There is but little to be seen on the way in land, water, or sky, that would lead one to hope for the glories of Bonaventure. The ragged3 desolate4 fields, on both sides of the road, are overrun with coarse rank weeds, and show scarce a trace of cultivation5. But soon all is changed. Rickety log huts, broken fences, and the last patch of weedy rice-stubble are left behind. You come to beds of purple liatris and living wild-wood trees. You hear the song of birds, cross a small stream, and are with Nature in the grand old forest graveyard, so beautiful that almost any sensible person would choose to dwell here with the dead rather than with the lazy, disorderly living.
Part of the grounds was cultivated and planted with live-oak, about a hundred years ago, by a wealthy gentleman who had his country residence here. But much the greater part is undisturbed. Even those spots which are disordered by art, Nature is ever at work to reclaim6, and to make them look as if the foot of man had never known them. Only a small plot of ground is occupied with graves and the old mansion7 is in ruins.
The most conspicuous8 glory of Bonaventure is its noble avenue of live-oaks. They are the most magnificent planted trees I have ever seen, about fifty feet high and perhaps three or four feet in diameter, with broad spreading leafy heads. The main branches reach out horizontally until they come together over the driveway, embowering it throughout its entire length, while each branch is adorned9 like a garden with ferns, flowers, grasses, and dwarf10 palmettos.
But of all the plants of these curious tree-gardens the most striking and characteristic is the so-called Long Moss11 (Tillandsia usneoides). It drapes all the branches from top to bottom, hanging in long silvery-gray skeins, reaching a length of not less than eight or ten feet, and when slowly waving in the wind they produce a solemn funereal12 effect singularly impressive.
There are also thousands of smaller trees and clustered bushes, covered almost from sight in the glorious brightness of their own light. The place is half surrounded by the salt marshes14 and islands of the river, their reeds and sedges making a delightful15 fringe. Many bald eagles roost among the trees along the side of the marsh13. Their screams are heard every morning, joined with the noise of crows and the songs of countless16 warblers, hidden deep in their dwellings17 of leafy bowers18. Large flocks of butterflies, flies, all kinds of happy insects, seem to be in a perfect fever of joy and sportive gladness. The whole place seems like a center of life. The dead do not reign19 there alone.
Bonaventure to me is one of the most impressive assemblages of animal and plant creatures I ever met. I was fresh from the Western prairies, the garden-like openings of Wisconsin, the beech20 and maple21 and oak woods of Indiana and Kentucky, the dark mysterious Savannah cypress22 forests; but never since I was allowed to walk the woods have I found so impressive a company of trees as the tillandsia-draped oaks of Bonaventure.
I gazed awe-stricken as one new-arrived from another world. Bonaventure is called a graveyard, a town of the dead, but the few graves are powerless in such a depth of life. The rippling23 of living waters, the song of birds, the joyous24 confidence of flowers, the calm, undisturbable grandeur25 of the oaks, mark this place of graves as one of the Lord’s most favored abodes27 of life and light.
On no subject are our ideas more warped28 and pitiable than on death. Instead of the sympathy, the friendly union, of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the arch-enemy of life, etc. Town children, especially, are steeped in this death orthodoxy, for the natural beauties of death are seldom seen or taught in towns.
Of death among our own species, to say nothing of the thousand styles and modes of murder, our best memories, even among happy deaths, yield groans29 and tears, mingled30 with morbid31 exultation32; burial companies, black in cloth and countenance33; and, last of all, a black box burial in an ill-omened place, haunted by imaginary glooms and ghosts of every degree. Thus death becomes fearful, and the most notable and incredible thing heard around a death-bed is, “I fear not to die.”
But let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity34, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony.
Most of the few graves of Bonaventure are planted with flowers. There is generally a magnolia at the head, near the strictly35 erect36 marble, a rose-bush or two at the foot, and some violets and showy exotics along the sides or on the tops. All is enclosed by a black iron railing, composed of rigid37 bars that might have been spears or bludgeons from a battlefield in Pandemonium38.
It is interesting to observe how assiduously Nature seeks to remedy these labored39 art blunders. She corrodes40 the iron and marble, and gradually levels the hill which is always heaped up, as if a sufficiently41 heavy quantity of clods could not be laid on the dead. Arching grasses come one by one; seeds come flying on downy wings, silent as fate, to give life’s dearest beauty for the ashes of art; and strong evergreen42 arms laden43 with ferns and tillandsia drapery are spread over all—Life at work everywhere, obliterating44 all memory of the confusion of man.
In Georgia many graves are covered with a common shingle45 roof, supported on four posts as the corner of a well, as if rain and sunshine were not regarded as blessings46. Perhaps, in this hot and insalubrious climate, moisture and sun-heat are considered necessary evils to which they do not wish to expose their dead.
The money package that I was expecting did not arrive until the following week. After stopping the first night at the cheap, disreputable-looking hotel, I had only about a dollar and a half left in my purse, and so was compelled to camp out to make it last in buying only bread. I went out of the noisy town to seek a sleeping-place that was not marshy47. After gaining the outskirts48 of the town toward the sea, I found some low sand dunes50, yellow with flowering solidagoes.
I wandered wearily from dune49 to dune sinking ankle-deep in the sand, searching for a place to sleep beneath the tall flowers, free from insects and snakes, and above all from my fellow man. But idle negroes were prowling about everywhere, and I was afraid. The wind had strange sounds, waving the heavy panicles over my head, and I feared sickness from malaria51 so prevalent here, when I suddenly thought of the graveyard.
“There,” thought I, “is an ideal place for a penniless wanderer. There no superstitious52 prowling mischief53 maker54 dares venture for fear of haunting ghosts, while for me there will be God’s rest and peace. And then, if I am to be exposed to unhealthy vapors55, I shall have capital compensation in seeing those grand oaks in the moonlight, with all the impressive and nameless influences of this lonely beautiful place.”
By this time it was near sunset, and I hastened across the common to the road and set off for Bonaventure, delighted with my choice, and almost glad to find that necessity had furnished me with so good an excuse for doing what I knew my mother would censure56; for she made me promise I would not lie out of doors if I could possibly avoid it. The sun was set ere I was past the negroes’ huts and rice fields, and I arrived near the graves in the silent hour of the gloaming.
I was very thirsty after walking so long in the muggy57 heat, a distance of three or four miles from the city, to get to this graveyard. A dull, sluggish58, coffee-colored stream flows under the road just outside the graveyard garden park, from which I managed to get a drink after breaking a way down to the water through a dense59 fringe of bushes, daring the snakes and alligators60 in the dark. Thus refreshed I entered the weird61 and beautiful abode26 of the dead.
All the avenue where I walked was in shadow, but an exposed tombstone frequently shone out in startling whiteness on either hand, and thickets62 of sparkleberry bushes gleamed like heaps of crystals. Not a breath of air moved the gray moss, and the great black arms of the trees met overhead and covered the avenue. But the canopy64 was fissured65 by many a netted seam and leafy-edged opening, through which the moonlight sifted66 in auroral67 rays, broidering the blackness in silvery light. Though tired, I sauntered a while enchanted68, then lay down under one of the great oaks. I found a little mound69 that served for a pillow, placed my plant press and bag beside me and rested fairly well, though somewhat disturbed by large prickly-footed beetles70 creeping across my hands and face, and by a lot of hungry stinging mosquitoes.
When I awoke, the sun was up and all Nature was rejoicing. Some birds had discovered me as an intruder, and were making a great ado in interesting language and gestures. I heard the screaming of the bald eagles, and of some strange waders in the rushes. I heard the hum of Savannah with the long jarring hallos of negroes far away. On rising I found that my head had been resting on a grave, and though my sleep had not been quite so sound as that of the person below, I arose refreshed, and looking about me, the morning sunbeams pouring through the oaks and gardens dripping with dew, the beauty displayed was so glorious and exhilarating that hunger and care seemed only a dream.
Eating a breakfast cracker71 or two and watching for a few hours the beautiful light, birds, squirrels, and insects, I returned to Savannah, to find that my money package had not yet arrived. I then decided72 to go early to the graveyard and make a nest with a roof to keep off the dew, as there was no way of finding out how long I might have to stay. I chose a hidden spot in a dense thicket63 of sparkleberry bushes, near the right bank of the Savannah River, where the bald eagles and a multitude of singing birds roosted. It was so well hidden that I had to carefully fix its compass bearing in my mind from a mark I made on the side of the main avenue, that I might be able to find it at bedtime.
I used four of the bushes as corner posts for my little hut, which was about four or five feet long by about three or four in width, tied little branches across from forks in the bushes to support a roof of rushes, and spread a thick mattress73 of Long Moss over the floor for a bed. My whole establishment was on so small a scale that I could have taken up, not only my bed, but my whole house, and walked. There I lay that night, eating a few crackers74.
Next day I returned to the town and was disappointed as usual in obtaining money. So after spending the day looking at the plants in the gardens of the fine residences and town squares, I returned to my graveyard home. That I might not be observed and suspected of hiding, as if I had committed a crime, I always went home after dark, and one night, as I lay down in my moss nest, I felt some cold-blooded creature in it; whether a snake or simply a frog or toad75 I do not know, but instinctively76, instead of drawing back my hand, I grasped the poor creature and threw it over the tops of the bushes. That was the only significant disturbance77 or fright that I got.
In the morning everything seemed divine. Only squirrels, sunbeams, and birds came about me. I was awakened78 every morning by these little singers after they discovered my nest. Instead of serenely79 singing their morning songs they at first came within two or three feet of the hut, and, looking in at me through the leaves, chattered80 and scolded in half-angry, half-wondering tones. The crowd constantly increased, attracted by the disturbance. Thus I began to get acquainted with my bird neighbors in this blessed wilderness81, and after they learned that I meant them no ill they scolded less and sang more.
After five days of this graveyard life I saw that even with living on three or four cents a day my last twenty-five cents would soon be spent, and after trying again and again unsuccessfully to find some employment began to think that I must strike farther out into the country, but still within reach of town, until I came to some grain or rice field that had not yet been harvested, trusting that I could live indefinitely on toasted or raw corn, or rice.
By this time I was becoming faint, and in making the journey to the town was alarmed to find myself growing staggery and giddy. The ground ahead seemed to be rising up in front of me, and the little streams in the ditches on the sides of the road seemed to be flowing up hill. Then I realized that I was becoming dangerously hungry and became more than ever anxious to receive that money package.
To my delight this fifth or sixth morning, when I inquired if the money package had come, the clerk replied that it had, but that he could not deliver it without my being identified. I said, “Well, here! read my brother’s letter,” handing it to him. “It states the amount in the package, where it came from, the day it was put into the office at Portage City, and I should think that would be enough.” He said, “No, that is not enough. How do I know that this letter is yours? You may have stolen it. How do I know that you are John Muir?”
I said, “Well, don’t you see that this letter indicates that I am a botanist82? For in it my brother says, ‘I hope you are having a good time and finding many new plants.’ Now, you say that I might have stolen this letter from John Muir, and in that way have become aware of there being a money package to arrive from Portage for him. But the letter proves that John Muir must be a botanist, and though, as you say, his letter might have been stolen, it would hardly be likely that the robber would be able to steal John Muir’s knowledge of botany. Now I suppose, of course, that you have been to school and know something of botany. Examine me and see if I know anything about it.”
At this he laughed good-naturedly, evidently feeling the force of my argument, and, perhaps, pitying me on account of looking pale and hungry, he turned and rapped at the door of a private office—probably the Manager’s—called him out and said, “Mr. So and so, here is a man who has inquired every day for the last week or so for a money package from Portage, Wisconsin. He is a stranger in the city with no one to identify him. He states correctly the amount and the name of the sender. He has shown me a letter which indicates that Mr. Muir is a botanist, and that although a traveling companion may have stolen Mr. Muir’s letter, he could not have stolen his botany, and requests us to examine him.”
The head official smiled, took a good stare into my face, waved his hand, and said, “Let him have it.” Gladly I pocketed my money, and had not gone along the street more than a few rods before I met a very large negro woman with a tray of gingerbread, in which I immediately invested some of my new wealth, and walked rejoicingly, munching83 along the street, making no attempt to conceal84 the pleasure I had in eating. Then, still hunting for more food, I found a sort of eating-place in a market and had a large regular meal on top of the gingerbread! Thus my “marching through Georgia” terminated handsomely in a jubilee85 of bread.
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1
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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reclaim
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| v.要求归还，收回；开垦 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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bowers
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| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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abodes
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| 住所( abode的名词复数 )； 公寓； （在某地的）暂住； 逗留 | |
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warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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pandemonium
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| n.喧嚣，大混乱 | |
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labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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corrodes
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| v.使腐蚀，侵蚀( corrode的第三人称单数 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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evergreen
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| n.常青树；adj.四季常青的 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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obliterating
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| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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45
shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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marshy
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| adj.沼泽的 | |
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outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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dune
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| n.(由风吹积而成的)沙丘 | |
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dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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malaria
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| n.疟疾 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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vapors
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| n.水汽，水蒸气，无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 )；自夸者；幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁（症）v.自夸，（使）蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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muggy
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| adj.闷热的；adv.（天气）闷热而潮湿地；n.（天气）闷热而潮湿 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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alligators
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| n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 ) | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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fissured
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| adj.裂缝的v.裂开( fissure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sifted
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| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
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auroral
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| adj.曙光的；玫瑰色的 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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69
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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70
beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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71
cracker
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| n.（无甜味的）薄脆饼干 | |
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72
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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73
mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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74
crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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75
toad
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
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76
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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77
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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78
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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79
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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80
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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81
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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82
botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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83
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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84
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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85
jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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