The city was about two miles broad, running parallel with the right bank of the Jordan, which forms its western limit. As we approached, it lay stretched before us as upon a map; at a little distance the aspect was somewhat Oriental, and in some points it reminded me of modern Athens—without the Acropolis. None of the buildings, except the Prophet’s house, were whitewashed. The material, the thick, sun-dried adobe, common to all parts of the Eastern world, was here of a dull leaden blue, deepened by the atmosphere to a grey, like the shingles of the roofs. The number of gardens and compounds, the dark clumps of cottonwood, locust, or acacia, fruit trees—apples, peaches and vines—and, finally, the fields of long-eared maize, strengthened the similarity to an Asiatic rather than to an American settlement. But the difference presently became as marked. Farm houses strongly suggested the old country; moreover, domes and minarets, even churches and steeples, were
wholly wanting. The only building conspicuous from afar was the block occupied by the present Head of the Church. The court-house, with its tinned, Muscovian dome; the arsenal, a barn-like structure; and a saw-mill were next in importance.
As we entered the suburbs, the houses were almost all of one pattern, a barn shape, and the diminutive casements showed that window glass was not yet made in the valley. The poorer houses are small, low, and hut-like; the others, single-storied buildings, somewhat like stables, with many entrances. The best houses resembled East Indian bungalows, with flat roofs and low, shady verandahs, well trellised, and supported by posts or pillars. I looked in vain for the outhouse-harems, in which certain romancers concerning things Mormon had told me that wives were kept, like other stock. I presently found this one of a multitude of delusions. The people came out to their doors to see the mail-coach, as if it were a “Derby dilly” of old, go by. I was struck by the English appearance of the colony, and the prodigious numbers of white-headed children.
Presently we turned into the main thoroughfare, the centre of population and business, where the houses of the principal Mormon dignitaries and the stores of the Gentile merchants combined to form the city’s only street, properly so called. We pulled up at the Salt Lake House, the principal if not the only establishment of the kind in New Zion. In the Far West one learns not to expect much of a hostelry, and I had not
seen one so grand for many a day. It was a two-storied building, with a long verandah supported by painted posts. There was a large yard behind for coralling cattle. A rough-looking crowd of drivers and their friends and idlers, almost every man armed with revolver and bowie-knife, gathered round the doorway to prospect the “new lot.” The host presently came out to assist us in carrying in our luggage. There was no bar, but upstairs we found a Gentile ball-room, a fair sitting-room, and bedchambers, apparently made out of a single apartment by partitions too thin to be strictly agreeable. The proprietor was a Mormon who had married an Englishwoman. We found him in the highest degree civil and obliging. To sum up, notwithstanding some considerable drawbacks, my first experience of the Holy City of the Far West was decidedly better than I expected.
Our journey had occupied nineteen days, from August 7th to 25th both included, and in that time we had accomplished not less than 1,136 statute miles.
II
THE CITY AND ITS PROPHET
Before giving any detailed account of the Mormons, I should like to say that I was twenty-four days at headquarters, and every opportunity was given me of surface observation; but there is in Mormondom, as in all other exclusive faiths, Jewish, Hindu, or other, an inner life, into which I cannot flatter myself to have penetrated. No Gentile, however long he may live in Salt Lake City, or how intimately he may be connected with the Mormons, can expect to see anything but the outside. The different accounts which have been given of life in the City of the Saints by anti-Mormons and apostates are venomous and misleading, whilst the writings of the faithful are necessarily untrustworthy. I therefore take the middle distance of the unprejudiced observer, and can only recount, honestly and truthfully, what I heard, felt, and saw.