Title:
Letter from John Muir to Helen & [Annie] Wanda [Muir], 1893 Jul [23].
Creator:
John Muir
Publisher:
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies
of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Contributor:
Helen & [Annie] Wanda [Muir]
Date:
1893 Jul [23]
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir07_1211-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Steamship Chevalier, Near Oban, [Scotland]
Rights:
Copyrighted
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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://library.pacific.edu/ha/forms
Muir-Hanna Trust
1984
Transcription:
Steamship Chevalier, Near Oban, July 23 , 1893. Hello Helen and Wanda: My two darling babies. I am on a steamboat sailing
down through the midst of beautiful islands along the coast of Scotland on my way to Glasgow and Edinburgh. You can see the
brown heather on the hills and the sheep scattered about like white dots. It is all beautiful hereabouts like the coast of
Alaska, only there are very few trees. All the hills and mountains are green and brown, with grass and bushes and heather.
The heather where it is thickest makes the brownish patches. The heather is a good deal like Cassiope, a small shrub tufty
and dense and makes delightful fragrant beds for Highlanders and all lovers of fresh, flowery, breezy wildness. I have not
yet climbed the Scotch hills to find out much about heather. I have seen two species, the bell and the common kind. It seldom
grows higher than a foot or so, two feet at most. It is very hardy though so lovely, and will endure any amount of trampling,
nibbling and burning. The sheep eat it, and heather mutton may well be the best. O how I would like to camp out on these
shaggy hills, but I must make haste to get back to my babies. I have to go to Norway a week or two and then to Switzerland,
and the time flies fast. The steamer shakes so much with the machinery I can hardly write. It is a cloudy day and showery
at times, but the sun just now is streaming its mellow light through shifting openings and making many a bright golden patch
on the green brown hills, and the water sparkles and glints and shines like silver. I must go in haste. We change steamers
here. Ever, my darlings, Your loving father, JOHN MUIR 799