Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[A. H., Fay and Frank ?] Sellers
Transcription
Martinez, California
June 16th 1904.
Dear Sellers three-
I got home safe & sound rich & heavy laden with notes, specimens, photographs & nerve pictures every cell of me full & tingling joyfully triumpantly, Russian tea, hard wanderings, starvation, & deadly microbes to the contrary notwithstanding & found all well & prosperous after being away more than a year. I arrived at San Francisco on the 27th of last month, & a few days after reaching home Keith & my two girls made me go wandering again along the Grand Canon [diacritic] & through the Petrified forests of Arizona. So I may say I am just home now. The slightest sketch of the big trip would be a long story - too long for letter
2
The Ural Mountains as far I saw them are low & broad & densely forested, mostly with P[illegible] stris, The Siberian road runs through one contin[ual?] bed of fertile soil open grass or lightly covered with belts & patches of birch trees 30 or 40 feet high. Magnificent pine & larch forests about Tomsk & Irkutsk . A wonderful lake is Baikal 400 miles long, 5000 feet deep at South and though only 1500 ft above the sea, & bounded by granite bluffs. Man[illegible] is a beautiful country - richly forested mountains & low hills alternating with charming - open fertile sunny valleys - & broad level plains to southward The lands along the Amour also fertile & forested with oak ash, tilia, maple, pine, fir, spruce larch etc. Was three times at Vladivostok before getting away on little Japanese steamer to [illegible] touching at five Corean ports on the way
3
Leaving Vladivostok could hardly walk,- was poisoned with [illegible] in the Crimea, & again in Thanchuria but managed to keep eyes open & [illegible]nd erect most of time being hard to kill or hold down [although?] weighing only about 115 pounds. On the sea soon got well & weighed more than ever in the last ten years. At Shanghai left my companions Prof Sargent & his son Robinson, on the 10th of Sep. they returning home soon after visiting Pekin, while I bought a map of the world & set out alone on a genuine whole hearted enthusiastic trip - & now far I wandered &hard I worked & gazed & enjoyed & worshipped! From Shanghai I went to India by Hong Kong, Singapore & Rangoon to Calcutta - thence into the Himalaya by Darjeeling, - thence back to Calcutta & thence to Benares, L[illegible] Know, Ca[illegible]pore, Agra, Delhi, & into the Himalaya again by Simla, thence to Bombay Egypt & up the Nile etc. Was unable to reach the Cedars of Lebanon on
4
account of cholera. From Port Said went to Ceylon, & thence away down on the south end of the world to Australia & New Zealand - Thence by way of Port Darwin & Timor through the M[illegible] Archipelago to Manila - to Hong Kong again, Ca[illegible] Shanghai, Negasaki, Kobe, Yoko [illegible], Tokio, & home by Honolulu.
Had glorious time in India - the highest Himalaya peaks, glaciers, deodar forests, great Banian trees, temples, swarms of strange people, wild monkeys etc. Found Old Egypt interesting also.- its long green palmy valley between brown deserts, marvellous [towns?] temples & monuments of the lang syne of humanity opening telling views into history & making the dead live again. Had perfectly glorious reviving times in Australia & New Zealand. Their floras are so novel & exciting I had to begin my botanical studies over again, made big piles of specimens, working night & day, counting all labor as nothing. How long this letter & little in it definite. Good bye Ever yours
John Muir
Location
Martinez [Calif.]
Date Original
1904 Jun 16
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [A. H., Fay and Frank ?] Sellers, 1904 Jun 16." (1904). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 2794.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/2794
Resource Identifier
muir14_0236-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 14, Image 0236
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
Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Special Collections, University of Virginia 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
4 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
