Chapter III (3)

The Wind-River Range has other qualities than mere formal beauty to recommend it. At Horseshoe Creek I was shown a quill full of large gold-grains from a new digging. Probably all the primitive masses of the Rocky Mountains will be found to contain the precious metal. The wooded heights are said to be a very paradise of sport, full of elk and every kind of deer; pumas; bears, brown[103] as well as grizzly; the wolverine;[104] in parts the mountain buffalo--briefly, all the noble game of the Continent. The Indian tribes, Shoshonees and Blackfeet, are not deadly to whites. Washiki, the chief of the former, had, during the time of our visit, retired to hilly ground, about forty miles north of the Foot of Ridge Station. This chief--a fine, manly fellow, equal in point of physical strength to the higher race--had been a firm friend, from the beginning, to emigrant and settler; but he was complaining, according to the road officials, that the small amount of inducement prevented his affording good conduct any longer--that he must rob, like the rest of the tribe. Game, indeed, is not unfrequently found near the Pacific Springs; they are visited, later in the year, by swans, geese, and flights of ducks. At this season they seem principally to attract coyotes--five mules have lately been worried by the little villains--huge cranes, chicken-hawks, a large species of trochilus, and clouds of musquetoes, which neither the altitude, the cold, nor the eternal wind-storm that howls through the Pass can drive from their favorite breeding-bed. Near nightfall a flock of wild geese passed over us, audibly threatening an early winter. We were obliged, before resting, to insist upon a smudge,[105] without which fumigation sleep would have been impossible.

[103] Some authorities doubt that the European brown bear is found in
America.

[104] The wolverine (_Gulo luscus_), carcajou, or glutton, extends
throughout Utah Territory: its carnivorous propensities render it an
object of peculiar hatred to fur-hunters. The first name is loosely
used in the States: the people of Michigan are called Wolverines,
from the large number of _mischievous prairie wolves_ found there
(Bartlett).

[105] This old North of England word is used in the West for a
heap of green bush or other damp combustibles, placed inside or to
windward of a house or tent, and partially lighted, so as to produce
a thick, pungent steam.

The shanty was perhaps a trifle more uncomfortable than the average; our only seat was a kind of trestled plank, which suggested a certain obsolete military punishment called riding on a rail. The station-master was a _bon enfant_; but his help, a Mormon lad, still in his teens, had been trained to go in a “sorter” jibbing and somewhat uncomfortable “argufying,” “highfalutin’” way. He had the furor for fire-arms that characterizes the ingenuous youth of Great Salt Lake City, and his old rattletrap of a revolver, which always reposed by his side at night, was as dangerous to his friends as to himself. His vernacular was peculiar; like Mr. Boatswain Chucks (Mr. D----s), he could begin a sentence with polished and elaborate diction, but it always ended, like the wicked, badly. He described himself, for instance, as having lately been “slightly inebriated;” but the euphuistic periphrasis concluded with an asseveration that he would be “Gord domned” if he did it again.

The night was, like the day, loud and windy, the log hut being somewhat crannied and creviced, and the door had a porcelain handle, and a shocking bad fit--a characteristic combination. We had some trouble to keep ourselves warm. At sunrise the thermometer showed 35° Fahrenheit.

_To Green River. August 21st._

We rose early, despite the cold, to enjoy once more the lovely aspect of the Wind-River Mountains, upon whose walls of snow the rays of the unrisen sun broke with a splendid effect; breakfasted, and found ourselves _en route_ at 8 A.M. The day did not begin well: Mrs. Dana was suffering severely from fatigue, and the rapid transitions from heat to cold; Miss May, poor child! was but little better, and the team was re-enforced by an extra mule returning to its proper station: this four-footed Xantippe caused us, without speaking of the dust from her hoofs, an immensity of trouble.

At the Pacific Creek, two miles below the springs, we began the descent of the Western water-shed, and the increase of temperature soon suggested a lower level. We were at once convinced that those who expect any change for the better on the counterslope of the mountains labor under a vulgar error. The land was desolate, a red waste, dotted with sage and greasebush, and in places pitted with large rain-drops. But, looking backward, we could admire the Sweetwater’s Gap heading far away, and the glorious pile of mountains which, disposed in crescent shape, curtained the horizon; their southern and western bases wanted, however, one of the principal charms of the upper view: the snow had well-nigh been melted off. Yet, according to the explorer, they supply within the space of a few miles the Green River with a number of tributaries, which are all called the New Forks. We kept them in sight till they mingled with the upper air like immense masses of thunder-cloud gathering for a storm.

[THE GLISTENING GRAVEL WATER.]

From Pacific Creek the road is not bad, but at this season the emigrant parties are sorely tried by drought, and when water is found it is often fetid or brackish. After seventeen miles we passed the junction of the Great Salt Lake and Fort Hall roads. Near Little Sandy Creek--a feeder of its larger namesake--which after rains is about 2·5 feet deep, we found nothing but sand, caked clay, sage, thistles, and the scattered fragments of camp-fires, with large ravens picking at the bleaching skeletons, and other indications of a halting-ground, an eddy in the great current of mankind, which, ceaseless as the Gulf Stream, ever courses from east to west. After a long stage of twenty-nine miles we made Big Sandy Creek, an important influent of the Green River; the stream, then shrunken, was in breadth not less than five rods, each = 16·5 feet, running with a clear, swift current through a pretty little prairillon, bright with the blue lupine, the delicate pink malvacea, the golden helianthus, purple aster acting daisy, the white mountain heath, and the green Asclepias tuberosa,[106] a weed common throughout Utah Territory. The Indians, in their picturesque way, term this stream Wágáhongopá, or the Glistening Gravel Water.[107] We halted for an hour to rest and dine; the people of the station, man and wife, the latter very young, were both English, and of course Mormons; they had but lately become tenants of the ranch, but already they were thinking, as the Old Country people will, of making their surroundings “nice and tidy.”

[106] Locally called milkweed. The whites use the silky cotton of
the pods, as in Arabia, for bed-stuffings, and the Sioux Indians
of the Upper Platte boil and eat the young pods with their buffalo
flesh. Colonel Frémont asserts that he never saw this plant without
remarking “on the flower a large butterfly, so nearly resembling it
in color as to be distinguishable at a little distance only by the
motion of its wings.”

[107] Similarly the Snake River, an eastern influent of the Colorado,
is called Yampa Pa, or Sweet Root (_Anethum graveolens_) Water.

Beyond the Glistening Gravel Water lies a _mauvaise terre_, sometimes called the First Desert, and upon the old road water is not found in the dry season within forty-nine miles--a terrible _jornada_[108] for laden wagons with tired cattle. We prepared for drought by replenishing all our canteens--one of them especially, a tin flask, covered outside with thick cloth, kept the fluid deliciously cold--and we amused ourselves by the pleasant prospect of seeing wild mules taught to bear harness. The tricks of equine viciousness and asinine obstinacy played by the mongrels were so distinct, that we had no pains in determining what was inherited from the father and what from the other side of the house. Before they could be hitched up they were severally hustled into something like a parallel line with the pole, and were then forced into their places by a rope attached to the fore wheel, and hauled at the other end by two or three men. Each of these pleasant animals had a bell: it is sure, unless corraled, to run away, and at night sound is necessary to guide the pursuer. At last, being “all aboord,” we made a start, dashed over the Big Sandy, charged the high stiff bank with an impetus that might have carried us up an otter-slide or a Montagne Russe, and took the right side of the valley, leaving the stream at some distance.

[108] The Spanish-Mexican term for a day’s march. It is generally
applied to a waterless march, _e. g._, “Jornada del Muerto” in New
Mexico, which, like some in the Sahara, measures ninety miles across.

Rain-clouds appeared from the direction of the hills: apparently they had many centres, as the distant sheet was rent into a succession of distinct streamers. A few drops fell upon us as we advanced. Then the fiery sun “ate up” the clouds, or raised them so high that they became playthings in the hands of the strong and steady western gale. The thermometer showed 95° in the carriage, and 111° exposed to the reflected heat upon the black leather cushions. It was observable, however, that the sensation was not what might have been expected from the height of the mercury, and perspiration was unknown except during severe exercise; this proves the purity and salubrity of the air. In St. Jo and New Orleans the effect would have been that of India or of a Turkish steam-bath. The heat, however, brought with it one evil--a green-headed horsefly, that stung like a wasp, and from which cattle must be protected with a coating of grease and tar. Whenever wind blew, tourbillons of dust coursed over the different parts of the plain, showing a highly electrical state of the atmosphere. When the air was unmoved the mirage was perfect as the sarab in Sindh or Southern Persia; earth and air were both so dry that the refraction of the sunbeams elevated the objects acted upon more than I had ever seen before. A sea lay constantly before our eyes, receding of course as we advanced, but in all other points a complete _lusus naturæ_. The color of the water was a dull cool sky-blue, not white, as the “looming” generally is; the broad expanse had none of that tremulous upward motion which is its general concomitant; it lay placid, still, and perfectly reflecting in its azure depths--here and there broken by projecting capes and bluff headlands--the forms of the higher grounds bordering the horizon.

After twelve miles’ driving we passed through a depression called Simpson’s Hollow, and somewhat celebrated in local story. Two semicircles of black still charred the ground; on a cursory view they might have been mistaken for burnt-out lignite. Here, in 1857, the Mormons fell upon a corraled train of twenty-three wagons, laden with provisions and other necessaries for the federal troops, then halted at Camp Scott awaiting orders to advance. The wagoners, suddenly attacked, and, as usual, unarmed--their weapons being fastened inside their awnings--could offer no resistance, and the whole convoy was set on fire except two conveyances, which were left to carry back supplies for the drivers till they could reach their homes. On this occasion the _dux facti_ was Lot Smith, a man of reputation for hard riding and general gallantry. The old Saint is always spoken of as a good man who lives by “Mormon rule of wisdom.” As at Fort Sumter, no blood was spilled. So far the Mormons behaved with temper and prudence; but this their first open act of rebellion against, or secession from, the federal authority nearly proved fatal to them; had the helm of government been held by a firmer hand than poor Mr. Buchanan’s, the scenes of Nauvoo would have been acted again at Great Salt Lake City. As it was, all turned out _à merveille_ for the saints militant. They still boast loudly of the achievement, and on the marked spot where it was performed the juvenile emigrants of the creed erect dwarf graves and nameless “wooden” tomb-“stones” in derision of their enemies.

[VALLEY OF THE GREEN RIVER.]

As sunset drew near we approached the banks of the Big Sandy River. The bottom through which it flowed was several yards in breadth, bright green with grass, and thickly feathered with willows and cotton-wood. It showed no sign of cultivation; the absence of cereals may be accounted for by its extreme cold; it freezes there every night, and none but the hardiest grains, oats and rye, which here are little appreciated, could be made to grow. We are now approaching the valley of the Green River, which, like many of the rivers in the Eastern States, appears formerly to have filled a far larger channel. Flat tables and elevated terraces of horizontal strata--showing that the deposit was made in still waters--with layers varying from a few lines to a foot in thickness, composed of hard clay, green and other sandstones, and agglutinated conglomerates, rise like islands from barren plains, or form escarpments that buttress alternately either bank of the winding stream. Such, according to Captain Stansbury, is the general formation of the land between the South Pass and the “Rim” of the Utah Basin.

Advancing over a soil alternately sandy and rocky--an iron flat that could not boast of a spear of grass--we sighted a number of coyotes, fittest inhabitants of such a waste, and a long, distant line of dust, like the smoke of a locomotive, raised by a herd of mules which were being driven to the corral. We were presently met by the Pony Express rider; he reined in to exchange news, which _de part et d’autre_ were simply _nil_. As he pricked onward over the plain, the driver informed us, with a portentous rolling of the head, that Ichabod was an a’mighty fine “shyoot.” Within five or six miles of Green River we passed the boundary stone which bears Oregon on one side and Utah on the other. We had now traversed the southeastern corner of the country of Long-eared men,[109] and were entering Deserét, the Land of the Honey-bee.

[109] Oregon is supposed by Mr. Edward to have been named by the
Spaniards from the immensely lengthened ears (_orejones_) of the
Indians who inhabited it.

At 6 30 P.M. we debouched upon the bank of the Green River. The station was the home of Mr. Macarthy, our driver. The son of a Scotchman who had settled in the United States, he retained many signs of his origin, especially freckles, and hair which one might almost venture to describe as sandy; perhaps also, at times, he was rather o’er fond of draining “a cup o’ kindness yet.” He had lately taken to himself an English wife, the daughter of a Birmingham mechanic, who, before the end of her pilgrimage to “Zion on the tops of the mountains,” had fallen considerably away from grace, and had incurred the risk of being buffeted by Satan for a thousand years--a common form of commination in the New Faith--by marrying a Gentile husband.[110] The station had the indescribable scent of a Hindoo village, which appears to result from the burning of _bois de vache_ and the presence of cattle: there were sheep, horses, mules, and a few cows, the latter so lively that it was impossible to milk them. The ground about had the effect of an oasis in the sterile waste, with grass and shrubs, willows and flowers, wild geraniums, asters, and various _cruciferæ_. A few trees, chiefly quaking asp, lingered near the station, but dead stumps were far more numerous than live trunks. In any other country their rare and precious shade would have endeared them to the whole settlement; here they were never safe when a log was wanted. The Western man is bred and perhaps born--I believe devoutly in transmitted and hereditary qualities--with an instinctive dislike to timber in general. He fells a tree naturally as a bull-terrier worries a cat, and the admirable woodsman’s axe which he has invented only serves to whet his desire to try conclusions with every more venerable patriarch of the forest.[111] Civilized Americans, of course, lament the destructive mania, and the Latter-Day Saints have learned by hard experience the inveterate evils that may arise in such a country from disforesting the ground. We supped comfortably at Green-River Station, the stream supplying excellent salmon trout. The kichimichi, or buffalo berry,[112] makes tolerable jelly, and alongside of the station is a store where Mr. Burton (of Maine) sells “Valley Tan” whisky.[113]

[110] Mr. Brigham Young, one of the most tolerant of a people whose
motto is toleration, would not, I believe, offer any but an official
objection to a Mormon member marrying a worthy Gentile; but even
he--and it could hardly be expected that he should--can not overlook
the sin of apostasy. The order of the faith runs thus: “We believe
that it is not right to prohibit members of the Church from marrying
out of the Church, if it be their determination so to do, but such
persons will be considered weak in the faith of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ.” The same view of the subject is taken, I need hardly
say, by the more rigid kind of Roman Catholic.

[111] Many of the blades, being made by convicts at the state
prisons, are sold cheap. The extent of the timber regions
necessitated this excellent implement, and the saving of labor on the
European article is enormous.

[112] A shrub 10-15 feet high, with a fruit about the size of a pea,
red like a wild rose-hip, and with a pleasant sub-acid flavor: the
Indians eat it with avidity, and it is cultivated in the gardens at
Great Salt Lake City.

[113] Tannery was the first technological process introduced into the
Mormon Valley; hence all home industry has obtained the sobriquet of
“Valley Tan.”

[EXPLORATION YET TO BE DONE.]

The Green River is the Rio Verde of the Spaniards, who named it from its timbered shores and grassy islets: it is called by the Yuta Indians Piya Ogwe, or the Great Water; by the other tribes Sitskidiágí, or “Prairie-grouse River.” It was nearly at its lowest when we saw it; the breadth was not more than 330 feet. In the flood-time it widens to 800 feet, and the depth increases from three to six. During the inundation season a ferry is necessary, and when transit is certain the owner sometimes nets $500 a week, which is not unfrequently squandered in a day. The banks are in places thirty feet high, and the bottom may average three miles from side to side. It is a swift-flowing stream, running as if it had no time to lose, and truly it has a long way to go. Its length, volume, and direction entitle it to the honor of being called the head water of the great Rio Colorado, or Colored River, a larger and more important stream than even the Columbia. There is some grand exploration still to be done upon the line of the Upper Colorado, especially the divides which lie between it and its various influents, the Grand River and the Yaquisilla, of which the wild trapper brings home many a marvelous tale of beauty and grandeur. Captain T. A. Gove, of the 10th Regiment of Infantry, then stationed at Camp Floyd, told me that an expedition had often been projected: a party of twenty-five to thirty men, well armed and provided with inflatable boats, might pass without unwarrantable risk through the sparsely populated Indian country: a true report concerning regions of which there are so many false reports, all wearing more or less the garb of fable--beautiful valleys inclosed in inaccessible rocks, Indian cities and golden treasures--would be equally interesting and important. I can not recommend the undertaking to the European adventurer: the United States have long since organized and perfected what was proposed in England during the Crimean war, and which fell, as other projects then did, to the ground, namely, a corps of Topographical Engineers, a body of well-trained and scientific explorers, to whose hands the task may safely be committed.[114]

[114] The principal explorers under the United States government of
the regions lying west of the Mississippi, and who have published
works upon the subject, are the following:

1. Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, in 1804-6, first explored the Rocky
Mountains to the Columbia River.

2. Major Z. M. Pike, in 1805-7, visited the upper waters of the
Mississippi and the western regions of Louisiana.

3. Major, afterward Colonel S. H. Long, of the United States
Topographical Engineers, made two expeditions, one in 1819-20 to the
Rocky Mountains, another in 1823 to the Sources of the St. Peter and
the Lake of the Woods, whereby four volumes octavo were filled.

4. Governor Cass and Mr. Schoolcraft in 1820 explored the Sources of
the Mississippi and the regions west and south of Lake Superior.

5. Colonel H. Dodge, U. S. Army, in 1835 traveled 1600 miles from
Fort Leavenworth, and visited the regions between the Arkansas and
the Platte Rivers.

6. Captain Canfield, United States Topographical Engineers, in 1838
explored the country between Forts Leavenworth and Snelling.

7. Mr. M‘Cox, of Missouri, surveyed the boundaries of the Indian
reservations: his work was in part revised by the late Captain Hood,
United States Topographical Engineers.

8. Mr. Nicollet (French) in 1833-38 mapped the country west of the
Upper Mississippi: he was employed in 1838-9 to make a similar
scientific reconnoissance between the Mississippi and the Missouri,
on which occasion he was accompanied by Mr. Frémont. He died in 1842.

The explorations of Colonel Frémont, Captain Howard Stansbury,
Lieutenant Gunnison, and Lieutenant Warren have been frequently
alluded to in these pages.

9. Lieutenant, afterward Captain Charles Wilkes, U. S. Navy, set out
in 1838, and, after a long voyage of discovery in South America,
Oceanica, and the Antarctic continent, made San Francisco on August
11, 1841. It is remarkable that this officer’s party were actually
pitched upon the spot (New Helvetia, afterward called Sacramento
City) where Californian gold was dug by the Mormons.

10. Captain R. B. Marcy, U. S. Army, “discovered and explored,
located and marked out the wagon-road from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to
Santa Fé, New Mexico.” The road explorers, however, are too numerous
to specify.

11. Governor I. I. Stevens, of Washington Territory, surveyed in 1853
the northern land proposed for a Pacific railway near the 47°-49°
parallels, from St. Paul to Puget Sound. No portion of that line
had been visited since the days of Lewis and Clarke, except a small
portion toward the Pacific Ocean.

12. Captain Raynolds, United States Topographical Engineers,
accompanied by Colonel Bridger as guide and interpreter, is still
(1860) exploring the head-waters of the Yellow Stone River.

We passed a social evening at Green-River Station. It boasted of no less than three Englishwomen, two married, and one, the help, still single. Not having the Mormonite _retenue_, the dames were by no means sorry to talk about Birmingham and Yorkshire, their birthplaces. At 9 P.M. arrived one of the road-agents, Mr. Cloete, from whom I gathered that the mail-wagon which once ran from Great Salt Lake City had lately been taken off the road. The intelligence was by no means consolatory, but a course of meditation upon the saying of the sage, “in for a penny, in for a pound,” followed by another visit to my namesake’s grog-shop, induced a highly philosophical turn, which enabled me--with the aid of a buffalo--to pass a comfortable night in the store.

_22d August. To Ham’s Fork and Millersville._

We were not under way before 8 A.M. Macarthy was again to take the lines, and a _Giovinetto_ returning after a temporary absence to a young wife is not usually rejoiced to run his course. Indeed, he felt the inconveniences of a semi-bachelor life so severely, that he often threatened in my private ear, _chemin faisant_, to throw up the whole concern.

[MICHAEL MARTIN’S STORE.--AN ORIGINAL.]

After the preliminary squabble with the mules, we forded the pebbly and gravelly bed of the river--in parts it looks like a lake exhausted by drainage--whose swift surging waters wetted the upper spokes of the wheels, and gurgled pleasantly around the bags which contained the mail for Great Salt Lake City.[115] We then ran down the river valley, which was here about one mile in breadth, in a smooth flooring of clay, sprinkled with water-rolled pebbles, overgrown in parts with willow, wild cherry, buffalo berries, and quaking asp. Macarthy pointed out in the road-side a rough grave, furnished with the normal tomb-stone, two pieces of wagon-board: it was occupied by one Farren, who had fallen by the revolver of the redoubtable Slade. Presently we came to the store of Michael Martin, an honest Creole, who vended the staple of prairie goods, Champagne, bottled cocktail, “eye-opener,” and other liquors, dry goods--linen drapery--a few fancy goods, ribbons, and finery; brandied fruits, jams and jellies, potted provisions, buckskins, moccasins, and so forth. Hearing that Lieutenant Dana was _en route_ for Camp Floyd, he requested him to take charge of $500, to be paid to Mr. Livingston, the sutler, and my companion, with the obligingness that marked his every action, agreed to deliver the dollars, _sauve_ the judgment of God in the shape of Indians, or “White Indians.”[116] At the store we noticed a paralytic man. This original lived under the delusion that it was impossible to pass the Devil’s Gate: his sister had sent for him to St. Louis, and his friends tried to transport him eastward in chairs; the only result was that he ran away before reaching the Gate, and after some time was brought back by Indians.

[115] Sticklers for strict democracy in the United States maintain,
on the principle that the least possible power should be delegated
to the federal government, that the transmission of correspondence
is no more a national concern than the construction of railways and
telegraphs, or the transit of passengers and goods. The present
system was borrowed from the monopolies of Europe, and was introduced
into America at a time when individual enterprise was inadequate
to the task; in the year one of the Republic it became, under the
direction of Benjamin Franklin, a state department, and, though men
argue in the abstract, few care to propose a private mail system,
which would undertake the management of some 27,000 scattered offices
and 40,000 poorly paid clerks.

On this line we saw all the evils of the contract system. The
requisite regularity and quickness was neglected, letters and papers
were often lost, the mail-bags were wetted or thrown carelessly
upon the ground, and those intrusted to the conductors were perhaps
destroyed. Both parties complain--the postmaster that the contractors
seek to drive too hard a bargain with the department, and the
contractors that they are carrying the mails at a loss. Since the
restoration (in 1858) of the postal communication with the United
States which was interrupted in 1857, the Mormons attempt to secure
good service by advertising their grievances, and with tolerable
success. Postmaster Morrill--a Gentile--complained energetically of
the mail service during the last year, that letters were wetted and
jumbled together, two of one month perhaps and one of another; that
magazines often arrived four months after date, and that thirty sacks
left at Rocky Ridge were lost. The consequence was that during my
stay at Great Salt Lake City the contractors did their duty.

When salaries are small and families large, post-office robberies
must at times be expected. The postal department have long adopted
the system of registered letters: upon payment of five cents instead
of three, the letter is placed in a separate bag, entered separately
in the office books, forwarded with certain precautions, and
delivered to the address only after a receipt from the recipient.
But the department disclaims all responsibility in case of loss or
theft, and the only value of the higher stamp is a somewhat superior
facility of tracking the document that bears it.

[116] A cant term for white thieves disguised as savages, which has a
terrible significancy a little farther West.

Resuming our journey, we passed two places where trains of fifty-one wagons were burned in 1857 by the Mormon Rangers: the black stains had bitten into the ground like the blood-marks in the palace of Holyrood--a neat foundation for a structure of superstition. Not far from it was a deep hole, in which the plunderers had “cached” the iron-work which they were unable to carry away. Emerging from the river plain we entered upon another _mauvaise terre_, with knobs and elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat sluggish Black’s Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or “Pine-tree Stream;” it rises in the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way, and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s Fork and Muddy Fork.

Near the Pine-tree Stream we met a horse-thief driving four bullocks: he was known to Macarthy, and did not look over comfortable. We had now fallen into the regular track of Mormon emigration, and saw the wayfarers in their worst plight, near the end of the journey. We passed several families, and parties of women and children trudging wearily along: most of the children were in rags or half nude, and all showed gratitude when we threw them provisions. The greater part of the men were armed, but their weapons were far more dangerous to themselves and their fellows than to the enemy. There is not on earth a race of men more ignorant of arms as a rule than the lower grades of English; becoming an emigrant, the mechanic hears that it may be necessary to beat off Indians, so he buys the first old fire-arm he sees, and probably does damage with it. Only last night a father crossed Green River to beg for a piece of cloth; it was intended to shroud the body of his child, which during the evening had been accidentally shot, and the station people seemed to think nothing of the accident, as if it were of daily recurrence. I was told of three, more or less severe, that happened in the course of a month. The Western Americans, who are mostly accustomed to the use of weapons, look upon these awkwardnesses with a profound contempt. We were now in a region of graves, and their presence in this wild was not a little suggestive.

Presently we entered a valley in which green grass, low and dense willows, and small but shady trees, an unusually vigorous vegetation, refreshed, as though with living water, our eyes, parched and dazed by the burning glare. Stock strayed over the pasture, and a few Indian tents rose at the farther side; the view was probably _pas grand’ chose_, but we thought it splendidly beautiful. At midday we reached Ham’s Fork, the northwestern influent of Green River, and there we found a station. The pleasant little stream is called by the Indians Turugempa, the “Blackfoot Water.”

[THE DIRTY HOUSE.]

The station was kept by an Irishman and a Scotchman--“Dawvid Lewis:” it was a disgrace; the squalor and filth were worse almost than the two--Cold Springs and Rock Creek--which we called our horrors, and which had always seemed to be the _ne plus ultra_ of Western discomfort. The shanty was made of dry stone piled up against a dwarf cliff to save back wall, and ignored doors and windows. The flies--unequivocal sign of unclean living!--darkened the table and covered every thing put upon it; the furniture, which mainly consisted of the different parts of wagons, was broken, and all in disorder; the walls were impure, the floor filthy. The reason was at once apparent. Two Irishwomen, sisters,[117] were married to Mr. Dawvid, and the house was full of “childer,” the noisiest and most rampageous of their kind. I could hardly look upon the scene without disgust. The fair ones had the porcine Irish face--I need hardly tell the reader that there are three orders of physiognomy in that branch of the Keltic family, viz., porcine, equine, and simian--the pig-faced, the horse-faced, and the monkey-faced. Describing one I describe both sisters; her nose was “pugged,” apparently by gnawing hard potatoes before that member had acquired firmness and consistency; her face was powdered with freckles; her hair, and, indeed, her general costume, looked, to quote Mr. Dow’s sermon, as though she had been rammed through a bush fence into a world of wretchedness and woe. Her dress was unwashed and in tatters, and her feet were bare; she would not even take the trouble to make for herself moccasins. Moreover, I could not but notice that, though the house contained two wives, it boasted only of one cubile, and had only one cubiculum. Such things would excite no surprise in London or Naples, or even in many of the country parts of Europe; but here, where ground is worthless, where building material is abundant, and where a few hours of daily labor would have made the house look at least respectable, I could not but wonder at it. My first impulse was to attribute the evil, uncharitably enough, to Mormonism; to renew, in fact, the stock-complaint of nineteen centuries’ standing--

“Fœcunda culpæ secula nuptias
Primùm inquinavere, et genus et domus.”

[117] A man (Mormon) may even marry a mother and her daughters:
usually the relationship with the former is Platonic; the tie,
however, is irregular, and has been contracted in ignorance of the
prohibited degrees.

[A SCOTCH IDLER.]

A more extended acquaintance with the regions west of the Wasach taught me that the dirt and discomfort were the growth of the land. To give the poor devils their due, Dawvid was civil and intelligent, though a noted dawdler, as that rare phenomenon, a Scotch idler, generally is. Moreover, his wives were not deficient in charity; several Indians came to the door, and none went away without a “bit” and a “sup.” During the process of sketching one of these men, a Snake, distinguished by his vermilion’d hair-parting, eyes blackened, as if by lines of soot or surma, and delicate Hindoo-like hands, my eye fell upon the German-silver handle of a Colt’s revolver, which had been stowed away under the blankets, and a revolver in the Lamanite’s hands breeds evil suspicions.

Again we advanced. The air was like the breath of a furnace; the sun was a blaze of fire--accounting, by-the-by, for the fact that the human nose in these parts seems invariably to become cherry-red--all the nullahs were dried up, and the dust-pillars and mirage were the only moving objects on the plain. Three times we forded Black’s Fork, and then debouched once more upon a long flat. The ground was scattered over with pebbles of granite, obsidian, flint, and white, yellow, and smoky quartz, all water-rolled. After twelve miles we passed Church Butte, one of many curious formations lying to the left hand or south of the road. This isolated mass of stiff clay has been cut and ground by wind and rain into folds and hollow channels which from a distance perfectly simulate the pillars, groins, and massive buttresses of a ruinous Gothic cathedral. The foundation is level, except where masses have been swept down by the rain, and not a blade of grass grows upon any part. An architect of genius might profitably study this work of Nature: upon that subject, however, I shall presently have more to say. The Butte is highly interesting in a geological point of view; it shows the elevation of the adjoining plains in past ages, before partial deluges and the rains of centuries had effected the great work of degradation.

Again we sighted the pretty valley of Black’s Fork, whose cool clear stream flowed merrily over its pebbly bed. The road was now populous with Mormon emigrants; some had good teams, others hand-carts, which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a tax-cart. There was nothing repugnant in the demeanor of the party; they had been civilized by traveling, and the younger women, who walked together and apart from the men, were not too surly to exchange a greeting. The excessive barrenness of the land presently diminished; gentian and other odoriferous herbs appeared, and the greasewood, which somewhat reminded me of the Sindhian camel-thorn, was of a lighter green than elsewhere, and presented a favorable contrast with the dull glaucous hues of the eternal prairie sage. We passed a dwarf copse so strewed with the bones of cattle as to excite our astonishment: Macarthy told us that it was the place where the 2d Dragoons encamped in 1857, and lost a number of their horses by cold and starvation. The wolves and coyotes seemed to have retained a predilection for the spot; we saw troops of them in their favorite “location”--the crest of some little rise, whence they could keep a sharp look-out upon any likely addition to their scanty larder.

[THE UNGENIAL MAN.]

After sundry steep inclines we forded another little stream, with a muddy bed, shallow, and about thirty feet wide: it is called Smith’s Fork, rises in the “Bridger Range” of the Uinta Hills, and sheds into Black’s Fork, the main drain of these parts. On the other side stood Millersville, a large ranch with a whole row of unused and condemned wagons drawn up on one side. We arrived at 5 15 P.M., having taken three hours and fifteen minutes to get over twenty miles. The tenement was made of the component parts of vehicles, the chairs had backs of yoke-bows, and the fences which surrounded the corral were of the same material. The station was kept by one Holmes, an American Mormon, and an individual completely the reverse of genial; he dispensed his words as if shelling out coin, and he was never--by us at least--seen to smile. His wife was a pretty young Englishwoman, who had spent the best part of her life between London and Portsmouth; when alone with me she took the opportunity of asking some few questions about old places, but this most innocent _tête-à-tête_ was presently interrupted by the protrusion through the open door of a _tête de mari au naturel_, with a truly _renfrogné_ and vinegarish aspect, which made him look like a calamity. After supplying us with a supper which was clean and neatly served, the pair set out for an evening ride, and toward night we heard the scraping of a violin, which reminded me of Tommaso Scarafaggio:

“Detto il sega del villagio
Perché suona il violino.”

The “fiddle” was a favorite instrument with Mr. Joseph Smith, as the harp with David; the Mormons, therefore, at the instance of their prophet, are not a little addicted to the use of the bow. We spent a comfortable night at Millersville. After watching the young moon as she sailed through the depths of a firmament unstained by the least fleck of mist, we found some scattered volumes which rendered us independent of our unsocial Yankee host.

_23d August. Fort Bridger._

[“UNCLE JACK.”]

We breakfasted early the next morning, and gladly settled accounts with the surly Holmes, who had infected--probably by following the example of Mr. Caudle in later life--his pretty wife with his own surliness. Shortly after starting--at 8 30 A.M.--we saw a little clump of seven Indian lodges, which our experience soon taught us were the property of a white; the proprietor met us on the road, and was introduced with due ceremony by Mr. Macarthy. “Uncle Jack” (Robinson, really) is a well-known name between South Pass and Great Salt Lake City; he has spent thirty-four years in the mountains, and has saved some $75,000, which have been properly invested at St. Louis; as might be expected, he prefers the home of his adoption and his Indian spouse, who has made him the happy father of I know not how many children, to good society and bad air farther east.

Our road lay along the valley of Black’s Fork, which here flows from the southwest to the northeast; the bottom produced in plenty luxuriant grass, the dandelion, and the purple aster, thickets of a shrub-like hawthorn (_cratægus_), black and white currants, the willow and the cotton-wood. When almost in sight of the military post we were addressed by two young officers, one of them an assistant surgeon, who had been engaged in the healthful and exciting pursuit of a badger, whose markings, by-the-by, greatly differ from the European; they recognized the uniform, and accompanied us to the station.

Fort Bridger lies 124 miles from Great Salt Lake City; according to the drivers, however, the road might be considerably shortened. The position is a fertile basin cut into a number of bits by Black’s Fork, which disperses itself into four channels about 1·5 mile above the station, and forms again a single bed about two miles below. The fort is situated upon the westernmost islet. It is, as usual, a mere cantonment, without any attempt at fortification, and at the time of my visit was garrisoned by two companies of foot, under the command of Captain F. Gardner, of the 10th Regiment. The material of the houses is pine and cedar brought from the Uinta Hills, whose black flanks supporting snowy cones rise at the distance of about thirty-five miles. They are a sanitarium, except in winter, when under their influence the mercury sinks to -20° F., not much less rigorous than Minnesota, and they are said to shelter grizzly bears and an abundance of smaller game.

The fort was built by Colonel James Bridger, now the oldest trapper on the Rocky Mountains, of whom Messrs. Frémont and Stansbury have both spoken in the highest terms. He divides with Christopher Carson, the Kit Carson of the Wind River and the Sierra Nevada explorations, the honor of being the best guide and interpreter in the Indian country: the palm for prudence is generally given to the former; for dash and hard fighting to the latter, although, it is said, the mildest mannered of men. Colonel Bridger, when an Indian trader, placed this post upon a kind of neutral ground between the Snakes and Crows (Hapsaroke) on the north, the Ogalalas and other Sioux to the east, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes on the south, and the various tribes of Yutas (Utahs) on the southwest. He had some difficulties with the Mormons, and Mrs. Mary Ettie Smith, in a volume concerning which something will be said at a future opportunity, veraciously reports his barbarous murder, some years ago, by the Danite band. He was at the time of my visit absent on an exploratory expedition with Captain Raynolds.

[A SORE SUBJECT.]

Arrived at Fort Bridger, our first thought was to replenish our whisky-keg: its emptiness was probably due to the “rapid evaporation in such an elevated region imperfectly protected by timber;” but, however that may be, I never saw liquor disappear at such a rate before. _Par parenthèse_, our late friends the officials had scarcely been more fortunate: they had watched their whisky with the eyes of Argus, yet, as the driver facetiously remarked, though the quantity did not diminish too rapidly, the quality lost strength every day. We were conducted by Judge Carter to a building which combined the function of post-office and sutler’s store, the judge being also sutler, and performing both parts, I believe, to the satisfaction of every one. After laying in an ample provision of biscuits for Miss May and korn-schnapps for ourselves, we called upon the commanding officer, who introduced us to his officers, and were led by Captain Cumming to his quarters, where, by means of chat, “solace-tobacco,” and toddy--which in these regions signifies “cold with”--we soon worked our way through the short three quarters of an hour allowed us. The officers complained very naturally of their isolation and unpleasant duty, which principally consists in keeping the roads open for, and the Indians from cutting off, parties of unmanageable emigrants, who look upon the federal army as their humblest servants. At Camp Scott, near Bridger, the army of the federal government halted under canvas during the severe winter of 1857-1858, and the subject is still sore to military ears.

[BEER SPRINGS.]

We left Bridger at 10 A.M. Macarthy explained away the disregard for the comfort of the public on the part of the contractors in not having a station at the fort by declaring that they could obtain no land in a government reservation; moreover, that forage there would be scarce and dear, while the continual influx of Indians would occasion heavy losses in cattle. At Bridger the road forks: the northern line leads to Soda or Beer Springs,[118] the southern to Great Salt Lake City. Following the latter, we crossed the rough timber bridges that spanned the net-work of streams, and entered upon another expanse of degraded ground, covered as usual with water-rolled pebbles of granite and porphyry, flint and greenstone. On the left was a butte with steep bluff sides, called the Race-course: the summit, a perfect _mesa_, is said to be quite level, and to measure exactly a mile round--the rule of the American hippodrome. Like these earth formations generally, it points out the ancient level of the land before water had washed away the outer film of earth’s crust. The climate in this part, as indeed every where between the South Pass and the Great Salt Lake Valley, was an exaggeration of the Italian, with hot days, cool nights, and an incomparable purity and tenuity of atmosphere. We passed on the way a party of emigrants, numbering 359 souls and driving 39 wagons. They were commanded by the patriarch of Mormondom, otherwise Captain John Smith, the eldest son of Hyrum Smith, a brother of Mr. Joseph Smith the Prophet, and who, being a child at the time of the murderous affair at Carthage, escaped being coiffe’d with the crown of martyrdom. He rose to the patriarchate on the 18th of February, 1855; his predecessor was “old John Smith”--uncle to Mr. Joseph, and successor to Mr. Hyrum Smith--who died the 23d of May, 1854. He was a fair-complexioned man, with light hair. His followers accepted gratefully some provisions with which we could afford to part.

[118] These springs of sadly prosaic name are the greatest curiosity
to be seen on the earth. They lie but a short distance east of the
junction of the Fort Hall and the California roads, and are scattered
over, perhaps, 40 acres of volcanic ground. They do not, like most
springs, run out of the sides of hills, but boil up directly from a
level plain. The water contains a gas, and has quite an acid taste:
when exposed to the sun or air, it passes but a short distance before
it takes the formation of a crust or solid coat of scarlet hue, so
that the continued boiling of any of these fountains will “create a
stone to the height of its source (15 or twenty feet) some 10 to 20
feet in diameter at the bottom, and from 2 to 3 feet at the top.”
After arriving at a uniform height, the water has ceased to run from
several of the “eyes” to burst out in some other place. The water
spurts from some of these very beautifully.--Horn’s “Overland Guide
to California,” p. 38. They are also described by Colonel Frémont:
“Expedition to Oregon and North California (1843-44),” p. 136.

After passing the Mormons we came upon a descent which appeared little removed from an angle of 35°, and suggested the propriety of walking down. There was an attempt at a zigzag, and, for the benefit of wagons, a rough wall of stones had been run along the sharper corners. At the foot of the hill we remounted, and, passing through a wooded bottom, reached at 12 15 P.M.--after fording the Big Muddy--Little Muddy Creek, upon whose banks stood the station. Both these streams are branches of the Ham’s Fork of Green River; and, according to the well-known “rule of contrairy,” their waters are clear as crystal, showing every pebble in their beds.

Little Muddy was kept by a Canadian, a chatty, lively, good-humored fellow blessed with a sour English wife. Possibly the heat--the thermometer showed 95° F. in the shade--had turned her temper; fortunately, it had not similarly affected the milk and cream, which were both unusually good. Jean-Baptiste, having mistaken me for a _Française de France_, a being which he seemed to regard as little lower than the angels--I was at no pains to disabuse him--was profuse in his questionings concerning his imperial majesty, the emperor, carefully confounding him with the first of the family; and so pleased was he with my responses, that for the first time on that route I found a man ready to spurn _cet animal féroce qu’on appelle la pièce de cinq francs_--in other words, the “almighty dollar.”

We bade adieu to Little Muddy at noon, and entered a new country, a broken land of spurs and hollows, in parts absolutely bare, in others clothed with a thick vegetation. Curiously shaped hills, and bluffs of red earth capped with a clay which much resembled snow, bore a thick growth of tall firs and pines whose sombre uniform contrasted strangely with the brilliant leek-like, excessive green foliage, and the tall, note-paper-colored trunks of the ravine-loving quaking asp (_Populus tremuloides_). The mixture of colors was bizarre in the extreme, and the lay of the land, an uncouth system of converging, diverging, and parallel ridges, with deep divisions--in one of these ravines, which is unusually broad and grassy, rise the so-called Copperas Springs--was hardly less striking. We ran winding along a crest of rising ground, passing rapidly, by way of farther comparison, two wretched Mormons, man and woman, who were driving, at a snail’s pace, a permanently lamed ox, and after a long ascent stood upon the summit of Quaking-Asp Hill.

[QUAKING-ASP HILL.]

Quaking-Asp Hill, according to the drivers, is 1000 feet higher than the South Pass, which would exalt its station to 8400 feet; other authorities, however, reduce it to 7900. The descent was long and rapid--so rapid, indeed, that oftentimes when the block of wood which formed our brake dropped a bit of the old shoe-sole nailed upon it to prevent ignition, I felt, as man may be excused for feeling, that catching of the breath that precedes the first five-barred gate after a night of “heavy wet.” The sides of the road were rich in vegetation, stunted oak, black-jack, and box elder of the stateliest stature; above rose the wild cherry, and the service-tree formed the bushes below. The descent, besides being decidedly sharp, was exceedingly devious, and our frequent “shaves”--a train of Mormon wagons was crawling down at the same time--made us feel somewhat thankful that we reached the bottom without broken bones.

The train was commanded by a Captain Murphy, who, as one might expect from the name, had hoisted the Stars and Stripes--it was the only instance of such loyalty seen by us on the Plains. The emigrants had left Council Bluffs on the 20th of June, an unusually late date, and, though weather-beaten, all looked well. Inspirited by our success in surmounting the various difficulties of the way, we “poked fun” at an old Yorkshireman, who was assumed, by way of mirth, to be a Cœlebs in search of polygamy at an epoch of life when perhaps the blessing might come too late; and at an exceedingly plain middle-aged and full-blooded negro woman, who was fairly warned--the children of Ham are not admitted to the communion of the Saints, and consequently to the forgiveness of sins and a free seat in Paradise--that she was “carrying coals to Newcastle.”

[SULPHUR CREEK.]

As the rays of the sun began to slant we made Sulphur Creek; it lies at the foot of a mountain called Rim Base, because it is the eastern wall of the great inland basin; westward of this point the waters can no longer reach the Atlantic or the Pacific; each is destined to feed the lakes,

“Nec Oceani pervenit ad undas.”

Beyond Sulphur Creek, too, the face of the country changes; the sedimentary deposits are no longer seen; the land is broken and confused, upheaved into huge masses of rock and mountains broken by deep kanyons, ravines, and water-gaps, and drained by innumerable streamlets. The exceedingly irregular lay of the land makes the road devious, and the want of level ground, which is found only in dwarf parks and prairillons, would greatly add to the expense of a railway. We crossed the creek, a fetid stagnant water, about ten feet wide, lying in a bed of black infected mud: during the spring rains, when flowing, it is said to be wholesome enough. On the southern side of the valley there are some fine fountains, and on the eastern are others strongly redolent of sulphur; broad seams of coal crop out from the northern bluffs, and about a mile distant in the opposite direction are the Tar Springs, useful for greasing wagon-wheels and curing galled-backed horses.