotchwoman.”
The formal leave-taking from family and neighbors indicates his belief
that he was parting from home and friends for a long time. On Sunday,
the 1st of September, 1867, Mr. Muir said good-bye also to his
Indianapolis friends, and went by rail to Jeffersonville, where he
spent the night. The next morning he crossed the river, walked through
Louisville, and struck southward through the State of Kentucky. A
letter written a week later “among the hills of Bear Creek, seven miles
southeast of Burkesville, Kentucky,” shows that he had covered about
twenty-five miles a day. “I walked from Louisville,” he says, “a
distance of one hundred and seventy miles, and my feet are sore. But,
oh! I am paid for all my toil a thousand times over. I am in the woods
on a hilltop with my back against a moss-clad log. I wish you could see
my last evenings bed-room. The sun has been among the tree-tops for
more than an hour; the dew is nearly all taken back, and the shade in
these hill basins is creeping away into the unbroken strongholds of the
grand old forests.
“I have enjoyed the trees and scenery of Kentucky exceedingly. How
shall I ever tell of the miles and miles of beauty that have been
flowing into me in such measure? These lofty curving ranks of lobing,
swelling hills, these concealed valleys of fathomless verdure, and
these lordly trees with the nursing sunlight glancing in their leaves
upon the outlines of the magnificent masses of shade embosomed among
their wide branches—these are cut into my memory to go with me forever.
“I was a few miles south of Louisville when I planned my journey. I
spread out my map under a tree and made up my mind to go through
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia to Florida, thence to Cuba, thence to
some part of South America; but it will be only a hasty walk. I am
thankful, however, for so much. My route will be through Kingston and
Madisonville, Tennessee, and through Blairsville and Gainesville,
Georgia. Please write me at Gainesville. I am terribly letter-hungry. I
hardly dare to think of home and friends.”
In editing the journal I have endeavored, by use of all the available
evidence, to trail Mr. Muir as closely as possible on maps of the
sixties as well as on the most recent state and topographical maps. The
one used by him has not been found, and probably is no longer in
existence. Only about twenty-two towns and cities are mentioned in his
journal. This constitutes a very small number when one considers the
distance he covered. Evidently he was so absorbed in the plant life of
the region traversed that he paid no heed to towns, and perhaps avoided
them wherever possible.
The sickness which overtook him in Florida was probably of a malarial
kind, although he describes it under different names. It was, no doubt,
a misfortune in itself, and a severe test for his vigorous
constitution. But it was also a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as it
prevented him from carrying out his foolhardy plan of penetrating the
tropical jungles of South America along the Andes to a tributary of the
Amazon, and then floating down the river on a raft to the Atlantic. As
readers of the journal will perceive, he clung to this intention even
during his convalescence at Cedar Keys and in Cuba. In a letter dated
the 8th of November he describes himself as “just creeping about
getting plants and strength after my fever.” Then he asks his
correspondent to direct letters to New Orleans, Louisiana. “I shall
have to go there,” he writes, “for a boat to South America. I do not
yet know to which point in South America I had better go.” His hope to
find there a boat for South America explains an otherwise mystifying
letter in which he requested his brother David to send him a certain
sum of money by American Express order to New Orleans. As a matter of
fact he did not go into Louisiana at all, either because he learned
that no south-bound ship was available at the mouth of the Mississippi,
or because the unexpected appearance of the Island Belle in the harbor
of Cedar Keys caused him to change his plans.
In later years Mr. Muir himself strongly disparaged the wisdom of his
plans with respect to South America, as may be seen in the chapter that
deals with his Cuban sojourn. The judgment there expressed was
lead-penciled into his journal during a reading of it long afterwards.
Nevertheless the Andes and the South American forests continued to
fascinate his imagination, as his letters show, for many years after he
came to California. When the long deferred journey to South America was
finally made in 1911, forty-four years after the first attempt, he
whimsically spoke of it as the fulfillment of those youthful dreams
that moved him to undertake his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf.
Mr. Muir always recalled with gratitude the Florida friends who nursed
him through his long and serious illness. In 1898, while traveling
through the South on a forest-inspection tour with his friend Charles
Sprague Sargent, he took occasion to revisit the scenes of his early
adventures. It may be of interest to quote some sentences from letters
written at that time to his wife and to his sister Sarah. “I have been
down the east side of the Florida peninsula along the Indian River,” he
writes, “through the palm and pine forests to Miami, and thence to Key
West and the southmost keys stretching out towards Cuba. Returning, I
crossed over to the west coast by Palatka to Cedar Keys, on my old
track made thirty-one years ago, in search of the Hodgsons who nursed
me through my long attack of fever. Mr. Hodgson died long ago, also the
eldest son, with whom I used to go boating among the keys while slowly
convalescing.”
He then tells how he found Mrs. Hodgson and the rest of the family at
Archer. They had long thought him dead and were naturally very much
surprised to see him. Mrs. Hodgson was in her garden and he recognized
her, though the years had altered her appearance. Let us give his own
account of the meeting: “I asked her if she knew me. ‘No, I don’t,’ she
said; ‘tell me your name.’ ‘Muir,’ I replied. ‘John Muir? My California
John Muir?’ she almost screamed. I said, ‘Yes, John Muir; and you know
I promised to return and visit you in about twenty-five years, and
though I am a little late—six or seven years—I’ve done the best I
could.’ The eldest boy and girl remembered the stories I told them, and
when they read about the Muir Glacier they felt sure it must have been
named for me. I stopped at Archer about four hours, and the way we
talked over old times you may imagine.” From Savannah, on the same
trip, he wrote: “Here is where I spent a hungry, weary, yet happy week
camping in Bonaventure graveyard thirty-one years ago. Many changes, I
am told, have been made in its graves and avenues of late, and how many
in my life!”
In perusing this journal the reader will miss the literary finish which
Mr. Muir was accustomed to give to his later writings. This fact calls
for no excuse. Not only are we dealing here with the earliest product
of his pen, but with impressions and observations written down hastily
during pauses in his long march. He apparently intended to use this raw
material at some time for another book. If the record, as it stands,
lacks finish and adornment, it also possesses the immediacy and the
freshness of first impressions.
The sources which I have used in preparing this volume are threefold:
(1) the original journal, of which the first half contained many
interlinear revisions and expansions, and a considerable number of
rough pencil sketches of plants, trees, scenery, and notable
adventures; (2) a wide-spaced, typewritten, rough copy of the journal,
apparently in large part dictated to a stenographer; it is only
slightly revised, and comparison with the original journal shows many
significant omissions and additions: (3) two separate elaborations of
his experiences in Savannah when he camped there for a week in the
Bonaventure graveyard. Throughout my work upon the primary and
secondary materials I was impressed with the scrupulous fidelity with
which he adhered to the facts and impressions set down in the original
journal.
Readers of Muir’s writings need scarcely be told that this book,
autobiographically, bridges the period between _The Story of my Boyhood
and Youth_ and _My First Summer in the Sierra_. However, one span of
the bridge was lacking, for the journal ends with Mr. Muir’s arrival in
San Francisco about the first of April, 1868, while his first summer in
the Sierra was that of 1869. By excerpting from a letter a summary
account of his first visit to Yosemite, and including a description of
Twenty Hill Hollow, where he spent a large part of his first year in
California, the connection is made complete. The last chapter was first
published as an article in the _Overland Monthly_ of July, 1872. A
revised copy of the printed article, found among Muir’s literary
effects, has been made the basis of the chapter on Twenty Hill Hollow
as it appears in this volume.
WILLIAM FREDERIC BADÈ
[Illustration]
Chapter I.
Kentucky Forests and Caves
I had long been looking from the wildwoods and gardens of the Northern
States to those of the warm South, and at last, all draw-backs
overcome, I set forth [from Indianapolis] on the first day of
September, 1867, joyful and free, on a thousand-mile walk to the Gulf
of Mexico. [The trip to Jeffersonville, on the banks of the Ohio, was
made by rail.] Crossing the Ohio at Louisville [September 2], I steered
through the big city by compass without speaking a word to any one.
Beyond the city I found a road running southward, and after passing a
scatterment of suburban cabins and cottages I reached the green woods
and spread out my pocket map to rough-hew a plan for my journey.
My plan was simply to push on in a general southward direction by the
wildest, leafiest, and least trodden way I could find, promising the
greatest extent of virgin forest. Folding my map, I shouldered my
little bag and plant press and strode away among the old Kentucky oaks,
rejoicing in splendid visions of pines and palms and tropic flowers in
glorious array, not, however, without a few cold shadows of loneliness,
although the great oaks seemed to spread their arms in welcome.
I have seen oaks of many species in many kinds of exposure and soil,
but those of Kentucky excel in grandeur all I had ever before beheld.
They are broad and dense and bright green. In the leafy bowers and
caves of their long branches dwell magnificent avenues of shade, and
every tree seems to be blessed with a double portion of strong exulting
life. Walked twenty miles, mostly on river bottom, and found shelter in
a rickety tavern.
_September 3_. Escaped from the dust and squalor of my garret bedroom
to the glorious forest. All the streams that I tasted hereabouts are
salty and so are the wells. Salt River was nearly dry. Much of my way
this forenoon was over naked limestone. After passing the level ground
that extended twenty-five or thirty miles from the river I came to a
region of rolling hills called Kentucky Knobs—hills of denudation
covered with trees to the top. Some of them have a few pines. For a few
hours I followed the farmers’ paths, but soon wandered away from roads
and encountered many a tribe of twisted vines difficult to pass.
Emerging about noon from a grove of giant sunflowers, I found myself on
the brink of a tumbling rocky stream [Rolling Fork]. I did not expect
to find bridges on my wild ways, and at once started to ford, when a
negro woman on the opposite bank earnestly called on me to wait until
she could tell the “men folks” to bring me a horse—that the river was
too deep and rapid to wade and that I would “sartain be drowned” if I
attempted to cross. I replied that my bag and plants would ballast me;
that the water did not appear to be deep, and that if I were carried
away, I was a good swimmer and would soon dry in the sunshine. But the
cautious old soul replied that no one ever waded that river and set off
for a horse, saying that it was no trouble at all.
In a few minutes the ferry horse came gingerly down the bank through
vines and weeds. His long stilt legs proved him a natural wader. He was
white and the little sable negro boy that rode him looked like a bug on
his back. After many a tottering halt the outward voyage was safely
made, and I mounted behind little Nig. He was a queer specimen, puffy
and jet as an India rubber doll and his hair was matted in sections
like the wool of a merino sheep. The old horse, overladen with his
black and white burden, rocked and stumbled on his stilt legs with fair
promises of a fall. But all ducking signs failed and we arrived in
safety among the weeds and vines of the rugged bank. A salt bath would
have done us no harm. I could swim and little Afric looked as if he
might float like a bladder.
I called at the homestead where my ferryman informed me I would find
“tollable” water. But, like all the water of this section that I have
tasted, it was intolerable with salt. Everything about this old
Kentucky home bespoke plenty, unpolished and unmeasured. The house was
built in true Southern style, airy, large, and with a transverse
central hall that looks like a railway tunnel, and heavy rough outside
chimneys. The negro quarters and other buildings are enough in number
for a village, altogether an interesting representative of a genuine
old Kentucky home, embosomed in orchards, corn fields and green wooded
hills.
Passed gangs of woodmen engaged and hewing the grand oaks for market.
Fruit very abundant. Magnificent flowing hill scenery all afternoon.
Walked southeast from Elizabethtown till wearied and lay down in the
bushes by guess.
_September 4_. The sun was gilding the hill-tops when I was awakened by
the alarm notes of birds whose dwelling in a hazel thicket I had
disturbed. They flitted excitedly close to my head, as if scolding or
asking angry questions, while several beautiful plants, strangers to
me, were looking me full in the face. The first botanical discovery in
bed! This was one of the most delightful camp grounds, though groped
for in the dark, and I lingered about it enjoying its trees and soft
lights and music.
Walked ten miles of forest. Met a strange oak with willow-looking
leaves. Entered a sandy stretch of black oak called “Barrens,” many of
which were sixty or seventy feet in height, and are said to have grown
since the fires were kept off, forty years ago. The farmers hereabouts
are tall, stout, happy fellows, fond of guns and horses. Enjoyed
friendly chats with them. Arrived at dark in a village that seemed to
be drawing its last breath. Was guided to the “tavern” by a negro who
was extremely accommodating. “No trouble at all,” he said.
_September 5_. No bird or flower or friendly tree above me this
morning; only squalid garret rubbish and dust. Escaped to the woods.
Came to the region of caves. At the mouth of the first I discovered, I
was surprised to find ferns which belonged to the coolest nooks of
Wisconsin and northward, but soon observed that each cave rim has a
zone of climate peculiar to itself, and it is always cool. This cave
had an opening about ten feet in diameter, and twenty-five feet
perpendicular depth. A strong cold wind issued from it and I could hear
the sounds of running water. A long pole was set against its walls as
if intended for a ladder, but in some places it was slippery and smooth
as a mast and would test the climbing powers of a monkey. The walls and
rim of this natural reservoir were finely carved and flowered. Bushes
leaned over it with shading leaves, and beautiful ferns and mosses were
in rows and sheets on its slopes and shelves. Lingered here a long
happy while, pressing specimens and printing this beauty into memory.
Arrived about noon at Munfordville; was soon discovered and examined by
Mr. Munford himself, a pioneer and father of the village. He is a
surveyor—has held all country offices, and every seeker of roads and
lands applies to him for information. He regards all the villagers as
his children, and all strangers who enter Munfordville as his own
visitors. Of course he inquired my business, destination, et cetera,
and invited me to his house.
After refreshing me with “parrs” he complacently covered the table with
bits of rocks, plants, et cetera, things new and old which he had
gathered in his surveying walks and supposed to be full of scientific
interest. He informed me that all scientific men applied to him for
information, and as I was a botanist, he either possessed, or ought to
possess, the knowledge I was seeking, and so I received long lessons
concerning roots and herbs for every mortal ill. Thanking my benefactor
for his kindness, I escaped to the fields and followed a railroad along
the base of a grand hill ridge. As evening came on all the dwellings I
found seemed to repel me, and I could not muster courage enough to ask
entertainment at any of them. Took refuge in a log schoolhouse that
stood on a hillside beneath stately oaks and slept on the softest
looking of the benches.
_September 6_. Started at the earliest bird song in hopes of seeing the
great Mammoth Cave before evening. Overtook an old negro driving an ox
team. Rode with him a few miles and had some interesting chat
concerning war, wild fruits of the woods, et cetera. “Right heah,” said
he, “is where the Rebs was a-tearin’ up the track, and they all a
sudden thought they seed the Yankees a-comin’, obah dem big hills dar,
and Lo’d, how dey run.” I asked him if he would like a renewal of these
sad war times, when his flexible face suddenly calmed, and he said with
intense earnestness, “Oh, Lo’d, want no mo wa, Lo’d no.” Many of these
Kentucky negroes are shrewd and intelligent, and when warmed upon a
subject that interests them, are eloquent in no mean degree.
Arrived at Horse Cave, about ten miles from the great cave. The
entrance is by a long easy slope of several hundred yards. It seems
like a noble gateway to the birthplace of springs and fountains and the
dark treasuries of the mineral kingdom. This cave is in a village [of
the same name] which it supplies with an abundance of cold water, and
cold air that issues from its fern-clad lips. In hot weather crowds of
people sit about it in the shade of the trees that guard it. This
magnificent fan is capable of cooling everybody in the town at once.
Those who live near lofty mountains may climb to cool weather in a day
or two, but the overheated Kentuckians can find a patch of cool climate
in almost every glen in the State. The villager who accompanied me said
that Horse Cave had never been fully explored, but that it was several
miles in length at least. He told me that he had never been at Mammoth
Cave—that it was not worth going ten miles to see, as it was nothing
but a hole in the ground, and I found that his was no rare case. He was
one of the useful, practical men—too wise to waste precious time with
weeds, caves, fossils, or anything else that he could not eat.
Arrived at the great Mammoth Cave. I was surprised to find it in so
complete naturalness. A large hotel with fine walks and gardens is near
it. But fortunately the cave has been unimproved, and were it not for
the narrow trail that leads down the glen to its door, one would not
know that it had been visited. There are house-rooms and halls whose
entrances give but slight hint of their grandeur. And so also this
magnificent hall in the mineral kingdom of Kentucky has a door
comparatively small and unpromising. One might pass within a few yards
of it without noticing it. A strong cool breeze issues constantly from
it, creating a northern climate for the ferns that adorn its rocky
front.
I never before saw Nature’s grandeur in so abrupt contrast with paltry
artificial gardens. The fashionable hotel grounds are in exact parlor
taste, with many a beautiful plant cultivated to deformity, and
arranged in strict geometrical beds, the whole pretty affair a
laborious failure side by side with Divine beauty. The trees around the
mouth of the cave are smooth and tall and bent forward at the bottom,
then straight upwards. Only a butternut seems, by its angular knotty
branches, to sympathize with and belong to the cave, with a fine growth
of _Cystopteris_ and _Hypnum_.
Started for Glasgow Junction. Got belated in the hill woods. Inquired
my way at a farm-house and was invited to stay overnight in a rare,
hearty, hospitable manner. Engaged in familiar running talk on
politics, war times, and theology. The old Kentuckian seemed to take a
liking to me and advised me to stay in these hills until next spring,
assuring me that I would find much to interest me in and about the
Great Cave; also, that he was one of the school officials and was sure
that I could obtain their school for the winter term. I sincerely
thanked him for his kind plans, but pursued my own.
_September 7_. Left the hospitable Kentuckians with their sincere good
wishes and bore away southward again through the deep green woods. In
noble forests all day. Saw mistletoe for the first time. Part of the
day I traveled with a Kentuckian from near Burkesville. He spoke to all
the negroes he met with familiar kindly greetings, addressing them
always as “Uncles” and “Aunts.” All travelers one meets on these roads,
white and black, male and female, travel on horseback. Glasgow is one
of the few Southern towns that shows ordinary American life. At night
with a well-to-do farmer.
_September 8_. Deep, green, bossy sea of waving, flowing hilltops. Corn
and cotton and tobacco fields scattered here and there. I had imagined
that a cotton field in flower was something magnificent. But cotton is
a coarse, rough, straggling, unhappy looking plant, not half as
good-looking as a field of Irish potatoes. Met a great many negroes
going to meeting, dressed in their Sunday best. Fat, happy looking, and
contented. The scenery on approaching the Cumberland River becomes
still grander. Burkesville, in beautiful location, is embosomed in a
glorious array of verdant flowing hills. The Cumberland must be a happy
stream. I think I could enjoy traveling with it in the midst of such
beauty all my life. This evening I could find none willing to take me
in, and so lay down on a hillside and fell asleep muttering praises to
the happy abounding beauty of Kentucky.
_September 9_. Another day in the most favored province of bird and
flower. Many rapid streams, flowing in beautiful flower-bordered cañons
embosomed in dense woods. Am seated on a grand hill-slope that leans
back against the sky like a picture. Amid the wide waves of green wood
there are spots of autumnal yellow and the atmosphere, too, has the
dawnings of autumn in colors and sounds. The soft light of morning
falls upon ripening forests of oak and elm, walnut and hickory and all
Nature is thoughtful and calm. Kentucky is the greenest, leafiest State
I have yet seen. The sea of soft temperate plant-green is deepest here.
Comparing volumes of vegetable verdure in different countries to a
wedge, the thick end would be in the forests of Kentucky, the other in
the lichens and mosses of the North. This verdure wedge would not be
perfect in its lines. From Kentucky it would maintain its thickness
long and well in passing the level forests of Indiana and Canada. From
the maples and pines of Canada it would slope rapidly to the bleak
Arctic hills with dwarf birches and alders; thence it would thin out in
a long edge among hardy lichens and liverworts and mosses to the
dwelling-places of everlasting frost. Far the grandest of all Kentucky
plants are her noble oaks. They are the master existences of her
exuberant forests. Here is the Eden, the paradise of oaks. Passed the
Kentucky line towards evening and obtained food and shelter from a
thrifty Tennessee farmer, after he had made use of all the ordinary
anti-hospitable arguments of cautious comfortable families.
_September 10_. Escaped from a heap of uncordial kindness to the
generous bosom of the woods. After a few miles of level ground in
luxuriant tangles of brooding vines, I began the ascent of the
Cumberland Mountains, the first real mountains that my foot ever
touched or eyes beheld. The ascent was by a nearly regular zigzag
slope, mostly covered up like a tunnel by overarching oaks. But there
were a few openings where the glorious forest road of Kentucky was
grandly seen, stretching over hill and valley, adjusted to every slope
and curve by the hands of Nature the most sublime and comprehensive
picture that ever entered my eyes. Reached the summit in six or seven
hours—a strangely long period of up-grade work to one accustomed only
to the hillocky levels of Wisconsin and adjacent States.