We could distinctly trace the long line of Mormon settlements round the Lake to its end, or rather along the base of the mountain chain, for an arid wilderness, seamed with shallow streams and blotched with swamps, intervened between the cultivated settlements and the waters of the Lake. Beneath our feet lay Lehi, with about a thousand inhabitants; next came Pleasant Grove, embosomed in fruit trees, with a population of perhaps three hundred souls, named formerly Battle Creek, from an Indian fight in former days. Then, after an intervening reach of arid desert, Provo, the principal town in the district, with a population of some four thousand. Five miles below lay Springville with two thousand; six miles further Spanish Forks, on the stream from the Canyon of that name, with twelve hundred inhabitants. Six miles on, Pond-town, or Salem, as the more fastidious in taste among the Mormons persist in calling it; then, at a similar distance, Payson, with two thousand settlers, clear round the curve of the Lake, and about seventy miles from Salt Lake City.

Below this the road finds a path southwards, through other valleys, to Nephi, Moroni, and a succession of settlements, down to St. George, the chief town in the south.

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These settlements present monotonous uniformity; they are laid out in a number of wide roadways, set, of course, at right angles. The site of each settlement is determined by the course of some stream from the mountains; the name of the town or rather hamlet (Provo, Payson, &c.) is usually the same as that of the Canyon, generally several miles distant, through which the stream flows down. The roadways, perhaps a hundred feet wide, are ill-made, or hardly made at all; the waggon track wanders deviously from side to side to avoid pools and quags. The universal gutters,

narrow or wide, according to their quantity of water, present a serious hindrance to both walking and driving; horses are pulled to a walk, made to tread gently into the sludge, with water sometimes to their knees, and jolt the waggon through after them. The foot passenger crosses to the side, where a rough plank or a log has been thrown over the runlet, and steadies himself over carefully or takes a leap with one foot on the plank; not unfrequently the plank is absent from neglect, and the traveller wades across with mud to the ankles. In a walk of twelve miles along the main road on my return, my feet were wetted through a dozen times, though the weather had been unusually fine.

The dwellings are for the most part painfully mean and squalid. They are usually made of sun-dried or adobe' brick, dirt-coloured or whitewashed, not improving with the stains of age. The form of construction is always the square, with square holes for doors and windows. Sometimes the hut is of wood, plastered wholly or in part with mud. The adjoining outhouses are naturally still more mean and ragged. I do not remember ever seeing dwellings so sordid and comfortless, save among the halfbreeds of Red River and on the Indian Reserves in Canada.

Of course there are exceptions in the houses of the bishops and prominent men in each settlement.

The principal building in the town is always the meeting-house used for day schools, ward-meetings, dancing, soirées, and for worship on the Sunday. The place has usually a stone foundation with an adobe superstructure; the style of architecture is a faithful reproduction of the square whitewashed Methodist barn of the old country.

The general stores of these villages are poor, small, and slovenly, but are commonly well stocked as regards

the quantity of things for sale. They are all inscribed Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Association,' with the motto, 'Holiness to the Lord.' A windmill, or watermill, sometimes gives a little variety to the scene. At Provo a large stone mill was being erected for the manufacture of cotton, grown in the south of the Territory.

The farm holdings are small, of but a few acres usually; the cultivation, carried on under great difficulties, presents a poor appearance; waggons, implements, and stock are alike indifferent. The vegetable gardens of the town-lots lack care and attention; the fences are everywhere slovenly and ragged in the

extreme.

I have concerned myself simply in giving a plain unvarnished account of the present appearance of the Mormon city and the outlying settlements. Evidences of general comfort and prosperity are only to be seen by eyes spell-bound by the romance of the early Mormon history. Whether the results, poor as they are, achieved by the people, are not nevertheless surprisingly great, upon a consideration of the difficulties they have had to encounter, is a further question of some interest.

The Mormons found a wilderness and have rendered it habitable; it was barren, and now supports a hundred and fifty thousand souls. The outset of the task was particularly difficult; they were poor and ill-provided with food, seed, cattle, and implements of husbandry; they escaped to this mountain refuge from persecution, and across a howling desert infested with hostile bands of Indians; their journeying was marked by graves and signalised by miracles. The new settlement was established, they believe, only through Divine interposition; they were famishing and quails were sent into their camps, as to the children of Israel of old. The

locusts threatened their first crops; the people ploughed great gaps before their fields, and prepared barriers of smoke and fire, to stay the terrible invasion; but in vain. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. A strange bird came up on the wings of the evening wind, in numbers numberless, and destroyed the locusts from off the face of the land. Again and again the crops failed for lack of moisture, and the people lived meagrely for whole seasons, dividing their little sustenance fairly and rigidly by the ounce weight. But the very seasons and the climate were altered for the sake of the chosen people, and rain falls year by year in constantly increasing proportions. The wide waste yielded no tree for use or shade, nor herb for the food of man. Each settlement is now embosomed in orchards, and fringed with cornfields. Instead of the thorn has come up the fir-tree; instead of the brier the myrtle tree. The parched ground has become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. Lord hathcast the lot for His chosen; His hand hath divided it unto them by line. The wilderness and the solitary place have become glad for them; the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose.

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It is thus in the exalted language of the ancient prophecies that the Mormon saints themselves perpetually describe the changes that have taken place in the land, and the measure of their success. excited imagination of the enthu siastic these changes are not merely extraordinary, but miraculous. And it may be allowed ungrudgingly that since the days of Israel of old no people have had stronger justification from their peculiar history, or readier inclination from the bent of their religious training, to appropriate to themselves the language of the inspired Jewish prophets.

The romantic view of the establishment of the Mormon settlement is explicable, and pardonable, no doubt; but a plain view of the facts of the case leaves little occasion for wonder or surprise, though much for a cordial recognition of the painstaking character of the settlers. The Salt Lake valleys formed actually the best site for immigration between the old-settled States of the Union and the Pacific coast. Ordinary settlers would have occupied these cultivable lands a few years later if the Mormons had not forestalled them. Irrigation alone was needed to render large portions of the soil fertile, and the mountain streams supplied the ready means. The great influx into California shortly after the establishment of the Mormons, and the large business of the overland route, gave an immense impetus to the trade of Salt Lake City, and a high value to all the productions of the district. Every train paused at this oasis in the desert to rest, and to purchase supplies of flour, fresh meat, fruits, and animals for draught. For all these the saints asked, and received, extravagant prices, and, with an excellent conscience and good-will, spoiled the Egyptians.'

The chief men, the President and his family especially, have grown very wealthy. Enormous sums also have been expended for church purposes. No less than ten millions of dollars are said to have been spent upon the mere foundations of the temple. All this has come

from their trade with the Gentiles.

The mass of the people, however, remain poor. But they are composed of the lowest classes of our English and Welsh, and of the Norwegian population, and are without doubt sincere in their assertion, that they are more independent and happy than they ever were before. If their homes are mean and bare, it must be remembered that they

have few tastes to gratify, no higher condition to look back upon, and moreover, that, until recently, they have had to transport over a thousand miles of desert, with great cost and delay, everything they could not produce themselves, from a pound of nails to a plough, a pane of glass to a bookshelf, with its contents.

If a due allowance be made for the want of means and of intelligence of the great mass of the Mormon immigrants, the present improved condition of the valleys will certainly appear remarkable. It can scarcely be questioned, however, that an ordinary mixed immigration, like that which has built up the prosperity of the great Western States, would probably have produced equal or greater results, both in the cultivation of the soil and in the formation of a civilised society. An illustration in point lies close at hand. Denver, under the Colorado mountains, with a somewhat similar position to Salt Lake City, promises to surpass the latter rapidly in all the elements of prosperity, though it has been much more recently established. The surrounding plain needs irrigation, as the Mormon valleys do, but is being brought under cultivation at a much more rapid rate.

The Mormon settlers are fairly industrious in a plodding sort of fashion. But the marvellousness of the changes they have wrought in their mountain valleys would never have been heard of but for the romance attaching to them as the modern peculiar people.'

At Payson, seventy miles below Salt Lake, I presented letters of introduction to the Mormon President, Brigham Young. He was travelling by easy stages to visit the southern settlements, and to pass the winter in a mild climate; and also with the purpose of deciding on the future direction of Mormon settlement a matter of increasing

concern since the threatened irruption of Gentile miners.

The President was attended by two wives, one of whom, with some children, was to be left at St. George as her constant residence. It was a preaching tour as well as a journey of observation. George A. Smith, a cousin of the martyred Joseph, and the second in rank of the three presidents of the Mormon Church, and Brigham, junior, as the people call him, the second son of the great Brigham, each with one or two wives, and a servant or two for the horses, completed the numbers of the unpretentious cortége.

The President was staying at the house of one of the few well-to-do men of the place. The room into which I was shown was furnished handsomely and with some taste. Almost all the travelling party were assembled here, the ladies dressed with an elegance beyond what I had then seen among the Mormons. The President received me courteously, drew a chair for me at his side, and talked willingly on variety of subjects.

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I was invited to stay to breakfast, a substantial meal served in another apartment. In some respects Brigham Young's tastes are very simple; he took only breadand-milk. Noticing that I did not eat the hot rolls universally supplied at all meals in America, he asked for stale bread, and remarked with approval that he had never seen hot bread eaten in England during his visit there in early years. During the past few months, under his immediate influence, a number of his wives and many of the Mormon ladies have commenced a Retrenchment Society, with the view of opposing a growing tendency among the leading families to an ostentation and luxuriousness of living. The retrenchment is to be made at the table, in the furnishing of the house, and especially in dress.

But the movement is not a popular

one.

The Mormon President is seventy years of age: he is hale, stout, and strong, and it would not be impossible to mistake him for sixty. In appearance, dress, and style of speech he resembles a rough, burly English farmer. The two characteristics by which he acquired and maintains his hold on the heterogeneous mass of his adherents are, shrewd common sense and an inflexible will. He is no theologian, and little of a prophet; but he is an excellent administrator. It is he who has organised the secular polity of the Church, and built up its prosperity. Sidney Rigden, the apostate Apostle, and Parley B. Pratt, shot by an injured husband, formalised the religious doctrines. Joseph Smith, however, was without doubt largely concerned in originating the Mormon system, both secular and sacred. Orson Pratt is the principal living theologian. Brigham Young finds more congenial occupation in directing the civil and political affairs of the Church. He is content to be the Joshua of the new dispensation, without aspiring to further claims on the homage of the people.

Mormonism is founded on the presumption of a restoration to the world of the line of 'revelators' and prophets. Yet Brigham Young has only on one or two occasions, of no great importance, given revelations to the Church. There are not lacking some pious souls who are perplexed at the failure of the supply of inspired warnings and commands, for Joseph Smith used to issue them on the smallest provocation. By many of the Saints Brigham Young is credited with miracles and prophecies to which he makes no pretension himself.

To what extent the present Chief President himself believes in the religious claims of Mormonism, were a vain enquiry. Probably his

faith is equal to that of most other framers of new religions. Possibly, too, from his own avowals, he had a profound personal respect for Joseph Smith, which has increased to reverence since his death. And at least it is likely that Brigham Young believes sincerely that he is the most fitting man to rule the Church, and that Mormonism is calculated to advance the wellbeing of its followers.

Somewhat to my surprise, I found the President deficient apparently of all sense of the humorous. He tells no stories, cracks no jokes, makes no fun. This, too, he leaves to others. Apostle Heber C. Kimball used to keep the congregation in a roar with queer stories about his 'cows,' as he somewhat depreciatingly called his wives, and with odd pieces of domestic advice which were pertinent, no doubt, but still more impudent. The The vast, jolly-looking George A. Smith, the second president, tells a good story. But Brigham Young talks on every subject in a severe, common-sense, common-place way, that soon becomes a trifle monotonous. I have read many of his published discourses, and they bear the same characteristics. But, it may be suspected, a strong sense of the humorous might have disqualified him for the part he has successfully played.

One of the most interesting subjects on which we talked was the probable effect on the community of the influx of miners. Some of the President's remarks were characteristic enough to be repeated.

This is no doubt a good mining country for spending money in,' he said, and we shall get it. A few fortunes will be made here by the Gentiles; but more will be lost. For every dollar made here there will be ten dollars sunk, I am quite sure.'

He did not appear to have any great fear of an evil influence being exercised on his people by the incoming mass of lawless men.

They will entice away, or marry, our wives and daughters ? Let them if they can. We don't want any women among us who are not convinced of the authority and excellence of our system. We can well spare all who can be perverted.'

George A. Smith talked with me afterwards on this subject freely.

'We don't anticipate any trouble,' he said. 'The miners have always got on with us singularly well. We have supplied them with everything they wanted forth and back from California. It is in fact we who have made Nevada and Montana with our beef and bread. If the miners are let alone, they will certainly not make any difficulty with us. The only danger is that they may be tampered with by politicians. But we shall find the means for managing them.'

It was Bishop Fairbanks, I think, who explained to me the Mormon view of their President's policy in interdicting mining enterprises. In the earlier years the chief need of the settlement was a sufficiency of food. Every man's labour was of consequence in preparing and securing the harvest. What would have been the value of silver ores to a starving people remote from markets? Then, a little later, the immense demand for their produce for the supply of the miners and immigrants presented a surer means of profit than digging for gold. The purpose of the President was simply to restrain the people until the fitting time should

come.

That time has come at length, now that Gentiles have discovered the long-talked-of mines. The Mormons are allowed to engage in the new enterprise at their discretion.