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Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
124
[encountered on the way home to camp make a bad prelude to the dreaded meeting of mutton again for supper with strong boiled tea. But enough of this. The poor body has its rights to be sure but they in this case have been attended to as well as I can just at present.] At night more Mutton [to stomach] [again] flesh to flesh, - down with it, not too much - and there are the stars shining through the pine-branches & cedar plumes above my bed.
[How pure & keenly rayed they are, & how near they seem The sheep flesh has not closed the sky thank Heaven, nor shorn the plants of their brightness.] Clouds .05
July 7th} Rather Weak & sickish [& sour] this morning and all about a piece of bread [- white or black coarse or fine done brown or not done at all the more shame to you!] Can scarce command attention [bend my mind] to my [its] best enjoyments [for want of this bit of bread], as if one couldn't take a few days saunter in the foodful woods without maintaining a base on a grist mill & a wheatfield. Like a caged parrot [Polly] [Mr Stomach] we want[s] a cracker, [forsooth].
125
Any [kind of cracker] of the hundred kinds. The remainder biscuit of a voyage round the world would answer well enough, [no matter how musty]. Nor would the wholesomeness of Saleratus biscuit be questioned [[a week or two ago a batch of bread was burned badly on the bottom & could hardly be loosened from the cast iron oven. This loaf I cut in two & through [Muir changes to threw] away the burned half which even the dogs & woodrats discarded. Carbonized dough is very durable & so it lay about the campfloor not much the worse for wear, & in the gnawing & craving & drawing was gathered up tenderly patted & dusted & bitten & bolted. The charcoal was soothing & the pit a good place for it. Wonder I had not craved this before.]]
Bread without flesh is a good diet as I have many times proved[n] in my botanical excursions, tea also may easily be ignored just bread & water & delightful toil [this] is all [that] I need, not unreasonably much [seemingly under most circumstances] Yet one ought to be trained & tempered to [endure]
Date Occurred
1869
Resource Identifier
MuirReel31 Notebook05 Img067.jpg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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