A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
by John Muir
John Muir about 1870
Contents
| Introduction | |
| Chapter I. | Kentucky Forests and Caves |
| Chapter II. | Crossing the CumberlandMountains |
| Chapter III. | Through the River Country ofGeorgia |
| Chapter IV. | Camping among the Tombs |
| Chapter V. | Through Florida Swamps andForests |
| Chapter VI. | Cedar Keys |
| Chapter VII. | A Sojourn in Cuba |
| Chapter VIII. | By a Crooked Route toCalifornia |
| Chapter IX. | Twenty Hill Hollow |
Illustrations
| John Muir about 1870 From a photograph by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco, Cal. |
| Map showing Route of Walk to the Gulf |
| Lime Key, Florida From Mr. Muir’s sketch in the original journal |
| Twenty Hill Hollow, Merced County,California From a sketch by Mr. Muir |
Introduction
“John Muir, Earth-planet, Universe.”—These words are writtenon the inside cover of the notebook from which the contents of this volume havebeen taken. They reflect the mood in which the late author and explorerundertook his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico a half-century ago. Noless does this refreshingly cosmopolitan address, which might have startled anyfinder of the book, reveal the temper and the comprehensiveness of Mr.Muir’s mind. He never was and never could be a parochial student ofnature. Even at the early age of twenty-nine his eager interest in every aspectof the natural world had made him a citizen of the universe.
While this was by far the longest botanical excursion which Mr. Muir made inhis earlier years, it was by no means the only one. He had botanized around theGreat Lakes, in Ontario, and through parts of Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois.On these expeditions he had disciplined himself to endure hardship, for hisnotebooks disclose the fact that he often went hungry and slept in the woods,or on the open prairies, with no cover except the clothes he wore.
“Oftentimes,” he writes in some unpublished biographical notes,“I had to sleep out without blankets, and also without supper orbreakfast. But usually I had no great difficulty in finding a loaf of bread inthe widely scattered clearings of the farmers. With one of these big