FROM NEPHI TO MANTI.
English companies and their failures--A deplorable neglect of
claret cup--Into the San Pete Valley--Reminiscences of the
Indians--The forbearance of the red man--The great temple at
Manti--Masonry and Mormon mysteries--In a tithing-house.
FROM Nephi, a narrow-guage line runs up the Salt Creek canyon, and
away across a wilderness to a little mining settlement called Wales,
inhabited by Welsh Mormons who work at the adjacent coal-mines. The
affair belongs to an English company, and it is worth noting that
"English companies" are considered here to be very proper subjects
for jest. When nobody else in the world will undertake a hopeless
enterprise, an English company appears to be always on hand to embark
in it, and this fact displays a confidence on the part of Americans in
British credulity, and a confidence on the part of the Britishers in
American honesty, which ought to be mutually instructive. Meanwhile
this has nothing to do with these coal-mines in the San Pete Valley,
which, for all I know, may be very sound concerns, and very profitable
to the "English company" in question. I hope it is. The train was
rather a curious one, though, for it stopped for passengers at the
corner of the street, and when we got "aboard," we found a baggage
car the only vehicle provided for us. A number of apostles and elders
were on Conference tour, and the party, therefore, was a large one; so
that, if the driver had been an enthusiastic anti-Mormon, he might have
struck a severe blow at the Church by tilting us off the rails. The
Salt Creek canyon is not a prepossessing one, but there grew in it an
abundance of borage, the handsome blue heads of flowers showing from
among the undergrowth in large patches.
What a waste of borage! Often have I deplored over my claret in India
the absence of this estimable vegetable, and here in Utah with a
perfect jungle of borage all about me, I had no claret! I pointed out
to the apostles with us that temperance in such a spot was flying
in the face of providence, and urged them to plant vineyards in
the neighbourhood. But they were not enthusiastic, and I relapsed
into silent contemplation over the incredible ways of nature, that
she should thus cast her pearls of borage before a community of
teetotallers.
Traversing the canyon, we enter San Pete Valley, memorable for the
Indian War of 1865-67, but in itself as desolate and uninteresting a
tract of country as anything I have ever seen. Ugly bald hills and
leprous sand-patches in the midst of sage-brush, combined to form a
landscape of utter dreariness; and the little settlements lying away
under the hills on the far eastern edge of the valley--Fountain Green,
Maroni, and Springtown--seemed to me more like penal settlements
than voluntary locations. Yet I am told they are pretty enough, and
certainly Mount Pleasant, the largest settlement in the San Pete
country, looked as if it deserved its name. But it stands back well out
of the desperate levels of the valley, and its abundant foliage tells
of abundant water. A pair of eagles circled high up in the sky above
us as we rattled along, expecting us apparently to die by the way, and
hoping to be our undertakers. A solitary coyote was pointed out to me,
a lean and uncared-for person, that kept looking back over its shoulder
as it trotted away, as if it had a lingering sort of notion that a
defunct apostle might by chance be thrown overboard. It was a hungry
and a thirsty looking country, and Wales, where we left our train, was
a dismal spot. Here we found waggons waiting for us, and were soon on
our way across the desert, passing a settlement-oasis now and again,
and crossing the San Pete "river," which here sneaks along, a muddy,
shallow stream, at the bottom of high, willow-fringed banks. And so
to Fort Ephraim, a quaint little one-street sort of place that looks
up to Manti, a few miles off, as a little boy looks up to his biggest
brother, and to Salt Lake City as a cat might look up to a king.
In 1865-67, however, it was an important point. 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 small settlements that had been abandoned, and took part
in the fights at Thistle Creek, Springtown, Fish Lake, Twelve Mile
Creek Gravelly Ford, and the rest, where Black Hawk and his flying
squadron of Navajos and Piutes showed themselves such plucky men. It
is a pity, I think, that the history of that three years' campaign has
never been sketched, for, as men talk of it, it must have abounded with
stirring incident and romance. Besides, a well-written history of such
a campaign, with the lessons it teaches, might be useful some day--for
the fighting spirit of the Indians is not broken, and when another
Black Hawk appears upon the scene, 1865 might easily be re-enacted,
and Fort Ephraim once more be transformed from a farming hamlet to a
military camp.
Yet I have often wondered at the apathy or the friendship of the
Indians. Herds of cattle and horses and sheep wander about among the
mountains virtually unguarded. Little villages full of grain, and
each with its store well stocked with sugar, and tobacco, and cloths,
and knives, and other things that the Indians prize, lie almost
defenceless at the mouths of canyons. Yet they have not been molested
for the last fifteen years. I confess that if I were an Indian chief, I
should not be able to resist the temptation of helping my tribe to an
occasional surfeit of beef, with the amusement thrown in of plundering
a co-operative store. But the Mormons say that the Indian is more
honest than a white man and, in illustration of this, are ready to
give innumerable instances of an otherwise inexplicable chivalry. For
one thing, though, the Mormons are looked upon by the Indians in quite
a different light to other Americans, for they consider them to be
victims, like themselves, of Federal dislike, while both as individuals
and a class they hold them in consideration as being superior to Agents
in fidelity to engagements. So that the compliment of honesty is
mutually reciprocated. To illustrate this aspect of the Mormon-Indian
relations, some Indians came the other day into a settlement and
engaged in a very protracted pow-wow, the upshot of all their
roundabout palaver being this, that inasmuch as they, the Indians, had
given Utah to the Mormons, it was preposterous for the Mormons to pay
the Government for the land they took up!
From Fort Ephraim to Manti the road lies chiefly through unreclaimed
land, but within a mile or two of the town the irrigated suburbs of
Manti break in upon the sage-brush, and the Temple, which has been
visible in the distance half the day, grows out from the hills into
definite details. The site of this imposing structure certainly
surprised me both for the fine originality of its conception, and the
artistic sympathy with the surrounding scenery, which has directed
its erection. 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 levelled 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, 160 feet in
length by 90 wide, and about 100 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. Looked
at from the plain, with the stern hills behind it, the edifice is
seen to be in thoroughly artistic harmony with the scene, while the
enormous expenditure of labour upon its erection is a matter for
astonishment. The plan of the building inside differs from those of
the temples at Logan, St. George, and Salt Lake City, which again
differ from each other, for it is a curious fact that the ritual of
the secret ceremonies to which these buildings are chiefly devoted,
is still under elaboration and imperfect, so that each temple in turn
partially varies from its predecessor, to suit the latest alterations
made in the Endowments and other rites celebrated within its walls. In
my description of the Logan Temple, I gave a sketch of the purposes for
which the various parts of the building were intended. That sketch, of
course, cannot pretend to be exact, for only those Mormons who have
"worked" through the degrees can tell the whole truth; and as yet no
one has divulged it. But with a general knowledge of the rites, and
an intimate acquaintance with freemasonry, I have, I believe, put
together the only reliable outline that has ever been published. The
Manti temple will have the same arrangements of baptismal font and
dressing-rooms on the ground floor, but as well as I could judge from
the unfinished state of the building, the "endowments," in the course
of which are symbolical representations of the Creation, Temptation and
Fall, will be spread over two floors, the apartment for "baptism for
the dead" occupying a place on the lower. The "sealing" is performed on
the third. I have an objection to prying into matters which the Mormons
are so earnest in keeping secret, but as a mason, the connexion between
Masonry and Mormonism is too fascinating a subject for me to resist
curiosity altogether.
As a settlement, Manti is pretty, well-ordered and prosperous. The
universal vice of unbridged water-courses disfigures its roads just
as it does those of every other place (Salt Lake City itself not
excepted), and the irregularity in the order of occupation of lots
gives it the same scattered appearance that many other settlements
have. But 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. The
orthodox grist and saw-mills, essential adjuncts of every outlying
hamlet, find their usual place in the local economy; but to me the
most interesting corner was the quaint tithing-house, a Dutch-barn
kind of place, still surrounded by the high stone stockade which was
built for the protection of the settlers during the Indian troubles
fifteen years ago. Inside the tithing-house were two great bins half
filled with wheat and oats, and a few bundles of wool. I had expected
to find a miscellaneous confusion of articles of all kinds, but on
inquiry discovered that the popular theory of Mormon tithing, "a tenth
of everything,"--"even to the tenth of every egg that is laid," as a
Gentile lady plaintively assured me, is not carried out in practice,
the majority of Mormons allowing their tithings to run into arrears,
and then paying them up in a lump in some one staple article, vegetable
or animal, that happens to be easiest for them. The tenth of their
eggs or their currant jam does not, therefore, as supposed, form part
of the rigid annual tribute of these degraded serfs to their grasping
masters. As a matter of fact, indeed, the payment of tithings is as
nearly voluntary as the collection of a revenue necessary for carrying
on a government can possibly be allowed to be. What it may have been
once, is of no importance now. But to-day, so far from there being
any undue coercion, I have amply assured myself that there is extreme
consideration and indulgence, while the general prosperity of the
territory justifies the leniency that prevails.