Transcript
Yosemite Valley, California.
August 22 / [18]77.
Dearest Hyacinth*1
This must be a very short letter, though I owe you a long one as I have not written since I was at Carson City on the 12th [August 1877], when I sent off my 9th letter to you. Since then we have been crossing the Sierra Nevada, generally in 2 or 4 horse wagons, working hard at botany, visiting the big trees (Wellingtonias), and making extensive collections and notes. For the last three days we have been in this wonderful valley, surrounded by perpendicular cliffs of 3000ft high, exploring its ravines and heights. We can carry so little personal effects and my collection of dried plants and Pine cones is so bulky, that I am very short of a change [of clothes?] and we are in very sorry plight. The Californian climate is excessively dry and the roads and even mountain paths loaded with dust, so that, whether walking or driving, we get into the most filthy condition you can imagine. Hair, eyes, ears, nose, choked with dust. We start for San Francisco tomorrow at 6, and shall get there in two days when I do hope for letters. You may imagine how I long to hear from and of you. I have still to visit the Red wood forest N. of S[an] F[rancisco] and Monterey to the South, where are other peculiar coniferous forests, when we shall begin the dreadful overland journey back to Boston and home.
Mr Moseley*2 turned up last night on his way home, he will call at Kew as soon as he gets back.
J.D.Hooker.| Ever dearest your affectionate.
Yosemite Valley, California.
August 22 / [18]77.
Dearest Hyacinth*1
This must be a very short letter, though I owe you a long one as I have not written since I was at Carson City on the 12th [August 1877], when I sent off my 9th letter to you. Since then we have been crossing the Sierra Nevada, generally in 2 or 4 horse wagons, working hard at botany, visiting the big trees (Wellingtonias), and making extensive collections and notes. For the last three days we have been in this wonderful valley, surrounded by perpendicular cliffs of 3000ft high, exploring its ravines and heights. We can carry so little personal effects and my collection of dried plants and Pine cones is so bulky, that I am very short of a change [of clothes?] and we are in very sorry plight. The Californian climate is excessively dry and the roads and even mountain paths loaded with dust, so that, whether walking or driving, we get into the most filthy condition you can imagine. Hair, eyes, ears, nose, choked with dust. We start for San Francisco tomorrow at 6, and shall get there in two days when I do hope for letters. You may imagine how I long to hear from and of you. I have still to visit the Red wood forest N. of S[an] F[rancisco] and Monterey to the South, where are other peculiar coniferous forests, when we shall begin the dreadful overland journey back to Boston and home.
Mr Moseley*2 turned up last night on his way home, he will call at Kew as soon as he gets back.
J.D.Hooker.| Ever dearest your affectionate.
1. Hooker, Lady Hyacinth (1842 -- 1921). Second wife of JD Hooker, previously Jardine, née Symonds.
2. Henry Nottidge Moseley (1844 -- 1891). Naturalist on the HMS Challenger expedition; author of the ‘Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger’ and father of the famous physicist Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley.
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