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PUBLIC iflun,
KANSAS CITU8.
BWKOWIrt WVEWK COMFAMT
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A THOUSAND MILE WALK TO THE GULF.
Illustrated.
TRAVELS IN ALASKA. Illustrated.
THE STORY OF MY BOYHOOD AND
YOUTH. Illustrated.
MY FIRST SUMMER IN THE SIERRA, Illus-
trated.
STICKEEN: The Story of a Dog.
OUR NATIONAL PARKS. Illustrated Holiday
Edition.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
A Thomand-Mik Walk
To the Gulf
JOHN MUIR ABOUT 1870
A THOUSANDTHS
TO THE GULF
BY
John Muir
EDITED BY
WILLIAM FREDERIC
With Illustrations
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published November jg/6
Contents
INTRODUCTION !x
I. KENTUCKY FORESTS AND CAVES i
II. CROSSING THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS .... 17
III. THROUGH THE RIVER COUNTRY OP GEORGIA ... 47
IV. CAMPING AMONG THE TOMBS . 66
V. THROUGH FLORIDA SWAMPS AND FORESTS .... 85
VI. CEDAR KEYS 123
VII. A SOJOURN IN CUBA 143
VIII. BY A CROOKED ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA .... 169
IX. TWENTY HILL HOLLOW 192
INDEX 213
Illustrations
JOHN MUIR ABOUT 1870 Frontispiece
From a photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco, Cal.
MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF WALK TO THE GULF i
KENTUCKY OAKS 2.
From a photograph by Theodore Mitel
ENTRANCE TO MAMMOTH CAVE 12
From a photograph. By courtesy of the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad
THE CLINCH RIVER, TENNESSEE 3 o
From a photograph. By courtesy of the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad
A SOUTHERN PINE 54
From a photograph by Herbert W. Gleason
SPANISH Moss {Tillandsia) 58
From a photograph by Herbert W, Ghason
IN BONAVENTURE CEMETERY, SAVANNAH .... 68
From a photograph by Herbert ff^. Gleason
By THE ST. JOHN'S RIVER IN EASTERN FLORIDA ... 90
From a photograph by Herbert W, Gleason
A FLORIDA PALMETTO HUMMOCK, OR < HAMMOCK** . 116
From a photograph by Herbert K. Job
LIME KEY, FLORIDA 134
From Mr. Muir*s sketch in the original journal
MORRO CASTLE AND ENTRANCE TO HAVANA HARBOR . 148
From a photograph
TWENTY HILL HOLLOW, MERCED COUNTY, CALIFORNIA . 194
From a sketch by j?kfr. Jkfarr
The colored half-tone of a Florida'sunset which appears on the cover
is from a water-color by Miss Amelia M. Watson.
Introduction
JOHN MUIR, Earth-planet, Universe."
These words are written on the inside
cover of the notebook from which the con-
tents 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 comprehen-
siveness 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 botapized around the Great Lakes, in
.
Ontario, and through parts of Wisconsin,
[ix]
Introduction
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 with-
out blankets, and also without supper or break-
fast. 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 glori-
ous forests and bogs, gathering plants and feed-
ing on God's abounding, inexhaustible spiritual
beauty bread. Only once in my long Canada
wanderings was the deep peace of the wilder-
ness 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."
Introduction
It was not, therefore, a new species of ad-
venture upon which Mr. Muir embarked when
he started on his Southern foot-tour. It was
only a new response to the lure of those favor-
ite studies which he had already pursued over
uncounted miles of virgin Western forests and
prairies. Indeed, had it not been for the acci-
dental injury to his right eye in the month of
March, 1867, he probably would have started
somewhat earlier than he did. In a letter writ-
ten to Indianapolis friends on the day after the
accident, he refers mournfully to the interrup-
tion of a long-cherished plan. "For weeks/ 5
he writes, "I have daily consulted maps in lo-
cating 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 analy-
sis, is lost and I have scarce heart to open the
other. Had this journey been accomplished,
the stock of varied beauty acquired would have
Introduction
made me willing to shrink into any corner of
the world, however obscure and however re-
mote/'
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, botaniz-
ing 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 south-
[xii]
Introduction
west 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 con-
venient 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 tu-
multuous 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 algae, 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 manu-
facturers' smoke and the terrible noise are too
great for the hardiest of them. I wish I knew
[ xiii ]
Introduction
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 re-
flect 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 extra-
ordinary 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 af-
fairs of men, but in the primal thing of life it-
self. In some persons the impulse, being slight,
is easily obeyed or overcome. But in others it
is constant and cumulative in action until its
Introduction
power is sufficient to overmaster all impedi-
ments, and to accomplish the full measure of its
demands. For many a year I have been im-
pelled 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 frevently. 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
Introduction
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 de-
tails 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 Wis-
consin, 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
Introduction
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, Mich-
igan, 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 rny 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/ 'Weel, John, my dear laddie/ she re-
plied, 'your day will never be done. There is
no end to the kind of studies you like so well,
[ xvii ]
Introduction
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 part-
ing from home and friends for a long time. On
Sunday, the ist 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 Ken-
tucky. 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
[ xviii ]
Introduction
hilltop with my back against a moss-clad log*
I wish you could see my last evening's 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
Introduction
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 Madi-
sonville, 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 topo-
graphical maps. The one used by him has not
been found, and probably is no longer in exist-
ence. 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 ab-
sorbed 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
Introduction
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 jour-
nal will perceive, he clung to this intention even
during his convalescence at Cedar Keys and in
Cuba. In a letter dated the 8th of Novem-
ber he describes himself as "just creeping about
getting plants and strength after my fever/'
Then he asks his correspondent to direct let-
ters 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 re-
quested his brother David to send him a cer-
tain sum of money by American Express order
to New Orleans. As a matter of fact he did not
[xxi]
Introduction
go Into Louisiana at all, either because he
learned that no south-bound ship was avail-
able 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 chap-
ter that deals with his Cuban sojourn. The
judgment there expressed was lead-penciled
into his journal during a reading of it long after-
wards. 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 de-
ferred journey to South America was finally
made in 1911, forty-four years after the first
attempt, he whimsically spoke of it as the ful-
fillment of those youthful dreams that moved
him to undertake his thousand-mile walk to
the Gulf.
* Mr. Muir always recalled with gratitude the
[ xxii ]
Introduction
Florida friends who nursed him through his
long and serious illness. In 1898, while travel-
ing 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
[ xxiii ]
Introduction
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? 5 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 IVe done
the best I could/ The eldest boy and girl re-
membered 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 Sa-
vannah, 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 ! "
Introduction
In perusing this journal the reader will miss
the literary finish which Mr. Muir was accus-
tomed 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 ap-
parently 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: (i) the original jour-
nal, of which the first half contained many in-
terlinear revisions and expansions, and a con-
siderable 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)
[=7]
Introduction
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 scrupu-
lous 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 in-
cluding 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 ar-
ticle in the Overland Monthly of July, 1872.
i J
Introduction
A revised copy of the printed article, found
among Muir's literary effects, has been made
the basis of the chapter on Twenty Hill Hol-
low as it appears in this volume.
WILUAM FREDERIC BADE
Thousand- Mile Walk
to the Gulf
CHAPTER I
KENTUCKY FORESTS AND CAVES
I HAD long been looking from the wild woods
and gardens of the Northern States to those
of the warm South, and at last, all draw-
backs overcome, I set forth [from Indianapo-
lis] 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 speak-
ing 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
[i ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
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 Ken-
tucky oaks, rejoicing in splendid visions of
pines and palms and tropic flowers in glorious
array, not, however, without a few cold shad-
ows 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 5. Escaped from the dust and
squalor of my garret bedroom to the glorious
forest. All the streams that I tasted hereabouts
[2]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
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 roll-
ing hills called Kentucky Knobs hills of de-
nudation, covered with trees to the top. Some
of them have a few pines. For a few hours I
followed the farmers' paths, but soon wan-
dered 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 55 if I attempted to
cross. I replied that my bag and plants would
ballast me; that the water did not appear to be
[3]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
deep, and that if I were carried away, I was a
good swimmer and would soon dry in the sun-
shine. 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 gin-
gerly 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 sec-
tions like the wool of a merino sheep. The old
horse, overladen with his black and white bur-
den, 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.
[4]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
I called at the homestead where my ferry-
man informed me I would find "tollable" water.
But, like all the water of this section that I
have tasted, it was intolerable with salt. Every-
thing 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 out-
side 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 in fell-
ing 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
[5 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
disturbed. They flitted excitedly close to my
head, as if scolding or asking angiy questions,
while several beautiful plants, strangers to me,
were looking me full in the face. The first bo-
tanical 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 farm-
ers 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 ex-
tremely accommodating. "No trouble at all,"
he said.
September 5. No bird or flower or friendly
tree above me this morning; only squalid garret
[6]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
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. Mun-
[71
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ford 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 vil-
lagers as his children, and all strangers who en-
ter 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 compla-
cently covered the table with bits of rocks,
plants, et cetera, things new and old which he
had gathered in his surveying walks and sup-
posed to be full of scientific interest. He in-
formed me that all scientific men applied to him
for information, and as I was a botanist, he
either possessed, or ought to possess, the knowl-
edge 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
[8]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
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
A Thousand-Mile Walk
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
t 10]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
precious time with weeds, caves, fossils, or any-
thing 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 un-
improved, 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 cul-
tivated to deformity, and arranged in strict
I." ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
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 ia
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 offi-
cials 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 Kentuck-
ENTRANCE TO MAMMOTH CAVE
Kentucky Forests and Caves
fans 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 wav-
ing, flowing hilltops. Corn and cotton and to-
bacco 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 look-
ing, and contented. The scenery on approaching
[13]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
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 fa-
vored province of bird and flower. Many rapid
streams, flowing in beautiful flower-bordered
canons 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 dawn-
ings of autumn in colors and sounds. The soft
light of morning falls upon ripening forests of
oak and elm, walnut and hickory, and all Na-
ture is thoughtful and calm. Kentucky is the
greenest, leafiest State I have yet seen. The
sea of soft temperate plant-green is deepest here.
I 14]
Kentucky Forests and Caves
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 para-
dise 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 argu-
ments of cautious comfortable families.
September 10. Escaped from a heap of un-
cordial kindness to the generous bosom of the
Thousand-Mile Walk
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 regu-
lar zigzag slope, mostly covered up like a tun-
nel by overarching oaks. But there were a few
openings where the glorious forest road of Ken-
tucky 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.
CHAPTER II
CROSSING THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS
1HAD climbed but a short distance when
I was overtaken by a young man on horse-
back, who soon showed that he intended to
rob me if he should find the job worth while.
After he had inquired where I came from, and
where I was going, he offered to carry my bag.
I told him that it was so light that I did not
feel it at all a burden ; but he insisted and coaxed
until I allowed him to carry it. As soon as he
had gained possession I noticed that he gradu-
ally increased his speed, evidently trying to get
far enough ahead of me to examine the con-
tents without being observed. But I was too
good a walker and runner for him to get far.
At a turn of the road, after trotting his horse
for about half an hour, and when he thought he
was out of sight, I caught him rummaging my
poor bag. Finding there only a comb, brush,
towel, soap, a change of underclothing, a copy
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
of Burns's poems, Milton's Paradise Lost, and
a small New Testament, he waited for me,
handed back my bag, and returned down the
hill, saying that he had forgotten something.
I found splendid growths of shining-leaved
Ericaceae [heathworts] for which the Alleghany
Mountains are noted. Also ferns of which Os-
munda cinnamomea [Cinnamon Fern] is the
largest and perhaps the most abundant. 0>
munda regalis [Flowering Fern] is also common
here, but not large. In Wood's x and Gray's
Botany Osmunda cinnamomea is said to be a
much larger fern than Osmunda Claytoniana,
This I found to be true in Tennessee and
southward, but in Indiana, part of Illinois, and
Wisconsin the opposite is true. Found here
the beautiful, sensitive Schrankia, or sensitive
brier. It is a long, prickly, leguminous vine,
with dense heads of small, yellow fragrant
flowers.
1 Alphonso Wood, Class-look of Botany, with a Flora of
the United States and Canada. The copy of this work, carried
by Mr. Muir on his wanderings, is still extant. The edition
is that of 1862,
[18]
Cumberland Mountains
Vines growing on roadsides receive many a
tormenting blow, simply because they give evi-
dence of feeling. Sensitive people are served
in the same way. But the roadside vine soon
becomes less sensitive, like people getting used
to teasing Nature, in this instance, making for
the comfort of flower creatures the same benev-
olent arrangement as for man. Thus I found
that the Schrankia vines growing along foot-
paths leading to a backwoods schoolhouse were
much less sensitive than those in the adjacent
unfrequented woods, having learned to pay but
slight attention to the tingling strokes they
get from teasing scholars.
It is startling to see the pairs of pinnate
leaves rising quickly out of the grass and fold-
Ing themselves close in regular succession from
the root to the end of the prostrate stems, ten
to twenty feet in length. How little we know as
yet of the life of plants their hopes and fears,
pains and enjoyments!
Traveled a few miles with an old Tennessee
farmer who was much excited on account of the
t 19]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
news he had just heard. "Three kingdoms,
England, Ireland, and Russia, have declared
war agin the United States. Oh, it's terrible,
terrible/' said he. "This big war comin' so
quick after our own big fight. Well, it can't be
helped, and all I have to say is, Amerricay for-
ever, but Fd a heap rather they did n't fight."
"But are you sure the news is true?" I in-
quired. "Oh, yes, quite sure," he replied, "for
me and some of my neighbors were down at the
store last night, and Jim Smith can read, and
he found out all about it in a newspaper."
Passed the poor, rickety, thrice-dead village
of Jamestown, an incredibly dreary place.
Toward the top of the Cumberland grade, about
two hours before sundown I came to a log house,
and as I had been warned that all the broad
plateau of the range for forty or fifty miles was
desolate, I began thus early to seek a lodging
for the night. Knocking at the door, a motherly
old lady replied to my request for supper and
bed and breakfast, that I was welcome to the
best she had, provided that I had the necessary
[20]
Cumberland Mountains
change to pay my bill When I told her that un-
fortunately I had nothing smaller than a five-
dollar greenback, she said, "Well, I'm sony,
but cannot afford to keep you. Not long ago
ten soldiers came across from North Carolina,
and in the morning they offered a greenback
that I could n't change, and so I got nothing for
keeping them, which I was ill able to afford/'
"Very well," I said, "Pm glad you spoke of
this beforehand, for I would rather go hungry
than impose on your hospitality."
As I turned to leave, after bidding her good-
bye, she, evidently pitying me for my tired
looks, called me back and asked me if I would
like a drink of milk. This I gladly accepted,
thinking that perhaps I might not be success-
ful in getting any other nourishment for a day
or two. Then I inquired whether there were any
more houses on the road, nearer than North
Carolina, forty or fifty miles away. "Yes,"
she said, "it's only two miles to the next
house, but beyond that there are no houses
that I know of except empty ones whose own-
[21 ]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
ers have been killed or driven" away during the
war/'
Arriving at the last house, my knock at the
door was answered by a bright, good-natured,
good-looking little woman, who in reply to my
request for a night's lodging and food, said, " Oh,
I guess so. I think you can stay. Come in and
111 call my husband." "But I must first warn
you," I said, "that I have nothing smaller to
offer you than a five-dollar bill for my enter-
tainment, I don't want you to think that I am
trying to impose on your hospitality."
She then called her husband, a blacksmith,
who was at work at his forge. He came out,
hammer in hand, bare-breasted, sweaty, be-
grimed, and covered with shaggy black hair.
In reply to his wif e's statement, that this young
man wished to stop over night, he quickly re-
plied, "That's all right; tell him to go into the
house." He was turning to go back to his shop,
when his wife added, "But he says he has n't
any change to pay. He has nothing smaller
than a five-dollar bill." Hesitating only a mo-
[22]
Cumberland Mountains
ment, he turned on his heel and said, "Tell him
to go into the house. A man that comes right
out like that beforehand is welcome to eat my
bread/'
When he came in after his hard day's work
and sat down to dinner, he solemnly asked a
blessing on the frugal meal, consisting solely of
com bread and bacon. Then, looking across the
table at me, he said, "Young man, what are
you doing down here?" I replied that I was
looking at plants. "Plants? What kind of
plants ?" I said, "Oh, all kinds; grass, weeds,
flowers, trees, mosses, ferns, almost every-
thing that grows is interesting to me/ 5
"Well, young man/' he queried, "you mean
to say that you are not employed by the Gov-
ernment on some private business?" "No," I
said, "I am not employed by any one except
just myself. I love all kinds of plants, and I
came down here to these Southern States to get
acquainted with as many of them as possible."
"You look like a strong-minded man," he re-
plied, "and surely you are able to do something
[23 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
better than wander over the country and look
at weeds and blossoms. These are hard times,
and real work is required of every man that is
able. Picking up blossoms does n't seem to be
a man's work at all in any kind of times/*
To this I replied, "You are a believer in the
Bible, are you not?" "Oh, yes." "Well, you
know Solomon was a strong-minded man, and
he is generally believed to have been the very
wisest man the world ever saw, and yet he con-
sidered it was worth while to study plants;
not only to go and pick them up as I am doing,
but to study them; and you know we are told
that he wrote a book about plants, not only of
the great cedars of Lebanon, but of little bits of
things growing in the cracks of the walls. 1
"Therefore, you see that Solomon differed
very much more from you than from me in this
matter. I Tl warrant you he had many a long
ramble in the mountains of Judea, and had he
1 The previously mentioned copy of Wood's Botany, used
by John Muir, quotes on the title page I Kings iv, 33: "He
spake of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon even unto the
hyssop that springeth out of the wall."
[24]
The Cumberland Mountains
been a Yankee he would likely have visited every
weed in the land. And again, do you not remem-
ber that Christ told his disciples to 'consider
the lilies how they grow/ and compared their
beauty with Solomon in all his glory? Now,
whose advice am I to take, yours or Christ's?
Christ says, ' Consider the lilies/ You say,
'Don't consider them. It is n't worth while for
any strong-minded man/ "
This evidently satisfied him, and he acknowl-
edged that he had never thought of blossoms
in that way before. He repeated again and
again that I must be a very strong-minded man,
and admitted that no doubt I was fully justified
in picking up blossoms. He then told me that
although the war was over, walking across the
Cumberland Mountains still was far from safe
on account of small bands of guerrillas who were
in hiding along the roads, and earnestly entreated
me to turn back and not to think of walking so
far q.s the Gulf of Mexico until the country be-
came quiet and orderly once more.
I replied that I had no fear, that I had but
1*51
A Thousand-Mile Walk
very little to lose, and that nobody was likely to
think it worthwhile to rob me; that, anyhow,
I always had good luck. In the morning he
repeated the warning and entreated me to turn
back, which never for a moment interfered with
my resolution to pursue my glorious walk.
September n. Long stretch of level sand-
stone plateau, lightly furrowed and dimpled
with shallow groove-like valleys and hills. The
trees are mostly oaks, planted wide apart like
those in the Wisconsin woods. < A good many
pine trees here and there, forty to eighty feet
high, and most of the ground is covered with
showy flowers. Polygalas [milkworts], solida-
goes [goldenrods], and asters were especially
abundant. I came to a cool clear brook every
half mile or so, the banks planted with Os
munda regalis, Osmunda cinnamomea, and hand-
some sedges. The few larger streams were
fringed with laurels and azaleas. Large areas
beneath the trees are covered with formidable
green briers and brambles, armed with hooked
claws, and almost impenetrable. Houses are
U6]
"The Cumberland Mountains
far apart and uninhabited, orchards and fences
in ruins sad marks of war.
About noon my road became dim and at
last vanished among desolate fields. Lost and
hungry, I knew my direction but could not keep
it on account of the briers. My path was indeed
strewn with flowers, but as thorny, also, as mor-
tal ever trod. In trying to force a way through
these cat-plants one is not simply clawed and
pricked through all one's clothing, but caught
and held fast. The toothed arching branches
come down over and above you like cruel liv-
ing arms, and the more you struggle the more
desperately you are entangled, and your
wounds deepened and multiplied. The South
has plant fly-catchers. It also has plant man-
catchers.
After a great deal of defensive fighting and
struggling I escaped to a road and a house, but
failed to find food or shelter. Towards sun-
down, as I was walking rapidly along a straight
stretch in the road, I suddenly came in sight of
ten mounted men riding abreast. They un-
[27]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
doubtedly had seen me before I discovered
them, for they had stopped their horses and
were evidently watching me. I saw at once that
it was useless to attempt to avoid them, for
the ground thereabout was quite open. I knew
that there was nothing for it but to face them
fearlessly, without showing the slightest sus-
picion of foul play. Therefore, without halting
even for a moment, I advanced rapidly with
long strides as though I intended to walk through
the midst of them. When I got within a rod or
so I looked up in their faces and smilingly bade
them "Howdy/ 5 Stopping never an instant, I
turned to one side and walked around them to
get on the road again, and kept on without ven-
turing to look back or to betray the slightest
fear of being robbed.
After I had gone about one hundred or one
hundred and fifty yards, I ventured a quick
glance back, without stopping, and saw in this
flash of an eye that all the ten had turned their
horses toward me and were evidently talking
about me; supposedly, with reference to what
[28]
The Cumberland Mountains
my object was, where I was going, and whether
It would be worth while to rob me. They all
were mounted on rather scrawny horses, and all
wore long hair hanging down on their shoulders.
Evidently they belonged to the most irreclaim-
able of the guerrilla bands who, long accus-
tomed to plunder, deplored the coming of peace.
I was not followed, however, probably because
the plants projecting from my plant press made
them believe that I was a poor herb doctor, a
common occupation^in these mountain regions.
About dark I discovered, a little off the road,
another house, inhabited by negroes, where I
succeeded in obtaining a much needed meal
of string beans, buttermilk, and corn bread. At
the table I was seated in a bottomless chair,
and as I became sore and heavy, I sank deeper
and deeper, pressing my knees against my
breast, and my mouth settled to the level of my
plate. But wild hunger cares for none of these
things, and my curiously compressed position
prevented the too free indulgence of boisterous
appetite. Of course, I was compelled to sleep
[29]
A "Thousand- Mile Walk
with the trees in the one great bedroom of the
open night.
September 12. Awoke drenched with moun-
tain mist, which made a grand show, as it
moved away before the hot sun. Passed Mont-
gomery, a shabby village at the head of the
east slope of the Cumberland Mountains. Ob-
tained breakfast in a clean house and began the
descent of the mountains. Obtained fine views
of a wide, open country, and distant flanking
ridges and spurs. Crossed a wide cool stream
[Emory River], a branch of the Clinch River.
There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than
a mountain stream, and this is the first I ever
saw. Its banks are luxuriantly peopled with
rare and lovely flowers and overarching trees,
making one of Nature's coolest and most hos-
pitable places. Every tree, every flower, every
ripple and eddy of this lovely stream seemed
solemnly to feel the presence of the great Cre-
ator. Lingered in this sanctuary a long time
thanking the Lord with all my heart for his
goodness in allowing me to enter and enjoy it.
[30]
Cumberland Mountains
Discovered two ferns, Dicksonia and a small
matted polypod on trees, common farther
South. Also a species of magnolia with very
large leaves and scarlet conical fruit. Near this
stream I spent some joyous time in a grand
rock-dwelling full of mosses, birds, and flowers.
Most heavenly place I ever entered. The long
narrow valleys of the mountainside, all well
watered and nobly adorned with oaks, magno-
lias, laurels, azaleas, asters, ferns, Hypnum
mosses, Madotheca [Scale-mosses], etc. Also
towering clumps of beautiful hemlocks. The
hemlock, judging from the common species of
Canada, I regarded as the least noble of the
conifers. But those of the eastern valleys of the
Cumberland Mountains are as perfect in form
and regal in port as the pines themselves. The
latter abundant. Obtained fine glimpses from
open places as I descended to the great valley
between these mountains and the Unaka Moun-
tains on the state line. Forded the Clinch, a
beautiful clear stream, that knows many of the
dearest mountain retreats that ever heard the
A Thousand-Mile Walk
music of running water. Reached Kingston
before dark. Sent back my plant collections by
express to my brother in Wisconsin.
September 13. Walked all day across small
parallel valleys that flute the surface of the one
wide valley. These flutings appear to have
been formed by lateral pressure, are fertile, and
contain some fine forms, though the seal of war
Is on all things. The roads never seem to pro-
ceed with any fixed purpose, but wander as if
lost. In seeking the way to Philadelphia [in
Loudon County, Tennessee], I was told by a
buxom Tennessee "gal" that over the hills was
much the nearer way, that she always went that
way, and that surely I could travel it.
I started over the flint-ridges, but soon
reached a set of enchanted little valleys among
which, no matter how or in what direction I
traveled, I could not get a foot nearer to Phila-
delphia. At last, consulting my map and com-
pass, I neglected all directions and finally
reached the house of a negro driver, with whom
I put up for the night. Received a good deal of
[32]
"The Cumberland Mountains
knowledge which may be of use should I ever
be a negro teamster.
September 14. Philadelphia is a very filthy
village in a beautiful situation. More or less of
pine. Black oak most abundant. Polypodium
hexagonopterum and Aspidium acrostichoides
[Christmas Fern] most abundant of ferns and
most generally distributed. Osmunda claytoni-
ana rare, not in fruit, small. Dicksonia abun-
dant, after leaving the Cumberland Mountains.
Asplenium ebeneum [Ebony Spleenwort] quite
common in Tennessee and many parts of Ken-
tucky. Cystopteris [Bladder Fern], and Asplen-
ium filix-famina not common through the same
range. Pteris aquilina [Common Brake] abun-
dant, but small.
Walked through many a leafy valley, shady
grove, and cool brooklet. Reached Madison-
ville, a brisk village. Came in full view of the
Unaka Mountains, a magnificent sight. Stayed
over night with a pleasant young farmer.
September 75. Most glorious billowy moun-
tain scenery. Made many a halt at open places
;[ 33 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
to take breath and to admire. The road, in
many places cut into the rock, goes winding
about among the knobs and gorges. Dense
growth of asters, liatris, 1 and grapevines.
Reached a house before night, and asked
leave to stop, '"Well, you're welcome to stop/'
said the mountaineer, "if you think you can
live till morning on what I have to live on all
the time." Found the old gentleman very com-
municative. Was favored with long "bar"
stories, deer hunts, etc., and in the morning
was pressed to stay a day or two.
September id. "I will take you," said he,
"to the highest ridge in the country, where
you can see both ways. You will have a view
of all the world on one side of the mountains
and all creation on the other. Besides, you,
who are traveling for curiosity and wonder,
* Wood's Botany, edition of 1862, furnishes the following
interesting comment on Liatris odoratissima (Willd.), popu-
larly known as Vanilla Plant or Deer's Tongue: "The fleshy
leaves exhale a rich fragrance even for years after they are
dry, and are therefore by the southern planters largely mixed
with their cured tobacco, to impart its fragrance to that
nauseous weed."
[34]
*fhe Cumberland Mountains
ought to see our gold mines, I agreed to stay
and went to the mines. Gold is found in small
quantities throughout the Alleghanies, and
many farmers work at mining a few weeks or
months every year when their time is not more
valuable for other pursuits. In this neighbor-
hood miners are earning from half a dollar to
two dollars a day. There are several large
quartz mills not far from here. Common labor
is worth ten dollars a month.
September 17. Spent the day in botanizing,
blacksmithing, and examining a grist mill.
Grist mills, in the less settled parts of Tennes-
see and North Carolina, are remarkably simple
aff airs. A small stone, that a man might carry
under his arm, is fastened to the vertical shaft
of a little home-made, boyish-looking, back-
action water-wheel, which, with a hopper and
a box to receive the meal, is the whole affair.
The walls of the mill are of undressed poles cut
from seedling trees and there is no floor, as
lumber is dear. No dam is built. The water is
conveyed along some hillside until sufficient
[351
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
fall Is obtained, a thing easily done In the
mountains.
On Sundays you may see wild, unshorn, un-
combed men coming out of the woods, each
with a bag of corn on his back. From a peck to
a bushel Is a common grist. They go to the mill
along verdant footpaths, winding up and down
over hill and valley, and crossing many a rho-
dodendron glen. The flowers and shining leaves
brush against their shoulders and knees, occa-
sionally knocking off their coon-skin caps. The
first arrived throws his corn into the hopper,
turns on the water, and goes to the house.
After chatting and smoking he returns to see
if his grist is done. Should the stones run
empty for an hour or two, it does no harm.
This is a fair average in equipment and ca-
pacity of a score of mills that I saw in Tennes-
see. This one was built by John Vohn, who
claimed that he could make it grind twenty
bushels a day. But since It fell into other hands
it can be made to grind only ten per day. All
the machines of Kentucky and Tennessee are
[36!
Cumberland Mountains
far behind the age. There is scarce a trace of
that restless spirit of speculation and inven-
tion so characteristic of the North. But one
way of doing things obtains here, as if laws had
been passed making attempts at improvement
a crime. Spinning and weaving are done in
every one of these mountain cabins wher-
ever the least pretensions are made to thrift
and economy. The practice of these ancient
arts they deem marks of advancement rather
than of backwardness. " There's a place back
heah," said my worthy entertainer, "whar
there's a mill-house, an 5 a store-house, an* a
still-house, an* a spring-house, an* a blacksmith
shop all in the same yard! Cows too, an*
heaps of big gals a-milkin* them. 5 *
This is the most primitive country I have
seen, primitive in everything. The remotest
hidden parts of Wisconsin are far in advance of
the mountain regions of Tennessee and North
Carolina. But my host speaks of the "old-
fashioned unenlightened times,** like a phi-
losopher in the best light of civilisation. "I
[37]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
believe in Providence/* said he. "Our fathers
came into these valleys, got the richest of them,
and skimmed off the cream of the soil The
worn-out ground won't yield no roastin* ears
now. But the Lord foresaw this state of af-
fairs, and prepared something else for us. And
what is it? Why, He meant us to bust open
these copper mines and gold mines, so that
we may have money to buy the corn that we
cannot raise." A most profound observation.
September 18. Up the mountain on the state
line. The scenery is far grander than any I
ever before beheld. The view extends from the
Cumberland Mountains on the north far into
Georgia and North Carolina to the south, an
area of about five thousand square miles. Such
an ocean of wooded, waving, swelling moun-
tain beauty and grandeur is not to be described.
Countless forest-clad hills, side by side in rows
and groups, seemed to be enjoying the rich
sunshine and remaining motionless only be-
cause they were so eagerly absorbing it. All
were united by curves and slopes of inimitable
[38]
The Cumberland Mountains
softness and beauty. Oh, these forest gardens
of our Father! What perfection, what divin-
ity, in their architecture! What simplicity and
mysterious complexity of detail! Who shall
read the teaching of these sylvan pages, the
glad brotherhood of rills that sing in the val-
leys, and all the happy creatures that dwell in
them under the tender keeping of a Father's
care?
September ig. Received another solemn warn-
ing of dangers on my way through the moun-
tains. Was told by my worthy entertainer of a
wondrous gap in the mountains which he ad-
vised me to see. "It is called Track Gap/ 3 said
he, "from the great number of tracks in the
rocks bird tracks, bar tracks, hoss tracks,
men tracks, all in the solid rock as if it had been
mud." Bidding farewell to my worthy moun-
taineer and all his comfortable wonders, I pur-
sued my way to the South.
As I was leaving, he repeated the warnings of
danger ahead, saying that there were a good
many people living like wild beasts on whatever
[39]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
they could steal, and that murders were some-
times committed for four or five dollars, and
even less. While stopping with him I noticed
that a man came regularly after dark to the
house for his supper. He was armed with a gun,
a pistol, and a long knife. My host told me that
this man was at feud with one of his neighbors,
and that they were prepared to shoot one an-
other at sight. That neither of them could do
any regular work or sleep in the same place two
nights in succession. That they visited houses
only for food, and as soon as the one that I saw
had got his supper he went out and slept in the
woods, without of course making a fire. His
enemy did the same.
My entertainer told me that he was trying
to make peace between these two men, because
they both were good men, and if they would
agree to stop their quarrel, they could then
both go to work. Most of the food in this house
was coffee without sugar, corn bread, and some-
times bacon. But the coffee was the greatest
luxury which these people knew. The only way
The Cumberland Mountains
J*
of obtaining it was by selling skins, or, in par-
ticular, "sang," that is ginseng/ which found
a market in far-off China.
My path all to-day led me along the leafy
banks of the Hiwassee,* a most impressive
mountain river. Its channel is very rough, as
it crosses the edges of upturned rock strata,
some of them standing at right angles, or
glancing off obliquely to right and left. Thus a
multitude of short, resounding cataracts are
produced, and the river is restrained from the
headlong speed due to its volume and the in-
clination of its bed.
All the larger streams of uncultivated coun-
tries are mysteriously charming and beautiful,
whether flowing in mountains or through
swamps and plains. Their channels are inter-
1 Mmi's journal contains the following additional note:
"M. County produces $5000 worth a year of ginseng root,
valued at seventy cents a pound. Under the law it is not al-
lowed to be gathered until the first of September."
2 In his journal Muir spells the name "Hiawassee," a
form which occurs on many of the older maps. The name
probably is derived from the Cherokee Indian " Ayuhwasi,'*
a name applied to several of their former settlements.
[41 1
A fkousand-Mik Walk
estingly sculptured, far more so than the grand-
est architectural works of man. The finest of
the forests are usually found along their banks,
and in the multitude of falls and rapids the wil-
derness finds a voice. Such a river is the Hi-
wassee, with its surface broken to a thousand
sparkling gems, and its forest walls vine-
draped and flowery as Eden. And how fine the
songs it sings!
In Murphy [North Carolina] I was hailed
by the sheriff who could not determine by my
colors and rigging to what country or craft I
belonged. Since the war, every other stranger
in these lonely parts is supposed to be a crimi-
nal, and all are objects of curiosity or appre-
hensive concern. After a few minutes' conver-
sation with this chief man of Murphy I was
pronounced harmless, and invited to his house,
where for the first time since leaving home I
found a house decked with flowers and vines,
clean within and without, and stamped with
the comforts of culture and refinement in all
its arrangements. Striking contrast to the un-
The Cumberland Mountains
couth transitionist establishments from the
wigwams of savages to the clumsy but clean
log castle of the thrifty pioneer.
September 20. All day among the groves and
gorges of Murphy with Mr. Beale. Was shown
the site of Camp Butler where General Scott
had his headquarters when he removed the
Cherokee Indians to a new home in the West.
Found a number of rare and strange plants on
the rocky banks of the river Hiwassee. In the
afternoon, from the summit of a commanding
ridge, I obtained a magnificent view of blue,
softly curved mountain scenery. Among the
trees I saw Ilex [Holly] for the first time. Mr.
Beale informed me that the paleness of most
of the women in his neighborhood, and the
mountains in general hereabouts, was caused
chiefly by smoking and by what is called "dip-
ping." I had never even heard of dipping. The
term simply describes the application of snuff
to the gum by means of a small swab.
September 21. Most luxuriant forest. Many
brooks running across the road. Blairsville
[43 ]
A 'Thousand-Mile Walk
[Georgia], which I passed in the forenoon,
seems a shapeless and insignificant village, but
grandly encircled with banded hills. At night
I was cordially received by a fanner whose
wife, though smart and neat in her appearance,
was an inveterate smoker.
September 22. Hills becoming small, sparsely
covered with soil. They are called "knob land"
and are cultivated, or scratched, with a kind
of one-tooth cultivator. Every rain robs them
of their fertility, while the bottoms are of
course correspondingly enriched. About noon
I reached the last mountain summit on my
way to the sea. It is called the Blue Ridge
and before it lies a prospect very different
from any I had passed, namely, a vast uniform
expanse of dark pine woods, extending to the
sea; an impressive view at any time and under
any circumstances, but particularly so to one
emerging from the mountains.
Traveled in the wake of three poor but merry
mountaineers an old woman, a young woman,
and a young man who sat, leaned, and lay
[44]
The Cumberland Mountains
in the box of a shackly wagon that seemed to
be held together by spiritualism, and was kept
in agitation by a very large and a very small
mule. In going down hill the looseness of the
harness and the joints of the wagon allowed the
mules to back nearly out of sight beneath the
box, and the three who occupied it were slid
against the front boards in a heap over the
mules* ears. Before they could unravel their
limbs from this unmannerly and impolite dis-
order, a new ridge in the road frequently tilted
them with a swish and a bump against the
back boards in a mixing that was still more
grotesque.
I expected to see man, women, and mules
mingled in piebald ruin at the bottom of some
rocky hollow, but they seemed to have full
confidence in the back board and front board
of the wagon-box. So they continued to slide
comfortably up and down, from end to end, in
slippery obedience to the law of gravitation, as
the grades demanded. Where the jolting was
moderate, they engaged in conversation on
Us]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
love, marriage^ and camp-meeting, according
to the custom of the country. The old lady,,
through all the vicissitudes of the transporta-
tion, held a bouquet of French marigolds.
The hillsides hereabouts were bearing a fine
harvest of asters. Reached Mount Yonah in
the evening. Had a long conversation with an
old Methodist slaveholder and mine owner.
Was hospitably refreshed with a drink of fine
cider.
CHAPTER III
THROUGH THE RIVER COUNTRY OF GEORGIA *
SEPTEMBER 23. Am now fairly out of
the mountains. Thus far the climate has
not changed in any marked degree, the
decrease in latitude being balanced by the in-
crease in altitude. These mountains are high-
ways on which northern plants may extend
their colonies southward. The plants of the
North and of the South have many minor
places of meeting along -the way I have trav-
eled; but it is here on the southern slope of
the Alleghanies that the greatest number of
hardy, enterprising representatives of the two
climates are assembled.
Passed the comfortable, finely shaded little
town of Gainesville. The Chattahoochee River
is richly embanked with massive, bossy, dark
green water oaks, and wreathed with a dense
growth of muscadine grapevines, whose ornate
foliage, so well adapted to bank embroidery,
[47]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
was enriched with other interweaving species of
vines and brightly colored flowers. This is the
first truly southern stream I have met.
At night I reached the home of a young man
with whom I had worked in Indiana, Mr.
Prater. He was down here- on a visit to his
father and mother. This was a plain back-
woods family, living out of sight among knobby
timbered hillocks not far from the river. The
evening was passed in mixed conversation on
southern and northern generalities.
September 24. Spent this day with Mr. Prater
sailing on the Chattahoochee, feasting on
grapes that had dropped from the overhanging
vines. This remarkable species of wild grape
has a stout stem, sometimes five or six inches
in diameter, smooth bark and hard wood, quite
unlike any other wild or cultivated grapevine
that I have seen. The grapes are very large,
some of them nearly an Inch in diameter,
globular and fine flavored. Usually there are
but three or four berries in a cluster, and when
mature they drop off instead of decaying on
[48]
River Country ofGeofgia
the vine. Those which fall into the river are
often found in large quantities in the eddies
along the bank, where they are collected by
men in boats and sometimes made into
wine, I think another name for this grape is
the Scuppernong, 1 though called "muscadine"
here.
Besides sailing on the river, we had a long
walk among the plant bowers and tangles of
the Chattahoochee bottom lands.
September 25. Bade good-bye to this friendly
family. Mr. Prater accompanied me a short
distance from the house and warned me over
and over again to be on the outlook for rattle-
snakes. They are now leaving the damp tow-
lands, he told me, so that the danger is much
greater because they are on their travels. Thus
warned, I set out for Savannah, but got lost
in the vine-fenced hills and hollows of the river
1 The old Indian name for the southern species of fox-
grape, Vitis rotundifolia, which Muir describes here. Wood's
Botany listed it as Fitis vulpina L.and remarks, "The va-
riety called 'Scuppernong* is quite common in southern
gardens."
U93
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
bottom. Was unable to find the ford to which
I had been directed by Mr. Prater.
I then determined to push on southward
regardless of roads and fords. After repeated
failures I succeeded in finding a place on the
river bank where I could force my way into the
stream through the vine-tangles. I succeeded
in crossing the river by wading and swimming,
careless of wetting, knowing that I would soon
dry in the hot sunshine.
Out near the middle of the river I found
great difficulty in resisting the rapid current.
Though I braced myself with a stout stick, I
was at length carried away in spite of all my
efforts. But I succeeded in swimming to the
shallows on the farther side, luckily caught
hold of a rock, and after a rest swam and
waded ashore. Dragging myself up the steep
bank by the overhanging vines, I spread out
myself, my paper money, and my plants to
dry.
Debated with myself whether to proceed
down the river valley until I could buy a boat,
[ So]
- River Country of Georgia
or lumber to make one, for a sail instead of
a march through Georgia. I was intoxicated
with the beauty of these glorious river banks,
which I fancied might increase in grandeur as
I approached the sea. But I finally concluded
that such a pleasure sail would be less profit-
able than a walk, and so sauntered on south-
ward as soon as I was dry. Rattlesnakes
abundant. Lodged at a farmhouse. Found a
few tropical plants in the garden.
Cotton is the principal crop hereabouts, and
picking is now going on merrily. Only the lower
bolls are now ripe. Those higher on the plants
are green and unopened. Higher still, there are
buds and flowers, some of which, if the plants
be thrifty and the season favorable, will con-
tinue to produce ripe bolls until January.
The negroes are easy-going and merry, mak-
ing a great deal of noise and doing little work.
One energetic white man, working with a will,
would easily pick as much cotton as half a
dozen Sambos and Sallies. The forest here is
almost entirely made up of dim-green, knotty,
I Si 1
A Thousand-Mile W"alk
sparsely planted pines. The soil is mostly white,
fine-grained sand.
September 26. Reached Athens in the after-
noon, a remarkably beautiful and aristocratic
town, containing many classic and magnificent
mansions of wealthy planters, who formerly
owned large negro-stocked plantations in the
best cotton and sugar regions farther south.
Unmistakable marks of culture and refinement,
as well as wealth, were everywhere apparent.
This is the most beautiful town I have seen on
the journey, so far, and the only one in the
South that I would like to revisit.
The negroes here have been well trained and
are extremely polite. When they come iii sight
of a white man on the road, off go their hats,
even at a distance of forty or fifty yards,
and they walk bare-headed until he is out of
sight,
September 27. Long zigzag walk amid the
old plantations, a few of which are still cul-
tivated in the old way by the same negroes
that worked them before the war, and who
River Country of Georgia
still occupy their former "quarters/* They are
now paid seven to ten dollars a month.
The weather is very hot on these sandy,
lightly shaded, lowland levels. When very
thirsty I discovered a beautiful spring in a
sandstone basin overhung with shady bushes
and vines, where I enjoyed to the utmost the
blessing of pure cold water. Discovered here
a fine southern fern, some new grasses, etc.
Fancied that I might have been directed here
by Providence, while fainting with thirst. It
is not often hereabouts that the joys of cool
water, cool shade, and rare plants are so de-
lightfully combined.
Witnessed the most gorgeous sunset I ever
enjoyed in this bright world of light. The
sunny South is indeed sunny. Was directed by
a very civil negro to lodgings for the night.
Daily bread hereabouts means sweet potatoes
and rusty bacon.
September 28. The water oak is abundant
on stream banks and in damp hollows. Grasses
are becoming tall and cane4ike and do not
[53]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
cover the ground with their leaves as at the
North. Strange plants are crowding about me
now. Scarce a familiar face appears among all
the flowers of the day's walk.
September 2Q. To-day I met a magnificent
grass, ten or twelve feet in stature, with a
superb panicle of glossy purple flowers. Its
leaves, too, are of princely mould and dimen-
sions. Its home is in sunny meadows and along
the wet borders of slow streams and swamps.
It seems to be fully aware of its high rank, and
waves with the grace and solemn majesty of
a mountain pine. I wish I could place one of
these regal plants among the grass settlements
of our Western prairies. Surely every panicle
would wave and bow in joyous allegiance and
acknowledge their king.
September 30. Between Thomson and Augusta
I found many new and beautiful grasses, tall
gerardias, liatris, club mosses, etc. Here, too,
is the northern limit of the remarkable long-
leafed pine, a tree from sixty to seventy feet
in height, from twenty to thirty inches in
[54]
A SOUTHERN PINE
River Country of Georgia
diameter, with leaves ten to fifteen inches long,
in dense radiant masses at the ends of the naked
branches* The wood is strong, hard, and very
resinous. It makes excellent ship spars, bridge
timbers, and flooring. Much of it is shipped to
the West India Islands, New York, and Gal-
veston.
The seedlings, five or six years old, are very
striking objects to one, from the North, con-
sisting, as they do, of the straight, leafless
stem, surmounted by a crown of deep green
leaves, arching and spreading like a palm*
Children fancy that they resemble brooms, and
use them as such in their picnic play-houses.
Pinus palustris is most abundant in Georgia
and Florida.
The sandy soil here is sparingly seamed with
rolled quartz pebbles and clay. Denudation, go-
ing on slowly, allows the thorough removal of
these clay seams, leaving only the sand. Not-
withstanding the sandiness of the soil, much of
the surface of the country is covered with stand-
ing water, which is easily accounted for by the
[55]
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
presence of the above-mentioned Impermeable
seams.
Traveled to-day more than forty miles with-
out dinner or supper. No family would re-
ceive me, so I had to push on to Augusta. Went
hungry to bed and awoke with a sore stomach
sore, I suppose, from its walls rubbing on
each other without anything to grind. A negro
kindly directed me to the best hotel, called,
I think, the Planter's. Got a good bed for a
dollar.
October j. Found a cheap breakfast in a
market-place; then set off along the Savan-
nah River to Savannah. Splendid grasses and
rich, dense, vine-clad forests. Muscadine grapes
in cart-loads. Asters and solidagoes becoming
scarce. Carices [sedges] quite rare. Leguminous
plants abundant. A species of passion flower is
common, reaching back into Tennessee. It is
here called "apricot vine," has a superb flower,
and the most delicious fruit I have ever eaten.
The pomegranate is cultivated here. The
fruit is about the size of an orange, has a thick,
[56]
River Country of Georgia
tough skin, and when opened resembles a many-
chambered box full of translucent purple
candies.
Toward evening I came to the country of one
of the most striking of southern plants, the so-
called "Long Moss" or Spanish Moss [Til-
landsia], though it is a flowering plant and be-
longs to the same family as the pineapple
[Bromelworts], The trees hereabouts have all
their branches draped with it, producing a re-
markable effect.
Here, too, I found an impenetrable cypress
swamp. This remarkable tree, called cypress,
is a taxodium, grows large and high, and is
remarkable for its flat crown. The whole forest
seems almost level on the top, as if each tree
had grown up against a ceiling, or had been
rolled while growing. This taxodium is the
only level-topped tree that I have seen. The
branches, though spreading, are careful not to
pass each other, and stop suddenly on reach-
ing the general level, as if they had grown up
against a ceiling.
[S7l
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
The groves and thickets of smaller trees are
full of blooming evergreen vines. These vines
are not arranged in separate groups, or in deli-
cate wreaths, but in bossy walls and heavy,
mound-like heaps and banks. Am. made to feel
that I am now in a strange land. I know hardly
any of the plants, but few of the birds, and I
am unable to see the country for the solemn^
dark, mysterious cypress woods which cover
everything.
The winds are full of strange sounds, making
one feel far from the people and plants and fruit-
ful fields of home. Night is coming on and I am
filled with indescribable loneliness. Felt fever-
ish; bathed in a black, silent stream; nervously
watchful for alligators. Obtained lodging in a
planter's house among cotton fields. Although
the family seemed to be pretty well-off, the
only light in the house was bits of pitch-pine
wood burned in the fireplace.
October 2. In the low bottom forest of the
Savannah River. Very busy with new speci-
mens. Most exquisitely planned wrecks of
[S3]
River Country of Georgia
Agrostis scabra [Rough Hair Grass]. Pines in
glorious array with open, welcoming, approach-
able plants.
Met a young African with whom I had a long
talk. Was amused with his eloquent narrative
of coon hunting, alligators, and many super-
stitions. He showed me a place where a rail-
road train had run off the track, and assured
me that the ghosts of the killed may be seen
every dark night.
Had a long walk after sundown. At last was
received at the house of Dr. Perkins. Saw Cape
Jasmine [Gardenia florida] in the garden. Heard
long recitals of war happenings, discussion of
the slave question, and Northern politics; a
thoroughly characteristic Southern family, re-
fined in manners and kind, but immovably
prejudiced on everything connected with slav-
ery.
The family table was unlike any I ever saw
before. It was circular, and the central part
of it revolved. When any one wished to be
helped, he placed his plate on the revolving
[ 59 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
part, which was whirled around to the host,
and then whirled back with its new load. Thus
every plate was revolved into place, without
the assistance of any of the family.
October 3. In "pine barrens" most of the
day. Low, level, sandy tracts; the pines wide
apart; the sunny spaces between full of beau-
tiful abounding grasses, liatris, long, wand-
like solidago, saw palmettos, etc., covering the
ground in garden style. Here I sauntered in
delightful freedom, meeting none of the cat-
clawed vines, or shrubs, of the alluvial bot-
toms. Dwarf live-oaks common.
Toward evening I arrived at the home of Mr.
Cameron, a wealthy planter, who had large
bands of slaves at work in his cotton fields.
They still call him "Massa." He tells me that
labor costs him less now than it did before the
emancipation of the negroes. When I arrived
I found him busily engaged in scouring the rust
off some cotton-gin saws which had been ly-
ing for months at the bottom of his mill-pond
to prevent Sherman's "bummers" from des-
[60]
-River Country of Georgia
troying them. The most valuable parts of the
grist-mill and cotton-press were hidden in
the same way. "If Bill Sherman/* he said,
"should come down now without his army,
he would never go back/*
When I asked him if he could give me food
and lodging for the night he said, "No, no, we
have no accommodations for travelers," I said,
"But I am traveling as a botanist and either
have to find lodgings when night overtakes me
or lie outdoors, which I often have had to do in
my long walk from Indiana. But you see that
the country here is very swampy; if you will at
least sell me a piece of bread, and give me a
drink at your well, I shall have to look around
for a dry spot to lie down on."
Then, asking me a few questions, and nar-
rowly examining me, he said, "Well, it is
barely possible that we may find a place for
you, and if you will come to the house I will
ask my wife." Evidently he was cautious to get
his wife's opinion of the kind of creature I was
before committing himself to hospitality. He
[61 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
halted me at the door and called out his wife,
a fine-looking woman, who also questioned me
narrowly as to my object in coming so far down
through the South, so soon after the war. She
said to her husband that she thought they could,
perhaps, give me a place to sleep.
After supper, as we sat by the fire talking
on my favorite subject of botany, I described
the country I had passed through, its botani-
cal character, etc. Then, evidently, all doubt
as to my being a decent man vanished, and
they both said that they wouldn't for any-
thing have turned me away; but I must excuse
their caution, for perhaps fewer than one in a
hundred, who passed through this unfrequented
part of the country, were to be relied upon*
"Only a short time ago we entertained a man
who was well spoken and well dressed, and he
vanished some time during the night with some
valuable silverware."
Mr. Cameron told me that when I arrived
he tried me for a Mason, and finding that I was
not a Mason he wondered still more that I
[62]
River Country of Georgia
would venture into the country without being
able to gain the assistance of brother Masons
in these troublous times.
"Young man/ 5 he said, after hearing my talks
on botany, "I see that your hobby is botany.
My hobby is e4ec-tricity. I believe that the
time is coming, though we may not live to see
it, when that mysterious power or force, used
now only for telegraphy, will eventually supply
the power for running railroad trains and
steamships, for lighting, and, in a word, elec-
tricity will do all the work of the world/*
Many times since then I have thought of
the wonderfully correct vision of this Georgia
planter, so far in advance of almost everybody
else in the world. Already nearly all that he
foresaw has been accomplished, and the use of
electricity is being extended more and more
every yean
October 4. New plants constantly appearing.
All day in dense, wet, dark, mysterious forest
of flat-topped taxodiums.
October 5. Saw the stately banana for the
[63!
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
first time, growing luxuriantly in the wayside
gardens. At night with a very pleasant, in-
telligent Savannah family, but as usual was
admitted only after I had undergone a severe
course of questioning.
October 6. Immense swamps, still more com-
pletely fenced and darkened, that are never
ruffled with winds or scorched with drought.
Many of them seem to be thoroughly aquatic.
October 7. Impenetrable taxodium swamp,
seemingly boundless. The silvery skeins of
tillandsia becoming longer and more abun-
dant. Passed the night with a very pleasant
family of Georgians, after the usual questions
and cross questions.
October 8. Found the first woody composite,
a most notable discovery. Took them to be
such at a considerable distance. Almost all
trees and shrubs are evergreens here with thick
polished leaves. Magnolia grandiflora becoming
common. A magnificent tree in fruit and foli-
age as well as in flower. Near Savannah I found
waste places covered with a dense growth of
[64]
River Country of Georgia
woody leguminous plants, eight or ten feet
high, with pinnate leaves and suspended
rattling pods.
Reached Savannah, but find no word from
home, and the money that I had ordered to be
sent by express from Portage [Wisconsin] by
my brother had not yet arrived. Feel dreadfully
lonesome and poor. Went to the meanest look-
ing lodging-house that I could find, on account
of its cheapness*
CHAPTER IV
CAMPING AMONG THE TOMBS
OCTOBER 9. After going again to the
express office and post office, and wan-
dering about the streets, I found a road
which led me to the Bonaventure graveyard.
If that burying-ground across the Sea of Gali-
lee, mentioned in Scripture, was half as beau-
tiful as Bonaventure, I do not wonder that a
man should dwell among the tombs. It is only
three or four miles from Savannah, and is
reached by a smooth white shell road.
There is but little to be seen on the way in
land, water, or sky, that would lead one to hope
for the glories of Bonaventure. The ragged
desolate fields, on both sides of the road, are
overrun with coarse rank weeds, and show
scarce a trace of cultivation. But soon all is
changed. Rickety log huts, broken fences, and
the last patch of weedy rice-stubble are left
behind. You come to beds of purple liatris and
[ 66]
Camping among the Tombs
living wild-wood trees. You hear the song of
birds, cross a small stream, and are with Nature
in the grand old forest graveyard, so beautiful
that almost any sensible person would choose
to dwell here with the dead rather than with
the lazy, disorderly living.
Part of the grounds was cultivated and
planted with live-oak, about a hundred years
ago, by a wealthy gentleman who had his coun-
try residence here. But much the greater part
is undisturbed. Even those spots which are
disordered by art, Nature is ever at work to
reclaim, and to make them look as if the foot
of man had never known them. Only a small
plot of ground is occupied with graves and the
old mansion is in ruins.
The most conspicuous glory of Bonaventure
is its noble avenue of live-oaks. They are the
most magnificent planted trees I have ever
seen, about fifty feet high and perhaps three
or four feet in diameter, with broad spreading
leafy heads. The main branches reach out
horizontally until they come together over the
[67]
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
driveway, embowering it throughout Its entire
length, while each branch is adorned like a
garden with ferns, flowers, grasses, and dwarf
palmettos.
But of all the plants of these curious tree-
gardens the most striking and characteristic is
the so-called Long Moss {Tillandsia usneoides).
It drapes all the branches from top to bottom,
hanging in long silvery-gray skeins, reaching a
length of not less than eight or ten feet, and
when slowly waving in the wind they produce
a solemn funereal effect singularly Impressive.
There are also thousands of smaller trees and
clustered bushes, covered almost from sight in
the glorious brightness of their own light. The
place is half surrounded by the salt marshes
and islands of the river, their reeds and sedges
making a delightful fringe. Many bald eagles
roost among the trees along the side of the
marsh. Their screams are heard every morning,
joined with the noise of crows and the songs of
countless warblers, hidden deep in their dwell-
ings of leafy bowers. Large flocks of butter-
[68]
Camping among the "Tombs
files, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in
a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness.
The whole place seems like a center of life. The
dead do not reign there alone.
Bonaventure to me is one of the most impres-
sive assemblages of animal and plant creatures
I ever met. I was fresh from the Western
prairies, the garden-like openings of Wisconsin,
the beech and maple and oak woods of Indiana
and Kentucky, the dark mysterious Savannah
cypress forests; but never since I was allowed
to walk the woods have I found so impressive
a company of trees as the tillandsia-draped
oaks of Bonaventure.
I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived
from another world. Bonaventure is called a
graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few
graves are powerless in such a depth of life.
The rippling of living waters, the song of birds,
the joyous confidence of flowers, the calm, un-
disturbable grandeur of the oaks, mark this
place of graves as one of the Lord's most fa-
vored abodes of life and light.
[69]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
On no subject are our ideas more warped and
pitiable than on death. Instead of the sym-
pathy, the friendly union, of life and death so
apparent in Nature, we are taught that death
is an accident, a deplorable punishment for
the oldest sin, the arch-enemy of life, etc.
Town children, especially, are steeped in this
death orthodoxy, for the natural beauties of
death are seldom seen or taught in towns.
Of death among our own species, to say
nothing of the thousand styles and modes of
murder, our best memories, even among happy
deaths, yield groans and tears, mingled with
morbid exultation; burial companies, black in
cloth and countenance; and, last of all, a black
box burial in an ill-omened place, haunted by
imaginary glooms and ghosts of every degree.
Thus death becomes fearful, and the most
notable and incredible thing heard around a
death-bed is, "I fear not to die/*
But let children walk with Nature, let them
see the beautiful blendings and communions of
death and life, their joyous inseparable unity,
[70]
Camping among the
as taught in woods and meadows, plains and
mountains and streams of our blessed star, and
they will learn that death is stingless indeed,
and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has
no victory, for it never fights. All is divine
harmony.
Most of the few graves of Bonaventure are
planted with flowers. There is generally a mag-
nolia at the head, near the strictly erect marble,
a rose-bush or two at the foot, and some violets
and showy exotics along the sides or on the
tops. All is enclosed by a black iron railing,
composed of rigid bars that might have been
spears or bludgeons from a battlefield in Pan-
demonium.
It is interesting to observe how assiduously
Nature seeks to remedy these labored art blun-
ders. She corrodes the iron and marble, and
gradually levels the hill which is always heaped
up, as if a sufficiently heavy quantity of clods
could not be laid on the dead. Arching grasses
come one by one; seeds come flying on downy
wings, silent as fate, to give life's dearest beauty
A Thousand- Mile Walk
for the ashes of art; and strong evergreen arms
laden with ferns and tillandsia drapery are
spread over all Life at work everywhere,
obliterating all memory of the confusion of man.
In Georgia many graves are covered with a
common shingle roof, supported on four posts
as the cover of a well, as if rain and sunshine
were not regarded as blessings. Perhaps, in this
hot and insalubrious climate, moisture and sun-
heat are considered necessary evils to which
they do not wish to expose their dead.
The money package that I was expecting did
not arrive until the following week. After stop-
ping the first night at the cheap, disreputable-
looking hotel, I had only about a dollar and a
half left in my purse, and so was compelled to
camp out to make it last in buying only bread.
I went out of the noisy town to seek a sleeping-
place that was not marshy. After gaining the
outskirts of the town toward the sea, I found
some low sand dunes, yellow with flowering soli-
dagoes.
I wandered wearily from dune to dune sink-
[72]
Camping among the Tombs
ing ankle-deep in the sand, searching for a
place to sleep beneath the tall flowers, free from
insects and snakes, and above all from my fel-
low man. But idle negroes were prowling about
everywhere, and I was afraid. The wind had
strange sounds, waving the heavy panicles
over my head, and I feared sickness from ma-
laria so prevalent here, when I suddenly thought
of the graveyard.
"There," thought I, "is an ideal place for
a penniless wanderer. There no superstitious
prowling mischief maker dares venture for fear
of haunting ghosts, while for me there will be
God's rest and peace. And then, if I am to be ex-
posed to unhealthy vapors, I shall have capital
compensation in seeing those grand oaks in
the moonlight, with all the impressive and
nameless influences of this lonely beautiful
place."
By this time it was near sunset, and I has-
tened across the common to the road and set off
for Bonaventure, delighted with my choice, and
almost glad to find that necessity had furnished
[73l
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
me with so good an excuse for doing what I
knew my mother would censure; for she made
me promise I would not lie out of doors if I
could possibly avoid it. The sun was set ere
I was past the negroes 5 huts and rice fields,
and I arrived near the graves in the silent hour
of the gloaming.
I was very thirsty after walking so long in
the muggy heat, a distance of three or four
miles from the city, to get to this graveyard.
A dull, sluggish, coffee-colored stream flows
under the road just outside the graveyard gar-
den park, from which I managed to get a drink
after breaking a way down to the water through
a dense fringe of bushes, daring the snakes and
alligators in the dark. Thus refreshed I entered
the weird and beautiful abode of the dead.
All the avenue where I walked was in
shadow, but an exposed tombstone frequently
shone out in startling whiteness on either hand,
and thickets of sparkleberry bushes gleamed
like heaps of crystals. Not a breath of air moved
the gray moss, and the great black arms of the
[74]
Camping among the T*ombs
trees met overhead and covered the avenue.
But the canopy was fissured by many a netted
seam and leafy-edged opening, through which
the moonlight sifted in auroral rays, broidering
the blackness in silvery light. Though tired,
I sauntered a while enchanted, then lay down
under one of the great oaks. I found a little
mound that served for a pillow, placed my
plant press and bag beside me and rested fairly
well, though somewhat disturbed by large
prickly-footed beetles creeping across my hands
and face, and by a lot of hungry stinging mo-
squitoes.
When I awoke, the sun was up and all Na-
ture was rejoicing. Some birds had discovered
me as an intruder, and were making a great
ado in interesting language and gestures. I
heard the screaming of the bald eagles, and of
some strange waders in the rushes. I heard the
hum of Savannah with the long jarring hallos
of negroes far away. On rising I found that my
head had been resting on a grave, and though
my sleep had not been quite so sound as that
[7Sl
A Thousand-Mile Walk
of the person below, I arose refreshed, and look-
ing about me, the morning sunbeams pouring
through the oaks and gardens dripping with
dew, the beauty displayed was so glorious and
exhilarating that hunger and care seemed only
a dream.
Eating a breakfast cracker or two and watch-
ing for a few hours the beautiful light, birds,
squirrels, and insects, I returned to Savannah,
to find that my money package had not yet ar-
rived. I then decided to go early to the grave-
yard and make a nest with a roof to keep off
the dew, as there was no way of finding out how
long I might have to stay. I chose a hidden
spot in a dense thicket of sparkleberry bushes,
near the right bank of the Savannah River,
where the bald eagles and a multitude of sing-
ing birds roosted. It was so well hidden that
I had to carefully fix its compass bearing in my
mind from a mark I made on the side of the
main avenue, that I might be able to find it at
bedtime.
I used four of the bushes as corner posts for
[76]
Camping among the "Tombs
my little hut, which was about four or five feet
long by about three or four in width, tied
little branches across from forks in the bushes
to support a roof of rushes, and spread a thick
mattress of Long Moss over the floor for a bed.
My whole establishment was on so small a
scale that I could have taken up, not only my
bed, but my whole house, and walked. There
I lay that night, eating a few crackers.
Next day I returned to the town and was
disappointed as usual in obtaining money. So
after spending the day looking at the plants in
the gardens of the fine residences and town
squares, I returned to my graveyard home.
That I might not be observed and suspected
of hiding, as if I had committed a crime, I
always went home after dark, and one night,
as I lay down in my moss nest, I felt some
cold-blooded creature in it; whether a snake
or simply a frog or toad I do not know, but
instinctively, instead of drawing back my
hand, I grasped the poor creature and threw
it over the tops of the bushes. That was
I 77 I
A Thousand-Mile Walk
the only significant disturbance or fright that
I got.
In the morning everything seemed divine.
Only squirrels, sunbeams, and birds came
about me. I was awakened every morning by
these little singers after they discovered my
nest. Instead of serenely singing their morning
songs they at first came within two or three
feet of the hut, and, looking in at me through
the leaves, chattered and scolded in half-angry,
half-wondering tones. The crowd constantly
increased, attracted by the disturbance. Thus
I began to get acquainted with my bird neigh-
bors in this blessed wilderness, and after they
learned that I meant them no ill they scolded
less and sang more.
After five days of this graveyard life I saw
that even with living on three or four cents a
day my last twenty-five cents would soon be
spent, and after trying again and again unsuc-
cessfully to find some employment began to
think that I must strike farther out into the
country, but still within reach of town, until
[78]
Camping among the "Tombs
I came to some grain or rice field that had
not yet been harvested, trusting that I could
live indefinitely on toasted or raw com, or
rice.
By this time I was becoming faint, and in
making the journey to the town was alarmed to
find myself growing staggery and giddy. The
ground ahead seemed to be rising up in front
of me, and the little streams in the ditches on
the sides of the road seemed to be flowing up
hill Then I realized that I was becoming dan-
gerously hungry and became more than ever
anxious to receive that money package.
To my delight this fifth or sixth morning,
when I inquired if the money package had
come, the clerk replied that it had, but that he
could not deliver it without my being identi-
fied. I said, "Well, here! read my brother's
letter/ 5 handing it to him. "It states the
amount in the package, where it came from,
the day it was put into the office at Portage
City, and I should think that would be enough/'
He said, "No, that is not enough. How do I
l79l
A Thousand-Mile Walk
know that this letter Is yours? You may have
stolen it. How do I know that you are John
Muir?"
I said, "Well, don't you see that this letter
indicates that I am a botanist? For in it my
brother says, *I hope you are having a good time
and finding many new plants/ Now, you say
that I might have stolen this letter from John
Muir, and in that way have become aware of
there being a money package to arrive from
Portage for him. But the letter proves that
John Muir must be a botanist, and though, as
you say, his letter might have been stolen, it
would hardly be likely that the robber would
be able to steal John Muir's knowledge of
botany. Now I suppose, of course, that you
have been to school and know something of
botany. Examine me and see if I know any-
thing about it."
At this he laughed good-naturedly, evidently
feeling the force of my argument, and, perhaps,
pitying me on account of looking pale and
hungry, he turned and rapped at the door of
[ 80]
Camping among the
a private office probably the Manager's
called him out and said, "Mr. So and So, here
is a man who has inquired every day for the
last week or so for a money package from Por-
tage, Wisconsin. He is a stranger in the city
with no one to identify him. He states correctly
the amount and the name of the sender. He has
shown me a letter which indicates that Mr.
Muir is a botanist, and that although a travel-
ing companion may have stolen Mr. Muir's
letter, he could not have stolen his botany, and
requests us to examine him."
The head official smiled, took a good stare
into my face, waved his hand, and said, "Let
him have it." Gladly I pocketed my money,
and had not gone along the street more than
a few rods before I met a very large negro
woman with a tray of gingerbread, in which I
immediately invested some of my new wealth,
and walked rejoicingly, munching along the
street, making no attempt to conceal the plea-
sure I had in eating. Then, still hunting for
more food, I found a sort of eating-place in
[81 ]
^Thousand-Mile PTalk
a market and had a large regular meal on
top of the gingerbread! Thus my "marching
through Georgia** terminated handsomely in a
jubilee of bread.
CHAPTER V
THROUGH FLORIDA SWAMPS AND FORESTS
OF the people of the States that I have
now passed, I best like the Georgians.
They have charming manners, and
their dwellings are mostly larger and better
than those of adjacent States. However costly
or ornamental their homes or their manners,
they do not, like those of the New Englander,
appear as the fruits of intense and painful sac-
rifice and training, but are entirely divested of
artificial weights and measures, and seem to
pervade and twine about their characters as
spontaneous growths with the durability and
charm of living nature.
In particular, Georgians, even the common-
est, have a most charmingly cordial way of say-
ing to strangers, as they proceed on their jour-
ney, "I wish you well, sir." The negroes of
Georgia, too, are extremely mannerly and po-
lite, and appear always to be delighted to find
opportunity for obliging anybody.
[ 83 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
Athens contains many beautiful residences.
I never before saw so much about a home that
was so evidently done for beauty only, although
this is by no means a universal characteristic of
Georgian homes. Nearly all well-to-do farmers*
families in Georgia and Tennessee spin and
weave their own cloth. This work is almost all
done by the mothers and daughters and con-
sumes much of their time.
The traces of war are not only apparent on
the broken fields, burnt fences, mills, and woods
ruthlessly slaughtered, but also on the counte-
nances of the people. A few years after a forest
has been burned another generation of bright
and happy trees arises, in purest, freshest vigor;
only the old trees, wholly or half dead, bear
marks of the calamity. So with the people of
this war-field. Happy, unscarred, and unclouded
youth is growing up around the aged, half-
consumed, and fallen parents, who bear in sad
measure the ineffaceable marks of the farth-
est-reaching and most infernal of all civilized
calamities.
[84]
Florida Swamps and Forests
Since the commencement of my floral pil-
grimage I have seen much that is not only new,
but altogether unallied, unacquainted with the
plants of my former life. \ have seen magno-
lias, tupelo, live-oak, Kentucky oak, tilland-
sia, long-leafed pine, palmetto, schrankia, and
whole forests of strange trees and vine-tied
thickets of blooming shrubs; whole meadow-
fuls of magnificent bamboo and lakefuls of lilies,
all new to me; yet I still press eagerly on to
Florida as the special home of the tropical
plants I am looking for, and I feel sure I shall
not be disappointed.
The same day on which the money arrived
I took passage on the steamship Sylvan Shore
for Fernandina, Florida. The daylight part of
this sail along the coast of Florida was full of
novelty, and by association awakened memories
of my Scottish days at Dunbar on the Firth of
Forth.
On board I had civilized conversation with a
Southern planter on topics that are found float-
ing in the mind of every white man down here
[85]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
who has a single thought. I also met a brother*
Scotchman, who was especially interesting and
had some ideas outside of Southern politics.
Altogether my half-day and night on board the
steamer were pleasant, and carried me past
a very sickly, entangled, overflowed, and un-
walkable piece of forest.
It is pretty well known that a short geologi-
cal time ago the ocean covered the sandy level
margin, extending from the foot of the Alle-
ghanies to the present coast-line, and in re-
ceding left many basins for lakes and swamps.
The land is still encroaching on the sea, and it
does so not evenly, in a regular line, but in
fringing lagoons and inlets and dotlike coral
islands.
It is on the coast strip of isles and peninsulas
that sea-island cotton is grown. Some of these
small islands are afloat, anchored only by the
roots of mangroves and rushes. For a few
hours our steamer sailed in the open sea, ex-
posed to its waves, but most of the time
she threaded her way among the lagoons, the
[86]
Florida Swamps and Forests
home of alligators and countless ducks and
waders.
October 15. To-day, at last, I reached Florida,
the so-called "Land of Flowers/ 5 that I had so
long waited for, wondering if after all my long-
ings and prayers would be in vain, and I should
die without a glimpse of the flowery Canaan.
But here it is, at the distance of a few yards!
a flat, watery, reedy coast, with clumps of
mangrove and forests of moss-dressed, strange
trees appearing low in the distance. The steamer
finds her way among the reedy islands like a
duck, and I step on a rickety wharf. A few steps
more take me to a rickety town, Fernandina.
I discover a baker, buy some bread, and with-
out asking a single question, make for the
shady, gloomy groves.
In visiting Florida in dreams, of either day
or night, I always came suddenly on a close
forest of trees, every one in flower, and bent
down and entangled to network by luxuriant,
bright-blooming vines, and over all a flood of
bright sunlight. But such was not the gate
[87]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
by which I entered the promised land. Salt
marshes, belonging more to the sea than to the
land; with groves here and there, green and un~
flowered, sunk to the shoulders in sedges and
rushes; with trees farther back, ill defined in
their boundary, and instead of rising in hilly
waves and swellings, stretching inland in low
water-like levels.
We were all discharged by the captain of the
steamer without breakfast, and, after meeting
and examining the new plants that crowded
about me, I threw down my press and little
bag beneath a thicket, where there was a dry
spot on some broken heaps of grass and roots,
something like a deserted muskrat house, and
applied myself to my bread breakfast. Every-
thing in earth and sky had an impression of
strangeness; not a mark of friendly recognition,
not a breath, not a spirit whisper of sympathy
came from anything about me, and of course
I was lonely. I lay on my elbow eating my
bread, gazing, and listening to the profound
strangeness.
[88]
Florida Swamps and Forests
While thus engaged I was startled from these
gatherings of melancholy by a rustling sound
in the rushes behind me. Had my mind been
in health, and my body not starved, I should
only have turned calmly to the noise. But in
this half-starved, unfriended condition I could
have no healthy thought, and I at once believed
that the sound came from an alligator. I fan-
cied I could feel the stroke of his long notched
tail, and could see his big jaws and rows of
teeth, closing with a springy snap on me, as I
had seen in pictures.
Well, I don't know the exact measure of my
fright either in time or pain, but when 1 did
come to a knowledge of the truth, my man-
eating alligator became a tall white crane, hand-
some as a minister from spirit land "only
that." I was ashamed and tried to excuse my-
self on account of Bonaventure anxiety and
hunger.
Florida is so watery and vine-tied that path-
less wanderings are not easily possible in any
direction. I started to cross the State by a gap
[891
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
hewn for the locomotive, walking sometimes
between the* rails, stepping from tie to tie, or
walking on the strip of sand at the sides, gazing
into the mysterious forest, Nature's own. It is
impossible to write the dimmest picture of
plant grandeur so redundant, unfathomable.
; Short was the measure of my walk to-day.
A new, canelike grass, or big lily, or gorgeous
flower belonging to tree or vine, would catch
my attention, and I would throw down my bag
and press and splash through the coffee-brown
water for specimens. Frequently I sank deeper
and deeper until compelled to turn back and
make the attempt in another and still another
place. Oftentimes I was tangled in a laby-
rinth of armed vines like a fly in a spider-web.
At all times, whether wading or climbing a tree
for specimens of fruit, I was overwhelmed with
the vastness and unapproachableness of the
great guarded sea of sunny plants.
Magnolia grandiftora I had seen in Georgia;
but its home, its better land, is here. Its
large dark-green leaves, glossy bright above
[90]
I
s
3
E*
!z
S3
H
Florida Swamps and Forests
and rusty brown beneath, gleam and mirror
the sunbeams most gloriously among countless
flower-heaps of the climbing, smothering vines.
It is bright also in fruit and more tropical in
form and expression than the orange. It speaks
itself a prince among its fellows.
Occasionally, I came to a little strip of open
sand, planted with pine (Finns palustris or
Cubensis). Even these spots were mostly wet,
though lighted with free sunshine, and adorned
with purple liatris, and orange-colored Osmunda
cinnamomea. But the grandest discovery of
this great wild day was the palmetto.
I was meeting so many strange plants that I
was much excited, making many stops to get
specimens. But I could not force my way far
through the swampy forest, although so tempt-
ing and full of promise. Regardless of water
snakes or insects, I endeavored repeatedly to
force a way through the tough vine-tangles,
but seldom succeeded in getting farther than a
few hundred yards.
It was while feeling sad to think that I was
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A Thousand-Mile Walk
only walking on the edge of the vast wood, that
I caught sight of the first palmetto in a grassy
place, standing almost alone. A few magnolias
were near it, and bald cypresses, but it was not
shaded by them. They tell us that plants are
perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is
immortal, etc. ; but this, I think, is something
that we know very nearly nothing about. Any-
how, this palm was indescribably impressive
and told me grander things than I ever got
from human priest.
This vegetable has a plain gray shaft, round
as a broom-handle, and a crown of varnished
channeled leaves. It is a plainer plant than the
humblest of Wisconsin oaks ; but, whether rock-
ing and rustling in the wind or poised thought-
ful and calm in the sunshine, it has a power of
expression not excelled by any plant high or low
that I have met in my whole walk thus far.
This, my first specimen, was not very tall,
only about twenty-five feet high, with fifteen or
twenty leaves, arching equally and evenly all
around. Each leaf was about ten feet in length,
[92]
Florida Swamps and Forests
the blade four feet, the stalk six. The leaves are
channeled like half-open clams and are highly
polished, so that they reflect the sunlight like
glass. The undeveloped leaves on the top stand
erect, closely folded, all together forming an
oval crown over which the tropic light is poured
and reflected from its slanting mirrors in sparks
and splinters and long-rayed stars.
I am now in the hot gardens of the sun, where
the palm meets the pine, longed and prayed for
and often visited in dreams, and, though lonely
to-night amid this multitude of strangers, strange
plants, strange winds : blowing gently, whis-
pering, cooing, in a language I never learned,
and strange birds also, everything solid or
spiritual full of influences that I never before
felt, yet I thank the Lord with all my heart for
his goodness in granting me admission to this
magnificent realm.
October 16* Last evening when I was in the
trackless woods, the great mysterious night be-
coming more mysterious in the thickening dark-
ness, I gave up hope of finding food or a house
[93l
\A Thousand-Mile Walk
bed, and searched only for a dry spot on which
to sleep safely hidden from wild, runaway ne-
groes. I walked rapidly for hours in the wet,
level woods, but not a foot of dry ground could
I find. Hollow-voiced owls were calling with-
out intermission. All manner of night sounds
came from strange insects and beasts, one
by one, or crowded together. All had a home
but I. Jacob on the dry plains of Padan-
aram, with a stone pillow, must have been
comparatively happy.
When I came to an open place where pines
grew, it was about ten o'clock, and I thought
that now at last I would find dry ground. But
even the sandy barren was wet, and I had to
grope in the dark a long time, feeling the ground
with my hands when my feet ceased to plash,
before I at last discovered a little hillock dry
enough to lie down on. I ate a piece of bread
that I fortunately had in my bag, drank some
of the brown water about my precious hillock,
and lay down. The noisiest of the unseen
witnesses around me were the owls, who pro-
[94]
Florida Swamps and Forests
nounced their gloomy speeches with profound
emphasis, but did not prevent the coming of
sleep to heal weariness.
In the morning I was cold and wet with dew,
and I set out breakfastless. Flowers and beauty
I had in abundance, but no bread. A serious
matter is this bread which perishes, and, could
it be dispensed with, I doubt if civilization would
ever see me again. I walked briskly, watching
for a house, as well as the grand assemblies of
novel plants.
Near the middle of the forenoon I came to a
shanty where a party of loggers were getting
out long pines for ship spars. They were the
wildest of all the white savages I have met.
The long-haired ex-guerrillas of the mountains
of Tennessee and North Carolina are uncivil-
ized fellows; but for downright barbarism these
Florida loggers excel. Nevertheless, they gave
me a portion of their yellow pork and hominy
without either apparent hospitality or a grudge,
and I was glad to escape to the forest again*
A few hours later I dined with three men and
[95]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
three dogs. I was viciously attacked by the lat-
ter, who undertook to undress me with their
teeth. I was nearly dragged down backward,
but escaped unbitten. Liver pie, mixed with
sweet potatoes and fat duff, was set before me,
and after I had finished a moderate portion,
one of the men, turning to his companion, re-
marked: "Wall, I guess that man quit eatin*
'cause he had nothin' more to eat. I'll get him
more potato."
Arrived at a place on the margin of a stag-
nant pool where an alligator had been rolling
and sunning himself. "See/' said a man who
lived here, " see, what a track that is ! He must
have been a mighty big fellow. Alligators wal-
low like hogs and like to lie in the sun. I *d like
a shot at that fellow." Here followed a long re-
cital of bloody combats with the scaly enemy,
in many of which he had, of course, taken an
important part. Alligators are said to be ex-
tremely fond of negroes and dogs, and natu-
rally the dogs and negroes are afraid of them.
Another man that I met to-day pointed to a
[96]
Florida Swamps and Forests
shallow, grassy pond before his door. "There/*
said he, "I once had a tough fight with an alli-
gator. He caught my dog. I heard him howl-
ing, and as he was one of my best hunters I
tried hard to save him. The water was only
about knee-deep and I ran up to the alligator.
It was only a small one about four feet long,
and was having trouble in its efforts to drown
the dog in the shallow water. I scared him and
made him let go his hold, but before the poor
crippled dog could reach the shore, he was
caught again, and when I went at the alligator
with a knife, it seized my arm. If it had been a
little stronger it might have eaten me instead
of my dog."
I never in all my travels saw more than one,
though they are said to be abundant in most of
the swamps, and frequently attain a length of
nine or ten feet. It is reported, also, that they
are very savage, oftentimes attacking men in
boats. These independent inhabitants of the
sluggish waters of this low coast cannot be
called the friends of man, though I heard of
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A "Thousand-Mile Walk
one big fellow that was caught young and was
partially civilized and made to work in harness.
Many good people believe that alligators
were created by the Devil, thus accounting for
their all-consuming appetite and ugliness. But
doubtless these creatures are happy and fill the
place assigned them by the great Creator of
us all. Fierce and cruel they appear to us, but
beautiful in the eyes of God. They, also, are
his children, for He hears their cries, cares for
them tenderly, and provides their daily bread.
The antipathies existing in the Lord's great
animal family must be wisely planned, like
balanced repulsion and attraction in the min-
eral kingdom. How narrow we selfish, con-
ceited creatures are in our sympathies! how
blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!
With what dismal irreverence we speak of our
fellow mortals! Though alligators, snakes, etc.,
naturally repel us, they are not mysterious
evils. They dwell happily in these flowery-
wilds, are part of God's family, unfailen, un-
depraved, and cared for with the same species
[98]
Florida Swamps and Forests
of tenderness and love as is bestowed on angels
in heaven or saints on earth.
I think that most of the antipathies which
haunt and terrify us are morbid productions of
ignorance and weakness. I have better thoughts
of those alligators now that I have seen them
at home. Honorable representatives of the
great saurians of an older creation, may you
long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be
blessed now and then with a mouthful of ter-
ror-stricken man by way of dainty!
Found a beautiful lycopodium to-day, and
many grasses in the dry sunlit places called
"barrens/ 5 "hummocks/ 5 "savannas/* etc.
Ferns also are abundant. What a flood of heat
and light is daily poured out on these beauti-
ful openings and intertangled woods! "The
land of the sunny South," we say, but no
part of our diversified country is more shaded
and covered from sunshine. Many a sunny
sheet of plain and prairie break the continuity
of the forests of the North and West, and the
forests themselves are mostly lighted also,
[99]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
pierced with direct ray lances, or [the sun-
light] passing to the earth and the lowly plants
in filtered softness through translucent leaves.
But in the dense Florida forests sunlight can-
not enter. It falls on the evergreen roof and
rebounds in long silvery lances and flashy
spray. In many places there is not light suffi-
cient to feed a single green leaf on these dark
forest floors. All that the eye can reach is just
a maze of tree stems and crooked leafless vine
strings. All the flowers, all the verdure, all the
glory is up in the light.
The streams of Florida are still young, and
in many places are untraceable. I expected to
find these streams a little discolored from the
vegetable matter that I knew they must con-
tain, and I was sure that in so flat a country I
should not find any considerable falls or long
rapids. The streams of upper Georgia are al-
most unapproachable in some places on ac-
count of luxuriant bordering vines, but the
banks are nevertheless high and well defined.
Florida streams are not yet possessed of banks
Florida Swamps and Forests
and braes and definite channels. Their waters
in deep places are black as ink, perfectly
opaque, and glossy on the surface as if var-
nished. It often is difficult to ascertain which
way they are flowing or creeping, so slowly
and so widely do they circulate through the
tree-tangles and swamps of the woods. The
flowers here are strangers to me, but not more
so than the rivers and lakes. Most streams ap-
pear to travel through a country with thoughts
and plans for something beyond. But those of
Florida are at home, do not appear to be travel-
ing at all, and seem to know nothing of the sea.
October 17. Found a small, silvery-leafed
magnolia, a bush ten feet high. Passed through
a good many miles of open level pine barrens,
as bounteously lighted as the "openings" of
Wisconsin. The pines are rather small, are
planted sparsely and pretty evenly on these
sandy flats not long risen from the sea. Scarcely
a specimen of any other tree is to be found as-
sociated with the pine. But there are some
thickets of the little saw palmettos and a mag-
A Thousand-Mile Walk
nificent assemblage of tall grasses, their splen-
did panicles waving grandly in the warm wind,
and making low tuneful changes in the glis-
tening light that is flashed from their bent
stems.
Not a pine, not a palm, in all this garden
excels these stately grass plants in beauty of
wind-waving gestures. Here are panicles that
are one mass of refined purple ; others that have
flowers as yellow as ripe oranges, and stems pol-
ished and shining like steel wire. Some of the
species are grouped in groves and thickets like
trees, while others may be seen waving without
any companions in sight. Some of them have
wide-branching panicles like Kentucky oaks,
others with a few tassels of spikelets drooping
from a tall, leafless stem. But all of them are
beautiful beyond the reach of language. I re-
joice that God has "so clothed the grass of the
field/' How strangely we are blinded to beauty
and color, form and motion, by comparative
size! For example, we measure grasses by our
own stature and by the height and bulkiness
[ 102 ]
Florida Swamps and Forests
of trees. But what is the size of the greatest
man, or the tallest tree that ever overtopped
a grass! Compared with other things in God's
creation the difference is nothing. We all are
only microscopic animalcula.
October 18. Am walking on land that is almost
dry. The dead levels are interrupted here and
there by sandy waves a few feet in height. It
is said that not a point in all Florida is more
than three hundred feet above sea-level a
country where but little grading is required for
roads, but much bridging, and boring of many
tunnels through forests.
Before reaching this open ground, in a lonely,
swampy place in the woods, I met a large, mus-
cular, brawny young negro, who eyed me with
glaring, wistful curiosity. I was very thirsty
at the time, and inquired of the man if there
were any houses or springs near by where I
could get a drink, "Oh, yes/' he replied, still
eagerly searching me with his wild eyes. Then
he inquired where I came from, where I was
going, and what brought me to such a wild
I 103 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
country, where I was liable to be robbed, and
perhaps killed.
"Oh, I am not afraid of any one robbing
me/ 3 1 said, "for I don't carry anything worth
stealing/' "Yes/* said he, "but you can't
travel without money/' I started to walk on,
but he blocked my way. Then I noticed that he
was trembling, and it flashed upon me all at
once that he was thinking of knocking me down
in order to rob me. After glaring at my pockets
as if searching for weapons, he stammered in
a quavering voice, "Do you carry shooting-
irons?" His motives, which I ought to have
noted sooner, now were apparent to me. Though
I had no pistol, I instinctively threw my hand
back to my pistol pocket and, with my eyes
fixed on his, I marched up close to him and
said, "I allow people to find out if I am armed
or not." Then he quailed, stepped aside, and
allowed me to pass, for fear of being shot. This
was evidently a narrow escape.
A few miles farther on I came to a cotton-
field, to patches of sugar cane carefully fenced,
[104]
Florida Swamps and Forests
and some respectable-looking houses with gar-
dens. These little fenced fields look as if they
were intended to be for plants what cages are
for birds. Discovered a large, treelike cactus
in a dooryard; a small species was abundant
on the sand-hillocks. Reached Gainesville late
in the night.
When within three or four miles of the town
I noticed a light off in the pine woods. As I was
very thirsty, I thought I would venture toward
it with the hope of obtaining water. In creep-
ing cautiously and noiselessly through the
grass to discover whether or no it was a camp
of robber negroes, I came suddenly in full view
of the best-lighted and most primitive of all
the domestic establishments I have yet seen
in town or grove. There was, first of all, a big,
glowing log fire, illuminating the overleaning
bushes and trees, bringing out leaf and spray
with more than noonday distinctness, and
making still darker the surrounding wood. In
the center of this globe of light sat two negroes.
I could see their ivory gleaming from the great
[105]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
lips, and their smooth cheeks flashing off light
as if made of glass. Seen anywhere but in the
South, the glossy pair would have been taken
for twin devils, but here it was only a negro
and his wife at their supper.
I ventured forward to the radiant presence
of the black pair, and, after being stared at
with that desperate fixedness which is said to
subdue the lion, I was handed water in a gourd
from somewhere out of the darkness. I was
standing for a moment beside the big fire, look-
ing at the unsurpassable simplicity of the es-
tablishment, and asking questions about the
road to Gainesville, when my attention was
called to a black lump of something lying in
the ashes of the fire. It seemed to be made
of rubber; but ere I had time for much specu-
lation, the woman bent wooingly over the
black object and said with motherly kindness,
"Come, honey, eat yo' hominy."
At the sound of "hominy" the rubber gave
strong manifestations of vitality and proved to
be a burly little negro boy, rising from the earth
[ 106]
Florida Swamps and Forests
naked as to the earth he came. Had he emerged
from the black muck of a marsh, we might eas-
ily have believed that the Lord had manufac-
tured him like Adam direct from the earth.
Surely, thought I, as I started for Gaines-
ville, surely I am now coming to the tropics,
where the inhabitants wear nothing but their
own skins. This fashion is sufficiently simple,
"no troublesome disguises/' as Milton calls
clothing, but it certainly is not quite in har-
mony with Nature. Birds make nests and
nearly all beasts make some kind of bed for their
young; but these negroes allow their younglings
to lie nestless and naked in the dirt.
Gainesville is rather attractive an oasis
in the desert, compared with other villages.
Its gets its life from the few plantations located
about it on dry ground that rises islandlike a
few feet above the swamps. Obtained food and
lodging at a sort of tavern.
October jp. Dry land nearly all day. Encoun-
tered limestone, flint, coral, shells, etc. Passed
several thrifty cotton plantations with com-
t 107 1
"Thousand-Mile Walk
fortable residences, contrasting sharply with
the squalid hovels of my first days in Florida.
Found a single specimen of a handsome little
plant, which at once, in some mysterious way,
brought to mind a young friend in Indiana.
How wonderfully our thoughts and impressions
are stored! There is that in the glance of a
flower which may at times control the greatest
of creation's braggart lords.
The magnolia is much more abundant here.
It forms groves and almost exclusively forests
the edges of ponds and the banks of streams.
The easy, dignified simplicity of this noble tree,
its plain leaf endowed with superb richness of
color and form, its open branches festooned with
graceful vines and tillandsia, its showy crim-
son fruit, and its magnificent fragrant white
flowers make Magnolia grandiflora the most
lovable of Florida trees.
Discovered a great many beautiful poly-
gonums, petalostemons, and yellow leguminous
vines. Passed over fine sunny areas of the long-
leafed and Cuban pines, which were every-
[ 108]
Florida Swamps and Forests
where accompanied by fine grasses and sollda-
goes. Wild orange groves are said to be rather
common here, but I have seen only limes grow-
ing wild in the woods.
Came to a hut about noon, and, being weary
and hungry, asked if I could have dinner. After
serious consultation I was told to wait, that
dinner would soon be ready. I saw only the
man and his wife. If they had children, they
may have been hidden in the weeds on account
of nakedness. Both were suffering from ma-
larial fever, and were very dirty. But they did
not appear to have any realizing sense of dis-
comfort from either the one or the other of
these misfortunes. The dirt which encircled
the countenances of these people did not, like
the common dirt of the North, stick on the
skin in bold union like plaster or paint, but
appeared to stand out a little on contact like a
hazy, misty, half-aerial mud envelope, the most
diseased and incurable dirt that I ever saw,
evidently desperately chronic and hereditary.
It seems impossible that children from such
[ 109]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
parents could ever be clean. Dirt and dis-
ease are dreadful enough when separate, but
combined are inconceivably horrible. The
neat cottage with a fragrant circumference of
thyme and honeysuckle is almost unknown
here. I have seen dirt on garments regularly
stratified, the various strata no doubt indi-
cating different periods of life. Some of them,
perhaps, were annual layers, furnishing, like
those of trees, a means of determining the
age. Man and other civilized animals are the
only creatures that ever become dirty.
Slept in the barrens at the side of a log. Suf-
fered from cold and was drenched with dew.
What a comfort a companion would be in the
dark loneliness of such nights! Did not dare
to make a fire for fear of discovery by robber
negroes, who, I was warned, would kill a man
for a dollar or two. Had a long walk after night-
fall, hoping to discover a house. Became very
thirsty and often was compelled to drink from
slimy pools groped for in the grass, with the
fear of alligators before my eyes.
[ iiol
Florida Swamps and Forests
October 20. Swamp very dense during this
day's journey. Almost one continuous sheet
of water covered with aquatic trees and vines.
No stream that I crossed to-day appeared to
have the least idea where it was going. Saw
an alligator plash into the sedgy brown water
by the roadside from an old log.
Arrived at night at the house of Captain
Simmons, one of the very few scholarly, intel-
ligent men that I have met in Florida. He had
been an officer in the Confederate army in the
war and was, of course, prejudiced against the
North, but polite and kind to me, nevertheless.
Our conversation, as we sat by the light of the
fire, was on the one great question, slavery
and its concomitants. I managed, however, to
switch off to something more congenial occa-
sionallythe birds of the neighborhood, the
animals, the climate, and what spring, summer,
and winter are like in these parts.
About the climate, I could not get much in-
formation, as he had always lived in the South
and, of course, saw nothing extraordinary in
[in 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
weather to which he had always been accus-
tomed. But in speaking of animals, he at once
became enthusiastic and told many stories of
hairbreadth escapes, in the woods about his
house, from bears, hungry alligators, wounded
deer, etc. "And now," said he, forgetting in his
kindness that I was from the hated North,
"you must stay with me a few days. Deer are
abundant. I will lend you a rifle and well go
hunting. I hunt whenever I wish venison, and
I can get it about as easily from the woods
near by as a shepherd can get mutton out of
his flock. And perhaps we will see a bear, for
they are far from scarce here, and there are
some big gray wolves, too."
I expressed a wish to see some large alli-
gators. "Oh, well," said he, "I can take you
where you will see plenty of those fellows, but
they are not much to look at. I once got a good
look at an alligator that was lying at the bottom
of still, transparent water, and I think that his
eyes were the most impressively cold and cruel
of any animal I have seen. Many alligators go
[ 112]
Florida Swamps and Forests
out to sea among the keys. These sea alli-
gators are the largest and most ferocious, and
sometimes attack people by trying to strike
them with their tails when they are out fishing
in boats.
"Another thing I wish you to see," he con-
tinued, "is a palmetto grove on a rich hum-
mock a few miles from here. The grove is
about seven miles in length by three in breadth.
The ground is covered with long grass, unin-
terrupted with bushes or other trees. It is the
finest grove of palmettos I have ever seen and
I have oftentimes thought that it would make
a fine subject for an artist/*
I concluded to stop more to see this won-
derful palmetto hummock than to hunt. Be-
sides, I was weary and the prospect of getting
a little rest was a tempting consideration after
so many restless nights and long, hard walks
by day.
October 21. Having outlived the sangui-
nary hunters* tales of my loquacious host, and
breakfasted sumptuously on fresh venison and
A Thousand-Mile Walk
" caller " fish from the sea, I set out for the
grand palm grove. I had seen these dazzling
sun-children in every day of my walk through
Florida, but they were usually standing soli-
tary, or in groups of three or four; but to-day
I was to see them by the mile. The captain
led me a short distance through his corn field
and showed me a trail which would conduct
me to the palmy hummock. He pointed out
the general direction, which I noted upon my
compass.
"Now," said he, "at the other side of my
farthest field you will come to a jungle of cat-
briers, but will be able to pass them if you
manage to keep the trail. You will find that
the way is not by any means well marked, for
in passing through a broad swamp, the trail
makes a good many abrupt turns to avoid deep
water, fallen trees, or impenetrable thickets.
You will have to wade a good deal, and in pass-
ing the water-covered places you will have to
watch for the point where the trail comes out
on the opposite side,"
Florida Swamps and Forests
I made my way through the briers, which in
strength and ferocity equaled those of Tennes-
see, followed the path through all of its dim
waverings, waded the many opposing pools,
and, emerging suddenly from the leafy dark-
ness of the swamp forest, at last stood free
and unshaded on the border of the sun-drenched
palm garden. It was a level area of grasses and
sedges, smooth as a prairie, well starred with
flowers, and bounded like a clearing by a wall
of vine-laden trees.
The palms had full possession and appeared
to enjoy their sunny home. There was no
jostling, no apparent effort to outgrow each
other. Abundance of sunlight was there for
every crown, and plenty to fall between. I
walked enchanted in their midst. What a
landscape! Only palms as far as the eye could
reach! Smooth pillars rising from the grass,
each capped with a sphere of leaves, shining
in the sun as bright as a star. The silence and
calm were as deep as ever I found in the dark,
solemn pine woods of Canada, and that con-
[ us!
'A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
tentment which is an attribute of the best of
God's plant people was as impressively felt
in this alligator wilderness as in the homes of
the happy, healthy people of the North.
The admirable Linnaeus calls palms "the
princes of the vegetable world." I know that
there is grandeur and nobility in their char-
acter, and that there are palms nobler far than
these. But in rank they appear to me to stand
below both the oak and the pine. The motions
of the palms, their gestures, are not very grace-
ful. They appear to best advantage when per-
fectly motionless in the noontide calm and in-
tensity of light. But they rustle and rock in
the evening wind. I have seen grasses waving
with far more dignity. And when our northern
pines are waving and bowing in sign of wor-
ship with the winter storm-winds, where is the
prince of palms that could have the conscience
to demand their homage!
Members of this palm congregation were of
all sizes with respect to their stems; but their
glorious crowns were all alike. In develop-
[116]
A FLORIDA PALMETTO HUMMOCK, OR "HAMMOCK'
Florida Swamps and Forests
ment there is only the terminal. bud to con-
sider. The young palm of this species emerges
from the ground in full strength, one cluster
of leaves arched every way, making a sphere
about ten or twelve feet in diameter. The out-
side lower leaves gradually become yellow,
wither, and break off, the petiole snapping
squarely across, a few inches from the stem.
New leaves develop with wonderful rapidity.
They stand erect at first, but gradually arch
outward as they expand their blades and
lengthen their petioles.
New leaves arise constantly from the center
of the grand bud, while old ones break away
from the outside. The splendid crowns are
thus kept about the same size, perhaps a little
larger than in youth while they are yet on the
ground. As the development of the central
axis goes on, the crown is gradually raised on a
stem of about six to twelve inches in diameter.
This stem is of equal thickness at the top and
at the bottom and when young is roughened
with the broken petioles. But these petiole-
[117]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
stumps fall off and disappear as they become
old, and the trunk becomes smooth as if turned
in a lathe.
After some hours in this charming forest I
started on the return journey before night,
on account of the difficulties of the swamp and
the brier patch. On leaving the palmettos and
entering the vine-tangled, half-submerged for-
est I sought long and carefully, but in vain, for
the trail, for I had drifted about too incau-
tiously in search of plants. But, recollecting
the direction that I had followed in the morn-
ing, I took a compass bearing and started to
penetrate the swamp in a direct line.
Of course I had a sore weary time, pushing
through the tanglement of falling, standing, and
half-fallen trees and bushes, to say nothing of
knotted vines as remarkable for their efficient
army of interlocking and lancing prickers as for
their length and the number of their blossoms.
But these were not my greatest obstacles, nor
yet the pools and lagoons full of dead leaves
and alligators. It was the army of cat-briers
[ n8 I '
Florida Swamps and Forests
that I most dreaded. I knew that I would have
to find the narrow slit of a lane before dark or
spend the night with mosquitoes and alligators,
without food or fire. The entire distance was
not great, but a traveler in open woods can form
no idea of the crooked and strange difficulties
of pathless locomotion in these thorny, watery
Southern tangles, especially in pitch darkness.
I struggled hard and kept my course, leaving
the general direction only when drawn aside
by a plant of extraordinary promise, that I
wanted for a specimen, or when I had to make
the half-circuit of a pile of trees, or of a deep
lagoon or pond.
In wading I never, attempted to keep my
clothes dry, because the water was too deep,
and the necessary care would consume too much
time. Had the water that I was forced to wade
been transparent it would have lost much of its
difficulty. But as it was, I constantly expected
to plant my feet on an alligator, and therefore
proceeded with strained caution. The opacity
of the water caused uneasiness also on account
A Thousand-Mile Walk
of my inability to determine its depth. In many
places I was compelled to turn back, after
wading forty or fifty yards, and to try again
a score of times before I succeeded in getting
across a single lagoon.
At length, after miles of wading and wallow-
ing, I arrived at the grand cat-brier encamp-
ment which guarded the whole forest in solid
phalanx, unmeasured miles up and down across
my way. Alas ! the trail by which I had crossed
in the morning was not to be found, and night
was near. In vain I scrambled back and forth
in search of an opening. There was not even a
strip of dry ground on which to rest. Every-
where the long briers arched over to the vines
and bushes of the watery swamp, leaving
no standing-ground between them. I began to
think of building some sort of a scaffold in a
tree to rest on through the night, but concluded
to make one more desperate effort to find the
narrow track.
After calm, concentrated recollection of my
course, I made a long exploration toward the
[ 120]
Florida Swamps and Forests
left down the brier line, and after scrambling a
mile or so, perspiring and bleeding, I discov-
ered the blessed trail and escaped to dry land
and the light. Reached the captain at sun-
down. Dined on milk and johnny-cake and
fresh venison. Was congratulated on my sin-
gular good fortune and woodcraft, and soon
after supper was sleeping the deep sleep of
the weary and the safe.
October 22. This morning I was easily pre-
vailed upon by the captain and an ex-judge,
who was rusticating here, to join in a deer hunt.
Had a delightful ramble in the long grass and
flowery barrens. Started one deer but did not
draw a single shot. The captain, the judge,
and myself stood at different stations where the
deer was expected to pass, while a brother of the
captain entered the woods to arouse the game
from cover. The one deer that he started took
a direction different from any which this par-
ticular old buck had ever been known to take
in times past, and in so doing was cordially
cursed as being the "d dest deer that ever
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ran unshot." To me it appeared as " d dest "
work to slaughter God's cattle for sport. "They
were made for us/' say these self-approving
preachers; "for our food, our recreation, or
other uses not yet discovered." As truthfully
we might say on behalf of a bear, when he
deals successfully with an unfortunate hunter,
"Men and other bipeds were made for bears,
and thanks be to God for claws and teeth so
long."
Let a Christian hunter go to the Lord's
woods and kill his well-kept beasts, or wild In-
dians, and it is well; but let an enterprising
specimen of these proper, predestined victims
go to houses and fields and kill the most worth-
less person of the vertical godlike killers,
oh! that is horribly unorthodox, and on the
part of the Indians atrocious murder! Well,
I have precious little sympathy for the selfish
propriety of civilized man, and if a war of races
should occur between the wild beasts and Lord
Man, I would be tempted to sympathize with
the bears.
CHAPTER VI
CEDAR KEYS
OCTOBER 23. To-day I reached the
sea. While I was yet many miles back
in the palmy woods, I caught the
scent of the salt sea breeze which, although I
had so many years lived far from sea breezes,
suddenly conjured up Dunbar, its rocky coast,
winds and waves; and my whole childhood,
that seemed to have utterly vanished in the
New World, was now restored amid the Florida
woods by that one breath from the sea. For-
gotten were the palms and magnolias and the
thousand flowers that enclosed me. I could
see only dulse and tangle, long-winged gulls,
the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, and the
old castle, schools, churches, and long coun-
try rambles in search of birds* nests. I do not
wonder that the weary camels coming from
the scorching African deserts should be able to
scent the Nile.
[ 123 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
How imperishable are all the impressions
that ever vibrate one's life! We cannot forget
anything. Memories may escape the action of
will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred
by the right influence, though that influence be
light as a shadow, they flash into full stature
and life with everything in place. For nineteen
years my vision was bounded by forests, but
to-day, emerging from a multitude of tropical
plants, I beheld the Gulf of Mexico stretching
away unbounded, except by the sky. What
dreams and speculative matter for thought
arose as I stood on the strand, gazing out on
the burnished, treeless plain!
But now at the seaside I was in difficulty, I
had reached a point that I could not ford, and
Cedar Keys had an empty harbor. Would I pro-
ceed down the peninsula to Tampa and Key
West, where I would be sure to find a vessel
for Cuba, or would I wait here, like Crusoe, and
pray for a ship. Full of these thoughts, I
stepped into a little store which had a con-
siderable trade in quinine and alligator and
[ 124 ]
; Cedar Keys
rattlesnake skins, and inquired about shipping,
means of travel, etc.
The proprietor informed me that one of sev-
eral sawmills near the village was running, and
that a schooner chartered to carry a load of
lumber to Galveston, Texas, was expected at
the mills for a load. This mill was situated on
a tongue of land a few miles along the coast
from Cedar Keys, and I determined to see Mr.
Hodgson, the owner, to find out particulars
about the expected schooner, the time she
would take to load, whether I would be likely
to obtain passage on her, etc.
Found Mr. Hodgson at his mill. Stated my
case, and was kindly furnished the desired In-
formation. I determined to wait the two weeks
likely to elapse before she sailed, and go on her
to the flowery plains of Texas, from any of
whose ports, I fancied, I could easily find pas-
sage to the West Indies. I agreed to work for
Mr. Hodgson in the mill until I sailed, as I had
but little money. He invited me to his spacious
house, which occupied a shell hillock and com-
[125]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
manded a fine view of the Gulf and many gems
of palmy islets, called "keys/* that fringe the
shore like huge bouquets not too big, how-
ever, for the spacious waters. Mr. Hodgson's
family welcomed me with that open, uncon-
strained cordiality which is characteristic of the
better class of Southern people.
At the sawmill a new cover had been put on
the main driving pulley, which, made of rough
plank, had to be turned off and smoothed.
He asked me if I was able to do this job and I
told him that I could. Fixing a rest and mak-
ing a tool out of an old file, I directed the engi-
neer to start the engine and run slow. After
turning down the pulley and getting it true,
I put a keen edge on a common carpenter's
plane, quickly finished the job, and was assigned
a bunk in one of the employees' lodging-houses.
The nelt day I felt a strange dullness and
headache while I was botanizing along the coast.
Thinking that a bath in the salt water might
refresh me, I plunged in and swam a little dis-
tance, but this seemed only to make me feel
f 126]
Cedar Keys
worse. I felt anxious for something sour, and
walked back to the village to buy lemons.
Thus and here my long walk was interrupted.
I thought that a few days' sail would land me
among the famous flower-beds of Texas. But
the expected ship came and went while I was
helpless with fever. The very day after reach-
ing the sea I began to be weighed down by in-
exorable leaden numbness, which I resisted and
tried to shake off for three days, by bathing in
the Gulf, by dragging myself about among the
palms, plants, and strange shells of the shore,
and by doing a little mill work. I did not fear
any serious illness, for I never was sick before,
and was unwilling to pay attention to my feel-
ings.
But yet heavier and more remorselessly
pressed the growing fever, rapidly gaining on
my strength. On the third day after my arrival
I could not take any nourishment, but craved
acid. Cedar Keys was only a mile or two dis-
tant, and I managed to walk there to buy
lemons. On returning, about the middle of the
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
afternoon, the fever broke on me like a storm,
and before I had staggered halfway to the mill
I fell down unconscious on the narrow trail
among dwarf palmettos.
When \ awoke from the hot fever sleep, the
stars were shining, and I was at a loss to know
which end of the trail to take, but fortunately,
as it afterwards proved, I guessed right. Sub-
sequently, as I fell again and again after walk-
ing only a hundred yards or so, I was careful
to lie with my head in the direction in which
I thought the mill was. I rose, staggered, and
fell, I know not how many times, in delirious
bewilderment, gasping and throbbing with only
moments of consciousness. Thus passed the
hours till after midnight, when I reached the
mill lodging-house.
The watchman on his rounds found me lying
on a heap of sawdust at the foot of the stairs.
I asked him to assist me up the steps to bed,
but he thought my difficulty was only intoxica-
tion and refused to help me. The mill hands,
especially on Saturday nights, often returned
[128]
Cedar Kej/s
from the village drunk. This was the cause of
the watchman's refusal Feeling that I must
get to bed, I made out to reach it on hands and
knees, tumbled in after a desperate struggle, and
immediately became oblivious to everything.
I awoke at a strange hour on a strange day
to hear Mr. Hodgson ask a watcher beside
me whether I had yet spoken, and when he
replied that I had not, he said: "Well, you must
keep on pouring in quinine. That's all we can
do." How long I lay unconscious I never
found out, but it must have been many days*
Some time or other I was moved on a horse
from the mill quarters to Mr. Hodgson's house,
where I was nursed about three months with
unfailing kindness, and to the skill and care of
Mr. and Mrs. Hodgson I doubtless owe my life.
Through quinine and calomel in sorry abun-
dance with other milder medicines, my ma-
larial fever became typhoid. I had night
sweats, and my legs became like posts of the
temper and consistency of clay on account of
dropsy. So on until January, a weary time.
[129]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
As soon as I was able to get out of bed, I crept
away to the edge of the wood, and sat day after
day beneath a moss-draped live-oak, watching
birds feeding on the shore when the tide was
out. Later, as I gathered some strength, I
sailed in a little skiff from one key to another.
Nearly all the shrubs and trees here are ever-
green, and a few of the smaller plants are in
flower all winter. The principal trees on this
Cedar Key are the jumper, long-leafed pine,
and live-oak. All of the latter, living and dead,
are heavily draped with tillandsia, like those
of Bonaventure. The leaf is oval, about two
inches long, three fourths of an inch wide,
glossy and dark green above, pale beneath.
The trunk is usually much divided, and is ex-
tremely unwedgeable. The specimen on the op-
posite page * is growing in the dooryard of Mr.
Hodgson's house. It is a grand old king, whose
crown gleamed in the bright sky long ere the
Spanish shipbuilders felled a single tree of this
noble species.
1<s Of the original journal.
[ 130 ]
Cedar Keys
The live-oaks of these keys divide empire
with the long-leafed pine and palmetto, but in
many places on the mainland there are large
tracts exclusively occupied by them. Like the
Bonaventure oaks they have the upper side of
their main spreading branches thickly planted
with ferns, grasses, small saw palmettos, etc.
There is also a dwarf oak here, which forms
dense thickets. The oaks of this key are not,
like those of the Wisconsin openings, growing
on grassy slopes, but stand, sunk to the shoul-
ders, in flowering magnolias, heathworts, etc.
During my long sojourn here as a convales-
cent I used to lie on my back for whole days
beneath the ample arms of these great trees,
listening to the winds and the birds. There
is an extensive shallow on the coast, close by,
which the receding tide exposes daily. This is
the feeding-ground of thousands of waders of
all sizes, plumage, and language, and they
make a lively picture and noise when they
gather at the great family board to eat their
daily bread, so bountifully provided for them.
A "Thousand- Mile Walk
Their leisure in time of high tide they spend
in various ways and places. Some go in large
flocks to reedy margins about the islands and
wade and stand about quarrelling or making
sport, occasionally finding a stray mouthful to
eat. Some stand on the mangroves of the soli-
tary shore, now and then plunging into the
water after a fish. Some go long journeys in-
land, up creeks and inlets. A few lonely old
herons of solemn look and wing retire to favor-
ite oaks. It was my delight to watch those
old white sages of immaculate feather as they
stood erect drowsing away the dull hours be-
tween tides, curtained by long skeins of til-
landsia. White-bearded hermits gazing dream-
ily from dark caves could not appear more sol-
emn or more becomingly shrouded from the
rest of their fellow beings.
One of the characteristic plants of these keys
is the Spanish bayonet, a species of yucca,
about eight or ten feet in height, and with a
trunk three or four inches in diameter when
full grown. It belongs to the lily family and
[ 132 ]
Cedar Keys
develops palmlike from terminal buds. The
stout leaves are very rigid, sharp-pointed and
bayonet-like. By one of these leaves a man
might be as seriously stabbed as by an army
bayonet, and woe to the luckless wanderer who
dares to urge his way through these armed
gardens after dark. Vegetable cats of many
species will rob him of his clothes and claw his
flesh, while dwarf palmettos will saw his bones,
and the bayonets will glide to his joints and
marrow without the smallest consideration for
Lord Man.
The climate of these precious^islets is sim-
ply warm summer and warmer summer, corre-
sponding in time with winter and summer in the
North. The weather goes smoothly over the
points of union betwixt the twin summers. Few
of the storms are very loud or variable. The
average temperature during the day, in De-
cember, was about sixty-five degrees in the
shade, but on one day a little damp snow fell.
Cedar Key is two and one half or three miles
in diameter and its highest point is forty-four
[i33l
A Thousand-Mile Walk
feet above mean tide-water. It is surrounded
by scores of other keys, many of them looking
like a clump of palms, arranged like a tasteful
bouquet, and placed in the sea to be kept fresh.
Others have quite a sprinkling of oaks and
junipers, beautifully united with vines. Still
others consist of shells, with a few grasses and
mangroves, circled with a rim of rashes. Those
which have sedgy margins furnish a favorite
retreat for countless waders and divers, espe-
cially for the pelicans that frequently whiten
the shore like a ring of foam.
It is delightful to observe the assembling of
these feathered people from the woods and
reedy isles; herons white as wave-tops, or blue
as the sky, winnowing the warm air on wide
quiet wing; pelicans coming with baskets to
fill, and the multitude of smaller sailors of the
air, swift as swallows, gracefully taking their
places at Nature's family table for their daily
bread, Happy birds!
The mockingbird is graceful in form and a
fine singer, plainly dressed, rather familiar in
g|
Cedar Keys
habits, frequently coining like robins to door-
sills for crumbs a noble fellow, beloved by
everybody. Wild geese are abundant in winter,
associated with brant, some species of which
I have never seen in the North. Also great
flocks of robins, mourning doves, bluebirds,
and the delightful brown thrashers. A large
number of the smaller birds are fine singers.
Crows, too, are here, some of them cawing with
a foreign accent. The common bob-white quail
I observed as far south as middle Georgia.
Lime Key, sketched on the opposite page, is
a fair specimen of the Florida keys on this part
of the coast. A fragment of cactus, Opuntia,
sketched on another page, 1 is from the above-
named key, and is abundant there. The fruit,
an inch in length, is gathered, and made into
a sauce, of which some people are fond. This
species forms thorny, impenetrable thickets.
One joint that I measured was fifteen inches
long.
The mainland of Florida is less salubrious
1 Of tie original journal.
A Thousand-Mile Walk
than the Islands, but no portion of this coast,
nor of the flat border which sweeps from Mary-
land to Texas, is quite free from malaria. All
the inhabitants of this region, whether black or
white, are liable to be prostrated by the ever-
present fever and ague, to say nothing of the
plagues of cholera and yellow fever that come
and go suddenly like storms, prostrating the
population and cutting gaps in it like hurri-
canes in woods.
The world, we are told, was made especially
for man a presumption not supported by all
the facts. A numerous class of men are pain-
fully astonished whenever they find anything,
living or dead, in all God's universe, which they
cannot eat or render in some way what they
call useful to themselves. They have precise
dogmatic insight of the intentions of the Crea-
tor, and it is hardly possible to be guilty of ir-
reverence in speaking of their God any more
than of heathen idols. He is regarded as a civ-
ilized, law-abiding gentleman in favor either
of a republican form of government or of a
I 136]
Cedar Keys
limited monarchy; believes in the literature
and language of England; is a warm supporter
of the English constitution and Sunday schools
and missionary societies; and is as purely a
manufactured article as any puppet of a half-
penny theater.
With such views of the Creator it is, of course,
not surprising that erroneous views should be
entertained of the creation. To such properly
trimmed people, the sheep, for example, is an
easy problem food and clothing "for us,"
eating grass and daisies white by divine appoint-
ment for this predestined purpose, on perceiv-
ing the demand for wool that would be occa-
sioned by the eating of the apple in the Garden
of Eden.
In the same pleasant plan, whales are store-
houses of oil for us, to help out the stars in
lighting our dark ways until the discovery of the
Pennsylvania oil wells. Among plants, hemp,
to say nothing of the cereals, is a case of evident
destination for ships' rigging, wrapping pack-
ages, and hanging the wicked. Cotton is an-
t i37 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
other plain case of clothing. Iron was made
for hammers and ploughs, and lead for bullets;
all intended for us. And so of other small hand-
fuls of insignificant things.
But if we should ask these profound ex-
positors of God's intentions. How about those
man-eating animals lions, tigers, alligators
which smack their lips over raw man? Or
about those myriads of noxious insects that
destroy labor and drink his blood? Doubtless
man was intended for food and drink for all
these? Oh, no! Not at all! These are unresolv-
able difficulties connected with Eden's apple and
the Devil. Why does water drown its lord?
Why do so many minerals poison him? Why
are so many plants and fishes deadly enemies?
Why is the lord of creation subjected to the
same laws of life as his subjects? Oh, all these
things are satanic, or in some way connected
with the first garden.
Now, it never seems to occur to these far-
seeing teachers that Nature's object in making
animals and plants might possibly be first of
[138]
Cedar Keys
all the happiness of each one of them, not the
creation of all for the happiness of one. Why
should man value himself as more than a small
part of the one great unit of creation? And
what creature of all that the Lord has taken
the pains to make is not essential to the com-
pleteness of that unit the cosmos? The uni-
verse would be incomplete without man; but
it would also be incomplete without the small*-
est transmicroscopic creature that dwells be-
yond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.
From the dust of the earth, from the common
elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo
sapiens. From the same material he has made
every other creature, however noxious and in-
significant to us. They are earth-born com-
panions and our fellow mortals. The fearfully
good, the orthodox, of this laborious patch-
work of modern civilization cry "Heresy" on
every one whose sympathies reach a single
hair's breadth beyond the boundary epider-
mis of our own species. Not content with taking
all of earth, they also claim the celestial coun-
t i39 ]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
try as the only ones who possess the kind of
souls for which that imponderable empire was
planned.
This star, our own good earth, made many
a successful journey around the heavens ere
man was made, and whole kingdoms of crea-
tures enjoyed existence and returned to dust
ere man appeared to claim them. After human
beings have also played their part in Creation's
plan, they too may disappear without any
general burning or extraordinary commotion
whatever.
Plants are credited with but dim and uncer-
tain sensation, and minerals with positively
none at all But why may not even a mineral
arrangement of matter be endowed with sensa-
tion of a kind that we in our blind exclusive
perfection can have no manner of communica-
tion with?
But I have wandered from my object. I
stated a page or two back that man claimed
the earth was made for him, and I was going
to say that venomous beasts, thorny plants,
[ 140 ]
Cedar Keys
and deadly diseases of certain parts of the earth
prove that the whole world was not made for
him. When an animal from a tropical climate
is taken to high latitudes, it may perish of cold,
and we say that such an animal was never in-
tended for so severe a climate. But when man
betakes himself to sickly parts of the tropics
and perishes, he cannot see that he was never
intended for such deadly climates. No, he will
rather accuse the first mother of the cause of
the difficulty, though she may never have seen
a fever district; or will consider it a providen-
tial chastisement for some self-invented form
of sin.
Furthermore, all uneatable and uncivilizable
animals, and all plants which carry prickles, are
deplorable evils which, according to closet re-
searches of clergy, require the cleansing chem-
istry of universal planetary combustion. But
more than aught else mankind requires burn-
ing, as being in great part wicked, and if that
transmundane furnace can be so applied and
regulated as to smelt and purify us into con-
[141 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
formity with the rest of the terrestrial creatidn,
then the tophetization of the erratic genus
Homo were a consummation devoutly to be
prayed for. But, glad to leave these ecclesias-
tical fires and blunders, I joyfully return to
the immortal truth and immortal beauty of
Nature.
CHAPTER VII
A SOJOURN IN CUBA
ONE day in January I climbed to the
housetop to get a view of another of
the fine sunsets of this land of flowers.
The landscape was a strip of clear Gulf water, a
strip of sylvan coast, a tranquil company of shell
and coral keys, and a gloriously colored sky
without a threatening cloud. All the winds
were hushed and the calm of the heavens was
as profound as that of the palmy islands and
their encircling waters. As I gazed from one
to another of the palm-crowned keys, en-
closed by the sunset-colored dome, my eyes
chanced to rest upon the fluttering sails of a
Yankee schooner that was threading the tor-
tuous channel in the coral reef leading to the
harbor of Cedar Keys. "There," thought I,
"perhaps I may sail in that pretty white
moth." She proved to be the schooner Island
Belle.
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
One day soon after her arrival I went over
the key to the harbor, for I was now strong
enough to walk. Some of her crew were ashore
after water. I waited until their casks were
filled, and went with them to the vessel in their
boat. Ascertained that she was ready to sail
with her cargo of lumber for Cuba. I engaged
passage on her for twenty-five dollars, and
asked her sharp-visaged captain when he would
sail "Just as soon," said he, "as we get a
north wind. We have had northers enough
when we did not want them, and now we have
this dying breath from the south/'
Hurrying back to the house, I gathered my
plants, took leave of my kind friends, and
went aboard, and soon, as if to calm the cap-
tain's complaints, Boreas came foaming loud
and strong. The little craft was quickly
trimmed and snugged, her inviting sails spread
open, and away she dashed to her ocean home
like an exulting war-horse to the battle. Islet
after islet speedily grew dim and sank beneath
the horizon. Deeper became the blue of the
[ H4 1
A Sojourn in Cuba
water, and in a few hours all of Florida van-
ished.
This excursion on the sea, the first one after
twenty years in the woods, was of course ex-
ceedingly interesting, and I was full of hope,
glad to be once more on my journey to the
South. Boreas increased in power and the Is-
land Belle appeared to glory in her speed and
managed her full-spread wings as gracefully
as a sea-bird. In less than a day our norther
increased in strength to the storm point.
Deeper and wider became the valleys, and yet
higher the hills of the round plain of water.
The flying jib and gaff topsails were lowered
and mainsails close-reefed, and our deck was
white with broken wave-tops.
"You had better go below/* said the captain.
"The Gulf Stream, opposed by this wind, is
raising a heavy sea and you will be sick. No
landsman can stand this long." I replied that
I hoped the storm would be as violent as his
ship could bear, that I enjoyed the scenery of
such a sea so much that it was impossible to be
A Thousand-Mile Walk
sick, that I had long waited In the woods for
just such a storm, and that, now that the pre-
cious thing had come, I would remain on deck
and enjoy it. "Well," said he, " if you can stand
this, you are the first landsman I ever saw that
could."
I remained on deck, holding on by a rope
to keep from being washed overboard, and
watched the behavior of the Belle as she dared
nobly on ; but my attention was mostly directed
among the glorious fields of foam-topped waves.
The wind had a mysterious voice and carried
nothing now of the songs of birds or of the rus-
tling of palms and fragrant vines. Its burden
was gathered from a stormy expanse of crested
waves and briny tangles. I could see no striving
in those magnificent wave-motions, no raging;
all the storm was apparently inspired with na-
ture's beauty and harmony. Every wave was
obedient and harmonious as the smoothest
ripple of a forest lake, and after dark all the
water was phosphorescent like silver fire, a
glorious sight.
[146]
A Sojourn in Cuba
Our luminous storm was all too short for
me. Cuba's rock-waves loomed above the
white waters early in the morning. The sailors,
accustomed to detect the faintest land line,
pointed out well-known guiding harbor-marks
back of the Morro Castle long before I could
see them through the flying spray. We sailed
landward for several hours, the misty shore be-
coming gradually more earthlike. A flock of
white-plumaged ships was departing from the
Havana harbor, or, like us, seeking to enter
it. No sooner had our little schooner flapped
her sails in the lee of the Castle than she
was boarded by a swarm of daintily dressed
officials who were good-naturedly and good-
gesturedly making all sorts of inquiries, while
our busy captain, paying little attention to
them, was giving orders to his crew.
The neck of the harbor is narrow and it is
seldom possible to sail in to appointed anchor-
age without the aid of a steam tug. Our cap-
tain wished to save his money, but after much
profitless tacking was compelled to take the
t H7]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
proffered aid of steam, when we soon reached
our quiet mid-harbor quarters and 'dropped
anchor among ships of every size from every
sea.
I was still four or five hundred yards from
land and could determine no plant in sight ex-
cepting the long arched leaf banners of the
banana and the palm, which made a brave
show on the Morro Hill When we were ap-
proaching the land, I observed that in some
places it was distinctly yellow, and I wondered
while we were yet some miles distant whether
the color belonged to the ground or to sheets of
flowers. From our harbor home I could now
see that the color was plant-gold. On one side
of the harbor was a city of these yellow plants ;
on the other, a city of yellow stucco houses,
narrowly and confusedly congregated.
"Do you want to go ashore?' 5 said the cap-
tain to me. "Yes/' I replied, "but I wish to go
to the plant side'of the harbor/' "Oh, well/'
he said, "come with me now. There are some
fine squares and gardens in the city, full of all
I **> '
L^jJ*^: -
A Sojourn in Cuba
sorts of trees and flowers. Enjoy these to-day,
and some other day we will all go over the
Morro Hill with you and gather shells. All
kinds of shells are over there; but these yellow
slopes that you see are covered only with
weeds."
We jumped into the boat and a couple of
sailors pulled us to the thronged, noisy wharf.
It was Sunday afternoon/ the noisiest day of
a Havana week. Cathedral bells and prayers
in the forenoon, theaters and bull-fight bells
and bellowings in the afternoon! Lowly whis-
pered prayers to the saints and the Virgin, fol-
lowed by shouts of praise or reproach to bulls
and matadors! I made free with fine oranges
and bananas and many other fruits. Pineapple
I had never seen before. Wandered about the
narrow streets, stunned with the babel of
strange sounds and sights; went gazing, also,
among the gorgeously flowered garden squares,
and then waited among some boxed mer-
chandise until our captain, detained by busi-
1 Doubtless January 12, 1868.
[149]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ness, arrived. Was glad to escape to our little
schooner Belle again, weary and heavy laden
with excitement and tempting fruits.
As night came on, a thousand lights starred
the great town. I was now in one of rny happy
dreamlands, the fairest of West India islands.
But how, I wondered, shall I be able to escape
from this great city confusion? How shall I
reach nature in this delectable land? Consult-
ing my map, I longed to climb the central moun-
tain range of the island and trace it through all
its forests and valleys and over its summit
peaks, a distance of seven or eight hundred
miles. But alas ! though out of Florida swamps,
fever was yet weighing me down, and a mile of
city walking was quite exhausting. The weather
too was oppressively warm and sultry.
January 16. During the few days since our
arrival the sun usually has risen unclouded,
pouring down pure gold, rich and dense, for
one or two hours. Then islandlike masses of
white-edged cumuli suddenly appeared, grew
to storm size, and in a few minutes discharged
[150]
A Sojourn in Cuba
rain in tepid plashing bucketfuls, accompanied
with high wind. This was followed by a short
space of calm, half-cloudy sky, delightfully
fragrant with flowers, and again the air would
become hot, thick, and sultry.
This weather, as may readily be perceived,
was severe to one so weak and feverish, and
after a dozen trials of strength over the Morro
Hill and along the coast northward for shells
and flowers, I was sadly compelled to see that
no enthusiasm could enable me to walk to the
interior. So I was obliged to limit my re-
searches to within ten or twelve miles of
Havana. Captain Parsons offered his ship as
my headquarters, and my weakness prevented
me from spending a single night ashore.
The daily programme for nearly all the
month that I spent here was about as follows:
After breakfast a sailor rowed me ashore on the
north side of the harbor. A few minutes' walk
took me past the Morro Castle and out of sight
of the town on a broad cactus common, about
as solitary and untrodden as the tangles of
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
Florida. Here I zigzagged and gathered prizes
among unnumbered plants and shells along the
shore, stopping to press the plant specimens and
to rest in the shade of vine-heaps and bushes
until sundown. The happy hours stole away
until I had to return to the schooner. Either
* "$*
I was seen by the sailors who usually came for
me, or I hired a boat to take me tack. Ar-
rived, I reached up my press and a big handful
of flowers, and with a little help climbed up the
side of my floating home.
Refreshed with supper and rest, I recounted
my adventures in the vine tangles, cactus
thickets, sunflower swamps, and along the
shore among the breakers. My flower speci-
mens, also, and pocketfuls of shells and corals
had to be reviewed. Next followed a cool,
dreamy hour on deck amid the lights of the
town and the various vessels coming and de-
parting.
Many strange sounds were heard: the vo-
ciferous, iinsmotherable bells, the heavy thun-
dering of cannon from the Castle, and the
[ 152 ]
A Sojourn in Cuba
shouts of the sentinels in measured time. Com-
bined they made the most incessant shaxp-
angled mass of noise that I ever was doomed
to hear. Nine or ten o'clock found-me in a small
bunk with the harbor wavelets tinkling outside
close to my ear. The hours of sleep were filled
with dreams of heavy heat, of fruitless efforts
for the disentanglement of vines, or of running
from curling breakers back to the Morro, etc.
Thus my days and nights went on.
Occasionally I was persuaded by the captain
to go ashore in the evening on his side of the
harbor, accompanied perhaps by two or three
other captains. After landing and telling the
sailors when to call for us, we hired a carriage
and drove to the upper end of the city, to a fine
public square adorned with shady walks and
magnificent plants. A brass band in imj^sing
uniform played the characteristic lance-noted
martial airs of the Spanish. ^Evening is the
fashionable hour for aristocratic drives about
the streets and squares, the only time that is
delightfully cool I never saw elsewhere people
I 1*3 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk'
so neatly and becomingly dressed. The proud
best-family Cubans may fairly be called beau-
tiful, are under- rather than over-sized, with
features exquisitely moulded, and set off with
silks and broadcloth in excellent taste. Strange
that their amusements should be so coarse.
Bull-fighting, brain-splitting bell-ringing, and
the most piercing artificial music appeal to
their taste.
The rank and wealth of Havana nobility,
when out driving, seems to be indicated by the
distance of their horses from the body of the
carriage. The higher the rank, the longer the
shafts of the carriage, and the clumsier and
more ponderous are the wheels, which are
not unlike those of a cannon-cart. A few of
these carriages have shafts twenty-five feet in
length, and the brilliant-liveried negro driver
on the lead horse, twenty or thirty feet in
advance of the horse in the shafts, is beyond
calling distance of his master.
Havana abounds in public squares, which in
all my random strolls throughout the big town
A Sojourn in Cuba
I found to be well watered, well cared for, well
planted, and full of exceedingly showy and in-
teresting plants, rare even amid the exhaustless
luxuriance of Cuba, These squares also con-
tained fine marble statuary and were furnished
with seats in the shadiest places. Many of the
walks were paved instead of graveled.
The streets of Havana are crooked, laby-
rinthic, and exceedingly narrow. The sidewalks
are only about a foot wide. A traveler experi-
ences delightful relief when, heated and wearied
by raids through the breadth of the dingy yellow
town, dodging a way through crowds of men
and mules and lumbering carts and carriages,
he at length finds shelter in the spacious, dust-
less, cool, flowery squares; still more when,
emerging from all the din and darkness of these
lanelike streets, he suddenly finds himself out
in the middle of the harbor, inhaling full-
drawn breaths of the sea breezes.
The interior of the better houses which came
under my observation struck me with the pro-
fusion of dumpy, ill-proportioned pillars at the
t iSSl
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
entrances and in the halls, and with the spacious
open-fielded appearance of their enclosed square
house-gardens or courts. Cubans in general ap-
pear to me superfinely polished, polite, and
agreeable in society, but in their treatment of
animals they are cruel. I saw more downright
brutal cruelty to mules and horses during the
few weeks I stayed there than in my whole life
elsewhere. Live chickens and hogs are tied in
bunches by the legs and carried to market thus,
slung on a mule. In their general treatment of
all sorts of animals they seem to have no
thought for them beyond cold-blooded, selfish
interest.
In tropical regions it is easy to build towns,
but it is difficult to subdue their armed and
united plant inhabitants, and to clear fields
and make them blossom with breadstuff. The
plant people of temperate regions, feeble, un-
armed, unallied, disappear under the trampling
feet of flocks, herds, and man, leaving their
homes to enslavable plants which follow the
will of man and furnish him with food. But the
I 156]
A Sojourn in Cuba
armed and united plants of the tropics hold their
rightful kingdom plantfully, nor, since the first
appearance of Lord Man, have they ever suf-
fered defeat.
A large number of Cuba's wild plants circle
closely about Havana. In five minutes* walk
from the wharf I could reach the undisturbed
settlements of Nature. The field of the greater
portion of my rambling researches was a strip
of rocky common, silent and unfrequented by
anybody save an occasional beggar at Nature's
door asking a few roots and seeds. This natu-
ral strip extended w ten miles along the coast
northward, with but few large-sized trees and
bushes, but rich in magnificent vines, cacti-
composites, leguminous plants, grasses, etc.
The wild flowers of this seaside field are a
happy band, closely joined in splendid array.
The trees shine with blossoms and with light
reflected from the leaves. The individuality
of the vines is lost in trackless, interlacing,
twisting, overheaping union.
Our American "South" is rich in flowery
A Thousand-Mile Walk
vines. In some districts almost every tree is
crowned with them, aiding each other in grace
and beauty. Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennes-
see have the grapevine in predominant num-
bers and development. Farther south dwell the
greenbriers and countless leguminous vines.
A vine common among the Florida islets, per-
haps belonging to the dogbane family, over-
runs live-oaks and palmettos, with frequently
more than a hundred stems twisted into one
cable. Yet in no section of the South are there
such complicated and such gorgeously flowered
vine-tangles as flourish in armed safety in the
hot and humid wild gardens of Cuba.
The longest and the shortest vine that I
found in Cuba were both leguminous. I have
said that the harbor side of the Morro Hill is
clothed with tall yellow-flowered composites
through which it is difficult to pass. But there
are smooth, velvety, lawnlike patches in these
Composite? forests. Coming suddenly upon one
of these open places, I stopped to admire its
greenness and smoothness, when I observed a
[ 158]
A Sojourn in Cuba
sprinkling of large papilionaceous blossoms
among the short green grass. The long com-
posites that bordered this little lawn were en-
twined and almost smothered with vines which
bore similar corollas in tropic abundance.
I at once decided that these sprinkled flow-
ers had been blown off the encompassing
tangles and had been kept fresh by dew and by
spray from the sea. But, on stooping to pick
one of them up, I was surprised to find that it
was attached to Mother Earth by a short, pros-
trate, slender hair of a vine stem, bearing, be-
sides the one large blossom, a pair or two of
linear leaves. The flower weighed more than
stem, root, and leaves combined. Thus, in a
land of creeping and twining giants, we find
also this charming, diminutive simplicity
the vine reduced to its lowest terms.
The longest vine, prostrate and untwined like
its little neighbor, covers patches of several hun-
dred square yards with its countless branches
and close growth of upright, trifoliate, smooth
green leaves. The flowers are as plain and un-
[1593
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
showy in size and color as those of the sweet
peas of gardens. The seeds are large and satiny.
The whole plant is noble in its motions and
features, covering the ground with a depth of
unconfused leafage which I have never seen
equaled by any other plant. The extent of leaf-
surface is greater, I think, than that of a large
Kentucky oak. It grows, as far as my obser-
vation has reached, only upon shores, in a soil
composed of broken shells and corals, and ex-
tends exactly to the water-line of the highest-
reaching waves. The same plant is abundant
in Florida.
The cacti form an important part of the plant
population of my ramble ground. They are
various as the vines, consisting now of a dimin-
utive joint or two hid in the weeds, now rising
into bushy trees, wide-topped, with trunks a
foot in diameter, and with glossy, dark-green
joints that reflect light like the silex-varnished
palms. They are planted for fences, together
with the Spanish bayonet and agave.
In one of my first walks I was laboriously
[ 160]
A Sojourn in Cuba
scrambling among some low rocks gathering
ferns and vines, when I was startled by finding
my face close to a great snake, whose body was
disposed carelessly like a castaway rope among
the weeds and stones. After escaping and com-
ing to my senses, I discovered that the snake
was a member of the vegetable kingdom, ca-
pable of no dangerous amount of locomotion,
but possessed of many a fang, and prostrate
as though under the curse of Eden, "Upon thy
belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat."
One day, after luxuriating in the riches of
my Morro pasture, and pressing many new
specimens, I went down to the bank of brilliant
wave-washed shells to rest awhile in their
beauty, and to watch the breakers that a power-
ful norther was heaving in splendid rank along
the coral boundary. I gathered pocketfuls of
shells, mostly small but fine in color and form,
and bits of rosy coral. Then I amused myself
by noting the varying colors of the waves and
the different forms of their curved and blossom-
ing crests. While thus alone and free it was
[ 161 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
Interesting to learn the richly varied songs,
or what we mortals call the roar, of expiring
breakers. I compared their variation with the
different distances to which the broken wave-
water reached landward in its farthest-flung
foam-wreaths, and endeavored to form some
idea of the one great song sounding forever all
around the white-blooming shores of the world.
Rising from my shell seat, I watched a wave
leaping from the deep and coming far up the
beveled strand to bloom and die in a mass of
white. Then I followed the spent waters in
their return to the blue deep, wading in their
spangled, decaying fragments until chased back
up the bank by the coming of another wave.
While thus playing half studiously, I discovered
In the rough, beaten deathbed of the wave a
little plant with closed flowers. It was crouch-
ing in a hollow of the brown wave-washed rock,
and one by one the chanting, dying waves
rolled over it. The tips of its delicate pink
petals peered above the clasping green calyx.
"Surely," said I, as I stooped over it for a mo-
[ 162]
A Sojourn in Cuba
merit, before the oncoming of another wave,
" surely you cannot be living here! You must
have been blown from some warm bank, and
rolled into this little hollow crack like a dead
shell." But, running back after every retiring
wave, I found that its roots were wedged into
a shallow wrinkle of the coral rock, and that
this wave-beaten chink was indeed its dwelling-
place.
I had oftentimes admired the adaptation dis-
played in the structure of the stately dulse and
other seaweeds, but never thought to find a
highbred flowering plant dwelling amid waves
in the stormy, roaring domain of the sea. This
little plant has smooth globular leaves, fleshy
and translucent like beads, but green like those
of other land plants. The flower is about five
eighths of an inch in diameter, rose-purple,
opening in calm weather, when deserted by the
waves. In general appearance it is like a small
portulaca. The strand, as far as I walked it,
was luxuriantly fringed with woody Composite,
two or three feet in height, their tops purple
[ 163 I
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
and golden with a profusion of flowers. Among
these I discovered a small bush whose yellow
flowers were ideal; all the parts were present
regularly alternate and in fives, and all sepa-
rate, a plain harmony,
When a page is written over but once it may
be easily read; but if it be written over and
over with characters of every size and style, it
soon becomes unreadable, although not a single
confused meaningless mark or thought may oc-
cur among all the written characters to mar
its perfection. Our limited powers are similarly
perplexed and overtaxed in reading the inex-
haustible pages of nature, for they are written
over and over uncountable times, written in
characters of every size and color, sentences
composed of sentences, every part of a char-
acter a sentence. There is not a fragment in
all nature, for every relative fragment of one
thing is a full harmonious unit in itself. AH
together form the one grand palimpsest of
the world.
One of the most common plants of my pas-
[ 164]
A Sojourn in Cuba
ture was the agave. It is sometimes used for
fencing. One day, in looking back from the top
of the Morro Hill, as I was returning to the
Island Belle, I chanced to observe two poplar-
like trees about twenty-five feet in height.
They were growing in a dense patch of cactus
and vine-knotted sunflowers. I was anxious to
see anything so homelike as a poplar, and so
made haste towards the two strange trees, mak-
ing a way through the cactus and sunflower
jungle that protected them. I was surprised to
find that what I took to be poplars were agaves
in flower, the first I had seen. They were almost
out of flower, and fast becoming wilted at the
approach of death. Bulbs were scattered about,
and a good many still remained on the branches,
which gave it a fruited appearance.
The stem of the agave seems enormous in size
when one considers that it is the growth of a
few weeks. This plant is said to make a mighty
effort to flower and mature its seeds and then to
die of exhaustion. Now there is not, so far as
I have seen, a mighty effort or the need of one,
[ 165]
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
in wild Nature. She accomplishes her ends with-
out unquiet effort, and perhaps there is nothing
more mighty in the development of the flower-
stem of the agave than in the development of a
grass panicle.
Havana has a fine botanical garden. I spent
pleasant hours in its magnificent flowery ar-
bors and around its shady fountains. There
is a palm avenue which is considered wonder-
fully stately and beautiful, fifty palms in two
straight lines, each rigidly perpendicular. The
smooth round shafts, slightly thicker in the
middle, appear to be productions of the lathe,
rather than vegetable stems. The fifty arched
crowns, inimitably balanced, blaze in the sun-
shine like heaps of stars that have fallen from
the skies. The stems were about sixty or
seventy feet in height, the crowns about fifteen
feet in diameter.
Along a stream-bank were tall, waving bam-
boos, leafy as willows, and infinitely graceful in
wind gestures. There was one species of palm,
with immense bipinnate leaves and leaflets
[ 166}
A Sojourn in Cuba
fringed, jagged, and one-sided, like those of
Adiantum. Hundreds of the most gorgeous-
flowered plants, some of them large trees, be-
longing to the Leguminoscs. Compared with
what I have before seen in artificial flower-gar-
dens, this is past comparison the grandest. It is
a perfect metropolis of the brightest and most
exuberant of garden plants, watered by hand-
some fountains, while graveled and finely bor-
dered walks slant and curve in all directions,
and in all kinds of fanciful playground styles,
more like the fairy gardens of the Arabian
Nights than any ordinary man-made pleasure-
ground.
In Havana I saw the strongest and the ugliest
negroes that I have met in my whole walk. The
stevedores of the Havana wharf are muscled
in true giant style, enabling them to tumble
and toss ponderous casks and boxes of sugar
weighing hundreds of pounds as if they were
empty, I heard our own brawny sailors, after
watching them at work a few minutes, ex-
press unbounded admiration of their strength,
[ 167]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
and wish that their hard outbulging muscles
were for sale. The countenances of some of
the negro orange-selling dames express a de-
vout good-natured ugliness that I never could
have conceived any arrangement of flesh and
blood to be capable of. Besides oranges they
sold pineapples, bananas, and lottery tickets.
CHAPTER VIII
BY A CROOKED ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA
AFTER passing a month in this mag-
nificent island, and finding that my
health was not improving, I made up
my mind to push on to South America while
my stock of strength, such as it was, lasted. But
fortunately I could not find passage for any
South American port. I had long wished to
visit the Orinoco basin and in particular the
basin of the Amazon. My plan was to get ashore
anywhere on the north end of the continent,
push on southward through the wilderness
around the headwaters of the Orinoco, until I
reached a tributary of the Amazon, and float
down on a raft or skiff the whole length of the
great river to its mouth. It seems strange that
such a trip should ever have entered the dreams
of any person, however enthusiastic and full of
youthful daring, particularly under the disad-
vantages of poor health, of funds less than a
[ 169 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
hundred dollars, and of the insalubrity of the
Amazon Valley.
Fortunately, as I said, after visiting all the
shipping agencies, I could not find a vessel of
any sort bound for South America, and so made
up a plan to go North, to the longed-for cold
weather of New York, and thence to the forests
and mountains of California. There, I thought,
I shall find health and new plants and moun-
tains, and after a year spent in that interesting
country I can carry out my Amazon plans.
It seemed hard to leave Cuba thus unseen
and unwalked, but illness forbade my stay and
I had to comfort myself with the hope of return-
ing to its waiting treasures in full health. In
the mean time I prepared for immediate de-
parture. When I was resting in one of the Ha-
vana gardens, I noticed in a New York paper
an advertisement of cheap fares to California.
I consulted Captain Parsons concerning a pass-
age to New York, where I could find a ship for
California. At this time none of the California
ships touched at Cuba.
[ 170 ]
70 California
"Well," said he, pointing toward the middle
of the harbor, "there is a trim little schooner
loaded with oranges for New York, and these
little fruiters are fast sailers. You had better
see her captain about a passage, for she must
be about ready to sail/' So I jumped into the
dinghy and a sailor rowed me over to the fruiter.
Going aboard, I inquired for the captain, who
soon appeared on deck and readily agreed to
carry me to New York for twenty-five dollars.
Inquiring when he would sail, "To-morrow
morning at daylight/* he replied, "if this
norther slacks a little; but my papers are made
out, and you will have to see the American
consul to get permission to leave on my ship."
I immediately went to the city, but was un-
able to find the consul, whereupon I deter-
mined to sail for New York without any formal
leave. Early next morning, after leaving the
Island Belle and bidding Captain Parsons
good-bye, I was rowed to the fruiter and got
aboard. Notwithstanding the north wind was
still as boisterous as ever, our Dutch captain
A Thousand-Mile Walk
was resolved to face it, confident in the strength
of his all-oak little schooner.
Vessels leaving the harbor are stopped at the
Morro Castle to have their clearance papers
examined; in particular, to see that no runa-
way slaves were being carried away. The offi-
cials came alongside our little ship, but did not
come aboard. They were satisfied by a glance
at the consul's clearance paper, and with the
declaration of the captain, when asked whether
he had any negroes, that he had "not a d d
one/' "All right, then/' shouted the officials,
"farewell! A pleasant voyage to you!" As my
name was not on the ship's papers, I stayed
below, out of sight, until I felt the heaving of
the waves and knew that we were fairly out on
the open sea. The Castle towers, the hills, the
palms, and the wave-white strand, all faded in
the distance, and our mimic sea-bird was at
home in the open stormy gulf, curtsying to
every wave and facing bravely to the wind.
Two thousand years ago our Saviour told
Nicodemus that he did not know where the
[ 17*1
o California
winds came from, nor where they were going.
And now in this Golden Age, though we Gen-
tiles know the birthplace of many a wind and
also "whither it is going/* yet we know about
as little of winds in general as those Palestinian
Jews, and our ignorance, despite the powers of
science, can never be much less profound than
it is at present.
The substance of the winds is too thin for
human eyes, their written language is too diffi-
cult for human minds, and their spoken lan-
guage mostly too faint for the ears. A mechan-
ism is said to have been invented whereby the
human organs of speech are made to write
their own utterances. But without any extra
mechanical contrivance, every speaker also
writes as he speaks. All things in the creation
of God register their own acts. The poet was
mistaken when he said, " From the wing no scar
the sky sustains/' His eyes were simply too
dim to see the scar. In sailing past Cuba I
could see a fringe of foam along the coast, but
could hear no sound of waves, simply because
A ^Thousand-Mile Walk
my ears could not hear wave-dashing at that
distance. Yet every bit of spray was sounding
in my ears.
The subject brings to mind a few recollec-
tions of the winds I heard in my late journey*
In my walk from Indiana to the Gulf, earth
and sky, plants and people, and all things
changeable were constantly changing. Even
in Kentucky nature and art have many a
characteristic shibboleth. The people differ in
language and in customs. Their architecture
is generically different from that of their im-
mediate neighbors on the north, not only in
planters' mansions, but in barns and granaries
and the cabins of the poor. But thousands of
familiar flower faces looked from every hill
and valley. I noted no difference in the sky,
and the winds spoke the same things. I did
not feel myself in a strange land.
In Tennessee my eyes rested upon the first
mountain scenery I ever beheld. I was rising
higher than ever before; strange trees were be-
ginning to appear; alpine flowers and shrubs
To California
were meeting me at every step. But these
Cumberland Mountains were timbered with
oak, and were not unlike Wisconsin hills piled
upon each other, and the strange plants were
like those that were not strange. The sky was
changed only a little, and the winds not by a
single detectible note. Therefore, neither was
Tennessee a strange land.
But soon came changes thick and fast. After
passing the mountainous corner of North Car-
olina and a little way into Georgia, I beheld
from one of the last ridge-summits of the Alle-
ghanies that vast, smooth, sandy slope that
reaches from the mountains to the sea. It is
wooded with dark, branchy pines which were
all strangers to me. Here the grasses, which
are an earth-covering at the North, grow wide
apart in tall clumps and tufts like saplings.
My known flower companions were leaving me
now, not one by one as in Kentucky and Ten-
nessee, but in whole tribes and genera, and com-
panies of shining strangers came trooping upon
me in countless ranks. The sky, too, was
[ i7S 1
A Thousand-Mile W^alk
changed, and I could detect strange sounds In
the winds. Now I began to feel myself "a
stranger in a strange land. 55
But in Florida came the greatest change of
all, for here grows the palmetto, and here blow
the winds so strangely toned by them. These
palms and these winds severed the last strands
of the cord that united me with home. Now I
was a stranger, indeed. I was delighted, aston-
ished, confounded, and gazed in wonderment
blank and overwhelming as if I had fallen upon
another star. But in all of this long, complex
series of changes, one of the greatest, and the
last of all, was the change I found in the tone
and language of the winds. They no longer
came with the old home music gathered from
open prairies and waving fields of oak, but
they passed over many a strange string. The
leaves of magnolia, smooth like polished steel,
the immense inverted forests of tillandsia
banks, and the princely crowns of palms"
upon these the winds made strange music,
and at the coming-on of night had overwhelm-
[ 176]
o California
ing power to present the distance from friends
and home, and the completeness of my isola-
tion from all things familiar.
Elsewhere I have already noted that when
I was a day's journey from the Gulf, a wind
blew upon me from the sea the first sea
breeze that had touched me in twenty years. I
was plodding along with my satchel and plants,
leaning wearily forward, a little sore from ap-
proaching fever, when suddenly I felt the salt
air, and before I had time to think, a whole
flood of long-dormant associations rolled in
upon me. The Firth of Forth, the Bass Rock,
Dunbar Castle, and the winds and rocks and
hills came upon the wings of that wind, and
stood in as clear and sudden light as a land-
scape flashed upon the view by a blaze of light-
ning in a dark night.
I like to cling to a small chip of a ship like
ours when the sea is rough, and long, comet-
tailed streamers are blowing from the curled
top of every wave. A big vessel responds awk-
wardly with mixed gestures to several waves
[i77]
A 'Thousand- Mile Walk
at once, lumbering along like a loose floating
island. But our little schooner, buoyant as a
gull, glides up one side and down the other of
each wave hill in delightful rhythm* As we
advanced the scenery increased in grandeur
and beauty. The waves heaved higher and
grew wider, with corresponding motion. It
was delightful to ride over this unsullied coun-
try of ever-changing water, and when looking
upward from the shallow vales, or abroad over
the round expanse from the tops of the wave
hills, I almost forgot at times that the glassy,
treeless country was forbidden to walkers. How
delightful it would be to ramble over it on foot,
enjoying the transparent crystal ground, and
the music of its rising and falling hillocks, un-
marred by the ropes and spars of a ship ; to
study the plants of these waving plains and
their stream-currents ; to sleep in wild weather
in a bed of phosphorescent wave-foam, or briny
scented seaweeds; to see the fishes by night in
pathways of phosphorescent light ; to walk the
glassy plain in calm, with birds and flocks of
[ 178]
California
glittering flying fishes here and there, or by
night with every star pictured in its bosom!
But even of the land only a small portion is
free to man, and if he, among other journeys
on forbidden paths, ventures among the ice
lands and hot lands, or up in the air in balloon
bubbles, or on the ocean in ships, or down into
it a little way in smothering diving-bells in
all such small adventures man is admonished
and often punished in ways which clearly show
him that he is in places for which, to use an
approved phrase, he was never designed. How-
ever, in view of the rapid advancement of our
time, no one can tell how far our star may
finally be subdued to man's will. At all events
I enjoyed this drifting locomotion to some
extent.
The tar-scented community of a ship is a
study in itself a despotism on the small
territory of a few drifting planks pinned to-
gether. But as our crew consisted only of four
sailors, a mate, and the captain, there were no
signs of despotism. We all dined at one table,
[ 179]
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
enjoying our fine store of salt mackerel and
plum duff, with endless abundance of oranges.
Not only was the hold of our little ship filled
with loose, unboxed oranges, but the deck also
was filled up level with the rails, and we had
to walk over the top of the golden fruit on
boards.
Flocks of flying fishes often flew across the
ship, one or two occasionally falling among
the oranges. These the sailors were glad to
capture to sell in New York as curiosities, or
to give away to friends. But the captain had a
large Newfoundland dog who got the largest
share of these unfortunate fishes. He used to
jump from a dozing sleep as soon as he heard
the fluttering of their wings, then pounce and
feast leisurely on them before the sailors could
reach the spot where they fell
In passing through the Straits of Florida the
winds died away and the sea was smoothed to
unruffled calm. The water here is very trans-
parent and of delightfully pure pale-blue color,
as different from ordinary dull-colored water
[ 180 1
To California
as town smoke from mountain air. I could see
the bottom as distinctly as one sees the ground
when riding over it. It seemed strange that
our ship should be upborne in such an ethereal
liquid as this, and that we did not run aground
where the bottom seemed so near.
One morning, while among the Bahama dots
of islands, we had calm sky and calm sea. The
sun had risen in cloudless glory, when I ob-
served a large flock of flying fish, a short dis-
tance from us, closely pursued by a dolphin.
These fish-swallows rose in pretty good order,
skimmed swiftly ahead for fifty or a hundred
yards in a low arc, then dipped below the sur-
face. Dripping and sparkling, they rose again
in a few seconds and glanced back into the lucid
brine with wonderful speed, but without appar-
ent terror.
At length the dolphin, gaining on the flock,
dashed into the midst of them, and now all or-
der was at an end. They rose in scattering dis-
order, in all directions, like a flock of birds
charged by a hawk. The pursuing dolphin also
[ 181 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
leaped into the air, showing his splendid colors
and wonderful speed* After the first scattering
flight all steady pursuit was useless, and the
dolphin had but to pounce &bout in the broken
mob of its weary prey until satisfied with his
meal.
We are apt to look out on the great ocean and
regard it as but a half-blank part of our globe
a sort of desert, "a waste of water." But,
land animals though we be, land is about as
unknown to us as the sea, for the turbid
glances we gain of the ocean in general through
commercial eyes are comparatively worthless.
Now that science is making comprehensive
surveys of the life of the sea, and the forms of
its basins, and similar surveys are being made
into the land deserts, hot and cold, we may at
length discover that the sea is as full of life as
the land. None can tell how far man's knowl-
edge may yet reach.
After passing the Straits and sailing up the
coast, when about opposite the south end of the
Carolina coast, we had stiff head winds all the
[ 182]
To California
way to New York and our able little vessel was
drenched all day long. Of course our load of
oranges suffered, and since they were boarded
over level with the rail, we had difficulty in
walking and had many chances of being washed
overboard. The flying fishes off Cape Hatteras
appeared to take pleasure in shooting across
from wave-top to wave-top. They avoided the
ship during the day, but frequently fell among
the oranges at night. The sailors caught many,
but our big Newfoundland dog jumped for them
faster than the sailors, and so almost monop-
olized the game.
When dark night fell on the stormy sea, the '
breaking waves of phosphorescent light were a
glorious sight. On such nights I stood on the
bowsprit holding on by a rope for hours in order
to enjoy this phenomenon. How wonderful
this light is! Developed in the sea by myriads
of organized beings, it gloriously illuminates the
pathways of the fishes, and every breaking
wave, and in some places glows over large areas
like sheet lightning. We sailed through large
[ 183 1
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
fields of seaweed, of which I procured speci-
mens. I thoroughly enjoyed life in this novel
little tar-and-oakum home, and, as the end of
our voyage drew nigh, I was sorry at the
thought of leaving it.
We were now, on the twelfth day, approach-
ing New York, the big ship metropolis. We
were in sight of the coast all day. The leafless
trees and the snow appeared wonderfully
strange. It was now about the end of February
and snow covered the ground nearly to the
water's edge. Arriving, as we did, in this rough
winter weather from the intense heat and gen-
eral tropical luxuriance of Cuba, the leafless,
snow-white woods of New York struck us with
all the novelty and impressiveness of a new
world. A frosty blast was sweeping seaward
from Sandy Hook. The sailors explored their
wardrobes for their long-cast-off woolens, and
pulled the ropes and managed the sails while
muffled in clothing to the rotundity of Eskimos.
For myself, long burdened with fever, the frosty
wind, as it sifted through my loosened bones,
[ 184]
To California
was more delicious and grateful than ever was
a spring-scented breeze,
We now had plenty of company; fleets of
vessels were on the wing from all countries.
Our taut little racer outwinded without ex-
ception all who, like her, were going to the port.
Toward evening we were grinding and wedg-
ing our way through the ice-field of the river
delta, which we passed with difficulty. Arrived
in port at nine o'clock. The ship was deposited,
like a cart at market, in a proper slip, and nezt
morning we and our load of oranges, one
third rotten, were landed. Thus all the pur-
poses of our voyage were accomplished.
On our arrival the captain, knowing some-
thing of the lightness of my purse, told me
that I could continue to occupy my bed on
the ship until I sailed for California, getting
my meals at a near-by restaurant. "This is
the way we are all doing," he said. Consult-
ing the newspapers, I found that the first ship,
the Nebraska, sailed for Aspinwall in about
ten days, and that the steerage passage to
[185]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
San Francisco byway of the Isthmus was only
forty dollars.
In the mean time I wandered about the city
without knowing a single person in it. My walks
extended but little beyond sight of my little
schooner home. I saw the name Central Park
on some of the street-cars and thought I would
like to visit it, but, fearing that I might not be
able to find my way back, I dared not make the
adventure. I felt completely lost in the vast
throngs of people, the noise of the streets, and
the immense size of the buildings. Often I
thought I would like to explore the city if, like
a lot of wild hills and valleys, it was clear of
inhabitants.
The day before the sailing of the Panama
ship I bought a pocket map of California and
allowed myself to be persuaded to buy a dozen
large maps, mounted on rollers, with a map of
the world on one side and the United States on
the other. In vain I said I had no use for them.
"But surely you want to make money in Cali-
fornia, don't you ? Everything out there is very
[ 186]
To California
dear. Well sell you a dozen of these fine maps
for two dollars each and you can easily sell them
In California for ten dollars apiece." I foolishly
allowed myself to be persuaded. The maps
made a very large, awkward bundle, but for-
tunately it was the only baggage I had except
my little plant press and a small bag. I laid
them in my berth in the steerage, for they were
too large to be stolen and concealed.
There was a savage contrast between life in
the steerage and my fine home on the little ship
fruiter. Never before had I seen such a barbar-
ous mob, especially at meals. Arrived at Aspin-
wall-Colon, we had half a day to ramble about
before starting across the Isthmus. Never shall
I forget the glorious flora, especially for the
first fifteen or twenty miles along the Chagres
River. The riotous exuberance of great forest
trees, glowing in purple, red, and yellow flow-
ers, far surpassed anything I had ever seen,
especially of flowering trees, either in Florida
or Cuba. I gazed from the car-platform en-
chanted. I fairly cried for joy and hoped that
[ 187]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
sometime I should be able to return and en*
joy and study this most glorious of forests to
my heart's content. We reached San Francisco
about the first of April, and I remained there
only one day, before starting for Yosemite
Valley. 1
I followed the Diablo foothills along the San
Jose Valley to Gilroy, thence over the Diablo
Mountains to the valley of the San Joaquin
by the Pacheco 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, and thence down the
Merced to this place. 2 The goodness of the
weather as I journeyed toward Pacheco was be-
yond all praise and description fragrant, mel-
low, and bright. The sky was perfectly deli-
cious, sweet enough for the breath of angels;
every draught of it gave a separate and distinct
1 At this point the journal ends. The remainder of this
chapter is taken from a letter written to Mrs, Ezra S. Can
from the neighborhood of Twenty Hill Hollow in July, 1868.
2 Near Snelling, Merced County, California.
[ 188]
70 California
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 inim-
itable beauty. They were robed with the green-
est grass and richest light I ever beheld, and
were colored and shaded with myriads of flow-
ers of every hue, chiefly of purple and golden
yellow. Hundreds of crystal rills joined song
with the larks, filling all the valley with music
like a sea, making it Eden from end to end.
The scenery, too, and all of nature in the
Pass is fairly enchanting. Strange and beauti-
ful mountain ferns are there, low in the dark
canons and high upon the rocky sunlit peaks;
banks of blooming shrubs, and sprinklings and
gatherings of garment flowers, precious and
pure as ever enjoyed the sweets of a mountain
home. And oh! what streams are there! beam-
ing, glancing, each with music of its own, sing-
ing as they go, in shadow and light, onward
[ 189]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
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 maj-
esty.
When at last, stricken and faint like a crushed
insect, you hope to escape from all the terrible
grandeur of these mountain powers, other foun-
tains, 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 Nevada. 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 in
the middle by the tree fringing of the river and
of smaller cross-streams here and there, from
the mountains.
Florida is indeed a "land of flowers," but
[ 190 ]
To California
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
on our prairies, but grasses are sprinkled among
the flowers; not as in Cuba, flowers piled upon
flowers, heaped and gathered into deep, glow-
ing masses, but side by side, flower to flower,
petal to petal, touching but not entwined,
branches weaving past and past each other,
yet 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 perma-
nent; 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 marks the bounds of the various
tribes and family encampments.
CHAPTER IX
TWENTY HILL HOLLOW l
WERE we to cross-cut the Sierra
Nevada into blocks a dozen miles
or so in thickness, each section
would contain a Yosemite Valley and a river,
together with a bright array of lakes and mead-
ows, rocks and forests. The grandeur and in-
exhaustible beauty of each block would be so
vast and over-satisfying that to choose among
them would be like selecting slices of bread
cut from the same loaf. One bread-slice might
have burnt spots, answering to craters; another
would be more browned ; another, more crusted
or raggedly cut ; but all essentially the same. In
no greater degree would the Sierra slices differ
in general character. Nevertheless, we all would
choose the Merced slice, because, being easier
of access, it has been nibbled and tasted, and
1 This is the hub of the region where Mr. Muir spent the
greater part of the summer of 1868 and the spring of 1869.
1 192]
Twenty Hill Hollow
pronounced very good; and because of the con-
centrated form of its Yosemite, caused by cer-
tain conditions of baking, yeasting, and glacier-
frosting of this portion of the great Sierra loaf*
In like manner, we readily perceive that the
great central plain is one batch of bread
one golden cake and we are loath to leave
these magnificent loaves for crumbs, however
good.
After our smoky sky has been washed in the
rains of winter, the whole complex row of
Sierras appears from the plain as a simple
wall, slightly beveled, and colored in horizontal
bands laid one above another, as if entirely
composed of partially straightened rainbows.
So, also, the plain seen from the mountains has
the same simplicity of smooth surface, colored
purple and yellow, like a patchwork of irised
clouds. But when we descend to this smooth-
furred sheet, we discover complexity in its phys-
ical conditions equal to that of the mountains,
though less strongly marked. In particular,
that portion of the plain lying between the
[ 193 1
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
Merced and the Tuolumrxe, within ten miles
of the slaty foothills, is most elaborately carved
into valleys, hollows, and smooth undulations,
and among them is laid the Merced Yosemite
of the plain Twenty Hill Hollow.
This delightful Hollow is less than a mile in
length, and of just sufficient width to form
a well-proportioned oval It is situated about
midway between the two rivers, and five miles
from the Sierra foothills. Its banks are formed
of twenty hemispherical hills; hence its name.
They surround and enclose it on all sides,
leaving only one narrow opening toward the
southwest for the escape of its waters. The
bottom of the Hollow is about two hundred
feet below the level of the surrounding plain,
and the tops of its hills are slightly below the
general level Here is no towering dome, no
Tissiack, to mark its place ; and one may ramble
close upon its rim before he is made aware of
its existence. Its twenty hills are as wonder-
fully regular in size and position as in form.
They are like big marbles half buried in the
[194]
V^W^M'i' ; $&*$
mrtf^'-t^Nil ''feM^
\fcl: ! ^ri.Kl^fe^
1 1
o t-
a a
H ^
a ^=
twenty Hill Hollow
ground, each poised and settled daintily into
its place at a regular distance from its fellows,
making a charming fairy-land of hills, with
small, grassy valleys between, each valley hav-
ing a tiny stream of its own, which leaps and
sparkles out into the open hollow, uniting to
form Hollow Creek.
Like all others in the immediate neighbor-
hood, these twenty hills are composed of strati-
fied lavas mixed with mountain drift in vary-
ing proportions. Some strata are almost wholly
made up of volcanic matter lava and cinders
thoroughly ground and mixed by the waters
that deposited them; others are largely com-
posed of slate and quartz boulders of all de-
grees of coarseness, forming conglomerates. A
few clear, open sections occur, exposing an
elaborate history of seas, and glaciers, and vol-
canic floods chapters of cinders and ashes
that picture dark days when these bright
snowy mountains were clouded in smoke and
rivered and laked with living fire. A fearful
age, say mortals, when these Sierras flowed
[1951
A "Thousand-Mile Walk
lava to the sea. What horizons of flame! What
atmospheres of ashes and smoke!
The conglomerates and lavas of this region
are readily denuded by water. In the time
when their parent sea was removed to form
this golden plain, their regular surface, in great
part covered with shallow lakes, showed little
variation from motionless level until torrents
of rain and floods from the mountains gradu-
ally sculptured the simple page to the present
diversity of bank and brae, creating, in the sec-
tion between the Merced and the Tuolumne,
Twenty Hill Hollow, Lily Hollow, and the
lovely valleys of Cascade and Castle Creeks,
with many others nameless and unknown, seen
only by hunters and shepherds, sunk in the
wide bosom of the plain, like undiscovered gold.
Twenty Hill Hollow is a fine illustration of a
valley created by erosion of water. Here are
no Washington columns, no angular El Capi-
tans. The hollow canons, cut in soft lavas, are
not so deep as to require a single earthquake at
the hands of science, much less a baker's dozen
[ 196]
twenty Hill Hollow
of those convenient tools demanded for the
making of mountain Yosemites, and our mod-
erate arithmetical standards are not outraged
by a single magnitude of this simple, compre-
hensible hollow.
The present rate of denudation of this portion
of the plain seems to be about one tenth of an
inch per year. This approximation is based
upon observations made upon stream-banks
and perennial plants. Rains and winds remove
mountains without disturbing their plant or
animal inhabitants. Hovering petrels, the fishes
and floating plants of ocean, sink and rise in
beautiful rhythm with its waves; and, in like
manner, the birds and plants of the plain sink
and rise with these waves of land, the only dif-
ference being that the fluctuations are more
rapid in the one case than in the other.
In March and April the bottom of the Hol-
low and every one of its hills are smoothly
covered and plushed with yellow and purple
flowers, the yellow predominating. They are
mostly social Composite, with a few claytonias,
A Thousand-Mile Walk
gilias, eschscholtzias, white and yellow violets,
blue and yellow lilies, dodecatheons, and eri-
ogonums set la a half-floating maze of purple
grasses. There is but one vine in the Hollow
the Megarrhiza [Echinocystis T. & DJ or
"Big Root/ 5 The only bush within a mile of
it, about four feet in height, forms so remark-
able an object upon the universal smoothness
that my dog barks furiously around it, at a
cautious distance, as if it were a bear. Some of
the hills have rock ribs that are brightly colored
with red and yellow lichens, and in moist nooks
there are luxuriant mosses Bartramia, Di~
cranum, Funaria, and several Hypnums. In
cool, sunless coves the mosses are companioned
with ferns a Cystopteris and the little gold-
dusted rock fern, Gymnogramma triangularis.*
The Hollow is not rich in birds. The meadow-
lark homes there, and the little burrowing
owl, the killdeer, and a species of sparrow. Oc-
casionally a few ducks pay a visit to its waters,
and a few tall herons the blue and the white
may at times be seen stalking along the
[198]
Twenty Hill Hollow
creek; and the sparrow hawk and gray eagle *
come to hunt. The lark, who does nearly all
the singing for the Hollow, is not identical
in species with the meadowlark of the East,
though closely resembling it; richer flowers and
skies have inspired him with a better song than
was ever known to the Atlantic lark.
I have noted three distinct lark-songs here.
The words of the first, which I committed to
memory at one of their special meetings, spelled
as sung, are, "Wee-ro spee-ro wee-o weer-ly
wee-it/' On the 2oth of January, 1869, they
sang "Queed-lix boodle/' repeating it with
great regularity, for hours together, to music
sweet as the sky that gave it. On the 22d of
the same month, they sang "Chee chool chee-
dildy choodildy." An inspiration is this song of
the blessed lark, and universally absorbable by
human souls. It seems to be the only bird-song
of these hills that has been created with any
direct reference to us. Music is one of the at-
1 Mr. Muir doubtless meant the golden eagle (Aquila
chrysaetos).
I 199 1
A Thousand-Mile Walk
tributes of matter, Into whatever forms it may
be organized. Drops and sprays of air are
specialized, and made to plash and churn in the
bosom of a lark, as infinitesimal portions of
air plash and sing about the angles and hollows
of sand-grains, as perfectly composed and pre-
destined as the rejoicing anthems of worlds;
but our senses are not fine enough to catch
the tones. Fancy the waving, pulsing melody
of the vast flower-congregations of the Hollow
flowing from myriad voices of tuned petal and
pistil, and heaps of sculptured pollen. Scarce
one note is for us ; nevertheless, God be thanked
for this blessed instrument hid beneath the
feathers of a lark.
The eagle does not dwell in the Hollow; he
only floats there to hunt the long-eared hare.
One day I saw a fine specimen alight upon a
hillside. I was at first puzzled to know what
power could fetch the sky-king down into the
grass with the larks. Watching him attentively,
I soon discovered the cause of his earthiness.
He was hungry and stood watching a long-
"Twenty Hill Hollow
eared hare, which stood erect at the door of his
burrow, staring his winged fellow mortal full
in the face. They were about ten feet apart.
Should the eagle attempt to snatch the hare,
he would instantly disappear in the ground.
Should long-ears, tired of inaction, venture to
skim the hill to some neighboring burrow, the
eagle would swoop above him and strike him
dead with a blow of his pinions, bear him to
some favorite rock table, satisfy his hunger,
wipe off all marks of grossness, and go again to
the sky.
Since antelopes have been driven away, the
hare is the swiftest animal of the Hollow.
When chased by a dog he will not seek a bur-
row, as when the eagle wings in sight, but
skims wavily from hill to hill across connecting
curves, swift and effortless as a bird-shadow.
One that I measured was twelve inches in
height at the shoulders. His body was eighteen
inches, from nose-tip to tail His great ears
measured six and a half inches in length and
two in width. His ears which, notwithstand-
[ 201 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ing their great size, he wears gracefully and be-
comingly have procured for him the homely
nickname, by which he is commonly known, of
"Jackass rabbit/' Hares are very abundant
over all the plain and up in the sunny, lightly
wooded foothills, but their range does not ex-
tend into the close pine forests.
Coyotes, or California wolves, are occasion-
ally seen gliding about the Hollow, but they are
not numerous, vast numbers having been slain
by the traps and poisons of sheep-raisers. The
coyote is about the size of a small shepherd-
dog, beautiful and graceful in motion, with
erect ears, and a bushy tail, like a fox. Inas-
much as he is fond of mutton, he is cordially
detested by "sheep-men'* and nearly all cul-
tured people.
The ground-squirrel is the most common ani-
mal of the Hollow. In several hills there is a
soft stratum in which they have tunneled their
homes. It is interesting to observe these rodent
towns in time of alarm. Their one circular
street resounds with sharp, lancing outcries of
[ 202]
Twenty Hill Hollow
"Seekit, seek, seek, seekit!" Near neighbors,
peeping cautiously half out of doors, engage
In low, purring chat. Others, bolt upright on
the doorsili or on the rock above, shout excitedly
as if calling attention to the motions and as-
pects of the enemy. Like the wolf, this little
animal is accursed, because of his relish for
grain. What a pity that Nature should have
made so many small mouths palated like our
ownf
All the seasons of the Hollow are warm and
bright, and flowers bloom through the whole
year. But the grand commencement of the an-
nual genesis of plant and insect life is governed
by the setting-in of the rains, in December or
January. The air, hot and opaque, is then
washed and cooled. Plant seeds, which for
six months have lain on the ground dry as if
garnered in a farmer's bin, at once unfold their
treasured life. Flies hum their delicate tunes.
Butterflies come from their coffins, like cotyle-
dons from their husks. The network of dry
water-courses, spread over valleys and hollows,
[ 203 ]
A 'Thousand-Mile Walk
suddenly gushes with bright waters, sparkling
and pouring from pool to pool, like dusty
mummies risen from the dead and set living
and laughing with color and blood. The weather
grows in beauty, like a flower. Its roots in the
ground develop day-clusters a week or two in
size, divided by and shaded in foliage of clouds;
or round hours of ripe sunshine wave and spray
in sky-shadows, like racemes of berries half
hidden in leaves.
These months of so-called rainy season are
not filled with rain. Nowhere else in North
America, perhaps in the world, are Januarys
so balmed and glowed with vital sunlight. Re-
ferring to my notes of 1868 and 1869, I find
that the first heavy general rain of the season
fell on the i8th of December. January yielded
to the Hollow, during the day, only twenty
hours of rain, which was divided among six
rainy days. February had only three days on
which rain fell, amounting to eighteen and one-
half hours in all. March had five rainy days.
April had three, yielding seven hours of rain.
[ 204 ]
"Twenty Hill Hollow
May also had three wet days, yielding nine
hours of rain, and completed the so-called
" rainy season** for that year, which is prob-
ably about an average one. It must be re-
membered that this rain record has nothing to
do with what fell in the night.
The ordinary rainstorm of this region has
little of that outward pomp and sublimity of
structure so characteristic of the storms of the
Mississippi Valley. Nevertheless, we have expe-
rienced rainstorms out on these treeless plains,
in nights of solid darkness, as impressively
sublime as the noblest storms of the mountains.
The wind, which in settled weather blows from
the northwest, veers to the southeast; the sky
curdles gradually and evenly to a grainless,
seamless, homogeneous cloud; and then comes
the rain, pouring steadily and often driven
aslant by strong winds. In 1869, more than
three fourths of the winter rains came from
the southeast. One magnificent storm from
the northwest occurred on the 21 st of March;
an immense, round-browed cloud came sail-
[ 205 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ing over the flowery hills in most imposing
majesty, bestowing water as from a sea. The
passionate rain-gush lasted only about one min-
ute, but was nevertheless the most magnifi-
cent cataract of the sky mountains that I ever
beheld. A portion of calm sky toward the
Sierras was brushed with thin, white cloud-
tissue, upon which the rain-torrent showed to
a great height a cloud waterfall, which, like
those of Yosemite, was neither spray, rain, nor
solid water. In the same year the cloudiness
of January, omitting rainy days, averaged
0.32; February, 0.13; March, 0.20; April, o.io;
May, 0.08. The greater portion of this cloudi-
ness was gathered into a few days, leaving the
others blocks of solid, universal sunshine in
every chink and pore.
At the end of January, four plants were in
flower: a small white cress, growing in large
patches; a low-set, umbeled plant, with yellow
flowers; an eriogonum, with flowers in leafless
spangles ; and a small boragewort. Five or six
mosses had adjusted their hoods, and were in
[ 206]
^Twenty Hill Hollow
the prime of life. In February, squirrels, hares,
and flowers were in springtime joy* Bright
plant-constellations shone everywhere about
the Hollow. Ants were getting ready for work,
rubbing and sunning their limbs upon the husk-
piles around their doors; fat, pollen-dusted,
"burly, dozing humble-bees " were rumbling
among the flowers; and spiders were busy
mending up old webs, or weaving new ones.
Flowers were born every day, and came gush-
ing from the ground like gayly dressed children
from a church. The bright air became daily
more songful with fly-wings, and sweeter with
breath of plants.
In March, plant-life is more than doubled.
The little pioneer cress, by this time, goes to
seed, wearing daintily embroidered silicles.
Several claytonias appear; also, a large white
leptosiphon[?], and two nemophilas. A small
plantago becomes tall enough to wave and
show silky ripples of shade. Toward the end of
this month or the beginning of April, plant-life
is at its greatest height. Few have any just con-
[ 207 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ceptlon of its amazing richness. Count the
flowers of any portion of these twenty hills, or
of the bottom of the Hollow, among the streams :
you will find that there are from one to ten
thousand upon every square yard, counting
the heads of Composite as single flowers. Yel-
low Composite form by far the greater portion
of this goldy-way. Well may the sun feed them
with his richest light, for these shining sunlets
are his very children rays of his ray, beams
of his beam! One would fancy that these Cali-
fornia days receive more gold from the ground
than they give to it. The earth has indeed
become a sky; and the two cloudless skies, ray-
ing toward each other flower-beams and sun-
beams, are fused and congolded into one glow-
ing heaven. By the end of April most of the
Hollow plants have ripened their seeds and
died; but, undecayed, still assist the landscape
with color from persistent involucres and co-
rolla-like heads of chaffy scales.
In May, only a few deep-set lilies and eriog-
onums are left alive. June, July, August, and
[208]
twenty Hill Hollow
September are the season of plant rest, fol-
lowed, in October, by a most extraordinary out-
gush of plant-life, at the very driest time of the
whole year. A small, unobtrusive plant, Hemi-
zonia mrgata^ from six inches to three feet in
height, with pale, glandular leaves, suddenly
bursts into bloom, in patches miles in extent,
like a resurrection of the gold of April. I have
counted upward of three thousand heads upon
one plant. Both leaves and pedicles are so
small as to be nearly invisible among so vast
a number of daisy golden-heads that seem to
keep their places unsupported, like stars in the
sky. The heads are about five eighths of an
inch in diameter; rays and disk-flowers, yellow;
stamens, purple. The rays have a rich, furred
appearance, like the petals of garden pansies*
The prevailing summer wind makes all the
heads turn to the southeast. The waxy secre-
tion of its leaves and involucres has suggested
its grim name of "tarweed," by which it is
generally known. In our estimation, it is the
most delightful member of the whole Compos-
[ 209 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
ite Family of the plain. It remains in flower un-
til November, uniting with an eriogonum that
continues the floral chain across December to
the spring plants of January. Thus, although
nearly all of the year's plant-life is crowded into
February, March, and April, the flower circle
around the Twenty Hill Hollow is never broken.
The Hollow may easily be visited by tourists
en route for Yosemite, as it is distant only about
six miles from Snelling's. It is at all seasons in-
teresting to the naturalist; but it has little that
would interest the majority of tourists earlier
than January or later than April. If you wish to
see how much of light, life, and joy can be got
into a January, go to this blessed Hollow. If
you wish to see a plant-resurrection, myriads
of bright flowers crowding from the ground,
like souls to a judgment, go to Twenty Hills
in February. If you are traveling for health,
play truant to doctors and friends, fill your
pocket with biscuits, and hide in the hills of
the Hollow, lave in its waters, tan in its golds,
bask in its flower-shine, and your baptisms will
[210]
Twenty Hill Hollow
make you a new creature indeed. Or, choked
In the sediments of society, so tired of the
world, here will your hard doubts disappear,
your carnal incrustations melt off, and your
soul breathe deep and free in God's shoreless
atmosphere of beauty and love.
Never shall I forget my baptism in this font.
It happened in January, a resurrection day for
many a plant and for me. I suddenly found
myself on one of its hills ; the Hollow overflowed
with light, as a fountain, and only small, sun-
less nooks were kept for mosseries and ferneries.
Hollow Creek spangled and mazed like a river.
The ground steamed with fragrance. Light,
of unspeakable richness, was brooding the
flowers. Truly, said I, is California the Golden
State in metallic gold, in sun gold, and in
plant gold. The sunshine for a whole summer
seemed condensed into the chambers of that
one glowing day. Every trace of dimness had
been washed from the sky; the mountains were
dusted and wiped clean with clouds Pacheco
Peak and Mount Diablo, and the waved blue
[ 211 ]
A Thousand-Mile Walk
wall between; the grand Sierra stood along the
plain, colored in four horizontal bands:
the lowest, rose purple; the next higher, dark
purple; the next, blue; and, above all, the white
row of summits pointing to the heavens.
It may be asked, What have mountains fifty
or a hundred miles away to do with Twenty
Hill Hollow? To lovers of the wild, these moun-
tains are not a hundred miles away. Their
spiritual power and the goodness of the sky make
them near, as a circle of friends. They rise as
a portion of the hilled walls of the Hollow.
You cannot feel yourself out of doors; plain,
sky, and mountains ray beauty which you feel
You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round
and round, as if warming at a camp-fire. Pres-
ently you lose consciousness of your own sepa-
rate existence: you blend with the landscape,
and become part and parcel of nature.
THE END
Index
Index
Agave, 165, j 66.
Agrostis scabra. See Grass,
rough hair.
Alligators, 96-99, 112, 113.
Animals, assumed to be made
for man, 137, 138; man-
eating, 138; essential to the
cosmos, 139.
Apricot vine, 56.
Aspidium acrostichoides. See
Fern, Christmas.
Asplenium ebeneum. See
Spleenwort, ebony.
A splsnium filix-fcemina, 33.
Asters, 26, 31, 34, 46, 56.
Athens, Georgia, 52.
Augusta, Georgia, 54, 56.
Azaleas, 26, 31,
Bahama islands, 181.
Banana, 63, 64.
Beale, Mr., 43.
Bird neighbors, 75, 78.
Blairsville, Georgia, 43, 44.
Blue Ridge, 44.
Bluebirds, 135.
Bonaventure-burying-ground,
66-82; oaks in, 67, 68, 69,
73; graves of, 71, 72 ; Muir
camps in, 73-78.
Brake, common, 33.
Brant, 135.
Bread, importance of, 95.
Breakers, song of, 162.
Brier, sensitive, 18, 19.
Briers, cat, 26, 27; in Florida
swamps, 115, 1 1 8, 120.
Burkes ville, Ky., 14.
Butterflies, 68, 69.
Butternut tree, 12.
Cactus, 105, 135, 160.
California, crooked route to,
169-87; arrival in, 1 88;
flowers, 189, 190, 191, 197,
198, 206-10; the Golden
State, 211.
Cameron, Mr., planter, 60-
63.
Cape Hatteras, 183.
Carriages, in Havana, 154.
Cats, vegetable, 133.
Caves, Kentucky, 7, 9, 10.
Cedar Keys, 123-42; size of,
133-
Chagres River, 187.
Chattahoochee River,~47, 48.
Clinch River, 30, 31.
Coast Range foothills, 189.
Composite, 64, 163, 164, 197,
208, 209.
Cotton, an unhappy looking
plant, 13; picking, 51.
Coyote, 202.
[21$ ]
Index
Crane, 89. "
Creator and creation, errone-
ous views of, 136-42.
Crows, 135.
Cuba, a sojourn in, 147-68;
weather of, 150, 151; wild
plants, 156, 157; flowery
vines, 157, 158.
Cubans, personal appearance,
154; cruel to animals, 156.
Cumberland Mountains, 16,
17-46, 175. ^
Cumberland River, 14.
Cypress, 57, 58, 63, 64.
Cystopteris. See Fern, blad-
der.
Death, our warped ideas of,
70.
Deer hunt, 121, 122.
Deer's tongue, 34 n.
Dipping snuff, 43.
Dirt, peculiar to civilization,
109, no.
Dolphin, in pursuit of flying
fish, 181, 182.
Doves, mourning, 135.
Eagle, bald, 68, 75.
Eagle, golden, 199 and n.,
200, 201.
Electricity, 63.
Elizabeth town, Ky,, 5.
Emory River, 30.
Erosion, by water, 196, 197.
Farmers, In Kentucky, 6; a
credulous one, 19, 20,
Fern, bladder, 12, 33, 198.
Fern, Christmas, 33.
Fern, cinnamon, 18, 26, 91.
Fern, Dicksonia, 31, 33.
Fern, flowering, 1 8, 26.
Fern, gold-dusted rock, 198.
Fernandina, Florida, 87.
Ferns, at mouth of cave, 7.
Feud, in Tennessee, 40.
Fever, Muir's illness in Flor-
Ida, 126-29.
Fever and ague, 136.
Fish, flying, 180, 183; pur-
sued by dolphin, 181, 182.
Florida, swamps, 83-122; ar-
rival in, 87; coast of, 87, 88;
forests, 93, 94, 99, 100;
streams, 100, 101; a low
country, 103; a strange
land, 176; Straits of, 180,
181.
Flowering trees, 108, 187.
Forests, Kentucky, 1-16;
pine, 51; vine clad, 56;
Florida, 93, 94, 99, 100.
Gainesville, Georgia, 47, 105,
107. ^
Gardenia florida. See Jasmine,
cape.
Gardens, artificial, n, 167.
Geese, wild, 135.
Georgia, river country of, 47-
65; oaks in, 67, 68, 69; peo-
ple and homes of, 83, 84; a
strange land, 175, 176.
Gerardias, 54.
Ginseng, 41.
[216]
Index
Glasgow Junction, Ky. 5 12,
13-
God, a conceited view of, 136,
137-
Gold mines, in Tennessee, 35.
Goldenrod, 26, 56, 72, 109.
Grapes, 34, 47, 48, 49, 56.
Grass, rough hair, 58, 59.
Grasses, 53, 54, 56, 102.
Grist mills, 35, 36.
Guerrillas, 25, 27, 28.
Gymnogramma triangularis,
198.
Hare, long-eared, 200-202.
Havana, harbor, 147; Sunday
in, 149; evening in, 153;
carriages of the nobility,
154; public squares, 154,
155; streets, 155; houses,
155, 156; botanical garden,
166, 167; negroes in, 167,
168.
Hawk, sparrow, 199.
Heathwort, 18.
Hemlock, 31.
Hermizonia virgata, 209, 210.
Herons, 132, 134, 198.
Hiwassee River, 41, 42, 43.
Hodgson, Mr., sawmill owner,
125; Muir works for, 126;
cares for Muir through ill-
ness, 129.
Hollow Creek, 195, 211.
Holly, 43-
Homo sapiens, unwisdom of,
Horse, ferry, 4.
Horse Cave, 9, JO.
Hospitality, in the South, 12,
21, 22, 34, 42, 56, 59, 61,
64, 126.
Hunting, selfishness of, 122.
Hypnum, 12, 31, 198.
Hex, 43.
Indianapolis, Ind., I.
Island Belle, schooner, 143-
47-
Jamestown, Tenn.,. 20.
Jasmine, cape, 59.
Jeffersonville, Ind., I.
Kentucky, 174; oaks, 2, 6, 15,
16; streams and wells salty,
3,5; farmers, 6; caves, 7, 9,
10, n; forests, 2, 3, 6, 13;
a leafy state, 14.
Kentucky Knobs, 3.
Killdeer, 198.
Kingston, Tenn,, 32.
Lark. See Meadowlark.
Laurels, 26, 31.
Liatris, 34.
Lime Key, 135.
Linnseus, 116.
Live-oak. See Oak, live.
Loggers, Florida, 95.
Louisville, Ky., I.
Lycopodium, 99.
Madisonville, Tenn., 33.
Madotheca, 31.
Magnolia, 31, 101, 176.
[ 217 ]
Index
Magnolia grandiflora, 64; In
Florida, 90, 91, 108.
Mammoth Cave, 10, II.
Man-catchers, plant, 27.
Maps, 186, 187.
Meadowlark, 198; songs of,
199, 200.
Memory, imperishable, 123,
124, 177.
Merced River, 188; valley,
192.
Mexico, Gulf of, 124.
Milkworts, 26.
Mistletoe, 13.
Mockingbird, 134, 135.
Montgomery, Tenn., 30.
Morro Castle, Havana, 147,
152, 172.
Morro Hill, 148, 149, 151,158,
165.
Moss, Spanish or long, 57, 64,
68, 176.
Mosses, 12, 31, 198, 206.
Mount Yonah, 46.
Mountaineers, Southern, 44,
45-
Munford, Mr., pioneer, 7, 8.
Munfordville, Ky., 7, 8.
Murphy, North Carolina, 42,
43-
Music, one of the attributes
of matter, 199, 200.
Nebraska, ship in which Muir
sailed for California, 185,
1 86, 187.
Negroes, 13; woman at ford,
3, 4; queer little boy, 4; ox \
driver, 9; teamster, 32;
easy-going, 51; polite, 52;
superstitious, 59; of Geor-
gia, 83; a dangerous one,
103, 104; a primitive fam-
ily, 105-07; in Havana, 167,
168.
New York, 184, 185, 186.
Oak, black, 6, 33.
Oak, dwarf, 131.
Oak, live, 67-69, 130, 131.
Oak, water, 47, 53.
Oaks, in Kentucky, 2, 6, 15,
1 6; in Tennessee, 26.
Opuntia, 135.
Osmunda cinnamomea. See
Fern, cinnamon.
Osmunda Claytoniana, 18,
33-
Osmunda regalis. See Fern,
flowering.
Owl, burrowing, 198.
Owls, 94.
Palmetto, cabbage, 91-93; a
fine grove of, 113-18.
Palmetto, saw, 101.
Palms, 1 66, 167.
Parsons, Captain, of the
Island Belle, 144, 145, 148,
149, 170, 171.
Passion flower, 56.
Pelicans, 134.
Perkins, Dr., 59.
Philadelphia, Tenn., 32, 33.
Phosphorescence at sea, 183,
Pine barrens, 60, 94, 101.
[ 218]
Index
Pine, long-leafed, 54, 55, 108,
130.
Pines, 26, 101.
Pinus Cubensisj 91, 108.
Pinus palustris, 55, 91,
Plant, striking power of adap-
tation of, 162, 163.
Plant-gold, 148.
Plants and minerals, assumed
to be made for man, 137,
138; sensation in, 140.
Polygalas, 26.
Polypodium hexagonopttrum,
33-
Pomegranate, 56, 57.
Prater, Mr., friend of Muir's,
48, 49.
Pteris aquilina. See Brake,
common.
Quail (bob-white), 135.
Rabbit, jackass, 200-202.
Rainy season, 204-206.
Rattlesnakes, 49, 51.
River, adventure in crossing,
50.
Rivers: Chagres, 187; Chat-
tahoochee, 47, 48; Clinch,
31; Cumberland, 14; Em-
ory, 30; Hiwassee, 41, 42;
Merced, 188; Salt, 3; Sa-
vannah, 58.
Robins, 135.
Rolling Fork, 3.
Salt River, 3.
San Francisco, 188.
San Joaquin valley, 190.
Sand dunes, 72.
Sandy Hook, 184.
Savannah, Georgia, 65.
Savannah River, 58.
Scale-mosses (Madotheca), 3 1.
Schrankia, sensitive brier, 18,
19.
Scott, Gen. Winfield, 43.
Scuppernong grape, 49.
Sea, beautiful in storm, 177,
178, 183; our ignorance of,
182.
Sea-islands, 86.
Sheep, predestined purpose
of, 137.
Sherman, Gen. W. T., 61.
Ship, enjoyable life on, 177-
80, 184.
Sierra Nevada, 190, 192-94,
212.
Simmons, Captain, 11114.
Solidagoes, 26, 56, 72, 109,
Spanish bayonet, 132, 133.
Spinning, in mountain cab-
ins, 37; among Georgia
farmers, 84.
Spleen wort, ebony, 33.
Squirrel, ground, 202, 203.
Steerage, 187.
Storm at sea, 14547, *77
178, 183.
Sunflowers, 3.
Sunset, gorgeous, 53, 143.
Swamps, Florida, 83122;
vine-tangled, 90, 91, ill,
1 1 8, 120; night in, 93-95
no.
[ 219 ]
Index
Sylvan Shore, steamship, 85,
86.
Table, a peculiar, 59.
Tarweed, 209.
Taxodium. See Cypress.
Tennessee, 15, 174, 175; ferns
and vines in, 18, 19, 31, 33;
an old farmer, 19, 20; a
friendly blacksmith, 22-26;
trees and plants, 26, 31,33;
briers, 26, 27; guerrillas,
2729; night with a moun-
taineer, 34; gold mining,
35; grist mills, 35, 36; spin-
ning and weaving, 37;
grandeur of scenery, 38; a
feud, 40.
Thomson, Georgia, 54.
Thrashers, brown, 135.
TUlandsia usneoides. See
Moss, Spanish.
Track Gap, Tenn., 39.
Twenty Hill Hollow, 194-.
212; described, 194; created
by erosion of water, 196;
flowers in, 197, 198, 206-
10; birds, 198-201; ani-
mals, 201-03 ; seasons, 203-
10.
Unaka Mountains, 31, 33.
Vanilla plant, 34 n.
Vegetable cats, 133.
Vines, grape, 34, 47, 48, 49,
56; in Florida swamps, 90,
91, nr, 118, 120, 158; in
Cuba, 157-61; in Twenty
Hill Hollow, 198.
Fitis rotundifolia, 49.
Vohn, John, 36.
Waders, 131, 132.
Wagon, a remarkable, 45.
War, marks of, 84.
Weaving, in mountain cab-
ins, 37; among Georgia
farmers, 84.
Whales, storehouses of oil for
man, 137.
Winds, language of, 173-76.
Wood, Alphonso, Botany, 18,
24, 34 **., 49
Yucca, 132.
fa tttatfbe
CAMBRIDGE , MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
115574
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