THROUGH THE BLACK CAÑON AND THE ROYAL GORGE.
One day's ride by train from Beaver Cañon through a section of
country composed mostly of sand and sage brush, overlying that same
sheet of lava, and through Mormon cities of eight and ten thousand
inhabitants, where they had made the desert blossom for miles around,
brought me back to Salt Lake City. Here occurred the first rain that
had caused even an hour's delay in my trip since the middle of May,
three months and a half ago. After leaving Omaha, sufficient rain
had not fallen in the eight or ten States and Territories through
which I had passed to dampen my shirt sleeves, and when I reached the
Yellowstone, it had been so long since I had even felt a rain drop,
that the thorough wetting I received there was really enjoyed. But
on reaching Salt Lake City, I was delayed a week by a cloud burst on
the line of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, which swept
away seven bridges and a mile or two of track.
I started out and had gone about 100 miles before coming to the
break, when the train was sent back to Salt Lake City again. As it
was in going West, so now in returning, I was laid under lasting
obligations to another Mormon, for cash on a personal check. This
time it was Mr. D. S. Davis, Captain of the bicycle club. Still the
enforced delay was not time wholly wasted. It showed me Mormonism
in a different light from that in which I had seen it on my first
visit. The Mormons professed to me their thorough loyalty to the
United States Government, but their actions belie their words. The
act of hoisting the stars and stripes at half mast on the Fourth
of July does not strengthen one's belief in their loyalty, and to
refer to the returning army of Eastern veterans who are daily passing
through the city on their way home as a "parcel of blatherskites,"
as a Mormon bishop did on a public occasion, these and many other
instances are daily occurring to show that the Mormons, instead of
loving, are beginning to fairly hate the government.
A book published a year and a half ago entitled, "The Fall of the
Great Republic," finds many enthusiastic readers here. It prophesies
the breaking up of the government in a very few years, and it is
only too plain to be seen that the Mormons would rejoice to see the
prediction fulfilled. Whether the strong hand of the government will
succeed in suppressing polygamy without any serious outbreak here is,
to say the least, uncertain, for at times it would take very little
to start a riot.
Sunday afternoon I went to the Tabernacle. It was communion, as it
is every Sunday with them, I have since been told, and I suppose
all the faithful ones were on hand, occupying the front seats, ready
to perform their part of the service. At least, it seemed to be the
extent of their mental capabilities, to take a piece of bread and a
drink of water when it was offered them. A more ignorant, inferior,
almost idiotic set of people I never saw. The women, most of them
had sharp noses, peaked chins, and a wild sort of look about the
eyes. They looked hard. The men, the gray-haired, bald-headed ones,
looked simple and childish, the middle-aged ones were dull and heavy
featured. There was not a noble looking woman, or an intelligent
appearing man among them. This description may not hold good of the
whole congregation, for there were probably five thousand present,
the Tabernacle being about half full, but it is a fair estimate of
those in the front part of the house as I sat facing them.
The bread was distributed among the vast audience by eight or ten
men who were continually returning to the front to have their silver
baskets refilled, until the stock of bread was entirely exhausted. Two
barrels of water, however, was sufficient to go around, although
at one time it seemed as if even this amount would not supply the
thirsty multitude. As soon as the bread was blessed, in a very brief
manner, the speaker commenced his sermon, but was interrupted after
a while by a subordinate, who as briefly blessed the two barrels of
water. How much impression the sermon made can well be imagined,
when you consider the aisles full of men passing bread and water,
children chasing each other about and pulling hair, scores of babies
squalling--I never saw a greater proportion of small children in any
congregation--and people passing out.
But in the midst of all this hubbub, the preacher suddenly stopped. A
young man, perhaps 30 years of age, stepped to the front and without
any apparent embarrassment, asked the congregation to deal leniently
with him, that he would do better hereafter, but he was guilty of a
sin which the church considered next to that of shedding blood, and
so on. Then his nearest relative made a motion, that as his nephew
had thus publicly confessed his adulterous actions, he, the nephew,
should be turned out of Zion's church, and a sea of uplifted hands
forthwith excommunicated him.
As this young man holds a high office in the church, and is the
son of George Q. Cannon, who is still a fugitive from justice, for
practicing polygamy, this prompt action of the church may at first
seem meritorious, but the licentious reputation of the son has long
been known, and it is thought this public confession and prompt
excommunication was for effect upon the large number of Eastern
people present. But if so, the effect was hardly favorable, even if
it was hoped it would be. The whole service was most irreverent and
disgusting. Not a head was bowed during prayer, the little children
and even babies were allowed to grab for the bread as they would
for sweetmeats, nearly all drank the blessed water as if they were
really thirsty, and in the midst of this easy free lunch sort of a
meeting, with a discordant sound of crying babies, a prominent member
of the church unblushingly confesses his guilty actions in a very
business sort of a way! It is all a poor burlesque of the religion
of civilization.
Not wishing to miss the scenery along the line of the Denver and
Rio Grande, a railroad which traverses a section of country through
which there are very few wagon roads, and in the most interesting
portions none at all, I saw the bicycle handed into the baggage car,
and with a pasteboard box as large as a small trunk, filled with pies,
cakes, peaches, and grapes, I settled down into a seat in a cozy,
narrow-gauge car with the firm belief that another washout on the
way would not, at least, reduce me by famine. But accustomed as
I have been for months to an appetite of the most ravenous kind,
it now surprised even me, to say nothing of the blank astonishment
with which the other passengers must have noticed my almost hourly
devotion as I bowed over that monstrous pasteboard shoe-box. And so,
notwithstanding I had laid in rations sufficient for an ordinary
week's trip, when another washout did occur, and lengthened the ride
of thirty-three hours from Salt Lake to Denver to fifty hours, the
stock of eatables fell far short of the end of the journey.
But what shall I say of the scenery? Unlike the dreary hours and days
of sand and sage brush along the lines of the Union and Central Pacific
Railroads, here is nothing monotonous. At the outset, the ride for
hours is in a southerly direction, along the base of those grand old
snow-capped mountains, the Wasatch range, until the snorting little
engine turns up a cañon, and, puffing like mad, pulls the train of
twelve cars as far up the grade as it is possible even for such an
ambitious little locomotive to do. Then two more eight wheelers are
attached, and the three engines take us to the summit in a short time.
The hills along this cañon are covered with shrubbery, which has
already begun to show the approach of winter by changing its color
to the beautiful hues so common in New England in the fall. If there
are long stretches of desert on this line, we must have passed them
that night, for the next morning, soon after breakfast, an observation
car was attached to the rear of the train, and we all, or as many as
could, took seats in a car that is like an ordinary one with the top
taken off above the window sills. And then commenced the ride through
the Black Cañon. The train ran rather slowly, so that we all had a
good opportunity to view the cañon without that hurried feeling so
commonly experienced in sight-seeing from a fast rushing train. The
dark colored rocks rise in jagged and broken masses to a height of
nearly, if not quite, two thousand feet on either side of the Gunnison
River, which comes roaring and tumbling down through this narrow and
very crooked defile in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and a most
interesting part of the whole ride was the sight of a long train of
cars crossing and recrossing the foaming river and winding its dark
way along through what seemed to be the very bowels of the earth.
Almost every one of us was soon standing, for who could sit still
when there was so much to be seen on all sides, and if one imagined
these grand sights lasted only a short time, that was where he was
wrong, for the cañon is fifteen or twenty miles long, and we were
considerably over one hour in passing through it. Then, soon after,
came Marshall Pass. Here the situation was just reversed. Instead of
groping along in a deep and narrowly contracted defile, where the
only outlook was heavenward, now we glided along up the sides of a
deep ravine, rising higher and higher, getting a wider and wider view
of the surrounding country, until, after twisting around the sides of
the mountains, and passing around more horseshoe curves than we ever
dreamed of, we finally reached the top of the range of mountains,
eleven thousand six hundred feet above the sea. Here, in an immense
snow shed, filled with black smoke, we waited for the second section
of the train, for it had been divided in climbing this last grade, and
then we started down the other side. A locomotive preceded our train,
and the second section followed us. Down we went at a lively rate,
coming close on to the heels, sometimes, of that single locomotive,
which would then dart on ahead out of the way for a time; and looking
back we could see the other train rushing close upon us. Sometimes,
in going around and down some of those horseshoe curves, we could
look out of the window, high up the sides of the mountains, but only a
short distance across, and see the passengers on the other train waving
papers and handkerchiefs at us as if to hurry us out of their way.
And so we went, chasing each other down grades that made one think
of Mt. Washington Railroad, and at times so close to each other that
both trains and the locomotive were all within a mile. It certainly
was dangerous, but we enjoyed it just the same, perhaps all the more,
and, finally, just before dark, we came to the Royal Gorge, a cañon,
not so long as the Black Cañon, but with sides higher, more nearly
perpendicular, and closer at the bottom, if that were possible. The
sides of this cañon are 2,800 feet high by actual measurement. Down
through this cañon the consolidated train rushed as if the very
devil was after it, the little low eight-driving-wheel engine being
on the point, seemingly, of tearing itself all to pieces or jumping
off into the rocky river at every sharp curve, and it was all curves
through the cañon. At one point the cañon is so narrow that the track
is suspended over the river, it being held up by braces overhead,
the ends of which rest against the rocks on either side. This was the
last of the marvelous scenery, but it was the best; it was grand beyond
anything I can describe. One who crosses the continent without passing
over the Denver and Rio Grande, misses the finest mountain scenery
there is in the country, I think, outside of the Yosemite. It beats
Salt Lake City, with its many-wived Mormons and bottle-sucking babies,
"higher than a kite."