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To Mrs. Muir Sunday afternoon, May 22, 1881. Dear Louie: We left uonalaska this morning at four o'clock and are now
in Bering Sea on our way to St. George and St. Paul Islands. We expect to reach St. Paul tomorrow and remain there half a
day or so, when I will send this and another letter that I have for you by the Alaska Com. Co.'s steamer back to unalaska
to be forwarded by the first chance. This morning I sent you five by the schooner H. L. Tiernan, which is going to Oregon
where they will be put in the mail. Next Tuesday or Wednesday we expect to come in sight of the ice, but hope to find open
water, along the west shore, that will enable us to get through the Strait to Cape Serdze or thereabouts. In a month or so
we expect to be at St.Michaels, where we will have a chance to send more letters and still later by whalers. You will, therefore,
have no very long period of darkness, though on my side I fear I shall have to wait a long time for a single word, and it
is only by trusting in you to be cheerful and busy for the sake of your health and for the sake of our little dall of us that
I can have any peace and rest throughout this trip, however long or short. Now you must be sure to sleep early to make up
for waking during the night, and occupy all the day with light work and cheerful thoughts, and never brood and dream of trouble,
and I will come back with the knowledge that I need and a fresh supply of the wilderness in my health.I am already quite well
and eat with savage appetite whatsoever is brought within reach. This morning I devoured half of a salmon trout 18 inches
long, a slice of ham, half a plateful of potatoes, two biscuits and four or five slices of bread with coffee and something
else that I have forgotten, but which was certainly buried in me and lost. For lunch, two platefuls of soup, a heap of fat
compound onion hash, two pieces of toast, and 3 or 4 slices of bread, with potatoes, and a big sweet cake, and now at 3 o'clock
I am very hungry---a hunger that no amount of wave-tossing will abate. Furthermore, I look forward o at seals fried and boiled,
and to walrus steaks and stews, and doughnuts fried in train oil, and to all kinds of bears and fishy fowls with eager longing.There
Is that enough, grandmother? All my table whims are rapidly passing into the sere and yellow leaf and falling off. I promise
to comfort and sustain you beyond you highest aspirations when I return and fall three times a day on your table like a wolf
on the fold. You know those slippery yellow custards -- well, I eat those also You must not forget Sam Williams.And now,
my love, goodnight. I hope you are feeling strong-hearted. I wish that I could write anything, sense or nonsense, to cheer
you up and brighten the outlook into the North. I will try to say one more line or two when we reach the Islands tomorrow.
Love to all. Kiss Annie for me. John Muir Letter contained in envelope addressed as follows: Mrs. John Muir, care Dr.
John Strentzel, Martinez, California , postmarked St. Paul's Island, Alaska, Jun 4, 1881. 14