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But it is an anomaly in our civilization, that a church more rigid than that of Rome, with a domestic system utterly defying the laws of all enlightened nations in modern times, should exist in the center of our continent, openly nullifying the statutes and authority of the national Government. Yet the problem will soon be solved by natural laws. Polygamy, like that other patriarchial institution which is laid in the tomb of the Capulets, can not exist without isolation.

Thus far Brigham has kept his followers from working the rich mines of silver and gold which the mountains contain. This sagacious policy has preserved his power, and greatly increased the prosperity of his people. But within three years Utah will contain a large mining population, composed exclusively of men. The miners are great iconoclasts; and human nature will triumph.

The majority of the women will no longer accept one undivided half or sixth of a husband-in some cases a very vulgar fraction indeed-when a full unit is attainable. They already show strong proclivities for running away with Gentiles. Many have married Federal soldiers and prove excellent wives and mothers.

'By and by,' said one of our stage drivers, 'I shall take one of these second Mormon wives myself. Only the first marriage is good in law; none of the later ones are worth a cuss.'

The future miners will agree with him. Many will take the superfluous women, to find them faithful, affectionate and honest.

Within three years, too, the screaming of the locomotive will be heard in Salt Lake City. Perchance the splendid Mormon temple now rising may yet be the depot of the great Pacific railroad. Brought in contact with our national civilization, the power of Brigham and his associates will cease forever; and the one repulsive and monstrous feature of their domestic life no longer stain a community whose history contains much to challenge respect and admiration.

24

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FROM SALT LAKE CITY WESTWARD.

[1865.

CHAPTER XXXI.

FROM Salt Lake we continued our journey westward by the daily coaches. The stations are ten or twelve miles apart. When the vehicle rolls up, whatever the hour of day or night, the stable is opened, four or six clean glossy horses, in shining harness, are led out and substituted for the dusty panting steeds; and in five or eight minutes the stage whirls on.

During Indian hostilities the coaches are seldom taken off, and drivers and superintendents manifest great daring in carrying the mail through the darkness, over lonely and dangerous desert roads. One night the coach containing no passengers save a woman and child, reached a Nevada station, without any driver. Three miles back, overcome by sleep, he had fallen from the box, and the wheels passed over and killed him.

The Overland Telegraph, which Indians call 'the long tongue, follows the mail route. We passed Lake Utah, shining among the mountains in quiet beauty; crossed the Jordan, the last stream for four hundred miles, and rolled out upon the treeless, ashen desert, where fine alkaline dust constantly enveloped us in 'a pillar of cloud.'

At one lonely adobe station we encountered my old acquaintance, 'Lo, the poor Indian,' in the form of a ragged sorry-looking Goshoot who had been waiting for two days to see Mr. Colfax. He asked which was the 'great capitan;' then bestowed upon the speaker a long stare of curiosity and seeming approval, for he concluded with a grunt of Good!' and the request for a little 'tobac.' This man had been a steadfast friend of the whites; yet during the hostilities two years before, our soldiers killed his wife and children in their own lodge, through a mistake. When

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EIGHT MILES IN THIRTY MINUTES.

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speaking of it he threw himself upon the ground, beating his head in the agony of remembrance. I should sympathize more with the general frontier feeling that the Indians ought to be exterminated, had I not known many cases of these lamentable 'mistakes,' to say nothing of gross and premeditated barbarities. I am no believer in the Noble Savage. If he ever existed cutside of Cooper's romances, he was long ago extinct. The Indian is cruel, bloodthirsty and treacherous; but he often behaves quite as well as the Pale-face.

Twice each day we met a coach going east. For a moment the panting horses would stop and the two great clouds of dust blend into one:

'What news from the States?'

'Give us some San Francisco papers.'

'Did you have any trouble with the Indians?'

'All set; go on driver.'

The whips crack, and the two cars of the desert go rolling forward. Now it is only the rattle of the coach, but ere long it will be the screech of the locomotive. Here on the astonished plains, New York and California, London and China, will meet to exchange greetings and newspapers, while their respective trains are stopping for breakfast.

Along plains, over hills, and down steep winding canyons our horses leaped at their utmost speed. One route of eight miles we traveled in thirty minutes! I wonder if that was ever beaten in the palmiest days of the stage-coach. We spent only seventy-two hours upon the five hundred and seventy-five miles of desert road between Salt Lake, and Virginia Nevada.

The managers of the line manifest great pride in their enter prise, often running it at a heavy loss for months when passenger travel is cut off. A single stockholder has paid assessments to the amount of twenty-four thousand dollars, to meet his portion of the deficiency for one year. The time will doubtless come when twenty daily stages will run to fill up the unfinished gap in the Pacific railroad.

In

The expenses of the mail company have been enormous. 1864, they paid twenty-five cents per pound for all grain used between Salt Lake and Austin. Each horse consumes daily from

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IRRIGATING THE SANDY DESERTS.

[1865.

ten to fifteen pounds of oats or barley. But the next year they stopped purchasing grain of the Mormons and opened a farm upon the desert. They sowed oats and barley upon the freshly-turned

sod of eight hundred and forty acres.

The entire tract yielded thirty bushels to the acre, and one-fourth of it fifty bushels to the acre, saving the company more than fifty thousand dollars.

Upon all our sand wastes, as upon those of Arabia, the introduction of water makes the soil productive. Thus far, irrigation is only from streams, except in portions of California where water is drawn from wells by windmills; but in time, simple and cheap machinery for irrigation from wells will doubtless be introduced. Then the great American Desert will become a thing of the past; and the thousands upon thousands of miles of sage-brush and grease-wood, dwarf-cedar and cactus, sand and alkali, from British Columbia to northern Mexico and from western Kansas to the Sierra Nevadas, will yield barley oats and fruit as profusely as the Mississippi valley produces corn and hay.

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Two hundred and fifty miles west of Salt Lake we encountered the first quartz mining of Nevada, at Egan Canyon, a picturesque valley. Only one mill was running. It had but five stamps and was so imperfect as to extract little more than fifty per cent. of the silver. But it paid for itself in the first ninety days, and then returned large dividends to the working owners.

Several new mills have since been erected, and the region promises very richly. Ore is reported as averaging one hundred and six dollars to the ton. Wood costs about three dollars per cord. Grass and water are abundant, and the contiguity to Utah renders food cheap. Few silver mining regions possess so many advantages.

Reaching Austin our vehicle whirled around the last street-corner, ran for several yards poised upon two wheels, while the others were more than a foot from the ground, but righted again; and with this neat finishing stroke ended our ride of four hundred miles, accomplished in fifty-one hours.

Austin is the metropolis of the Reese-river district and the most important mining region of Nevada, except Virginia City. It is built upon innumerable slender, parallel veins of ore, threading a belt of country one mile wide and five in length. This was the young portion of Nevada. Virginia City, boasted a hoary antiquity of five years. But only two years and a half had passed since the first pick was struck, the first vein opened, and the first cabin erected in Austin.

The first discovery of silver here was made by Talcott, a pony. express rider, in July, 1862. The usual excitement and rush of immigrants followed. A wandering farmer, establishing a ranch -in one of the little valleys, struck a fragment of ore while digging a post-hole. It proved to belong to a rich vein, and he sold his claim for seven thousand dollars. The pioneers often manifest great enterprise, in meeting severe hardships and peril from snow and Indians. In February 1864, an exploring party, under Colonel D. C. Buell, penetrated several hundred miles southward, and traveled five and-a-half days upon the desert without finding water. At last, barely able to stand, they reached a thick, stagnant pool whose putrid water was like nectar to their parched throats, and saved them from a horrible death.