By the Golden Gate | Page 6

sell to you for a trifle. Off to
the left hand, a little farther on, was a "placer mine," with water
pouring out of a conduit, muddy and yellow with "washings." This
emptied itself into the Arkansas River, which, from this point down to
the foot of the mountains, was as if its bed had been stirred up with all
its clay and other deposit. Above this junction the waters of the river
were clear and sparkling. It is a picture of life, whose stream is pure
and sweet until sin enters it and vitiates its current. Miles beyond are
snow sheds, and the famous Tennessee Pass, 10,440 feet above the sea
level. This is the great watershed of the Rocky Mountains, and two
drops of water from a cloud falling here,--the one on the one side and
the other on the other side of the Pass,--are separated forever. One runs
to the Atlantic Ocean through rivers to the Gulf of Mexico, and the
other to the Pacific Ocean. So there is the parting of the ways in human
experience. There are the two ways, and the little turns of life
determine your eternal destiny!
Even after a night of travel through the mountains and across the
Colorado Desert, we still, in the morning, find our train speeding on
amid imposing hills, but now we are in Utah. This we entered at Utah
Line. At length we cross the Pass of the Wahsatch Mountains at Soldier
Summit, 7,465 feet above the sea, and some thirty miles farther west
we enter the picturesque Utah Valley. At length we see the stream of
the River Jordan, which is the connecting link between Utah Lake and
the Great Salt Lake, and at last we find ourselves in the city founded by
Brigham Young and his pioneer followers in 1847. There is a
monument of the Mormon prophet in Salt Lake City, commemorating
this founding. Standing on the hill above the present city and looking
out on the great valley, with his left hand uplifted, he said: "Here we
will found an empire!" And here to-day in this city, which bears his
marks everywhere, is a population of 54,000 souls, two-thirds of whom
profess the Mormon faith.

Here we were met by Bishop Abiel Leonard, D.D., of Salt Lake, who
was a most gracious host and who welcomed us with all the warmth of
his heart. He had engaged accommodations for us at the Cullen House;
and when I went to my room, I looked out on a courtyard bounded on
one side by the rear end of a long block of stores. There I saw a wagon
which had just been driven into the grounds. Two men were on the seat,
the driver and another person, and seated on the floor of the wagon,
with their backs toward me, were four women. They wore no hats, as
the day was balmy, and I noticed that one had flaxen, another brown,
and the two others dark hair. Seeing everything here with a Mormon
colouring, I said, "This is a Mormon family. The Mormon farmer has
come to town to give his four wives a holiday." It reminded me of
similar groups which I had seen in old Cairo, on Fridays, when the
Mohammedan went with his wives in the donkey cart to the Mosque.
And is there not a strong resemblance between Mormon and
Mohammedan? The Mormon husband alighted and gently and
affectionately took up one of his wives and carried her into the
adjoining store, then a second, and a third. My interest deepened as I
watched the proceeding. I said to myself--"How devoted these Mormon
husbands, if this is a true example, and how trusting the women!"
When he took up the fourth wife to carry her in where her companions
were, he turned her face toward me, so that I had a good view of her,
and then, to my surprise, nay, amazement, I discovered that she had no
feet! But quickly it dawned on my mind, that, instead of real, living
Mormon wives, I had been looking on waxen figures, models for show
windows! Well, are there not manikins in human life, unreal creatures,
who never accomplish more than the models in the windows, who may
be looked at, but who perform no noble and lasting deeds?
Our sojourn in Salt Lake City gave ample time to visit the Great Salt
Lake, eighty miles long and thirty miles wide, with two principal
islands, Antelope and Stansbury; to make a complete study of the city,
whose streets run at right angles to each other, with one street straight
as an arrow and twenty miles long, and many of them bordered with
poplar trees which, as has been facetiously said, were "popular" with