Mrs. Yelverton is here and is going to stop a good while. Mrs. Waterston told her to find me, and we are pretty well acquainted now. She told me the other day she was going to write a Yosemite novel and that Squirrel and I were going into it. I was glad to find that she knew you. I have not seen Prof. Le Conte. Perhaps he is stopping at one of the other hotels. Has Mrs. Rapley or Mr. Colby told you about our camping in the spruce woods on the south rim of the valley and of our walk at daybreak to the top of the Sentinel Dome to see the sun rise out of the crown peaks of beyond? About a week ago at daybreak I started up the mountain near Glacier Point to see Pohono in its upper woods and to study the kind of life it lived up there. I had a glorious day and reached my cabin at daylight by walking all night. Oh, what a night among those moon shadows! It was seven o’clock A.M., when I reached the top of the Cathedral Rocks,--a most glorious twenty-two hours of life amid nameless peaks and meadows and the upper cataracts of Pohono. Mr. Hutchings told me next morning that I had done two or three days’ climbing in one and that I was shortening my life, but I had a whole lifetime of enjoyment and I care but little for the arithmetical length of days. I can hardly realize that I have not yet seen you here. I thank you for sending me so many friends, but I am waiting for you. I am going up the mountain soon to see your lily garden at the top of Indian Cañon. “Let the Pacific islands lie.” My love to Allie and all your boys and to the Doctor. Tell him that I have been tracing glaciers in all the principal cañons towards the summit. Ever thine, J. MUIR. Yosemite, August 20th, [1870.]