Sierra Journal, Summer of 1869, v. 1, 1869 [ca. 1887], Image 68

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 2018
• Subjects: Mutton; eskimo*
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn-sj1/68; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmn-sj1/article/1067/type/native/viewcontent/MuirReel31_Notebook05_Img068.jpg

126 [and] enjoy life in these brave [fruitful wholesome] wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment. That this may be accomplished is manifest [in] as far as bodily welfare is concerned in the lives of people of other climes. The Eskimo for example gets a living far north beyond the wheat line from oily seals & whales etc [far beyond the [wheat line] northern limit of the range of the cereals]. Meat & berries & bitter weeds & blubber or only the last for months [Mostly meat & that very oily,] & these people all around the frozen shores [polar circle] of N. [north] America [at least] are [said to be a] hearty jolly stout & brave [set]. Wiser too than many a rice & wheat eater [as to the nourishment of their own & their babies bodies] And we hear too of fish-eaters, carnivorous as spiders, yet well enough off as far as stomachs [pits] are concerned, while we are so ridiculously helpless making wry faces over our [mutton] [wooly] fare lean or fat looking sheepish [& making a dull [grumble] [sounds] in digestive distress and making rumbling grumbling sounds that might well pass for [a] smothered ba-as. We have a large supply of sugar & this evening it occurred to me these belligerent stomachs [sacks] might possibly like complaining [erring] 127 children be coaxed with sugar candy [into something like peace]. Accordingly the frying-pan was cleansed [from mutton fat as well as possible] & a [large] lot of sugar cooked in it to a sort of [gray] wax [which we devoured greedily in bulk], but this stuff only made matters worse, [internally & out for it could not be got out of the pan when it had cooled, & while soft is stuck like birdlime to everything it touched. A mess still tasting of mutton & unfit for man & beast] Man seems to be the only animal whose food soils him, making much [constant] washing necessary [& wiping of hands & face necessary As if like an enemy the [it] were defending [himself by making himself] itself from ...