Part 8

I forgot to state in my last concerning the Yosemite that I did not receive yours until many days after its arrival, as I was shearing sheep a considerable distance from here in the foothills, and the postmaster, knowing where I was, could not forward it; but I will remain here until the 1st of June, or possibly a few days later, and will receive any letters arriving for me at once either in Snelling or Hopeton.

The grove of sequoias is only six miles from the Yosemite trail, about midway between Mariposa and the valley. The trail leading through the groves leaves the Yosemite trail at Mr. Clark’s, where you can obtain all necessary directions, etc. It is not many years since this grove was discovered. The sequoias so often described and so well known throughout the world belong to the Calaveras grove. The Mariposa grove has a much larger number of trees than the Calaveras, and it is in all the majesty and grandeur of nature undisturbed.

You will likely make the journey from Mariposa to the valley in two days. No member of your company need be afraid of this mountain ride, as you will be provided with sure-footed horses accustomed to the journey and an experienced guide.

Most persons visiting the sequoia grove spend only a few hours in it and depart without seeing a single tree, for the chiefest glories of these mountain kings are wholly invisible to hasty or careless observers. I hope you may be able to spend a good long time in worship amid the glorious columns of this mountain temple. I fancy they are aware of your coming and are waiting. I fondly hope that nothing will occur to prevent your coming. I will endeavor to reach the valley a day or so before you. The night air of the mountains is very cold. You will require plenty of warm blankets.

I am sorry that the Doctor has been so suddenly smothered up in business. If he and the priest were in the company according to the prophecy our joy would be full.

I am in a perfect tingle with the memories of a year ago and with anticipation glowing bright with all that I love.

Farewell. JOHN MUIR.

I received your letter containing “The Song of Nature” by Emerson and derived a great deal of pleasure from it.

J. M.

Five miles west of Yosemite, July 11, [1869.]

I need not try to tell you how sorely I am pained by this bitter disappointment. Your Mariposa note of June 22 did not reach Black’s until July 3d, and I did not receive it until the 6th.

I met a shepherd a few miles from here yesterday who told me that a letter from Yosemite for me was at Harding’s Mills. I have not yet received it. No dependence can be placed upon the motions of letters in the mountains, and I feared this result on my not receiving anything definite concerning your time of leaving Stockton before I left the plains. I wish now that I had not been entangled with sheep at all but that I had remained among post-offices and joined your party at Snellings.

Thus far all of my deepest, purest enjoyments have been taken in solitude, and the fate seems hard that has hindered me from sharing Yosemite with you.

We are camped this evening among a bundle of the Merced’s crystal arteries, which have just gone far enough from their silent fountain to be full of lakelets and lilies [?], and the bleating of our flock can neither confuse nor hush the thousand notes of their celestial song. The sun has set, and these glorious shafts of the spruce and pine shoot higher and higher as the darkness comes on. I must say good night while bonds of Nature’s sweetest influences are about me in these sacred mountain halls, and I know that every chord of your being has throbbed and tingled with the same mysterious powers when you were here. Farewell. I am glad to know that you have been allowed to bathe your existence in God’s glorious Sierra Nevadas and sorry that I could not meet you.

JOHN MUIR.

A few miles north of Yosemite, July 13th, [1869.]

We are camped this afternoon upon the bank of the stream that falls into the valley opposite Hutchings’ hotel (Yosemite Falls). We are perhaps three miles from the valley.

This Yosemite stream is flowing rapidly here in a small flowery meadow, not meandering like a meadow stream but going straight on with ripples and rapids. It derives its waters from a basin corresponding in every respect with its own sublimity and loneliness.

July 17th. We are now camped in a splendid grove of spruce only one mile from the Yosemite wall. The stream that goes spraying past us in the rocks reaches the valley by that cañon between the Yosemite Falls and the North Dome. I left my companions in charge of the sheep for the last three days and have had a most heavenly piece of life among the domes and falls and rocks of the north side and upper end of the valley.

Yesterday I found the stream that flows through Crystal Lake past the South Dome and followed it three miles among cascades and rapids to the dome. Were you at the top or bottom of the upper Yosemite Falls? Were you at the top of the Nevada Falls? Were you in that Adiantum cave by the Vernal Falls? Have you had any view of the valley excepting from the Mariposa Trail? How long were you in Sequoia Grove?

We will, perhaps, be here about two weeks; then we will go to the “big meadows” twelve miles towards the summit, where we will remain until we start for the plains some time near the end of September. The kind of meeting you have had with Yosemite answers well enough for most people, but it will not do for you. When will you return to the mountains?

I had a letter from Professor Butler a short time ago, saying that he would probably visit California this month in company with a man of war.

Remember me to the Doctor and to Allie and Ned. Please send me a letter by the middle of September to Snellings. I have no hope of hearing from you after we start for the Big Meadows.

Two miles below La Grange, October 3rd, 1869.

My summer in the third heaven of the Sierras is past. I am again in the smooth open world of plains. I received three of your eight notes, which for mountain correspondence is about as might be expected. I learned by a San Francisco newspaper that Dr. Carr had accepted a professorship in the University, and Prof. Butler told me about a month ago that he had gone to Madison to fetch his cabinet, etc. Therefore I know that you are making a fixed home and that you will yet see the mountains and the Joaquin plains. We were camped within a mile or two of the Yosemite north wall for three weeks. I used to go to the North Dome or Yosemite Falls most every day to sketch and listen to the waters. One day I went down into the valley by the cañon opposite Hutchings and found Prof. Butler near the bridge between the Vernal and Nevada falls. He was in company with Gen. Alvord. He was in the valley only a few hours, his time being controlled by the General’s military clock, and I am pretty sure that he saw just about nothing.

I am glad that the world does not miss me and that all of my days with the Lord and his works are uncounted and unmeasured. I found the guide who was with you. He said that you wished me to gather some cones for you. I hope to see you soon in San Francisco and will fetch you specimens of those which grow higher than you have been. I am sorry that you were so short a time in the valley, but you will go again and remain a month or two. I would like to spend a winter there to see the storms. We spent most of the summer on the south fork of the Tuolumne near Castle and Cathedral peaks, and oh, how unspeakable the glories of these higher mountains. You have not yet caught a glimpse of the Sierra Nevadas. You must go to Mono by the Bloody Cañon pass. I will not try to write the grandeur I have seen all summer but I will copy you the notes of one day from my journal.

“Sept. 2nd. Amount of cloudiness .08. Sky red evening and morning, not usual crimson glow but separate clouds colored and anchored in dense massive mountain forms. One red, bluffy cap is placed upon Castle Peak and its companion to the south, but the smooth cone tower of the castle is seen peering out over the top. Tiger Peak has a cloud cap also of the grandest proportion and colors, and the extensive field of clustered towers and peaks and domes where is stored the treasures of snow belonging to the Merced and Tuolumne and Joaquin is embosomed in bossy clouds of white. The grand Sierra Cathedral is overshadowed like Sinai. Never before beheld such divine mingling of cloud and mountain. Had a delightful walk upon the north wall. Ascended by a deep narrow passage cut in the granite. Its borders are splendidly decorated with ferns and blooming shrubs. The most delicate of plantlets in the gush and ardor of full bloom in places called desolate and gloomy, where the dwarfed and crumpled pines are felled with hail and rocks and wintry snows; but as frail flowers of human kind are protected by the hand of God, blooming joyfully through a long beautiful life in places and times that are strewn with the wrecks of the powerful and the great, so in these far mountains, where are the treasures of snow and storms, live in safety and innocence these sweet, tender children of the plants. Had looked long and well for Cassiope, but in all my long excursions failed to find its dwelling-places and began to fear that we would never meet, but had presentiment of finding it today, and as I passed a rock-shelf after reaching the great gathered heaps of everlasting snow, something seemed to whisper ‘Cassiope, Cassiope.’ That name was ‘driven in upon me,’ as Calvinists say, and, looking around, behold the long-looked-for mountain child!”

Farewell! I do not care to write much because you seem so near. I hope that you will all be very happy in your new home and not feel too sorely the separation from the loved places and people of Wisconsin.