Sierra Journal, Summer of 1869, v. 3, 1869 [ca. 1887], Image 38

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 2018
• Subjects: Arctic; Fanning; Indian; Lake Creek; Whit
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn-sj3/38; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmn-sj3/article/1037/type/native/viewcontent/MuirReel31_Notebook_009_Img038.jpg

90 still or nearly so. Then receded[ed] again comparatively fast for a mile or so & again lingered long enough to accumulate another moraine dam giving rise to another lake, etc. X Looking back up the canyon from the (margin of the (warm sunny sedge of the Mono plain [basin]. My morning ramble seemed a dream so great was the change in vegetation & climate. Here the lilies on the bank of the lake [creek] are higher than my head & the sunshine is hot enough for palms yet the snow around the Arctic gardens [willows] at the summit of the pass was plainly visible only about 4 miles away, & between lie[s] specimen of zones of all the principal climates of the globe. [This] In little more than an hour [I could have in a single] one may swoop down [pass] from winter to summer from & actric to a torrid region, through as great changes of climate as one would encounter [meet] in traveling from Labrador to Florida. The Indians I had met near the head of the canyon had camped at the foot of it the night before they made the ascent & I found their fire still smoking on the side of a small tributary stream near Moraine Lake & on the edge of what is called the Mono Desert 4 or 5 miles from the lake I came to a (fine) patch of Elysius or Lyme grass [wild rye] growing in magnificent waving clumps 6 to 8 feet high bearing heads 6 to 8 inches long. The crop was ripe & Indian women were gathering the grain in baskets by bending 91 down large handful beating out the seeds & fanning them in the wind. The grains are about 5/8 of an inch long, dark colored & sweet. I fancy the bread made from it must be as good as wheat bread. A fine squirrelish employment this wild grain gathering seemed & the women seemed to enjoy it laughing & chatting & looking almost natural though most Indians I have seen are not a whit more natural in their lives that we civilized whites. Perhaps if I knew them better I’d like them better. The worst thing about them is their uncleanness. Nothing truly wild is ...