A Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf

by John Muir

From one of America's greatest environmentalists, here is the adventure that started John Muir on a lifetime of discovery.

Taken from his earliest journals, this book records Muir's walk in 1867 from Indiana across Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to the Gulf Coast. In his distinct and wonderful style, Muir shows us the wilderness, as well as the towns and people, of the South immediately after the Civil War.

This book makes the perfect gift for an aspiring naturalist, hiking enthusiast, or lover of southeastern terrain.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir, Biography, History, Natural History

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1916

About the author

John Muir was far more than a naturalist; he was a secular prophet who translated the rugged language of the wilderness into a spiritual calling that saved the American soul from total surrender to materialism. Born in 1838 in the coastal town of Dunbar, Scotland, Muir’s childhood was a blend of seaside wanderings and a brutal religious upbringing. His father, Daniel Muir, was a man of uncompromising faith who forced John to memorize the New Testament and most of the Old Testament by age eleven. When the family immigrated to the frontier of Wisconsin in 1849, this iron-fisted discipline continued on their farm. However, for the young Muir, the "Book of Nature" began to rival the Bible. He saw the divine not just in scripture, but in the black locust trees and the sun-drenched meadows of the midwest.
The pivotal moment of Muir’s life occurred in 1867 while working at a wagon wheel factory in Indianapolis. A tool slipped, piercing his cornea and leaving him temporarily blind in both eyes. Confined to a darkened room for six weeks, Muir faced the terrifying prospect of a life without light. When his sight miraculously returned, he emerged with a clarity of purpose that would change the course of American history. He famously wrote, "This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields. God has to nearly kill us sometimes, to teach us lessons." He immediately set out on a 1,000-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico, beginning a lifelong odyssey of exploration.
Muir eventually found his "true home" in California’s Sierra Nevada. To Muir, the mountains were not mere piles of rock, but "the range of light." He spent years as a shepherd and guide in Yosemite, living a life of extreme simplicity—often traveling with nothing but a tin cup, a crust of bread, and a volume of Emerson’s essays. His scientific contributions were equally profound; he defied the leading geologists of the day by proving that the Yosemite Valley was carved by ancient glaciers. While the state geologist, Josiah Whitney, dismissed him as a mere "shepherd," the world’s leading glaciologists eventually recognized Muir’s genius.
His transition from explorer to activist was born of necessity. Seeing the "hoofed locusts"—domestic sheep—devouring the high mountain meadows, Muir took up his pen. His landmark articles in The Century Magazine and his 1903 camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt became the catalysts for the modern conservation movement. Under the stars at Glacier Point, Muir convinced the President that the wilderness required federal protection. This meeting laid the groundwork for the expansion of the National Park system and the eventual return of Yosemite Valley to federal control.
As the co-founder and first president of the Sierra Club, Muir spent his final years in a fierce philosophical battle with Gifford Pinchot. While Pinchot argued for "conservation" (the sustainable use of resources), Muir championed "preservation" (the protection of nature for its own sake). Though he lost the battle to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed, the heartbreak of that loss galvanized the American public, ensuring that future "cathedrals of nature" would remain inviolate. John Muir died in 1914, but his voice remains ubiquitous, reminding us that "into the woods we go, to lose our minds and find our souls."

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, interesting account of not finishing his botany, chemistry and geology studies at U Wisconsin, which his cheap Scottish father would not pay for. Leaving out his Canadian escape of the draft in 1863, Muir walked south, in 1866 or 67. He slept outside, under trees, often in cemeteries which combined great trees and comfortable grounds. In western Virginia I think or North Carolina he ran into some Rebel troops who had not disbanded, but they took him for an herbalist (he did carry lots of leaves and flowers, some medicinal) and let him by. Near Savannah he camped a week in Bonaventura cemetery, amazed at the live oaks and the moss:
" I was fresh from the Western prairies, the garden-like openings of Wisconsin, the beech and maple and oak woods of Indiana and Kentucky, the dark mysterious Savannah cypress forests; but never since I was allowed to walk the woods have I found so impressive a company of trees as the
tillandsia-draped oaks of Bonaventura." (I could say the same of a variety of huge trees at Mt Auburn Cemetery.)

Muir liked reading Emerson, whom I always aloudread in my Birdtalk-talks (particularly his poem, "Titmouse," about a Chickadee's bravery in a winter storm, saying like Caesar, "Ve-ni vi-di vi-c(h)i."* I came, I saw, I conquered, says the winter Chickadee. Years later in the Sierra Nevada, Emerson visited him with a host of protectors. Muir wanted Emerson to join him sleeping outside all night--what Muir did his whole life--but Emerson's handlers figured the old man wasn't up to it. A disappointment for Muir, and possibly for Emerson.

I give this fours stars only because I think Muir's writing improved in his accounts of the Western mountains, his coming across bear with his dog and shotgun, avoiding shooting. He'd know when there was a bear ahead since his dog would linger near, not proceed ahead of him. Great account of canyons and knowing someone is ten miles away. Maybe Emerson?

* At our Beach Club, I've adapted Caesar, Ven-ee Wee-di Wee-dy. When the sea is weedy, but not today, 20 July 22.

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reminded me SO much of Walden, another favorite of mine. The spiritual view towards nature and the utmost respect given to it is very much the same thread. I wish more people would read books like this, to encourage us all to reconnect to nature and discover God through it.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Muir would have made the worst Boy Scout imaginable. Early in September 1867, “joyful and free” but woefully unprepared, he set out from Indianapolis, Indiana on a 1,000 mile walk that would take him down the rocky spine of the eastern seaboard across Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, to the Gulf coast of Florida. In his rucksack he carried little more more than a map, compass, comb, brush, towel, soap, and one change of underclothes. For entertainment and enlightenment he took Burn’s poems, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and a small New Testament. He carried precious little cash, no matches, and not even a canteen. Night after night he slept in the dirt beside the road and awoke the following morning drenched through by the dew. He bathed in blackwater streams, begged for some of his food, and when hospitality and funds failed, he camped in cemeteries. Some days he walked more than forty miles without dinner or supper, unable to find a family that would agree to take him in. But none of these discomforts discouraged him in the least from pursuing his course south on his long “glorious” botanical walk to the sea.

High in the Cumberland mountains of Tennessee, where primitive homesteads were “far apart and uninhabited, orchards and fences in ruins -- sad marks of war,” he slipped between small bands of guerillas infesting the mountains, presenting himself to thieves as nothing more than a poor herb doctor. When more civilised men inquired “Young man, what are you doing here?” Muir replied that he was looking at plants.... “I love all kinds of plants, and I came down here to these Southern states to get acquainted with as many of them as possible.”

What did he meet? Spanish moss, live oaks, magnolias, pineapples, and palmettos -- all novel and wonderful to the twenty-nine year old Muir who had never spent much time outside a northern clime. He writes about these plants and dozens of other species in exultant tones that contrast poignantly with his descriptions of the dirt and poverty that mark the human residents who live along the paths he followed. For Muir, civilisation seemed necessary only to provide him with the food he needed to continue his long walk among the pine forests, swamps, and sand hills. Nature was clean, abundant, and harmonious, the exact opposite of many of the human settlements he encountered; if only he could overcome his need of daily bread, he vowed he would turn his back on civilisation forever.

But Muir wasn’t entirely a misanthrope. In fact, his book is a charming read that entertains as much with its unstudied descriptions of Reconstruction Era Southerners as with its detailed observations the region’s flora. Unlike most of the other books published under his name, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf was never finally edited by Muir for publication. What we read is William Frederic Badè’s edition of the journal Muir kept as he walked to the sea. The final chapters, dealing with California, are drawn from other sources, and show Muir’s penchant for prose in its full bloom and glory. But most of A Thousand Mile Walk is far more temperate, and for that reason has proved to be one of my favourites.

[David Allen Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shortly after the Civil War, naturalist John Muir undertook a 1000 mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico. Muir's writing focuses on his observations of nature and his wanderings. This book is a delightful summer read. Even though Muir wrote over 150 years ago, his simple mostly descriptive prose still reads well and contains few obsolete words or phrases. You can actually envision what he sees and feels though his words. While most of this book is simple description of travel and nature, Muir briefly sojourns into philosophy when he writes in a later chapter, "The world, we are told, was made especially for man--a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything... which they cannot eat or render in some way useful to themselves... it never seems to occur to these far-seeomg teachers that nature's object might possibly be...not the creation of all for the happiness of one. Why should a man value himself as more than a small part of one great unit of creation? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes...." Wise words indeed perhaps in considering the current "COVID-19" pandemic afflicting humans!

This edition of the work by Mariner Books is of the highest quality for a paperback. It preserves the typeface, wide margins and wide line-spacing that made older books so much more readable than most of today's paperbacks, and the paper is of heavy quality. This is a great book to take on a trip or a nature walk!

Now given its age, there are some shortcomings. Muir is a product of his times and in this time of intense political correctness, some readers might be amazed, shocked and offended by his occassional comments on african-americans, but they need to be taken in the context of 1867 not 2020. And the last 2 chapters, relating to his trip to California, were added on from other Muir writings and really don't fit in well with the rest of the book. But overall, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf is a unique masterpiece of nature writing, well worth a read.

[Carol-Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Muir walks to the Gulf of Mexico from Indianapolis via Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Once there he heads for Cuba. His interactions with people in a Post Civil War period were interesting - homes, food, slavery, plantations, robbers, racism etc. His journal not only provides observations of the flora he encounters but his views on environmentalism. A short and enjoyable read about his wanderings.

[Valerie]

I'm about halfway through this, and I'm finding problems with it that have little to do with the 'botanizing' which is the official purpose of the book. If the purpose of the book is to supply botanical information (much of which I could have provided myself with very little difficulty, having lived in more or less the same sort of environment further west), more drawings would be almost obligatory. Giving the Latin names for plants does NOT identify them to people who've seen them, but who have known only the popular names. Also, black & white photos are virtually useless to convey the rich tints of the environments.

It could be argued that black & white photos were all that were available at the time. This argument is invalid. Not only were there accurately colored drawings, but many people took monochrome photos and added color. This applies not only to sepia tinting. The photos were PAINTED the proper colors--an art which is not sufficiently remembered and celebrated.

Whether Muir himself had the skills to do this sort of thing is not clear. He evidently didn't bring a camera along on this trip, and his notebooks, as published, do not include drawings. The text implies that Muir took samples (leaves, cuttings, etc), but sketches don't seem to have been part of the plan. The few photos do not very well convey what things actually looked like at the time--and more recent photos don't do the area justice, really, either.

The casual racism which is so jarring to current readers is, in fact, quite liberal for the times. This was shortly after the American Civil War. The local people he lodges with are suspicious of outsiders, regarding them as what would later have been called 'carpetbaggers'. They quite reasonably suspect that many of the people who come to provide services to the freedmen are out for personal enrichment, at the expense of both landholders and the very freedmen they were supposedly there to aid. Many were, of course. Others who honestly came to provide assistance were corrupted. This happens with all reform movements. If there had been proper oversight and management of the reformers, it might have become a less corrupting process. The problem was that there was no Marshall to oversee the reforms and Reconstruction itself, and that there was quite a bit of local and outside resistance to land and social reforms.

Muir, however, was not a party to the process at all. He was just there to botanize. If he had come up with a more detailed plan beforehand, he would probably have included a plan to interview the 'herb doctors' he was often mistaken for. They had a lot of lore and records, verbal and written, and could have helped him with things like sketches, distinguishing species, etc.

It's evident that Muir had no idea how malaria was transmitted. He speaks of a vapor theory of transmission (reflected in the name of the disease, which is Italian for 'bad air'). The Pontine Marshes probably DID smell bad--but the main impact they had on the spread of malaria was that they formed breeding grounds for mosquitoes which spread the disease. If this had been recognized, then protective measures which included preservation of mosquito predators might have been implemented, rather than what too often did happen, which was elimination of the essential wetlands. And Muir himself might have brought along mosquito netting, for those nights when he had to sleep outside.

The part I've found most irritating so far is not the racism--Muir doesn't have much more use for Southern whites than for the freed slaves--it's more a classist contempt he practices. His mockery of the diet of poor people in general seems based on the idea that they had alternatives (what alternatives? He doesn't say), but chose to eat cornbread and bacon instead. The irritating part is rather the attempt to reconcile people to death. I won't have any part of it. It's all spinach. Death IS a bad thing, and I consider attempts to reconcile people to it invidious.

Otherwise, the story so far is a fairly interesting one. I don't think much of maligning reptiles, or of describing ANY plants as 'weeds'--but this sort of thing is actually rarer in Muir than in other works from the period.

A few notes as I read on: (1) Muir accepts uncritically the argument that alligators attack humans unprovoked, with the intention of eating them. This is slander transcribed into libel. It is simply not true that 'we' feel an 'instinctive' repulsion to reptiles. I personally have never felt any such thing. Furthermore, alligators are NOT aggressive, and except for the very oldest, are not large enough to consider any but infant humans prospective prey. The one documented case so far is of a man who attacked an alligator (NOT vice versa) in an attempt to save a dog, which the alligator was indubitably trying to drown as prey. If the human was injured trying to deprive the alligator of its prey, this is NOT an indication that the alligator was prone to attacking humans. Most creatures will fight to keep from being robbed of their prey.

(2) On a related topic, Muir argues that there is 'tropical' vegetation in the Continental US. There may be--in Southern Florida, and along the Gulf Coast. Essentially, the indicator probably best suited to indicate where 'tropical' flora and fauna begin is to check a map showing where alligators leave off and crocodiles begin. This would be extreme southern Florida (the very southernmost tip of the peninsula) and the Florida Keys. Everywhere else, the climate and the lifeforms are SUBtropical.

I tend to take the assertion that glades and forest patches are impassible with a grain of salt. I've lived in and passed through forests quite often, and I've seldom found areas with as much underbrush as is mentioned. And even where there is much in the way of brambles, the only way people get torn as much as Muir described is if they try to rush through the briars. Taking the time to carefully untangle and move the thorny branches aside is laborious, but in the end, it probably takes LESS time than trying to hack and push one's way through.

Later in the book, there are some sketches. Other editions may have more sketches. This would be preferable. One would like to think that the original journal was full of sketches.

Likewise, some maps would have come in handy. Muir describes areas which are not familiar to many modern readers (mostly, the roads either don't go to those places, or they're walled about with berms, hills, and forests nowadays). Though the title causes expectations of descriptions of lands from Kentucky to Northern Florida, these are there, but it's not really clear what the route was. Even a sketch map with a dotted line would be useful. There seems to have been a crossing of the Florida peninsula (north of Lake Okeechobee, I gather, and also well north of where Everglades National Park is now). There is also appended (because, I gather, the original journals were quite short) a description of the author's botanical excursions around Havana, Cuba, and of a trip to California--apparently the first of several by the author.

The botanical studies of Havana are almost certainly long outdated. I don't know how much urban Havana spread out after the 1860s, and how much reversion to urban gardens and forestry there has been since the 1950s. The descriptions given by Muir suggest that part of the coast was sandy desert (with extensive cacti) at the time, but that the city was largely built on a Moorish model (with houses surrounded by walled or fenced gardens, and with large courtyards within residences, with gardens). This may have been only in the richer neighborhoods, away from the coast. The implication in the book is that the harbor neighborhoods were quite heavily paved over--but that there were few farms in the immediate neighborhood of the city. This probably changed over time, but it would require quite a bit of further reading to discover how, and whether it was reversed. Part of Muir's problem was that he was pretty seriously ill with malaria (and probably typhoid) at the time, and so he wasn't able to go far afield.

The California sections began to make me even more uneasy. Other reviewers have commented on Muir's casual racism--but this racism is largely directed toward what Muir calls 'negroes', and, for the time, is quite mild. More worrisome is the almost complete erasure of indigenous peoples from the record. The book was written about thirty years after the Trail of Tears (noteworthy among indigenous 'removal' force-marches by the fact that it was thoroughly documented by the VICTIMS in journals, letters, newspapers, etc).

In Florida, Muir would have traveled through the area after the end of the Seminole Wars (the last of which ended before the American Civil War). In California, this book takes place a few years before the massacre of the Yahi (from which the youth Ishi, who died in 1916, was probably one of the longest-surviving escapees, among those who weren't deported to reservations). Yet the implication is that the Round Hills area which is described in the book was completely uninhabited by humans, though it must once have been a major part of the lands inhabited by native Californians. It's as if Muir had simply blocked the existence of Native Americans entirely from his mind.

I didn't like the description of an area of Southern Alta California very much anyway. It tends to confirm my opinion that the area is not fit for human habitation. I do understand that the indigenous peoples had a lifestyle that didn't require quite so much in the way of resources, but still--the area described is very close to high desert. Though it's observed in a period of unusually high rainfall (and snowmelt--it was early spring), it seems barren and awful to me. I'm unusual in how much I hate sunlight--I recognize that. And I also hate treeless mountains. I don't find them anything like intoxicating or beautiful--they just exude death to me. I find them depressing; in that way I find them impressive. But it's not a kind of impression I'd care to cultivate.

I don't know if this book is typical of Muir's work. I gather that other works, which Muir published himself, were more polished and more carefully edited. I don't know whether they would have been significantly improved in the areas which modern readers find disturbing, however. All in all, while I agree with Muir about many matters (especially about the hubris of humans, and particularly that of what is now described as 'Western' philosophies), I find this book more irritating than enlightening. Perhaps if I had more background in botany (lacking pictures, for example, I often can't say whether I've seen the plants Muir describes), I might feel differently. Meantime, I'll be looking around for an edition with more illustrations. If I don't find one, it's doubtful that I'll read this particular book again.

[Kirsti · Rating 4 out of 5]

"They tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is immortal, etc.; but this, I think, is something that we know very nearly nothing about."

Mr. Muir was a young man when he decided to walk a thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico. "Don't do it," people told him. "You'll catch malaria." But he did it, and he caught malaria, and it took him several months to recover. He never did walk from Florida to the Amazon, as he had planned.

A very interesting journal. Muir describes plants minutely. Wildlife usually gets terser notes, such as "Rattlesnakes abundant." He is not at all fond of people, but he tells of some interesting encounters, such as the wealthy planter who is convinced that someday electricity will do all the world's work instead of just being used for telegraphy. Muir also describes an attempted robbery in which the would-be robber gives up in disgust when he finds out that Muir's bag contains only soap, a comb, a few other items, and dozens of plant samples.

Learned some new words, including "troublous" and "botanize."

[Eric Sutliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second guessing the three star review. I feel like if it was written by anyone else but the mythical figure of John Muir I wouldn’t give it the time of day. This journal of his walk along the east coast; which ultimately ended in a sea voyage to San Francisco was remarkably sparse. It blows me away that the most exciting things to him were plants he found. There was limited mention of the people he met on the journey, less the generous Floridian family that nursed him back to health.

This book is interesting for its legendary status, but the only part that really got me excited was his remarks on Athens “[Athens] is the most beautiful town I have seen on the journey, so far, and the only one in the South ” Pandering to me but I’m not complaining

[Katrina Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated reading this because it's just John Muir rambling in the countryside with an immense appreciation for and knowledge of the flora. There are some breathtaking passages. There are also several racist remarks that are off-putting...he did this journey shortly after the civil war and the general opinion of African-Americans at the time was less than stellar. I didn't expect that.

[Chris Tharrington · Rating 1 out of 5]

A self righteous pile of crap.

[Christiane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like it more but I became bogged down in descriptions of flowers and trees. Then when something really exciting happened like getting swept away crossing a river, or encountering alligators, he just mentions it in passing. It's also hard to get past the casual racism of the times (written in 1867) when he makes remarks like "The negroes are easy-going and merry, making a great deal of noise and doing little work."

[Agnieszka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've enjoyed this book very much as this author's other works to date.

This book is actually a collection of diary entries, excerpt from a letter & newpaper article (added to bridge/close a time gap between two of his books) and was published after Muir's death by his usual editor who mourns the fact the book lacks the outstanding literary finish the readers were used from this author. The witty style is already present in the daily notes of his 'walk' from Jeffersonville, Indiana (accross the river from Louisville, Kentucky - the official starting point) to Cedar Keys on Florida's gulf coast to collect as many new plants as he can. As his origianl plan included a short trip to Cuba (he was able to complete) and a lengthy plant gathering journey to South America - mainly Amazonas region - he was in a hurry to reach Florida. Still he took enough time to describe in vivid details plants, animals & landscapes (sometimes also people or towns/cities if they were extraordinary) he's seen or met along the way.

Stops/regions on his route (grouped by states)
Kentucky: Louisville, Kentucky Knobs (hills), Rolling Fork (stream), Elizabethtown, Horse Cave (cave and town), Mammoth Cave, the hills of Bear Creek (seven miles southeast of Burkesville)
Tennessee: Cumberland Mountains, Trap Gap (valley), Hiwassee (river), through Kingston, Philadelphia (Loudon County) and Madisonville and the Blue Ridge Mountains
North Carolina: Murphy (very minor stop and the reason it's usually left out)
Georgia: River Country (through Blairsville, Gainesville, Athens, Augusta), Savannah (mainly Bonaventure graveyard) where he took a boat to Ferdinandina, Florida
Florida: Ferdinandina, Gainesville, Cedar Keys On Cedar Keys he became severely ill and had to change his plans.
During his time of recuperation Muir made a 'short' trip to Cuba where he stayed in the Havana area from where he continued to California. His journal entries end with his arrival in San Francisco. The route to Yosemite is printed from a letter and the time in the Twenty Hill Hollow. Yosemite is the re-print of an article he published.

Muir started on this journey 2 years after the end of the Civil war and noticed several time about the aftermath still very much present everywhere in the south (bands roving around looking to rob or at least harm travellers, many abandoned houses/small towns - especially in the more remote areas of Tennessee and North Carolina, ecological damage, ...) Here a quote so typical for his gift of observation and writing from page 29.

The traces of war are not only apparent on the broken fields, burnt fences, mills, and woods ruthlessly slaughtered, but also on the countenances of the people. A few years after a forest has been burned another generation of bright and happy trees arises, in purest, freshest vigor; only the old trees, wholly or half dead, bear marks of the calamity. So with the people of this war-field. Happy, unscarred, and unclouded youth is growing up around the aged, half-consumed, and fallen parents, who bear in sad measure the ineffaceable marks of the farthest-reaching and most infernal of all civilized calamities.

Time line
walk: six weeks in September/October 1867
Cedar Keys: mid-October 1867 until mid-January 1868
Cuba: four weeks in January/February 1868
Yosemite: he spend a year this first time, though for this book was relevant the time period in Spring and early Summer 1868

A side note about his currently available books: all of them are reprints of the originals and are written in old Enlish including all the original spelling (errors and old printing issues) so it's at times an arduous work - still it's worth all the effort.

[Milo Krawiec · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am now in the hot gardens of the sun, where the palm meets the pine, longed and prayed for and often visited in dreams, and, though lonely to-night amid this multitude of strangers, strange plants, strange winds blowing gently, whispering, cooing, in a language I never learned, and strange birds also, everything solid or spiritual full of influences that I never before felt, yet I thank the Lord with all my heart for his goodness in granting me admission to this magnificent realm.

[Suzan Powers · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Muir's second book which makes adventurous reading if you love the natural world and history of the US! His descriptions of land formations, flora and fauna are wonderfully scientific and uniquely his at the same time! I get the books with his original illustrations and old photographs so it is authentic. Muir leaves his family and homestead in Wisconsin after getting his degree from the U. of Wisconsin at Madison and sets off on a journey to Cuba through the South right after the Civil War. He eventually ends up in his beloved Sierras of California but along the way he encounters the hostility of the people in the Confederacy after they lost and wild loose black men set free by the US government. Also there are kindly farmers and Negro (his language reflects his time) families who give him food and lodging along his way. I am amazed he isn't murdered but he is so truly interested in the geological and biological worlds that are totally new to him that he is engaging to his hosts! For an historical perspective it is a fascinating read and to hear a man who dearly loves God's creation talk about the hostile and toxic parts of the natural world is refreshing! He suffers from malaria and probably typhoid fever while in Florida which sours him on the tropics. His observations of Cuban life is an eye opener to a world that has since totally disappeared. A must read if you want to understand what is happening to our natural world and our civilization and how it was just over a hundred and fifty years ago.

[dead letter office · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Muir walks from Kentucky to Florida, then goes by boat to Cuba and California (via New York).

Crazy that he walked across the South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. This guy has a lot of nice things to say about plants and the weather. He doesn't seem to care much for people.

[Devyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this one, but it just didn't happen. It started out well enough, but the blatant racism completely took me out of it. I found myself turning against Muir the more I read, which made me sad because in general I'm a fan of his enthusiasm for preservation.

[Shan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of poetry to botanists and nature-lovers alike

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So very interesting. Love the way John Muir writes.

[Tomq · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reads like a travel blog from one of those modern adventurer/tourists. John Muir, father of the US national parks, decides in 1867 to walk down south as far as his legs (and the occasional boat) will take him. His main purpose is to enjoy the presence of nature: he "studies" the vegetation he encounters, but with aesthetic rather than practical motives. Traveling down the eastern US, Muir ends up in Florida, from where he reaches Cuba by boat, sails back to New York on a merchant ship, to finally reach California in a last maritime travel, through the isthmus in Panama.

Along the way he mostly waxes poetic about the plants, often referred to by their latin names: this flower really is very yellow, that oak is so dignified, etc. Despite my above average appreciation for herbs and trees, I can't say I fully share Muir's boundless enthusiasm for them. But the (sometimes excessively) lyric writing allows those passages to range from bearable to touching.

In between the plant descriptions that form most of this journal, Muir relates many anecdotes, travel encounters and adventures. These will be relatable to modern solo "adventourers": getting mugged on the road; meeting people who have a lot to say; getting seriously ill in the middle of nowhere; being out of money due to logistics problems; getting lost in the woods as night falls and becoming increasingly worried; etc. Having lived through those experiences myself, I enjoyed reading about them.

But Muir's account also has historical color: it's taking place in 1867, immediately after the US civil war. Muir is not particularly interested in race or slavery (it seems he opposes the later but he never even bothers to offer an explicit opinion); yet the issue pursues him, as everybody else in the south is talking near exclusively about that. It is striking to witness, between the lines, Muir's own racism, which is not the domineering hateful version we are accustomed to, but is instead expressed as a quiet belief in his own benevolent superiority (though, to be fair, he also has that attitude, to a lesser extent, towards white southerners). I suppose this largely reflects the organization of US society and the moderate" attitudes of the time: for instance, Muir might refer to "the Georgians", and then in the next sentence to "the negroes of Georgia" as if they were not part of the first group. Seeing this in writing goes some way towards explaining the deep obsession with each individual's race that continues to be so pervasive in America, across and beyond the political spectrum.

But the best parts of this book are Muir's naive hippie eco-warrior ramblings, nowadays quite widespread, but which reveal a deeply original philosophy for the time. In Muir's worldview, man has no special place in creation; all life is worthwhile, and the bear or alligator has as much right (or even more right?) to eat men, as man has to eat deer; and isn't it wonderful to lay down on the grass and lose one's ego and become one with the magnificence of Nature? These views are expressed with more lyricism than sophistication, but I am sympathetic to them and appreciated reading them in the voice of one of their inventors.

[Dougie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My second John Muir was the second book, chronologically speaking, about his life and travels, and the first one about his great excursions into the wilderness. The very idea of a thousand mile walk from Kentucky to Florida boggles the mind, never mind doing it through an America still reeling from the civil war, with people reluctant to trust anyone passing through, particularly wild eyed Scotsmen who said they were walking to Florida and having a look at some plants on the way, with just a flower press, a journal and a five dollar bill on their back.

That said, the people he met on his way did trust him, once they'd realised he wasn't a lunatic and much of the fascination in this book for me was his interactions with the people he met, how they'd take him in and feed him, discuss religion and nature and the state of the country. It's a fascinating insight into a period that there doesn't seem to be much written about, at least not by a writer who was there, experiencing it and able to recount his tales in such an immediate and readable way.

I think I could read about John Muir and his adventures forever, it's a shame there's not more books, though I expect he was busy wandering the entire length and breadth of the massive country he loved so much.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are travel notes John Muir made while walking from his home in Indiana to the Florida Keys in 1867. He went out of his love for plant life, and I think with a fresh gratitude for his sight and ability to travel like this after an accident where he thought he might lose sight in one eye. People weren't the focus of his travels, but I love reading firsthand accounts of the type of people he met across the south only two years after the Civil War ended.

[Dārta Kalmuka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manuprāt, šī ir grāmata, kur nenonāks kādam rokās nejauši, un ne velti - tā tomēr ir diezgan specifiska. Apbrīnoju autora daudzos talantus, lai arī grāmata ir sarakstīta dienasgrāmatas formā un galvenokārt tapusi kā piezīmes par ceļošanu un botāniskajiem atradumiem, Muiram ir lielisks talants to visu aprakstīt ļoti garšīgā manierē. Īpaši baudāmi man šķita viņa dabas apraksti.
Varbūt nedaudz traucēja, ka autors vietām ko pielīdzina reliģijai un dievam, tādā kaitinoši pārspīlētā manierē.

“But let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyus inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for ir never fights. All is divine harmony.”

[Alex Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 I enjoyed John Muirs descriptions of nature and there were quotes that I highlighted and I never annotate my books but it lacked a start, middle and conclusion. the book was made up of his journals which from the 1800s werent always easy to follow. He was descriptive of the nature and landscapes but a lot got lost in between.

[Gina Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

AO year…9….i think?? Book. I don’t remember as much talk about “ negroes” in his other books…didn’t always love his talk and references to them. Great descriptions of plants and areas…it was interesting to me that his “1000 mile walk to the gulf” also included a chapter about Cuba and at least one about California!

[Mary Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1867 John Muir walked from Indiana to Florida and then took a ship to Cuba. Filled with accounts of plants and people he encountered, this book gives us a vivid picture of the splendor and the ruins of this land immediately after the Civil War.

[Philip Stouffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plant exuberance and post-Civil-War sociology

[Jeff Garrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

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)
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: “There is nothing more eloquent in Nature than a mountain stream… Its banks are luxuriantly peopled with rare and lovely flowers and overarching trees, making one of Nature's coolest and most hospitable places. Every tree, every flower, every ripple and eddy of this lovely stream seemed solemnly to feel the presence of the great Creator. Lingered in this sanctuary a long time thanking the Lord with all my heart for his goodness in allowing me to enter and enjoy it." (written while he was near the Clinch River in TN)

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had hoped to enjoy the words of the great John Muir more, but I'm still glad I gave it a shot. I suspect this was at the beginning of his writings, or his inspiration, as he really hit his stride towards the end.

[Tom Kepler · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Often I thought I would like to explore [New York City] if, like a lot of wild hills and valleys, it was clear of inhabitants."

In September of 1867, age 29, John Muir set out for a walking tour of the South, which extended to Cuba and eventually ended in California. Visiting home in Wisconsin, Muir traveled by train to Jeffersonville, Indiana, crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, and started walking.

Not a book designed by Muir, this narrative was prepared by William Frederic Bade and copyrighted by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1916, two years after Muir's death, using Muir's original journals, a "typewritten, rough copy of the journal," "two separate elaborations of his experiences in Savannah when he camped there for a week in the Bonaventure graveyard," and an excerpt from a letter summarizing his first visit to Yosemite.

Connecting the time recounted in Muir's autobiography, The Story of My Boyhood and Youth with My First Summer in the Sierra, this is a book about a young man intensely focused on the beauty and wonders of nature, who "botanizes" his way through his 1,000-mile walk, and discusses all else in passing--for instance, the after-effects of the just-ended Civil War. Talk of the Civil War is characterized as interminable "political discussions."

Compiler William Bade comments: "[Muir] apparently intended to use this raw material at some time for another book. If the record, as it stands, lacks finish and adornment, it also possesses the immediacy and the freshness of first impressions."

How does Muir traverse Louisville, Kentucky? "Crossing the Ohio at Louisville [September 2], I steered through the big city by compass without speaking a word to any one."

Those words by Muir pretty much sum up his love for nature and his dislike for what humanity has done to it. He frequently describes leaving a town or homestead as escaping into the forest. "September 5. Escaped from the dust and squalor of my garret bedroom to the glorious forest."`

Muir's 1,000-mile journey includes the following:

* horseback guerrilla robbers, holdouts from the Civil War
* white racists and their interminable complaints
* the ignorance and poverty that followed slavery and the war
* Blacks who would rob and kill for a few dollars
* Florida and malaria

His account mostly describes, though, the fascinating forests, plains, swamps, and the ocean and their specific flora and fauna. Most of his descriptions of people are of those kind, sharing people, blacks and white, who took in this eccentric lover of nature, who wandered into their homes from the forest.

Muir on his walk is not unaware of the viccitudes of slavery or poverty; he simply acknowledges it but places almost all of his attention on his botanical studies. The journal is more a study of Muir as the "transparent eyeball" that Emerson iterates in his essay "Nature." Muir loved nature, and he followed his bliss.

After having dinner with a Southern family: "Heard long recitals of war happenings, discussion of the slave question, and Northern politics; a thoroughly characteristic Southern family, refined in manners and kind, but immovably prejudiced on everything connected with slavery."

As modern readers, we read Muir's account and realize the struggles of the one hundred years following his walk that were needed to right the wrongs of that time. We even read Muir's words, terms he uses in his discriptions, and realize the difference of those times--even down to a commonly used vocabulary that would not be used today.

My interest in this book was primarily to enjoy Muir's love of God's woods--he was a religious man and saw God's work in nature. However, the candid, unfiltered view of the world from 150 years ago is also fascinating. It is a wonder to follow the journey of an eccentric of the 1870's who was destined to become a prophet of our world of today.

Available as a free ebook:

* Internet Archive
* Open Library

[Kuang Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always think Americans are lucky people, because they own both economic prosperity and natural beauty at home. The national parks in the USA are spectacular wonders. The author of this book, John Muir, is widely known as the father of national parks. His works are read by millions to this day. He infused passion for nature into every paragraph. If you like to read about nature, the book will be a good read.

Muir was a 29 years old lad. He never set foot in the South. One day, he decided to take a long walk by foot southwards. It was both a wonderful and painful journey for him. He surprisingly packed almost nothing and started the walk. His belongings were so scarce that even robbers ignored him, thinking what a poor guy. He sometimes received money from his brother, but when the transfer delayed, he took a space in a cemetery, where he even praised the harmonious beauty of nature between life and death. I can't believe he could endure sleeping on dirt in open air. The excessive romance with nature must elude the awkwardness.

Essentially, he was a great botanist, who did excellent observations on the flora during the journey. His first impression on a new place was based on the flowers, trees, and other plants. The journey started from Indiana to the Mexican Gulf. However, he also hopped on a boat to Cuba, and later went to California. The spiritual symbol of the US, Yosemite, became a national conservation paradigm after his advocate.

His journey took place just after the American Civil War. He met many people along the way. He depicted the ruins of war, the new status quo of black laborer, and some interesting things. He had a born hatred toward civilization, but enthusiasm for mother nature. I feel upbeat reading his words. This book is worth a read. It gives me new ideas on America. The US is really a nice country to live in!