The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2006
John Muir's World Tour (part III) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this issue, we resume John Muir's unpublished notebooks from his World Tour, 1903-1904. This double issue covers the dates August 18 through November 2, 1903, all recorded in notebook number fift...
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| Summary: | John Muir's World Tour (part III) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this issue, we resume John Muir's unpublished notebooks from his World Tour, 1903-1904. This double issue covers the dates August 18 through November 2, 1903, all recorded in notebook number fifty of the John Muir Papers at University of the Pacific. The transcription by Pulizer-prize winner and Muir-biographer Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1881-1945) is part of her papers, also at Pacific in Holt-Atherton Special Collections, a subset of. ' the Muir Papers. The Wolfe Papers are described thus in the on-line catalog to Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections: http://www.pacific.edu/library/ha/muirPapers.html Linnie Marsh Wolfe published John of the Mountains: the Unpublished Journals of John Muir, in 1938. Wolfe's -papers include reminiscences and letters collected from 1940 to 1945 from Helen Swett Artieda, J.E. Calkins, Ellen D. Graydon, Helen Muir, and Cecelia Galloway and used in the biography of Muir, Son of the Wilderness: the Life of John Muir, 1945. Wolfe's unfilmed papers include con-espondence from 1918 to 1945. Research materials for her two books are in the collection, including her notes and transcriptions of some of Muir's journal entries, manuscripts, and letters. The typed manuscripts of her books, business papers relating to them, promotional materials, photographs on Yosemite and Muir's family and associates, and other miscellaneous materials about Muir and his work are also in the collection. The Wolfe transcription has been compared with the original by Muir-scholar John Hurley, a history major at Pacific,- Mr. Hurley's senior thesis focuses on the overall importance of the World Tour as a part of Muir's final years, sandwiched between his campout with President Theodore Roosevelt in Yosemite during May, 1903 and his active crusade to preserve forests, parks, and to save Hetch Hetchy Valley from his return in 1904 to his death a decade later in 1914. Several researchers have asked about the accuracy of the Wolfe transcriptions. In the process of preparing the manuscript notebooks for eventual publication, Wolfe changed language and added punctuation, descriptors, and occasional phrases to clarify meaning from Muir's outline-style notes. Her death in 1945 halted any effort to complete the project. We have taken the Wolfe transcription back to the original manuscript, as faithfully as possible. Where words are illegible in Muir's own (Continued on page 4) page 1 NeWs & Notes Naturalist Guided Yosemite Visitors (article by Matt Weiser published Monday, October 9, 2006 in the Sacramento Bee, METRO Section, page B3) A writer, naturalist, lawyer and friend, Steven Medley was a silent guide to millions of Yosemite National Park visitors for more than two decades. As president of the Yosemite Association, Medley wrote and edited guidebooks, helped raise millions of dollars for park projects and greatly expanded the association and its partnership with the National Park Service. Medley, who lived in Oakhurst, died Thursday in a car crash while driving to work in Yosemite Valley on Highway 140. He was 57. Details aren't clear, but he apparently lost control of his car on the rain-slick road and hit a free. The accident occurred just past a temporary bridge built earlier this year to carry traffic around a massive rockslide that crossed the highway. No other vehicles were involved. "This is a huge loss for the Yosemite family," park Superintendent Mike Tollefson said. "In addition to Steve's innumerable contributions to the park, he was known for his quick wit, dedication and sense of accomplishment." The Yosemite Association, formerly known as the Yosemite Natural History Association, was chartered by Congress in 1923 as the first "cooperating association" established to work in partnership with a national park. Its role is to support Yosemite through education, research and environmental programs. Medley was born in Palo Alto in 1949 and graduated from Gilroy High School in 1967. He then obtained a bachelor's degree in film and broadcast studies from Stanford University in 1971. His association with Yosemite began the same year, said his wife, Jane Medley, while he was on a cross-country hitchhiking trip right after college. Somehow a friend who was a Yosemite park ranger contacted him and offered him a seasonal job in the park. In August 1971, Medley halted his journey, returned to California, cut his long hair and took the job. Within months, Medley met his future wife in the park. Both eventually obtained permanent jobs in the park, she as a dispatcher, then a campground ranger; he as a naturalist, park librarian and museum curator. The couple married in 1976. He earned a master's degree in library science in 1975 from the University of Oregon and a law degree from UC Davis in 1981. He practiced law for four years in Grants Pass, Oregon. In 1985, the previous director of the Yosemite Association retired, and Medley got the job. "It allowed him a lot of outlets for his creativity," Jane Medley said. "He knew the park's natural history, and he knew the human history, and he had a mind that retained information." His proudest accomplishment, she said, was publishing "An Illustrated Flora of Yosemite" in 2001. Written by Stephen J. Botti, it is an exhaustive "Coffee table-sized" catalog of the park's vegetation, with more thatf 500 pages and 1,100 color illustrations of wildflowers and other plants. Bob Hansen, president of the Yosemite Fund, another nonprofit serving the park, said the book took more than two decades to produce and is considered the bible of Yosemite plants. Medley's determination to publish it, Hansen said, created a resource that will serve park managers for decades. Medley may have been best known, however, for "The Complete Guidebook to Yosemite," which he wrote. More than 100,000 copies have been published, and the book is now it its fifth printing. The book received an award from the National Park Service, and Hansen called it "probably the best guidebook" on Yosemite. He is survived by wife, Jane Medley of Oakhurst; and sons, Charlie, 25, Joe, 23, and Andy, 20, all of Oakhurst. John Muir Inducted in California Hall of Fame John Muir included as an Inaugural Inductee in the new California Hall of Fame at the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts (article taken from Sierra Club's John Muir Exhibit website http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/ca_hall_of_fame.html) On July 31, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced the creation of the California Hall of Fame, a groundbreaking institution extolling the inspirational contributions of extraordinary Californians who have made their mark on the state, the nation and the world. (Continued on page 18) The John! Newsletter Volume 16, Number 2/3 SPRING/SUMMER 2006 Published Quarterly by The John Muir Center for Environmental Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ STAFF ♦ Director W.R. Swagerty Editor W.R. Swagerty Production Assistant Marilyn Norton Unless otherwise noted, all photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust page 2 Muir Visited The Calaveras Groves Twice By Michael Wurtz Archivist, Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library One hundred miles due east of Muir's Martinez home is Calaveras Big Trees State Park. As the name suggests, this park is the home to two groves of Sequoiadendron Giganteum or Sierra redwood. These redwoods do not grow as tall as their coastal relatives (Sequoiadendron Semperverin), but they are massive - the largest living things on earth. According to Joseph H. Engbeck, Jr's 1973 The Enduring Giants, "giant sequoia grows and reproduces naturally only in scattered sites along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. These sites are all within a 260-mile- long zone at elevations between 4,000 and 8,400 feet." Calaveras' North Grove sits off Highway 4 only three miles up the road from Arnold, California, and is easily accessible with a short walk. The park's South Grove is an additional eight miles from the park entrance and requires a slightly stouter hike from the frailhead to the big trees. Being "less than a day and a quarter from San Francisco," these groves were the closest Sierra redwoods to Muir, but he managed to visit them only twice in his lifetime. Muir's first visit to Calaveras is documented in the July 20, 1876 edition of'the Daily Evening Bulletin of San Francisco. For much of the first part of the article, Muir implores the "weary town worker" to "come to the woods and rest!" He writes that Californians work too hard, therefore, "compulsory education may be good; [but] compulsory recreation may be better." As a mountaineer, Muir had easy access to many of California's mountains, "but the feeble or timebound must follow ways and means, and I know of none better than those of Calaveras." Muir also recognized the destruction of trees in Calaveras, "Two of the largest sequoias have been killed, one of these,.' The Mother of the Forest,'., was flayed alive, the bark having been removed in sections, and set up in the London Exposition. The other was cut down because someone wanted to dance on the stump [now known as "Big Stump"]." Another trend of that time was to affix a plaque to some of the more remarkable sequoias and give them names like "Abraham Lincoln" or "Palace Hotel." Muir felt that these, "black glaring names carved on marble tablets and counter-sunk in the brown bark, [produced] a shabby, tombstone appearance." Despite these sad examples of human impact, Muir felt, "the grove has been well preserved." In 1900, Muir set out on trip from Lake Tahoe to Yosemite via the Calaveras groves with the well-known scientist C. Hart Merriam and his family. His one-day visit on August 23, 1900 is not much better documented than the 1876 visit. Two letters that specifically mention the groves are more about whom he met than the majesty of the trees. Additional accounts of this trip can be cobbled together from the 1901 Our National Parks and a January 1920 Sierra Club Bulletin. He was just as emphatic about the well being of the frees as he had been on his first visit. The Mother of the Forest "still stands erect and holds forth its majestic arms as if alive and saying, 'Forgive them; they know not what they do.'" Muir suggests that the frees might make good lumber, just as "George Washington after passing through the hands of a French cook would have made good food." Fortunately for both "higher uses have been found." Like his first trip, he recognized the efforts to preserve theses groves. He praises James L. Sperry for protecting the North Grove for almost 40 years while many of the Sierra redwoods throughout California have "been felled, [and] blasted into manageable dimensions." He continues, "These kings of the forest, the noblest of a noble race, rightly belong to the world, but as they are in California we cannot escape responsibility as their guardians." Muir concludes, "Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away." Today, the park continues to pay tribute to Muir by liberally sprinkling his quotes through pamphlets and interpretive signs. (Additional notes on Big Stump and Mother of the Forest: A year after the trees were "discovered" in 1853, speculators stripped the first 50 feet of bark from the biggest free in the forest and then felled it. The bark was reconstructed for exposition in San Francisco and New York. The Big Stump was turned into a dance hall, and the fallen trunk was flattened for a bowling alley. The Stump measures about 25 feet in diameter and a ring count suggests that the tree was 1244 years old. The Mother of the Forest was stripped other bark to 116 feet in 1854 for expositions in New York and London. In 1908, a fire swept through the park. Normally, the redwood's thick bark protects the trees from fire, but without it, the "Mother" burned and is now a chaned monolith.) The Siena redwoods of Calaveras Big Trees dwarf Muir on his 1900 visit. The free without bark, a little bit to the left of the center in the background, is the Mother of the Forest before it was burned. (Fiche 24-1333 John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust) ■ page 3 (Continued from page 1) writing due to pencil smudges, water damage or Muir's abbreviation system, we have designated such in brackets, sometimes suggesting words. Notebook fifty begins with an early morning arrival on August 18 in Vladivostock, the most important seaport in eastern Russia at the time. Connected by the Chinese Eastern Railway to Europe in 1897, this town was on the threshold of becoming a free commercial port (1904) and by 1917 would become the eastern terminus of the Trans- Siberian Railroad. Muir grumbled in his notebook about "2 weeks more of miserable rail travel" and was not physically at his best, suffering from "indigestion after 3 months of abominally cooked food," but he endured and continued with the Sargents on a remarkable trip that took him on a loop north to Kabarosk then south back into Manchuria to the city of Harbin, which he described as "that filthy place." From there Muir planned to visit the old walled Chinese city of Moukden (also Mukden) on the Hun River, the strategic capital during the Manchu Dynasty (1644- 1912) and an important railway juncture. However, three washed out bridges prevented train travel and the party returned to "horrid Harbin." On September 3, "still alive" with morphine and brandy helping to ease his pain, Muir was back in Vladivostock and bound for Wonsan, Korea the next day, "a Prince Will[iam] Sound on [a] small scale," as he described the beautiful harbor. On to Japan by November 9, then by the German steamer Bayern to Shanghai, "a grand town," where Muir and the Sargents parted company. Now traveling solo, Muir left for Hongkong on September 12, "glad I'm free" he writes. His next port of call across the South China Sea was Singapore, reached on September 20. Three days later, Muir was bound for Calcutta, again by water on the outside passage. Taking careful notes on exotic woods and uses of such trees as teak, bamboo, palms, pines, and rattans, his ship arrived at Rangoon on September 27, and three days later made port in Calcutta. Hoping to see Mount Everest, Muir headed by rail to Darjeeling but had logistical problems hiring horses to take him close enough to see the great mountain. Settling for a "glorious view" of Kinchinjinga, and suffering rheumatism, bad food, and damp accommodations, an exhausted John Muir concluded "to go down" on October 6, short his goal, but much impressed with the Himalayas, which he described as a "Magnificent range of mountains to northeast and round to east." Back in Calcutta, he purchased a round trip ticket to Bombay via Delhi, taking in museums, old palaces and castles, and former residences of the British, and observing Indian bathers in the "holy ganges." Between Kalka and Simla, experienced his most thrilling ride of the entire trip, a fifty-eight mile excursion on a cart called a "Tonga," drawn by two horses. "Never before," writes Muir, "enjoyed so wild a ride on mountains or elsewhere." On October 20, and now in Bombay, Muir planned an excursion through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to see the pyramids of Egypt. He departed three days later, with a new suit of "Equator clothes" and crossed the Arabian Sea by steamer, noting "cooking pretty good or fair" aboard ship. Six days later, he arrived at Aden, "the driest most leafless forbidding town I ever saw, unmercifully hot." In typical Muiresque prose, he also saw beauty before him in a "good harbor, picturesque volcanic hills and mountains marvellously jagged and spiny pinnacly around shores, mostly barren of vegetation." Transferring to the Australian liner, Rome, for the next three days Muir expected to see shores and landscapes familiar to him from his Biblical readings. Disappointed that land was out of sight for two days, he writes, "Nothing red about the Red Sea." Finally on November 2, the mountains appeared on both sides, "some of the highest peaks massive." The notebook ends on November 2 with a short train ride to Old Suez and expectations of seeing Mount Sinai and other places familiar to him from books of travel and adventure taking him back to his Dunbar and Wisconsin boyhood. W. R. Swagerty August 18th In flowery, luxuriant wildness plants showing proximitu to the sea. A tall Echinopanax, like Alaskan somewhat, cut with much more divided leaves. Oak dentata, birch 2 species, one or two species ol Tillia, poplar, wild apple, plum, hazel, grape vine, etc. rank ferns. Great development ol stratified drift, looks in general like Puget Sound. Foggu, about 6:00 AM. the great ban- fiord with ships coming to view and running around the shore. Arrive at Vladivostock soon after 7:00 AM. and take rooms at the Grand Hotel, tired, half-starved, the last eight darjs, having slept in our clothes. Wash and feel better, but the hotels here are poor as to food and we have little hope of mending the flesh. Went to bank to see uoung Rodgers. Was greathj disappointed to learn he had gone to a town on the Amur, 2 Or 3 daus distant brj rail. August 19"\ Sargents out botanizing while I read and wish to rest. Would like to leave for Japan, etc., but Sargent wishes to go with him to point on the Amur and thence to Jukden, Pekin and Shanghai. 2 -weeks more of miserable rail travel in mq enfeebled condition, but I suppose I'll get through somehow, and I will see more of Manchuria. August 20tk In house all davj resting. August 21st. The sea air reviving. Hope to leave this evening 9:00 PM. for Kabarovsk. August 22»a At 5:00 AM Barometer about 400, sarj 300 above sea level. Dark raimj morning. Fields of wheat just ripe, about half cut, carefully shocked with cap sheaves. ■B page 4 Buck-wheat, a good deal of it still in flower. A rich, fertile beautiful country. Mountain with wooded hills in sight all around, not very high. Fields alternating with stretches of meadow. At 8:00 AM same as above running apparently on nearly dead level. Left Vladivostock at 9:40 last evening. Passed several towns with magnificent government buildings of red brick. All the masonry, carpentry, stone cutting indeed all work in Vladivostock and Manchuria in general and East Siberia done by Chinamen. See fine spruce and larch timber on freight trains. 530 PM After passing ranges of mountains on either side of valley all day, others apparently as high and handsomely arrayed back of each other are still in sight, wheat, west and north, all forested as far as can be seen, distance varying from 40 to 100 miles (?) The valley has diversified hills also, and all the ground is fertile, black prairie soil. Q. birches, a fine oak and Tillia Manchuria hazel, where spared by fire or protected. Young trees as grubs springing up most every where. A good many meads wet. Comparatively little wheat. Barometer about 300-400 all day, so beautiful is the great valley of the Neuzzi. August 23rd. 5:00 AM. Dark, rainy morning. The woods mostly burned or ^- cleared off. Ground flat. At 6:15 arrived Kabarosk, raining hard. Barometer stands at 625, probably corrected height about 3 or 400. Jacobs, scruared with this evening, including 1/3 of his expenses up to yesterday. Rained nearly all day, stavjed indoors after getting damp and rheumatic on long ride from station to hotel, difficulty in finding rooms. August 24tk Fair, but cloudrj. Went down the river along the right bluff bank to a garden where there are magnificent views of the wide Amur Valley and its mighty flood of dingy -water drawn from a thousand fountains in the mountains. The Ussuri, one of its greatest tributary rivers enters the Amur a mile or 2 above this point. The -width of Vladivostok, Aug. 19, 1903 Dear Louie, After many short stops here and there we are at last on the Pacific, having crossed the whole vast breadth of Asia, and now you don't seem so dreadfully far. We arrived yesterday morning, very tired and dirty, having slept in our clothes the last 8 nights and the heat has been trying - 80 to 90° in the cars, and miserable uneatable food at the stations most of the (time). Mere it is delightfully cool, but the food is very poor. I'm resting today while the Sargents are out botanizing. I suppose we will be here a few days longer. Then Sargent wants to (go to) the Amur for a day or two, thence back to Harbin, thence to Mukden, and thence to Peking, which will require 8 or 10 days more of rail riding of (the) most wearisome sort but with views of wonderful regions, their rocks, scenery, flora, people, etc. by way of compensation. I had made up my mind to leave the Sargents here and go to Japan, Shanghai, etc., as I long for the cool sea. But Sargent advises very strongly against my going off alone, and raises all sorts of objections, difficulty of ananging money matters, etc., promises not to stay but a day or two in Piking or hot dirty Mukden (suggestive name). So I suppose I'll go on with him as far as Peking or Shanghai, where I hope to hear from you once more. The whole trip has been exceedingly interesting, far more so than anything I had read leads one to expect And now, dear wife and babes, Heaven bless you. How glad I'll be to get home. Love to all. JOHN MUIR the Amur when the current is swift, 4 or 5 miles an hour, is about 3/4 of mile at the narrowest, but probably this is not the whole river though apparently larger than the Mississippi at New Orleans. All the banks and bluffs, far and near, are densely forested, willows, alders, spruce (Picea Gleni (?)), Philodendron, ash, maple, walnut, wild rose, orange family, Tillia Manchuria, Larix dehourica, corylus, apple, pear, Crategus, oak, Manchuria, Rhamnus, vib(?), dogweed, etc. In general like flora of Japan, less so than Vladivostok, says Sargent. Fine station of Muraviev, Amurskii, Count, General Governor of East Siberia, conquered Amur region (?) Mountains on left side Amur Valley here about 4000 feet high. August 25*k. ___^ Rainy. Leave this evening at 3:45 for Mukden. Fair at 3:00 PM./Barometer 500 feet. The town is about 50 years old, founded by Muraviev, named for helman of Cossacks Kabarosk - -widely scattered, of slow growth, except the red brick government buildings, Ought to be large place at end of long fertile valley of the Ussuri. August 26"'. Fine bright morning. Barometer 300 feet. 10:15 AM. a fine rich, fertile prairie country, mostly unplowed as yet. Very flowery, asters, geraniums, spiraea, rose, hazel, few patches S of wheat and buckwheat. Open woods and forests in distance, the nearest round-headed. Oak, elm, tillia, birch. Yesterday from 400 PM. till dark in rather swampy woods, trees slender 1 to 1-1/2 feet diameter, 50 to 75 feet high. Birch, larch (dehourica -with small cones, long leaves, very feather, but less beautiful, original and sturdy that Siberica.) A pine particularly abundant on hills nearly all with double or 4 or 5 tops kept parallel. May be cembra, has large cones, but none I have seen here approaches the glorious Taiga Cembras, either in size or port. The Spruce Glenni (?) also very abundant. All the woods the first hundred miles from Kabaroska have been severely injured or destroyed by fire. page 5 At 10:40 AM today, woods alternating with prairie with wheatfields larger in extent, beautiful mountains on the west side, 50 to 75 miles distant Wooded foothills Grain shock. 1:45 PM Yet larger hay and grain fields, buckwheat in flower. Oats still green. Half the area of wide rolling prairie under cultivation, towns numerous, mostly miles from the railroad. 3:00 PM Barometer 150 feet. Lovely sunny day, not too warm. Valley here very wide from blue hills to mountains 100 miles or so, with many side valleys while the elevation of the country in general is so slight the valley bounds are ill- defined. With simple drainage in some places, this Ussuri Valley could be made one of the most productive in the -world, and support a hundred times as many inhabitants as it now does. Indeed, the same may be said of most all Siberia. It is not generally known how vast the agricultural resources of Russia are, and to how slight a degree they as yet have been developed, even in the older, thickly settled of European Russia, and to think of famines in such a country, and yet many severe famines have occurred. The slowness and imperfectness of the development of these rich prairies is marvelous. None of the famous prairies of Iowa, Wisconsin, or Illinois in all their virgin richness offered more generous farms on easy terms to settlers, either in climate, ease of cultivation, or abundance of timber within available distances. August 27tk. Fine, cool, bright. At 7:00 AM. turn into mountains, running through level fields of millet, beans, oats, etc. Chinese careful cultivators. 830, turn into mountains, follow of course a stream. A Baldwin compound engine pushing at 850 Barometer 1600 feet. The loveliest flowers, asters pale blue, the finest growing on rocks or good soil flowering profusely. Bluebells, spiraea, rose, dry as, veronica, thistle, etc. Trees - larch, pine, double many-topped kind, oak, birches, 2 poplars, -willow, rock meta, slates, sandstone, granite, basalt, over laid with bouldery drift. Barometer at 9:00 AM 700, at crossing of beautiful river with rock bluff banks. Moutan Kiang Kenlei-alin mountains, the range we crossed at 9 o clock this morning. At 2:00 PM. barometer 1000, in the beautiful valley 5 miles wide, but little cultivated, very flowery, bounded by finely sculptured hills. At 3:20 PM. Barometer 1300, ascending charming branch valley, stream 10 feet wide; trees pine, spruce, oak, ash, elm, 2 birches, etc. Rock Charles Sprague Sargent 1841-1927 (from http://www.hort.purdue.edu) granite showing many gray-lichened cliffs. Large boulders recalling Yosemite granite. At 6:15 PM on what seems summit of divide, magnificently forested. Barometer 2000 feet. The cembra or cembra-like pine is very abundant, the principal tree of -woods, though not as fine by far as at Taiga, broad, mossy mountains covered with it; trees 3 feet diameter, near 100 feet high. Large larch and ash, also. Hazel abundant, and birches. Train has been running very slow and making long stops since noon. Grand mountain views ahead. Saw glorious cumuli 2 hours ago, fairly glittering like icebergs on top. August 28tk 6:00 AM. In broad flat, mostly cultivated. At Harbin, 7:00 AM. Barometer 600, rainy. Harbin is situated on river flat, very muddy streets. When dry fill in ruts and sink-holes, the story of sea of mud. Large government buildings, intended for large town, like many others along the railroad, but Yankee enterprise sadly -wanting or adventurous builders of homes. The whole country seems a government camp. Drive to so- called Garden Restaurant, 5 miles of the most horrible streets for holes, basins, pits, ridges and peaks made chiefly of mud. Harbin on its huge flat. Rain again and dark. Left Harbin at 230 for Mukden. Rain at 2:45 in rich rolling treeless prairie-like country, planted mostly to Millet. 430 PM. Barometer 700. Same prairie, sunflower, millet, melons, etc. Still dark, rainy, extremely rich soil, glacial mud, silt reformed in slow water. Few clumps of trees on horizon. Mud adobe houses, thatch roofs, mud corral -walls, some corn. 6:00 PM. universal rain. Barometer 850. Dripping Chinamen herding cattle and horses here and there, some with umbrellas. Nearly all cultivated or in pasture. The country is flatter than 2 hours ago. All looks like Illinois. August 29th. Barometer 650. Cloudy. The same prairie and crops. All Chinese horses, poor and sore. Groves and single trees here and there. Willow, poplar, tillia or elm (?), mostly not a stone to be seen. Houses mud, framework wood. The whole country beautiful in features of low swells and ravines with hills dotted with trees in distance. Seems to have been cultivated every inch of it time immemorial. No wild flowers in it, only weeds by waysides and in pastures, rose colored polygonum, the showiest. Chinese here keep hogs -which they herd. The largest ever saw have enormous ears, look like baby elephants. page 6 San-Wan, Korea, Sep. 7, 1903 Left Vladivostok on the 3d. Have greatly enjoyed the sail down the Korean coast. Have made 3 landings in fiord harbors like those of Alaska. Am glad to get afloat after two months of most wearisome railriding. Was tired out. Am now restored. Lovingly, J.M. Postal card addressed to Mrs. [John Muir, Martinez, California, United States of America] We are running back to Kundeline - 3 bridges said to be washed out ahead, going back all the warj to Harbin. Don t know how long may have to wait in that filthy place. Sargent seems pleased. August 30tk Still damp and cloudy and running wearily back through millet fields to Harbin, will probably get there thisPM. Arrived at 10:00 AM Stay here until 3:00 PM. when "we again go back 200 miles or so into first mountains to south of here to botanize. A day or so while -waiting repairs on line to Port Arthur. No one knows when they will be completed. Start at 3:40 PM Rain. Warm, muggy weather. Barometer 650. Many on train going this way via Vladivostock to Port Arthur. Wish we were, but of course Sargent won t, and he has me in V his power. August 31ri. Arrive at station in the mountains, 1600 feet elevation, at daybreak and in pouring rain. Crouch for a while back of brick wall, then go to porch of restaurant where I lie on bench all day in horrible pain - indigestion after 3 months of abominally cooked food. Start back to horrid Harbin at 5 or 5 PM / Arrive at 6:00 AM. After dreadful night of pain. I told Sargent that we would probably be compelled to go via Vladivostock and Japan after all this passing 5 times over part of road on account of broken bridges. He never seemed to think of me sick or well, or of my studies, only of his own (?), until he feared I might die on his hands, and thus bother him. He -was planning another botanical trip to some point on the Sungari, going by steamer, and leaving me alone at some hotel or lodging house. But fortunately learned the railroad might not be opened for a month, and that a steamer would leave Vladivostock on the 3r or 4' . So back north we again -went this evening September first. (Two pages of sketches). September 2nd. Still alive. Morphine to stupefy pain and brandy to hold life. September 3 . Arrived at old quarters in Vladivostock at 7:00 AM., after most painful days of all my experience in this world. Learn the steamer sails at 3:00 PM. today. Robison [Sargent J loses passport and can't buy ticket or leave country. After big fuss went to American Consul and under his direction got out papers enabling him to leave. Got off at 6:00 PM. and now hope to get well. Ate a little supper and suffer no pain. September 4'k. Glorious to be free from pain. Arrive at [Wonsan], beautiful harbor on Korean Coast. Leave at night.(See pages 16 and 17) September 5 . At [Wonsan], a magnificent harbor surrounded by mountains. A Prince Will Sound on small scale. Instead every feature is glacial. Very picturesque. September 6ik. Sea within sight of land at Sun San. Another fine harbor - glacial. y September 7* . Good-looking man and woman Koreans; limbs of stevedores admirable. September 8 . Arrive at 630 this morning at Nagasaki. The harbor most beautiful, bold and telling in glacial form and color of vegetation. A lovely place, swarming with fine steamers from all the -world. Junks, boats of every description, but the town Nagasaki, Japan, Sep. 8, "03. Arrived here from Vladivostok 2 hrs. ago (9 a.m.) Sail at noon for Shanghai. Thence don't know yet. All well. Lovingly, J.M. [Postal card addressed to Miss Wanda Muir, Martinez, California, United States of America] and shopping is scarce noticed in presence of the grand eloquent scenery. Sail at 2:45 on the German-Lloyd steamer Bayern for Shanghai. Meet Mr. Merrill and family who know Mr. Sargent and self. Very pleasant chat. Weather very hot. Fans over tables at meal times, and buzz electric fans in every berth. Thus the sticky, muggy weather is rendered tolerable, or even pleasant, but what of the coalheavers, men and women, coaling the ship in blazing sunshine, tossing endless succession of 40 pound baskets from light https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1082/thumbnail.jpg |
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