Letters to a Friend 



Yosemite, 

 August I3th, [1871.] 



I was so stunned and dazed by your last that 

 I have not been able to write anything. I was 

 sure that you were coming, and you cannot 

 come; and Mr. King, the artist, left me the 

 other day and I am done with Hutchings, and 

 I am lonely. Well it must be wait, for although 

 there is no common human reason why I should 

 not see you and civilization in Oakland, I can 

 not escape from the powers of the mountains. 

 I shall tie some flour and a blanket behind my 

 saddle and return to the Mono region and try 

 to decide some questions that require undis 

 turbed thought. There I will stalk about on the 

 summit slates of Dana and Gibbs and Lyell, 

 reading new chapters of glacial manuscript and 

 more if I can. Then, perhaps, I will follow the 

 Tuolumne down to the Hetch Hetchy Yosemite ; 

 then, perhaps, follow the Yosemite stream back 

 to its smallest source in the mountains of the 

 Lyell group and the Cathedral group and the 

 Obelisk and Mt. Hoffman. This will, perhaps, 

 f 102 1 



