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searches to within 10 or 12 miles of Havana. Captain Parsons offered his help as my headquarters and the weakness and childishness of sickness prevented me from spending a single night from the vessel. The programme for nearly all the month that I spent here is about as follows. After breakfast a sailor rowed me ashore on the north side of the harbor. In a few minutes’ walk I was 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 Florida. Here I zigzagged and gathered jewels from unnumbered flowers, and shells along the shore, stopping to press specimens and to rest in the shade of vine heaps or bushes, until sundown. The happy hours stole away, when 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 home. I reached up my press and a big handful of flowers and climbed the sides of my floating home with a little help. Refreshed with supper and rest, I recounted my adventures in the vine-tangles, in cactus thickets, in sunflower swamps, and along the shore among the breakers. Also my flower specimens, pocketfuls of shells, and corals had to be reviewed. A cool dreamy hour on deck next followed amid the lights of the town and the various vessels coming in and departing. Many strange sounds were
Date Original
July 1867
Source
Original journal dimensions: 10 x 16.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
MuirReel23Journal01P169-170.tif
Publisher
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Rights Management
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Keywords
John Muir, journals, drawings, writings, travel, journaling, naturalist