begun in earnest, but, though a long pull, the grade was not remarkably
steep, nor was the cañon (worn through a red pudding-stone,) astonishing
in any way, while always interesting. By the time breakfast was fairly
out of the way, the summit had been reached and the descent began
through the cañon of the Spanish Fork into Mormondom.
A few miles down we came to Thistle Station, a place of some consequence
because it is the railway outlet for the large San Pete valley, which
stretches nearly along the western foot of the Wasatch until it emerges
into the valley of the Sevier. This valley is reached from the westward
by a narrow-gauge railway line, built years ago by Mormon capital. It
enters it from Nephi by the way of Salt creek and terminates at Wales,
where there are coal mines worked by Welchmen and operated by English
capital. The San Pete valley is not particularly interesting. Yet the
little settlements back in the eastern foothills where the many streams
come down are pleasant enough.
This valley became famous in 1865-67 as the scene of the San Pete Indian
War. "Several companies of the Mormon militia were mustered here, and
held the mountains and passes on the east against the Indians, guarded
the stock gathered here from the other settlements that had been
abandoned, and took part in the fights at Thistle creek, ... and the
rest, where Black Hawk and his flying squadron of Navajos and Piutes
showed themselves such plucky men."
Toward the lower end of the valley stands the important town of Manti,
its suburbs encroaching on the sagebrush. "As a settlement," says Phil
Robinson, the most recent traveller thither, "Manti is pretty, well
ordered and prosperous.... The abundance of trees, the width of the
streets, the perpetual presence of running water, the frequency and size
of the orchards, and the general appearance of simple, rustic comfort,
impart to Manti all the characteristic charm of the Mormon settlements."
Robinson says that the people in that region are chiefly Danes and
Scandinavians. "These nationalities contribute more largely than any
other--unless Great-Britishers are all called one nation--to the
recruiting of Mormonism, and when they reach Utah maintain their
individuality more conspicuously than any others." The temple at Manti
will be something worth going far to see when it is completed. "The
site, originally, was a rugged hill slope, but this has been cut out
into three vast semicircular terraces, each of which is faced with a
wall of rough hewn stone, seventeen feet in height. Ascending these by
wide flights of steps you find yourself on a fourth level, the hill-top,
which has been leveled into a spacious plateau, and on this, with its
back set against the hill, stands the temple. The style of Mormon
architecture, unfortunately, is heavy and unadorned, and in itself,
therefore, this massive pile, one hundred and sixty feet in length by
ninety wide, and about one hundred high, is not prepossessing. But when
it is finished, and the terrace-slopes are turfed, and the spaces
planted out with trees, the view will undoubtedly be very fine, and the
temple be a building that the Mormons may well be proud of."
The lower part of the valley is undulating,--"for the most part a
sterile-looking waste of greasewood, but having an almost continual
threat of cultivation running along the center," until it suddenly
opens, at Mayfield, into a great meadow of several thousand acres.
Passing on to the Sevier, volcanic hills and benches shut in the valley,
but the bottoms along the river were level, grassy, "clumped with shrubs
and patched with corn-fields." Here there are frequent settlements, one
of the most important of which is Salina, where the alkalies that infect
the soil of all this region are concentrated in salt-beds that have long
been dug for export. The Denver and Rio Grande Company have projected a
track from this point due east to join its main line and thus secure not
only the salt trade, but tap this farming and grazing region, which some
day will be of great consequence, for there is plenty of water.
Furthermore, this same company has laid a sort of preëmption right upon
a railway route surveyed westward from Salina toward the Pacific coast
through southern Nevada and central California, which will pass close by
the Yosemite and the Caleveras groves of Big Trees.
We had gathered all this information from books and good friends, and
the recollection of former reading, while
"like Iser, rolling rapidly,"
we descended the Spanish Fork. This cañon is not rough and cliff-bound,
but its sides, though steep, are rounded, and soft walls of
greenery--small bushes, rank grass and tufted groves of aspen and oak;
while the river purls along the narrow depression under the continuous
shade of young maples, alders, oaks and other shrubbery. A wagon road is
to be seen most of the way showing long use. The rude kennels built for
temporary use by the railway-makers have not yet had time to crumble,
and add a picturesque note to the pleasant vale. Here and there were
camps of emigrants, or of railway people. That they were Mormons was
plain by the comfortable, home-like appearance of each bivouac, where
buxom women were tending to the children and carrying on the ordinary
duties of housekeeping in houses of cloth and kitchens made under booths
of maple boughs. Children and dogs and donkeys abounded, and at two or
three camps we caught sight of pet fawns. This cañon was formerly an
Indian highway, and through it, in days gone by, more than one incursion
of Navajos and Piutes has swept down upon the settlements, "bringing
fire and the sword." Through it also came, long, long ago, the pious
friars,--explorer-priests--bent upon the conversion of the Indians; and
the digging up of a few coins and other relics of their visits has given
the name of Spanish Fork to the stream, which really is a "fork" of no
other water course, but empties directly into Lake Utah.
As we emerge from the cañon a wide, haze tinted sketch of mountains and
green-gray plains, with a touch of steel-white water, greets the eye to
the westward, where stretch the arid deserts and volcanic ranges of Utah
and Nevada. Southward, nobly tall and rugged, rise the hights of the
Wasatch, with the magnificent pyramid of Mt. Nebo, overtopping the rest,
exalted above the sunlit clouds and crowned with early snow wreaths. It
is the last of the great, lone, Rocky Mountain peaks that we shall see,
and a worthy reminder of the splendid scenery in whose presence our life
has been expanded and glorified during the bygone months.
XXXIV
BY UTAH LAKES.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures;
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees,
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where, perhaps some Beauty lies
The Cynosure of neighboring eyes.
--MILTON.
Nebo does not long remain in sight from our windows; for speedily we
swing out into the sloping valley land, bringing into close
companionship on the right the northern half of the Wasatch range,
which, were it a trifle more arctic and bristling aloft, would remind us
strongly of the Sangre de Cristo. On each side now are spread wide areas
of grain field and grassland, with abundant hedges and thickets and
orchards surrounding clusters of houses and barns. The train makes
frequent halts at little villages, which seem to have been built along
both sides of the track, because the reverse process occurred and the
rails were laid in the middle of the main street. The first of these
farmer-settlements was Spanish Fork (the Palmyra of old settlers) where,
not long ago, a copper image of the Virgin Mary was dug up, together
with some fragments of a human skeleton. "This takes back the Mormon
settlement of to-day to the long ago time when Spanish missionaries
preached of the Pope to the Piutes, and gave but little satisfaction to
either man or beast, for their tonsured scalps were but scanty trophies,
and the coyote found their lean bodies but poor picking." A few miles
further is Springville, hidden in well-watered trees, where a stream
tumbling out of a mysteriously dark cañon just behind the town, turns
the wheels of extensive flour mills and woolen factories.
It is with growing and animated interest, that we pass on through miles
of fertile farmland and come into plain sight of Utah Lake,--a glassy
sheet of water beyond which loom through their mist the vague forms of
many angular hills. The water is fresh, and none of the barrenness that
has smitten the shores of the Salt sea northward accurses this beautiful
lake, with which the Indians strangely enough, associated many evil
influences and dark legends. Between us and the shore stretch vast
meadows of green prairie grasses and bulrushes, upon which herds of
sleek cattle and fine horses were grazing. Except upon the western side,
where the hills yield no water, there is a semicircle of villages at the
feet of the encompassing hills, with checkered fields of grain and
fodder between the embowered clusters of houses and the swampy meadows
along shore. Sometimes the meadows and gardens, the squares of wheat and
Indian corn come clear down to the shore.
[Illustration: BEE HIVE HOUSE.]
Though most of the houses were of adobe, showing signs of long occupancy
in the advanced state of orchard and garden, and the home-like air about
them, the pioneer's wagon top makes him a good enough house for several
weeks in this dry and genial climate, but he builds something better for
the winter. The second season, therefore, will find him living in a
small, but tight and warm, cabin of slabs, chinked and roofed with dirt.
His stables will be low structures of poles thatched with straw or
rushes cut at the border of the lake, and his grain will be stacked out
of doors.
A great gap in the Wasatch has been in sight for some time, in which
lies the source of the Provo river, and down here upon its banks is
Provo--the largest town on Utah Lake. We have "Sinners and Saints" open
before us as we draw up at the station; and the Madame reads to us what
the author has to say about this very town:
"Visitors have made the American Fork cañon too well known to need more
than a reference here, but the Provo cañon, with its romantic waterfalls
and varied scenery, is a feature of the Utah valley which may some day
be equally familiar to the sight-seeing world. The botanist would find
here a field full of surprises, as the vegetation is of exceptional
variety and the flowers unusually profuse. Down this cañon tumbles the
Provo river; and as soon as it reaches the mouth ... it is seized upon
and carried off to right and left by irrigation channels and ruthlessly
distributed over the slopes. And the result is seen, approaching Provo,
in magnificent reaches of fertile land and miles of crops. Provo is
almost Logan [in Cache Valley] over again, for though it has the
advantage over the northern settlement in population, it resembles it in
appearance very closely. There is the same abundance of foliage, the
same width of water-edged streets, the same variety of wooden and adobe
houses, the same absence of crime and drunkenness, the same appearance
of solid comfort. It has its mills and its woolen factory, its 'co-op.'
and its lumber-yards. There is the same profusion of orchard and garden,
the same all pervading presence of cattle and teams.... The clear
streams, perpetually industrious in their loving care of lowland and
meadow and orchard, and so cheery, too, in their perpetual work, are a
type of the men and women themselves; the placid cornfields, lying in
bright levels about the houses, are not more tranquil than the lives of
the people; the tree-crowded orchards and stack-filled yards are
eloquent of universal plenty; the cattle loitering in the pasture
contented, the foals all running about in the roads, while the wagons
which their mothers are drawing stand at the shop door or field gate,
strike the new comer as delightfully significant of a simple country
life, of mutual confidence, and universal security."
At Springville and again at Provo, the train was surrounded by a flock
of little girls who held up to the windows baskets of fruit--apples,
pears, raspberries, plums, grapes and peaches. They sought buyers very
prettily, offering whole handfuls of the fruit for five cents. Everybody
bought it, for nothing could be more welcome after the weary journey.
The Madame rushed out to the platform and proceeded to empty the basket
of one gentle speculator whose frock was white and clean, but whose
shapely legs and feet were bare and brown. She wore no hat, and there
fell down her straight young back a heavy braid of beautiful corn silk
hair tied at the end with a bow of cherry ribbon. Her figure and manners
were full of _naïve_ grace. As the bargain was concluded and we rolled
away, the Madame came near kissing her goodbye, and we heard some one
humming
"Happy little maiden she,
Happy maid of Arcadie."
But was it this, or another little maid, or both, she had in mind, while
the soft light shone in her eyes?
Nephi, the next station--a mass of orchards surrounding straggling
streets of doubled-doored gray houses--is memorable because of the
remains of fortifications that surround it, with lesser defences near
many of the houses. These consisted of thick mud parapets pierced for
rifles; and they recall the dangers these pioneers had to encounter from
the "Lamanites," as they called the redskins. "Young men tell how as
children they used to lie awake at nights to listen as the red men
swept, whooping and yelling, through the quiet streets of the little
settlement; how the guns stood always ready against the wall, and the
windows were barricaded every night with thick pine logs."
The beautiful valley of Utah Lake has now been left behind, and the
scene returns to the familiar sagebrush and volcanic scoria, through
which a small river of yellow water finds its way, and we follow all its
curves. The river is the Jordan, so called because it connects the Utah
with the Great Salt Lake, as its namesake does Galilee and the Dead Sea.
But the yellow river and its desolate ridges are presently passed, and
there opens out on each side a vista of great fields of wheat and
tasseling corn; of orchards heavy with ripened fruit, and meadows sere
with summer heat; and of houses hidden in trees and hopvines, and
touched with the brilliant points of climbing roses and honeysuckles, or
the lofty standards of the hollyhock, flying by like the panorama of a
dream.
Up the grand slope of the Wasatch beyond, stretches a mass of houses and
a forest of shade trees, that are sweeping every instant nearer. Shade
of Jehu, how we are tearing along! Swish! That was a smelter. Swish
again! That was a furnace. Crash! Bang! Salt Lake City! Shall we halt?
No, only a few moments to watch the crowd alight and wrestle with the
hotel runners; and also to detach and arrange for the side-tracking of
our two household cars. We will keep the coach and go on to Ogden while
we are "in running order" as Chum says. Then we will come back to-night
and stay in Salt Lake City as long as we please. So with a parting
admonition to Bert we take our seats and are moving onward once more.
Here again the track for a long distance runs along the middle of a
suburban street slowly traversed,--a street of lowly houses, each in its
dense garden. It is not at all a bad notion of the whole city, which
that glimpse gives the traveller, but shortly it is exchanged for a
sage-bush-plain, followed by a region reminding us strongly of the St.
Clair flats in Canada. Meadows and marshes, vividly green, stretch to
the westward, diversified by planted groves of cottonwood, while
mountains rise close at hand on the east. Here and there pools of calm
water flit by, on whose surface large flocks of snow-white gulls sit
motionless. It is a great place for blackbirds, also,--Brewer's grakle
and the yellow-headed blackbird--one of which races with the train,
apparently just to show how fast he can fly. Presently the ground
becomes dryer and shows wide cultivation. Stacks of hay and straw dot
the level and unfenced expanse, but the houses and barns of the farmers
are all at our right along the foot of the hills. They are pleasant
homes, embowered in orchards, and the whole scene is sunny and peaceful.
The soil is black and loamy, the foothills green and studded with
blooming farms and homesteads, the lowlands lush with long grass and
willow thickets. Westward, the scene might be a _replica_ of, say, the
coast of North Carolina, for now the Great Salt Lake is in full view,
and the mist which hides the mountainous islands and western shore,
leaves its expanse as limitless as that of the open ocean, whence no
salter breeze could blow than this morning air. We gradually approach
the shore, or its bays bend forward to our straight line, and we leave
the fields behind to skirt and cross a great expanse of salt whitened
mud flats, where chestnut-backed plovers flit about as the only sign of
life. On higher ground, just beyond, a frail pier or landing stage runs
far out into the lake, where is moored a small steamboat, and two or
three sailboats rest on the gently ruffled water. This is a bathing
resort and picnic grounds, which hereafter will be made more of than at
present. Beyond, for miles and miles, the country seems to have been one
continuous wheat-field, for the golden stubble stretches in vast
unfenced spaces, and we can count dozens of huge yellow stacks that have
been reaped. A long ridge of dry gravel is traversed, a vista of valley
land, filled full of groves, and orchards, market gardens and neat
houses, opens at the base of high rocky walls and the locomotive gives
its last long shriek, for this is Ogden, the terminus of our westward
jaunt,--771 miles from Denver, 2,500 miles from New York, 864 miles from
San Francisco.
* * * * *
When luncheon was over, I sat me down to my work, and the Madame began
putting on her hat, making quite sure that it was straight, nor leaving
the neighborhood of the mirror until wholly satisfied on that head.
"That is complimentary to Ogden!" I observe with a rising inflection.
"Not particularly," she answers slowly. "I would want my hat to sit
straight and my feather be right if I were going into a camp of Digger
Shoshones. It wouldn't feel right otherwise."
I do not argue the question. Turning to Chum she enquires sweetly
(ignoring anybody else) if he will go with her on a stroll of
exploration. That young man is just filling his pipe, and the
expression of anticipated delight fades utterly from his countenance.
"E-r-r," he stammers, thinking how he may escape. "Thanks, thanks, but I
can't very well--I--I have letters to write, you know."
"Yes, I know, everybody has, under certain circumstances. However, I can
go alone. _Au revoir!_"
Then I sit down at work. Chum lights his pipe and lazily scratches a
postal card to keep up appearances, and silence reigns for an hour or
so.
It is put at end by our lady's return.
"Well, what did you see?" we both ask.
"Oh, Ogden is a big collection of little houses and behind each house is
a pretty little farm and market garden. There is a ledge beyond the main
part of the town, and up there are situated the better houses of the
city, with larger gardens and lawns, from which you can look off over
the wide plain with bluffs and ridges, in the foreground, catch a
glimpse of the lake in the middle distance, and a vision of
sharp-pointed mountains on the horizon."
Ogden holds interest at present, chiefly--and it always will I fancy--as
a center for transportation lines. Here, in 1869, was welded into a
continuous whole the first line of rails connecting the Atlantic with
the Pacific. This is the scene of Bret Harte's stirring poem, which
tells us
"... what the engines said,
Pilots touching--head to head,
Facing on a single track,
Half a continent at each back."
That event was an occasion of public rejoicing, and the success of those
lines at that time was a matter of public concern.
Since her one line east and west was first connected, Ogden has seen a
great growth in railways. The traveller may now go northward into the
mining regions of southern Idaho, or on to the quartz and placers and
the silver ledges of Montana; or, still further, around Pend' Oreille
and Coeur d'Alêne and down the majestic Columbia to Oregon, Washington
Territory and British Columbia; he may go westward to California and the
Pacific; he may go southward to the farms and mines of southern Utah; or
eastward into the heart of the Rockies and so through to the Atlantic
over the route we ourselves have just passed.
Ogden has some thousands of people claiming it as home; and besides the
large patronage of the railways it is the supplying-center, and the
market for a considerable farming district in southern Idaho. It is a
busy and enterprising and growing town. Its union station is a sort of
narrows through which the larger part of all exchange of men and goods
between the east and west must drain; and there is excitement and
variety enough to keep alive the attention of the dullest witness. The
train that brought us in the morning had sent a merry crowd on to San
Francisco--a train-load of acquaintances in jolliest mood, for the
other incoming trains contributed very few to the company bound
westward. Now the arriving train of the Central Pacific poured across
the busy platform another just such a merry company, filling the cars of
the Denver and Rio Grande, to which our special was attached, and losing
few to the older line.
* * * * *
At Salt Lake City, that evening, our faithful Bert had a good dinner
ready for us almost the moment we returned; and, restored to the
comforts of our own bed and board, we made an auspicious and
good-natured entry to Zion, and to Deseret, the chief city of the Latter
Day Saints.
XXXV
SALT LAKE CITY.
"I have described in my time many cities, both of the east and west;
but the City of the Saints puzzles me. It is the young rival of Mecca,
the Zion of the Mormons, the Latter-day Jerusalem. It is also the City
of the Honey Bee, 'Deseret,' and the City of the Sunflower--an
encampment as of pastoral tribes, the tented capital of some Hyksos,
'Shepherd Kings'--the rural seat of a modern patriarchal democracy;
the place of the tabernacle of an ancient prophet-ruled Theocracy."
--PHIL ROBINSON.
It was on a Saturday night that we returned to Salt Lake City. It
followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that the ensuing morning was
Sunday. Had the calender not been our authority we might have known it
from the solemn stillness that prevailed--a contrast very vivid and
suggestive after our experience of the Holy Day in the mountain mining
towns.
Everybody was eager of course to go to the Tabernacle.
The Tabernacle stands inside the big wall surrounding the "Temple
block," and could have been found by simply falling in with any one of
the currents of Sunday-dressed people which set toward it from every
direction. We went early so as to look about us at leisure.
This square of ten acres was set apart for temple purposes at the
founding of the city, and there the pioneers held their first worship.
There was built the building known as the Endowment House, and there,
thirty years ago, were laid the foundations of the temple, wherein (it
is promised) Jesus Christ shall appear bodily to the faithful as soon as
it is completed. Reared to a height of eighty feet above the ground, but
not yet ready for the roof, its snowy walls gleam in the sun, hot and
dazzling.