Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Family]
Transcription
[1]
[letterhead]
Cairo Nov 19, 03
Dear Louie Wanda Helen & all of you. I wish I could get a letter from you saying you were well But alas! that seems impossible & so I can only hope & pray.
I've been up the Nile as far as the 1st Catar[illegible] at Aswan, about 700 miles from the sea. I went by steamer & returned by rail. The trip was interesting in many ways
03309
[2]
The noble famous [ful?] old stream laden with fertile mud from the [hot?] heart of the continent - the millions of date palms in groves & lines along its banks,- the broad green fields of corn & milles & of sugar cane bounded in the hot hazy distance by brown & yellow [illegible]rts where sand is ever in motion by the winds. The curious mud villages & mud-colored inhabitants & the wonderful ruins of great cities temples obelisks etc pyramids & tombs etc
[3]
which open such far-reaching & astonishing views into the very auldest of the auld lang synes of history. The region about Luxor on both sides of the river 450 miles above Cairo is the most interesting of all. Here is the site of famous old thebes with its 100 gates etc. Only tombs & temples obelisks are left. Those of Luxor & Karnak are greatest & most wonderful It is hopeless to give any conception of them in letters, but I am
[4]
gathering a lot of photographs that will give you some little notions about them.
I expect to leave Cairo tomorrow for Port Said, & there take the North German Lloyd Steamer "Barbarossa" on the 22d for Ceylon & Australia, thence by an Australian st'm'r to New Zealand & thence straight home - a long long way that will take two or three months [illegible] I so weary & f[illegible] [illegible] homesickness. I suppose it
[letterhead]
03309
[5]
will be better however to see the parts of the world I have long wanted to see & ought to see, now that I am fairly launched on my travels, & get done with the wandering Jew business once for all I have already seen a good deal Now I want glimpes of the Australian & Zealand & Tasmanian forests, rocks mountains glaciers, geysers etc. I wanted to see the forests of Lebanon - the famous cedars or deodars - but have been presented by the Cholera now in Palestine & miserable quarantines, disinfections, etc My health is now quite as good as when I left home having gained more than I lost in Russia. after cutting loose from my companions, & I must still be growing heavier for my appetite is better than it has been for years. Fondly hoping all is well with you I am ever affectionately yours John Muir
Location
Cairo [Egypt]
Date Original
1903 Nov 19
Source
Original letter dimensions: 20.5 x 26 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Family], 1903 Nov 19." (1903). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 2712.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2712
Resource Identifier
muir13_0870-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 13, Image 0870
Collection Identifier
Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc
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
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. 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
Pages
2 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
