Creator
[John Muir]
Recipient
Louie [Muir]
Preview
Transcription
3stranger dressed in shabby black He has a kind of unnerved drooping look his shoulders coming together & his toes & his knees & the two ends of his vertebral column, something like a withering leaf in hot sunshine. Poor fellow he looks at our ship as if he wanted to go again to the mines to try his luck. And here comes two Indian women & a little girl trotting after them, They seem as if they were coming aboard, but turn aside at the edge of the wharf & descend rickety stairs to their canoe tied to a pile beneath the wharf. Now they reappear with change of [illegible] & the little girl is carrying a bundle something to [eat?] or sell or sit on. Yonder comes a typical John Bull Grand in size & style Carmen in countenance, abdominous & showing a fine tight curve from chin to knee when seen in profile yet benovelent withal 00941[1]On board the California 10 A.M. Aug 4th 1880.Dear Louie we are still lying alongside the wharf at Victoria. it seems a leak was discovered in one of the water tanks that had to be mended & the result was that we could not get off on the 7 o’clock tide last night. Victoria seems a dry dignified half idle town supported in great part by government fees. Every erect or more than erect back [leaning?] man has an office & carries himself with that peculiar aplomb that all the Hail B[illegible] people are so noted for. The wharf & harbor stir is very mild. The steamer Princess Louise lies alongside ours getting ready for the trip to New Westminister on Fraser River. The Hudsons’ Bay’ Company’s steamer [Otter?], a queer old tubby craft left for the N. last night. A few sloops plungers & boats are crawling about the harbor or lying at anchor doing or dreaming a business nobody knows Yonder comes an Indian Canoe with its one unique sail calling up memories [illegible]
Location
On board the California
Date Original
1880 Aug 4
Source
Original letter dimensions: 20.5 x 25.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
muir04_0271-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 04, Image 0271
Copyright Status
Copyrighted
Copyright Statement
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish or exhibit them, see http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Fees-and-Forms-.html
Owning Institution
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Copyright Holder
Muir-Hanna Trust
Copyright Date
1984
Page Number
Page 1
Keywords
John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle
