Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water. Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      We were climbing higher and higher, already above a lower range of mountains, and soon touching the snow-line. One minute we were in the dark tunnel of the numerous snow sheds, and the next in full view of what is perhaps the most glorious, the most awe-inspiring scene, in its gaunt loneliness and majesty, that we shall ever see in all our lives. A sea of peaks around, and before, and behind, as far as the eye can reach; the cold grey of the wan gloom, tinged with a rosy light, lingering yet long after the sun had gone down; a scene of the greatest desolation, for fire had swept the pine forests not long ago, destroying all vegetation, and the blackened and charred stumps marked but too surely its devastating path. We shivered involuntarily as we stopped for a short time at the very summit, partly from the chilly dampness of the atmosphere, but as much from a feeling of sheer loneliness and dread. We should have liked to have been alone in the car,—left to ourselves for a few minutes, to "realize" that majestic scene, and imprint it indelibly on the memory.

      The engine shrieked, and we were carried away into gloom, losing all the beauty of the descent in the gathering darkness,—to supper at a wayside shanty by the uncertain light of guttering oil-lamps.

      It seemed wonderful, as we lay down in our berths in the car that night, to think that we had gone up the Rockies and come down on the other side in an ordinary passenger train. Very different it must have been in the old coaching days, when they toiled along the road, which we had traced in a dim, white line in the far distance.

      It was most annoying going through the Black Cañon of the Gunnison at night; but I was fortunate enough to wake up at midnight, just as we were passing through it, and, looking out, I could see the ghostly shadows cast by the head-light of the engine in the deep chasm, and could trace the outline of its chief beauty, the straight and slender needle point of the Currecanti.

      Wednesday, August 20th. At Grand Junction Station.—We awoke at seven in the morning, to find the car at a standstill, and also to hear that it had been so since 3 a.m. There had been a "wash out" at Green River, some 150 miles up the line. We soon found out what this expressive term signifies; it means an indefinite waiting for an indefinite number of hours—indefinite, I say, because it entirely depends on the subsidence of the freshet and the reparation of a bridge. We learnt afterwards that the Denver and Rio Grande line is particularly subject to these little mishaps, and we noticed that the officials thought nothing at all of the occurrence. The same thing had happened to some ladies now in the train when going over the line two months previously. Adding insult to injury, we were turned out of our Pullman, where we might have spent the day comfortably enough, and the train returned eastwards, leaving the passengers and their luggage a forlorn group on the platform of the Grand Junction.

      We found breakfast at a wooden shanty near the station, and fared better than those who tried the hotel. The scene that lay before us was this. On one side there was a collection of wooden huts forming the village, with the grandiloquent name of Grand Junction, bought two years ago from the Indians by the Government. It stands in a sandy desert, with a plentiful sprinkling of alkali, bounded by a low chain of granite rocks; on the other was a marshy ground leading to the river. C. bought some tackle in the village, with a wild idea of fishing, but we found the hot sun on the swampy banks was so unhealthy that we beat a hasty retreat. In writing up my journal and reading, the morning passed, and we again repaired to the shanty for luncheon. In the course of the afternoon we strolled into the town, and laid in a store of biscuits against further accidents, and ran back to the shelter of the station before a coming storm. The heavens opened, and a water-spout came down in the distance, like a pillar of cloud, seeming to draw the earth up to it, and gusts of wind blew up the dust into clouds, sweeping over the little village like a real simoon of the desert.

      There was no one in authority to give us any information, and the most intelligent individual about the station seemed to be the telegraph clerk, who had only arrived the previous day from Chicago. He had just made out from a telegram, as he thought, that we were to wait till seven o'clock for a train, when we saw one coming into sight. I don't think any one inquired where it was going, or whether it was the right one, but we all jumped in, and sped joyfully across the dreary plain. We saw a beautiful double rainbow, the most vivid and perfect arcs I have ever seen, just meeting each other where they touched the earth.

      We had not been expected at Green River, and there was not much supper forthcoming; but we did not care, as we had, in fear and trembling, previously passed in safety over the bridge.

      The conductor, putting his head between the curtains at seven the next morning with the announcement of "breakfast in ten minutes," awoke us, and we looked out upon the beautiful valley of Utah, girdled with the mountains, and abounding in rich farms and orchards, watered by several pure streams of water. Nature seems to have smiled upon this sunny spot; and here the "Mormons," wanderers on the face of the earth for so long, chose a resting-place, and built their City by the Salt Lake. The great range of the Wahsatch Mountains opens out here, and forms a convenient site for a city at their feet; and as we approached we saw that distinctive feature, the dome of the Tabernacle.

      The streets of Salt Lake City are wide, too wide for the traffic, for on either side they are overgrown thickly with weeds, forming in some streets into grass borders. The houses are low and pretty, covered with creepers, and the gardens luxuriate with bright flowers, that thrive naturally in these sheltered spots. Swiftly-running water in the gutters answers the double purpose of irrigation and drainage.

      We naturally first wended our way to the Tabernacle. It is the dreariest of whitewashed buildings inside. The rounded dome of the roof is unsupported by any pillars, and faded evergreen wreaths and tawdry flags are suspended from the centre, erected for Commemoration Day, some fifteen years ago, and never since taken down. The organ ranks as the third largest in the States. In the little wooden boxes, ranged in tiers on the platform in a gradually descending scale, sit the President, the Elders, and the Bishops. From here they call upon Brother So-and-So to address the congregation. There is a most wonderful echo in the Tabernacle; we distinctly heard a pin dropped at the further end to where we were standing. The marble Temple, which is being built to replace the old place of worship, has already cost 750,000l., but judging from the few workmen in the sheds, we thought the funds had perhaps come to an end. We went next to Zion's Co-operative Store; it is a fine stone building, with the text "Holiness to the Lord" blazoned on a sign over the door, and inside you might fancy yourself in the Army and Navy Co-operative Stores—the same division of departments, including the lift to each floor. An "elder" showed us through; and all those employed in the buildings are Mormons. True believers are exhorted to deal solely at the store.

      There is a theatre, and the Walker Opera House; for they maintain, and quite rightly, that, "As all people have a fondness for dramatic representations, it is well to so regulate and govern such exhibitions, that they may be instructive and purifying in their tendencies. If the best people absent themselves, the worst will dictate the character of the exercises."

      Behind a high stone wall are the two houses that belonged to Brigham Young, called the Bee and the Lion Houses, from the carved designs over the doors; in the latter Brigham Young died. Exactly opposite is the large stone house—the finest in the territory (Utah is not a state but a territory)—which he built for his last and seventeenth wife and which is now occupied by his successor, President Taylor. Asking to be shown Brigham Young's grave, we were taken to a plot of grass, roughly walled in, and in the centre was the grave, of loosely piled stones, marked with a wooden cross. He was buried here, and not in the cemetery, as a distinguishing mark of respect; but if so, his resting-place might, we thought, have been better cared for. Many of the Mormon residences may be recognized by their green gates and several entrances, for the separate use of the different wives and families. At present the population of Salt Lake City is 14,000, of which about 10,000 are Mormons, but the mines in the Wahsatch range are bringing a great influx of Gentiles. The Government have made many ineffectual attempts to convict the Mormons of polygamy, but the prosecutions always languish for want of evidence, as they are faithful to the tenets of their religion. Not even the unhappy wives superseded, СКАЧАТЬ