Our own journey to Zion was postponed for a while; but not long before we set forth, I received the long-expected letter which Mary Burton had promised me; and as it contains a vivid picture of a mode of transit—the only mode which could then be used—across the Plains, and shows what people were forced to endure so recently as a few short years ago, I shall give it in the following chapter; for I feel sure that if the reader did not peruse the story in the exact words of my unfortunate friend, he never would believe that in this country and in our own times such a terrible tragedy could have been enacted.
CHAPTER XIV.
A TERRIBLE STORY:—THE HAND-CART EMIGRANTS CROSSING THE PLAINS.
“I promised to write and tell you all about our journey across the Plains, but I little expected to have such a terrible tale to tell.
“You have heard so much of the journey to Salt Lake Valley that you know pretty well how we must have travelled to Iowa City, where it was necessary that we should wait until the whole company was quite ready for the long journey which lay before us.
“Our life up to a certain point was much the same, and we met with the same difficulties as all other emigrants who had gone before us. But there the comparison ends. Privation, and toil, and weariness, and not infrequently sickness and death, wore out many of the companies that went before us, but they never suffered as we did. It is utterly impossible for me to tell you all that we went through. And when I finish this letter and lay down my pen, and even when you read the fearful story of my own experience during that journey, you will still have but the faintest idea of the horrors and sufferings which we endured.
“At Iowa City we found nothing prepared for us. When we left Liverpool we were told that hand-carts, provisions, and all that we needed, should be provided before we arrived. If this had been done we should have had just fairly time enough to travel over the Plains and reach Salt Lake before the terrible cold of winter set in. As it was, everything went wrong. The Elders who had been sent out before us to buy tents and carts and all that we wanted had either been unfortunate or very careless, for, as I said, when we arrived in Iowa City not the slightest preparation had been made.
“You know how strong my faith was when we left New York, and how Brother Shrewsbury and myself were ready to sacrifice everything. I can assure you that we were fully tested, and I do think that but for our strong faith not a single soul of all that company would have survived that journey.
“Three companies had, after a long delay, been sent out before we reached Iowa City. As it was then early in the season, they completed their journey before the cold of winter set in. I afterwards heard that Brigham Young and the Elders, when they saw those companies arrive safely in Salt Lake City, spoke of the scheme as a successful experiment. We had been taught that the scheme came directly from heaven, and was neither speculation nor experiment, and when I heard that, after all, the Prophet himself spoke of it as a matter of doubtful issue, I asked myself—Whom, then, can we believe?