Letters to a Friend 



of the Merced's crystal arteries, which have just 

 gone far enough from their silent fountain to be 

 full of lakelets and lilies [?], and the bleating 

 of our flock can neither confuse nor hush the 

 thousand notes of their celestial song. The sun 

 has set, and these glorious shafts of the spruce 

 and pine shoot higher and higher as the dark 

 ness comes on. I must say good night while 

 bonds of Nature's sweetest influences are about 

 me in these sacred mountain halls, and I know 

 that every chord of your being has throbbed and 

 tingled with the same mysterious powers when 

 you were here. Farewell. I am glad to know 

 that you have been allowed to bathe your ex 

 istence in God's glorious Sierra Nevadas and 

 sorry that I could not meet you. 



JOHN MUIR. 



A few miles north of Yosemite, 

 July isth, [1869.] 



We are camped this afternoon upon the bank 

 of the stream that falls into the valley opposite 

 Hutchings' hotel (Yosemite Falls). We are 

 perhaps three miles from the valley. 

 [63] 



