Sir Richard Francis Burton

“ It is indeed no wonder that the children dance, that strong men cheer and shout, and that nervous women, broken with fatigue and hope deferred, scream and faint; that the ignorant should fondly believe that the “Spirit of God pervades the very atmosphere,” and that Zion on the tops of the mountains is nearer heaven than other parts of earth. In good sooth, though uninfluenced by religious fervor—beyond the natural satisfaction of seeing a bran-new Holy City—even I could not, after nineteen days in a mail-wagon, gaze upon the scene without emotion. ”

“ The sweet commune with nature in her fairest hours denied to the sons of cities—who must contemplate her charms through a vista of brick wall, or over a foreground of chimney-pots—consoled us amply for all the little hardships of travel. Strata upon strata of cloud-banks, burnished to golden red in the vicinity of the setting sun, and polished to dazzling silvery white above, lay piled half way from the horizon to the zenith, with a distinct strike toward a vanishing point in the west, and dipping into a gateway through which the orb of day slowly retired. ”

“ At this point the country is unusually well populated; a house appears after every mile. Beyond Walnut Creek a dense nimbus, rising ghost-like from the northern horizon, furnished us with a spectacle of those perilous prairie storms which make the prudent lay aside their revolvers and disembarrass themselves of their cartridges. Gusts of raw, cold, and violent wind from the west whizzed overhead, thunder crashed and rattled closer and closer, and vivid lightning, flashing out of the murky depths around, made earth and air one blaze of living fire. ”

“ Every thing bears the impress of handiwork, from the bleak benches behind to what was once a barren valley in front. Truly the Mormon prophecy had been fulfilled: already the howling wilderness—in which twelve years ago a few miserable savages, the half-naked Digger Indians, gathered their grass-seed, grasshoppers, and black crickets to keep life and soul together, and awoke with their war-cries the echo of the mountains, and the bear, the wolf, and the fox prowled over the site of a now populous city—“has blossomed like the rose.” ”

“ He sometimes wondered if the great men of the nation ever asked themselves the question, “How can a republican government stand?” There was but one way in which it could endure—as the government of heaven endures upon the basis of eternal truth and virtue. Had Martin Van Buren redressed the wrongs committed against the Saints—had he ordered the State of Missouri to restore them to their property, the nation would be stronger to-day than it is. He mourned to see the corruption, and he sometimes felt a blush for being an American. ”

“ Behind the warriors and braves followed the baggage of the village. The lodge poles, in bundles of four and five, had been lashed to pads or pack-saddles, girthed tight to the ponies’ backs, the other ends being allowed to trail along the ground like the shafts of a truck; the sign easily denotes the course of travel. The wolf-like dogs were also harnessed in the same way; more lupine than canine, they are ready when hungry to attack man or mule; and, sharp-nosed and prick-eared, they not a little resemble the Indian pariah dog. ”

“ Every traveler, who, after passing through the fruitful but unpicturesque orchard grounds lying between La Manche and Paris, and the dull flats, with their melancholy poplar lines, between Paris and Lyons, arrives at Avignon, and observes the picturesqueness which every object, natural or artificial, begins to assume, the grace and beauty which appear even in the humblest details of scenery, must instinctively feel that he is entering the land of Art. ”

“ There is not a city in the United States that would have suffered such an indignity for twenty-four hours. Our whole people were indignant, and loudly called upon our city authorities for a redress of their grievances, which, if not attended to, they themselves would have taken into their own hands, and have summarily punished the audacious wretches as they deserved. The principles of equal rights that have been instilled into our bosoms from our cradles as American citizens forbid us submitting to every foul indignity, and succumbing and pandering to wretches so infamous as these. ”

“ After lingering for a while over the fair coup d’œil, we descended, holding firm the sage-bushes, the abrupt western slope, and we passed by the warm Harrowgate spring, with its sulphury blue waters, white lime-like bed, and rushy margins in dark earth, snow-capped with salt efflorescence. As we entered the city we met a noted Gentile innocently driving out a fair Saint: both averted their faces as they passed us, but my companion’s color darkened. All races have their pet prohibitions and aversions, their likes and dislikes in matters of sin. ”

“ And here let me ask you, my dear sister, what female in all New Hampshire would marry a drunkard, a man of hereditary disease, a debauchee, an idler, or a spendthrift; or what woman would become a prostitute, or, on the other hand, live and die single, or without forming those inexpressibly dear relationships of wife and mother, if the Abrahamic covenant, or patriarchal laws of God, were extended over your State, and held sacred and honorable by all? ”

“ It was truly refreshing to meet this son of old Houndsditch in the land of the Saints, under the shadow of New Zion, and the only drawback to our enjoyment was the general suspicion that the honorable name of apostate covered the less respectable calling of spy. He contrasted strongly with Jim Gilston of Illinois, a lath-like specimen of humanity, some six feet four in length—a perfect specimen of the Indianized white, long hair, sun-tanned, and hatchet-faced; running like an ostrich, yelping like a savage, and ready to take scalp at the first provocation. ”

“ Behind us and afar rose the distant heads of black hills. The valley was charming with its bright glad green, a tapestry of flowery grass, willow copses where the grouse ran in and out, and long lines of aspen, beech, and cotton-wood, while pine and cedar, cypress and scattered evergreens, crept up the cranks and crannies of the rocks. ”

“ To the unprejudiced traveler it appears that polygamy is the rule where population is required, and where the great social evil has not had time to develop itself. In Paris or London the institution would, like slavery, die a natural death; in Arabia and in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains it maintains a strong hold upon the affections of mankind. Monogamy is best fitted for the large, wealthy, and flourishing communities in which man is rarely the happier because his quiver is full of children, and where the Hetæra becomes the succedaneum of the “plurality-wife.” ”

“ In that New World where Nature has worked upon the largest scale, where every feature of scenery, river and lake, swamp and forest, prairie and mountain, dwarf their congeners in the old hemisphere, this majestic level-topped bluff, the highest steppe of the continent, upon whose iron surface there is space enough for the armies of the globe to march over, is the grandest and the most appropriate of avenues.
A water-shed is always exciting to the traveler. ”

“ I wish to impress upon your minds to live your religion, and, when you come to this stand to speak, not to care whether you say five words or five thousand, but to come with the power of God upon you, and you will comfort the hearts of the Saints. All the sophistry in the world will do no good. If you live your religion, you will live with the Spirit of Zion within you, and will try, by every lawful means, to induce your neighbors to live their religion. ”

“ Behind us was the brown plain, sparsely dotted with shadows, and dewless in the evening as in the morning. As the party ascended the summit with much noisy shouting, they formed a picturesque group—the well-bred horses wandering to graze, the white-tilted wagons with their panting mules, and the men in felt capotes and huge leather leggins. In honor of our good star which had preserved every hoof from accident, we “liquored up” on that summit, and then began the descent. ”

“ We rose with the dawn, the cats, and the hens, sleep being impossible after the first blush of light, and I proceeded to inspect the settlement. It is built upon the crest of an earth-wave rising from grassy hollows; the haystacks told of stock, and the bunch-grass on the borders of the ravines and nullahs rendered the place particularly fit for pasturage. The land is too cold for cereals: in its bleak bottoms frost reigns throughout the year; and there is little bench-ground. The settlement consisted of half a dozen huts, which swarmed, however, with women and children. ”

“ I scarcely ever saw a sober driver; as for profanity—the Western equivalent for hard swearing—they would make the blush of shame crimson the cheek of the old Isis bargee; and, rare exceptions to the rule of the United States, they are not to be deterred from evil talking even by the dread presence of a “lady.” The conductors and road-agents are of a class superior to the drivers; they do their harm by an inordinate ambition to distinguish themselves. I met one gentleman who owned to three murders, and another individual who lately attempted to ration the mules with wild sage. ”

“ Like a wild beast, he can not be broken to work; he would rather die than employ himself in honest industry—a mighty contrast to the negro, whose only happiness is in serving. He invariably attributes an act of kindness, charity, or forbearance to fear. Ungenerous, he extols, like the Bedouin, generosity to the skies. He never makes a present except for the purpose of receiving more than its equivalent; and an “Indian gift” has come to be a proverb, meaning any thing reclaimed after being given away. Impulsive as the African, his mind is blown about by storms of unaccountable contradictions. ”

“ East of the Mississippi the savage has virtually died out, and few men allow him two prospective centuries of existence in the West, unless he be left, which he will not be, to himself.
“Wolves of women born,” the Prairie Indians despise agriculture as the Bedouin does. Merciless freebooters, they delight in roaming; like all equestrian and uncivilized people, they are perfect horsemen, but poor fighters when dismounted, and they are nothing without their weapons. ”

“ These bluffs are a fine bold formation, escarpments of ruddy argillaceous sandstones and shells, which dip toward the west: they are the eastern wall of the mass that hems in the stream, and rear high above it their conical heads and fantastic figures. The ranch was on the margin of a cold, clear spring, of which we vainly attempted to drink. The banks were white, as though by hoar-frost, with nitrate and carbonate of soda efflorescing from the dark mould. Near Red Buttes the water is said to have a chalybeate flavor, but of that we were unable to judge. ”

“ He exhibited in glowing colors the meanness, corruption, and ultimate designs of the “anti-Mormons;” their despicable characters and ungodly influences, especially of those who were in our midst; he told of the responsibility that rested upon us, as guardians of the public interest, to stand up in the defense of the injured and oppressed, to stem the current of corruption, and, as men and saints, to put a stop to this flagrant outrage upon this people’s rights. He stated that no man was a stronger advocate for the liberty of speech and of the press than himself ”

“ The station-house in the Reese-River Valley had lately been evacuated by its proprietors and burnt down by the Indians: a new building of adobe was already assuming a comfortable shape. The food around it being poor and thin, our cattle were driven to the mountains. At night, probably by contrast with the torrid sun, the frost appeared colder than ever: we provided against it, however, by burrowing into the haystack, and, despite the jackal-like cry of the coyote and the near tramping of the old white mare, we slept like tops. ”

“ I thought, Why must the good perish, and the virtuous be destroyed? Why must God’s nobility, the salt of the earth, the most exalted of the human family, and the most perfect types of all excellence, fall victims to the cruel, fiendish hate of incarnate devils? ”

“ Warmer and warmer waxes the heavenly radiance, gliding up to the keystone of the vault above; fainter and fainter grows the darkness, till the last stain disappears behind the Black Hills to the west, and the stars one by one, like glow-worms, “pale their ineffectual fires”—the “Pointers” are the longest to resist—retreat backward, as it were, and fade away into endless space. ”

“ But now the unrisen sun is more rapidly climbing the gloomy walls of Koh i Kaf—the mountain rim which encircles the world, and through whose lower gap the false dawn had found its way—preceded by a warm flush of light, which chases the shades till, though loth to depart, they find neither on earth nor in the firmament a place where they can linger. ”