BOOK REVIEWS 



Edited by Marion Randall Parsons 



"A Thousand- "Hungry and happy and hopeful" were his days at the 

 Mile Walk TO University of Wisconsin, Mr. Muir tells us, when he 

 THE Gulf"* bade it farewell to enter the "University of the Wil- 

 derness," Equally happy and hopeful, and even more 

 hungry, were the days of his "Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf," the 

 first of his more extended wilderness wanderings. In September, 1867, 

 Mr. Muir started on his walk, through Kentucky and Tennessee and 

 across a corner of North Carolina and all of Georgia to Savannah. 

 There he took ship for Fernandina, a town on the border of Florida, 

 and tramped across that "land of flowers" to Cedar Keys on the Gulf of 

 Mexico, where he hoped to find a ship that would carry him to South 

 America, In this disordered and lawless South of post-bellum days 

 bands of guerillas threatened the whole country; a stranger was looked 

 upon with suspicion and often given grudging hospitality; and hungry, 

 desperate negroes lurked everywhere, ready to "kill a man for a dollar 

 or two," Sometimes Mr. Muir lay out in the open in swamps, not dar- 

 ing even to light a fire for fear of drawing the attention of some marau- 

 der; often he walked fasting — "traveled today more than forty miles 

 without dinner or supper" is one entry. It is hardly surprising, there- 

 fore, that he contracted the fever which might have ended his life, and 

 which did materially change its whole course. On his recovery, he left 

 Florida for Cuba, thence sailing for New York, and then by way of 

 Panama to California, 



This book may be said to form the second volume of Mr. Muir's auto- 

 biography, for it covers the period between My Boyhood and Youth and 

 My First Summer in the Sierra. Dr. Bade has wisely included a Cali- 

 fornia chapter — "Twenty-Hill Hollow" — not originally a part of the 

 Florida journal, which makes the link complete. This delightful narra- 

 tive is the first volume of his unrevised journals to be published since Mr, 

 Muir's death, and it holds rich promise of literary treasures yet to come. 

 The journal, however, cannot altogether be classed as "unrevised," for 

 it bears the unmistakable stamp of Mr. Muir's more mature thought 

 and style, even though the typewritten copy from which the material 

 was principally drawn was little more than a first draft of the projected 

 book. Mr, Muir often told me that he intended to turn his attention to 

 the Florida journal immediately after the Alaska travels. 

 The book is full of charm and youthful enthusiasm, the register of a 



*A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. By John Muir. Edited by William Fred- 

 eric Bade. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. 1916. Price, $2.50. 

 Illustrated. Large paper edition, $5.00. 



