Few travellers, however much they may have to hurry, will pass through Utah without a flying visit to Salt Lake City, now a very different place from what it was when Captain Burton wrote his “City of the Saints.” The Mormon capital is not on the main line of the Pacific Railway, but is connected with it by a short branch of forty miles in length. Ogden is the “junction” for Salt Lake, and has a very tolerable station, with dining-rooms, book-stands, and other conveniences. The last time the writer passed through this part of Utah in winter, the (spirit) thermometer on the platform at Ogden marked −16° Fahr., or 48° below the freezing-point of water. On the first visit, the branch railway was barely commenced, and he proceeded to the “city” in a “mud-waggon,” a kind of packing-case on wheels—for he can hardly say on springs—which was driven at a furious rate. How many miles he travelled perpendicularly—in jolts—he knows not, but he was very tired on arrival at his destination. Yet the journey had much of interest in it. There was, for instance, almost all the way in sight, and sometimes within a few hundred yards, the Great Salt Lake—the Dead Sea of America—whose waters are said to be [pg 24]one-third salt. This is probably an exaggeration, but its shores are white with a mineral efflorescence, and it took the Mormons years to irrigate much of the surrounding land, and thus literally wash the salty deposits out of it. The fresh water for the purpose had to be diverted and brought in hill-side ditches, &c., in many cases from a considerable distance. The result has repaid them, for the road from Ogden to Utah passes through several prosperous towns, and by scores of pleasant homesteads embowered in gardens and orchards of peach and apple trees, the marks of industrious farm cultivation being everywhere apparent.
CAMP DOUGLAS GARRISON, NEAR SALT LAKE CITY.
At one period there was some opposition among the Mormons to the construction of the trans-continental railway through their territory, as they feared that influx of strangers which has actually come to pass. The late Brigham Young, however, was either more enlightened, or saw that it was no use fighting against the inevitable, and actually took contracts to assist in making the railroad, besides afterwards building the branch line to the city. It was cleverly said by the New York Herald that “railway communications corrupt good Mormons,” to which President Young is stated to have replied that “he did not care anything for a religion which could not stand a railroad.” And in fact, up to a comparatively recent date, several thousand fresh recruits, principally from Great Britain and the northern nations of Europe, have been conveyed over it annually.
This is not the place for any discussion of the Mormon mystery. It is easy to laugh at it, and say with Artemus Ward that, “While Brigham’s religion was singular, his wives were plural.” The fact remains that, in hundreds of cases, Mormons had and have but one wife; although, theoretically, they approve of polygamy. The further point [pg 25]remains that no Mormon was allowed to have more than one helpmeet unless he could prove that his means were amply sufficient for her support. Industry was the keystone of Brigham Young’s teachings, however otherwise mixed with fanaticism and superstition, and the result has been that thousands of people, mostly poor, who settled in an unpromising-looking country, have now homes and farms of their own, and that by sheer hard work the desert has been made literally “to blossom as the rose.”
A STREET IN SALT LAKE CITY.
Salt Lake City has been laid out with care, and the streets are wide and well kept; while, excepting those of a small business centre, every house has a very large garden attached. The days of the “avenging angels,” or Danites, is over, and every man’s life and property are nowadays safe there, although at one time many suspected or obnoxious persons were, as our American cousins say, “found missing.” On one terrible occasion—the Mountain Meadow massacre—a whole train of emigrants who, on their way to California, had encamped near the city, were murdered by Indians, whom, there is no doubt, the Mormons had incited to the deed. A dignitary of the Mormon Church, Bishop Lee, suffered the death-penalty at the hands of the United States authorities for his share in the transaction. The emigrants, then passing with their families by the hundred, had, there is no doubt, much aggravated the Mormons by jeering and mockery, and sometimes by purloining their cattle and goods. There has been for many years a garrison of United States troops kept at Camp Douglas, a short distance from Salt Lake City, for the protection of Gentiles,[10] and the regulation of affairs generally.
One of the best features of this strange community is the marked absence of drunkenness and profligacy. Most Mormons are teetotallers, and drink little more than tea or coffee, or the crystal water which runs in deep brooks through every street, and has its birth in the heights of the beautiful snow-clad Wahsatch Mountains, which are a great feature in the scenery of Salt Lake Valley. Salt Lake City has a remarkable building, known by the faithful as “The Tabernacle,” and by the irreverent as the “Big Egg-shell,” from the oval form of its roof. It holds 8,000 persons, or, under pressure, even more. It has an organ in point of size the second in America. The writer attended a service there, given in honour of some missionary Mormons who were about to part for Europe. The Salt Lake theatre is another feature of the place, and has a good company of Mormon amateur actors and actresses. We once saw there some twenty-five of Brigham Young’s family in the front rows of the pit. Formerly, it is said, payment at the doors was taken “in kind,” and a Mormon would deposit at the box-office a ham, a plump sucking-pig—not alive—a bag of dried peaches, or a dozen mop-handles, maybe, for his seats!
Taking a last glimpse of the great Salt Lake, passing Corinne, where, when it was only six weeks old, a bank and a newspaper office, both in tents, had been established, the train proceeds through a more or less barren district on its way to Nevada, the Silver State, a country where, for the most part, life is only endurable when one is making money rapidly. Those who would see some of the silver mines with comparative ease “get off” the train at Reno, thence proceeding by branch rail to Virginia City and Gold Hill, places where that form of mining life may be studied to perfection. So great has been the yield of the Nevada and other silver mines of adjoining territories, that, as most of us know, the value of silver has actually depreciated. Some of the millionaires of San Francisco gained their wealth in Nevada.