John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf (1914: Barnes and Noble electronic edition, 2011), 119 pages.
In 1867, after recovering from an industrial accident that left him temporarily blind, John Muir left Indiana for the Gulf of Mexico. Taking only a small sack, his possessions included a flower press, a change of underwear, a comb, a brush, a towel, soap, a flower press, and a few books: Burns poems, Milton’s Paradise Lost and a small New Testament. Taking the train to the border, he set out walking through Kentucky, where he visited Monmouth Caves. When visiting an old Planter who questioned taking off as he was doing. Muir called upon Solomon and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount for support of God’s interest in creation and suggested that if the Heavenly Father was interested in flowers, he too should be interested. (19)
Muir continued on through Tennessee where he saw the destruction from the Civil War and found through the tip of North Carolina, stopping in the town of Murphy before pushing into Georgia. There he swung eastward to Savannah, where he was resupplied with money sent from his brother. His description of his trip through Savannah shows the condition of the South following the war, with its many abandon and ruined homes. He also has opportunities to talk with many people, black and white, who warn him of the dangers of traveling alone. He seems welcoming to interact with those of all races, even though he shows some of the prejudices of the day, remarking about “an energetic white man could pick more cotton than half a dozen sambos and sallies.” (32)
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Muir’s travels slow down once he reaches Florida. This is partly due to coming down with malaria while at Cedar Key. But he also seemed more interested in the strange plants unlike anything he’d seen in the Midwest or Scotland. He notes that the further south he traveled the more he felt to be “a stranger in a strange land. (90) Although the Florida coast isn’t at all like the Scottish coast of his childhood, Muir found that the salt air would draw out his memories of his earlier life. While in the swamps of Florida, Muir had time to ponder the relationship between humans and nature. Although Muir holds the Creator in high esteem, he questions the concept that man is the pinnacle of the Creator’s creation. Some of his thoughts are rather humorous as he questions why, if we’re on top, there are animals and insects that feed on men (72) and that “venomous beasts, thorny plants and deadly diseases” prove that the world was not made for men (74) Muir finds himself being in sympathy of the animal world:
Let a Christian hunter go to the Lord’s woods and kill his well-kept beasts, or wild Indians and it’s as well; but let an enterprising specimen of those proper, predestined victims go to houses and fields and kill the most worthless person of the vertical god-like killers, -oh! That is horribly unorthodox and on part of the Indians atrocities murder. Well, I have precious little sympathy for the selfish propriety of civilized man and if a war of the races should occur between the wild beast and Lord Man, I would be tempted to sympathize with the beast.” (64)
Muir also questions some of the traditional views on animals and evil:
Some people think alligators are created by the devil, “but these creatures are happy and fill the place assigned them by the great Creator of us all. Fierce and cruel they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of God.” (43)
Muir spends a couple of months in Cedar Key, recovering from fever, before heading on a ship to Havana. He spent time in Cuba, but had not recovered his strength and so he gave up the idea of exploring the island or traveling to South America and exploring the Amazon. After Havana, he book passage on a ship hauling oranges to New York (for $25) where he hoped to find his way to California. Having traveled from Indiana to Florida on foot and then on to Cuba, Muir appears overwhelmed in New York and although he sees street cars for Central Park, decides to stay near the docks out of the fear of getting lost in a throng of people.
From New York, Muir sails for California via Panama (for $40). The last quarter of the book is devoted to his time in California, especially his first trip into the Sierras where he finds himself “Bapitized” in nature’s font. (107) From what I read of this book, Muir had typed his journal that include the walk and added a letter with it to make the book which was compiled and published after his death.
Final quote: “
very good appreciations of nature.
ReplyDeleteMuir has a magical use of words
DeleteYou always amaze me, Sage, with so many fascinating books and reflections. As I read this I thought to myself, 'How we take modern creature comforts for granted!'
ReplyDeleteHave a nice weekend!!! :)
Going through the burned out south and trying to find food (in a day when there were no restaurants outside of cities) was a walk of faith
DeleteIt's amazing how erroneous the issues with the south were held at the time, both inside and abroad. They were mixing a few causes together. But mostly the war was blamed when the war did little more than speed up the shift to Indian and African cotton. Basically a huge percentage of the area had to revert to producing food at a time when the Midwest and Canada was really coming on line. And what little there was with cotton they changed from price setters to price takers.
ReplyDeleteIs this a current route one could walk.
Vince, it is not a trail like the Appalachian Trail. If one wanted to follow this trail, a bicycle might be a better way.
DeleteThanks for the heads up on this. Looks like an intersting tome I might enjoy.
ReplyDeleteI wonder when he picked up the camera and became a documentarian of beauty.
ReplyDeleteI see he left Indiana ... good idea -- as a friend used to say: even the very ground is unfriendly in Indiana. But he was biased, I think.
My, how the time we are born into shapes our views, makes me wonder how the future generations will judge the values we presently hold dear..?
ReplyDeleteTHIS sounds like something I need. To read. And then do - in my own way. So in need of a good long thoughtful hike.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Good review.
I've been reading it on the http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/a_thousand_mile_walk_to_the_gulf/chapter_1.html
ReplyDeleteI kept thinking from where do I know this style. It's a blog !!!!. Not a diary, leastwise not the usual.
The phrase 'thrice dead village' would be sufficient reason to read.
DeleteThis sounds like a great read!
ReplyDeleteNow on "Must Read" list. I didn't know about this Muir book until this post. I feel so ashamed. Thanks for alerting us to it!
ReplyDeleteCheers.
Excellent recap of the book. I should know Muir better, especially as a Californian. How slowly one would absorb the country just walking across it like that. He must have had the option of crossing the continent by train when he went to California. Interesting that he chose the Panama route.
ReplyDeleteTwenty years later, 1884, Charles Lummis walked across country from Ohio to Los Angeles. He "blogged" that trip, too, for the newspapers, and it was a life-altering experience. His book, TRAMP ACROSS THE CONTINENT might interest you.
Ron,Thanks! I just downloaded the "free" Nook version (1923 edition)
DeleteFirst Sage I have to say that in thirty years you were only the second person who even knew where Moossinee was, much less having been there.
ReplyDeleteSecond you know whenever I thought of Muir until today i only think of his California/Sierra writings and how he inspired Ansel Adams thank you for a little bit more about one of America's greatest defenders of the pristine.
What can I say but that I get around :)
DeleteDo not dismiss out of hand his comment about a white man picking cotton, as the white man may be picking to his own account and the colored folks picking for Ol' Massa, so it should be no surprise it they do not put their heart and soul into it. This commonplace observation accounts for many of the attitudes that we today think of as racist when they are in fact merely the response of any rational person to the denial of the fruits of their own labors. Slaves enabled to work to their own account, as to earn money to buy their own freedom, apparently did quite well, much as the "private plots" of Communist-era farmers proved vastly more productive than what they were producing for others.
ReplyDeleteIt is unhistorical to judge people of the past by standards we ourselves have just recently acquired. We would not want ourselves to be judged by future standards of which we have never heard.
But as to Muir's journey, what an amazing voyage one could make across America not that long ago. It reminded me of a journey I found in an old book in the Falmouth Library, a father and son and their cat sailed along the coast from Cape Cod to Key West not long after Muir's trip. Will our grandchildren look back on our excursions and wonder at them?