SIR RICHARD BURTON
From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, Harper and Brothers, New York.
I
On the road we saw for the first time a train of Mormon wagons, twenty-four in number, slowly wending their way toward the Promised Land. The “Captain”—those who fill the dignified office of guides are so designated, and once a captain always a captain is the Far-Western rule—was young Brigham Young, a nephew of the Prophet; a blondin, with yellow hair and beard, an intelligent countenance, a six-shooter by his right, and a bowie-knife by his left side. It was impossible to mistake, even through the veil of freckles and sun-burn with which a two months’ journey had invested them, the nationality of the emigrants; “British-English” was written in capital letters upon the white eyelashes and tow-colored curls of the children, and upon the sandy brown hair and staring eyes, heavy bodies, and ample extremities of the adults. One young person concealed her facial attractions under a manner of mask. I thought that perhaps she might be a sultana, reserved for the establishment of some very magnificent Mormon bashaw; but the driver, when appealed to, responded with contempt, “Guess old Briggy won’t stampede many o’ that ’ere lot!” Though thus homely in appearance, few showed any symptoms of sickness or starvation; in fact, their condition first impressed us most favorably with the excellence of the Perpetual Emigration Funds’ traveling arrangements.
The Mormons who can afford such luxury generally purchase for the transit of the plains an emigrant’s wagon, which in the West seldom costs more than $185. They take a full week before well en route, and endeavor to leave the Mississippi in early May, when “long forage” is plentiful upon the prairies. Those prospecting parties who are bound for California set out in March or April, feeding their animals with grain till the new grass appears; after November the road over the Sierra Nevada being almost impassable to way-worn oxen. The ground in the low parts of the Mississippi Valley becomes heavy and muddy after the first spring rains, and by starting in good time the worst parts of the country will be passed before the travel becomes very laborious. Moreover, grass soon disappears from the higher and less productive tracts; between Scott’s Bluffs and Great Salt Lake City we were seldom out of sight of starved cattle, and on one spot I counted fifteen skeletons. Travelers, however, should not push forward early, unless their animals are in good condition and are well supplied with grain; the last year’s grass is not quite useless, but cattle cannot thrive upon it as they will upon the grammas, festucas, and buffalo-clover (Trifolium reflexum) of Utah and New Mexico. The journey between St. Jo and the Mormon capital usually occupies from two to three months. The Latter-Day Saints march with a quasi-military organization. Other emigrants form companies of fifty to seventy armed men—a single wagon would be in imminent danger from rascals like the Pawnees, who, though fonder of bullying than of fighting, are ever ready to cut off a straggler—elect their “Cap.,” who holds the office only during good conduct, sign and seal themselves to certain obligations, and bind themselves to stated penalties in case of disobedience or defection. The “Prairie Traveler” strongly recommends this systematic organization, without which, indeed, no expedition, whether emigrant, commercial, or exploratory, ought ever or in any part of the world to begin its labors; justly observing that, without it, discords and dissensions sooner or later arise which invariably result in breaking up the company.
In this train I looked to no purpose for the hand-carts with which the poorer Saints add to the toils of earthly travel a semi-devotional work of supererogation expected to win a proportionate reward in heaven.
Near the Pine-Tree Stream we met a horse-thief driving four bullocks: he was known to Macarthy, and did not look over comfortable. We had now fallen into the regular track of Mormon emigration, and saw the wayfarers in their worst plight, near the end of the journey. We passed several families, and parties of women and children trudging wearily along: most of the children were in rags or half nude, and all showed gratitude when we threw them provisions. The greater part of the men were armed, but their weapons were far more dangerous to themselves and their fellows than to the enemy. There is not on earth a race of men more ignorant of arms as a rule than the lower grades of English; becoming an emigrant, the mechanic hears that it may be necessary to beat off Indians, so he buys the first old fire-arm he sees, and probably does damage with it. Only last night a father crossed Green River to beg for a piece of cloth; it was intended to shroud the body of his child, which during the evening had been accidentally shot, and the station people seemed to think nothing of the accident, as if it were of daily recurrence. I was told of three, more or less severe, that happened in the course of a month. The Western Americans, who are mostly accustomed to the use of weapons, look upon these awkwardnesses with a profound contempt. We were now in a region of graves, and their presence in this wild was not a little suggestive.
Presently we entered a valley in which green grass, low and dense willows, and small but shady trees, an unusually vigorous vegetation, refreshed, as though with living water, our eyes, parched and dazed by the burning glare. Stock strayed over the pasture, and a few Indian tents rose at the farther side; the view was probably pas grand chose, but we thought it splendidly beautiful. At midday we reached Ham’s Fork, the northwestern influent of Green River, and there we found a station. The pleasant little stream is called by the Indians Turugempa, the “Blackfoot Water.”
Again we advanced. The air was like the breath of a furnace; the sun was a blaze of fire—accounting, by-the-by, for the fact that the human nose in these parts seems invariably to become cherry-red—all the nullahs were dried up, and the dust-pillars and mirage were the only moving objects on the plain. Three times we forded Black’s Fork, and then debouched once more upon a long flat. The ground was scattered over with pebbles of granite, obsidian, flint, and white, yellow, and smoky quartz, all water-rolled. After twelve miles we passed Church Butte, one of many curious formations lying to the left hand or south of the road. This isolated mass of still clay has been cut and ground by wind and rain into folds and hollow channels which from a distance perfectly simulate the pillars, groins, and massive buttresses of a ruinous Gothic cathedral. The foundation is level, except where masses have been swept down by the rain, and not a blade of grass grows upon any part. An architect of genius might profitably study this work of Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to say. The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of degradation.
Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black’s Fork, whose cool clear stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous with Mormon emigrants; some had good teams, others hand-carts, which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a tax-cart. There was nothing repugnant in the demeanor of the party; they had been civilized by traveling, and the younger women, who walked together and apart from the men, were not too surly to exchange a greeting. The excessive barrenness of the land presently diminished; gentian and other odoriferous herbs appeared, and the greasewood, which somewhat reminded me of the Sindhian camel-thorn, was of a lighter green than elsewhere, and presented a favorable contrast with the dull glaucous hues of the eternal prairie sage. We passed a dwarf copse so strewed with the bones of cattle as to excite our astonishment: Macarthy told us that it was the place where the 2d Dragoons encamped in 1857, and lost a number of their horses by cold and starvation. The wolves and coyotes seemed to have retained a predilection for the spot; we saw troops of them in their favorite “location”—the crest of some little rise, whence they could keep a sharp look-out upon any likely addition to their scanty larder.