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IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT UNDERGOES, AT A SPEED OF TWENTY MILES
AN HOUR, A COURSE OF MORMON HISTORY
During the night of the 5th of December, the train ran south-easterly
for about fifty miles; then rose an equal distance in a north-easterly
direction, towards the Great Salt Lake.
Passepartout, about nine o'clock, went out upon the platform
to take the air. The weather was cold, the heavens grey, but it
was not snowing. The sun's disc, enlarged by the mist, seemed
an enormous ring of gold, and Passepartout was amusing himself
by calculating its value in pounds sterling, when he was diverted
from this interesting study by a strange-looking personage who
made his appearance on the platform.
This personage, who had taken the train at Elko, was tall and
dark, with black moustache, black stockings, a black silk hat,
a black waistcoat, black trousers, a white cravat, and dogskin
gloves. He might have been taken for a clergyman. He went from
one end of the train to the other, and affixed to the door of
each car a notice written in manuscript.
Passepartout approached and read one of these notices, which
stated that Elder William Hitch, Mormon missionary, taking advantage
of his presence on train No. 48, would deliver a lecture on Mormonism
in car No. 117, from eleven to twelve o'clock; and that he invited
all who were desirous of being instructed concerning the mysteries
of the religion of the "Latter Day Saints" to attend.
"I'll go," said Passepartout to himself. He knew
nothing of Mormonism except the custom of polygamy, which is its
foundation.
The news quickly spread through the train, which contained
about one hundred passengers, thirty of whom, at most, attracted
by the notice, ensconced themselves in car No. 117. Passepartout
took one of the front seats. Neither Mr. Fogg nor Fix cared to
attend.
At the appointed hour Elder William Hitch rose, and, in an
irritated voice, as if he had already been contradicted, said,
"I tell you that Joe Smith is a martyr, that his brother
Hiram is a martyr, and that the persecutions of the United States
Government against the prophets will also make a martyr of Brigham
Young. Who dares to say the contrary?"
No one ventured to gainsay the missionary, whose excited tone
contrasted curiously with his naturally calm visage. No doubt
his anger arose from the hardships to which the Mormons were actually
subjected. The government had just succeeded, with some difficulty,
in reducing these independent fanatics to its rule. It had made
itself master of Utah, and subjected that territory to the laws
of the Union, after imprisoning Brigham Young on a charge of rebellion
and polygamy. The disciples of the prophet had since redoubled
their efforts, and resisted, by words at least, the authority
of Congress. Elder Hitch, as is seen, was trying to make proselytes
on the very railway trains.
Then, emphasising his words with his loud voice and frequent
gestures, he related the history of the Mormons from Biblical
times: how that, in Israel, a Mormon prophet of the tribe of Joseph
published the annals of the new religion, and bequeathed them
to his son Mormon; how, many centuries later, a translation of
this precious book, which was written in Egyptian, was made by
Joseph Smith, junior, a Vermont farmer, who revealed himself as
a mystical prophet in 1825; and how, in short, the celestial messenger
appeared to him in an illuminated forest, and gave him the annals
of the Lord.
Several of the audience, not being much interested in the missionary's
narrative, here left the car; but Elder Hitch, continuing his
lecture, related how Smith, junior, with his father, two brothers,
and a few disciples, founded the church of the "Latter Day
Saints," which, adopted not only in America, but in England,
Norway and Sweden, and Germany, counts many artisans, as well
as men engaged in the liberal professions, among its members;
how a colony was established in Ohio, a temple erected there at
a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, and a town built at Kirkland;
how Smith became an enterprising banker, and received from a simple
mummy showman a papyrus scroll written by Abraham and several
famous Egyptians.
The Elder's story became somewhat wearisome, and his audience
grew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers.
But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with
the story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how his ruined
creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; his reappearance
some years afterwards, more honourable and honoured than ever,
at Independence, Missouri, the chief of a flourishing colony of
three thousand disciples, and his pursuit thence by outraged Gentiles,
and retirement into the Far West.
Ten hearers only were now left, among them honest Passepartout,
who was listening with all his ears. Thus he learned that, after
long persecutions, Smith reappeared in Illinois, and in 1839 founded
a community at Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, numbering twenty-five
thousand souls, of which he became mayor, chief justice, and general-in-chief;
that he announced himself, in 1843, as a candidate for the Presidency
of the United States; and that finally, being drawn into ambuscade
at Carthage, he was thrown into prison, and assassinated by a
band of men disguised in masks.
Passepartout was now the only person left in the car, and the
Elder, looking him full in the face, reminded him that, two years
after the assassination of Joseph Smith, the inspired prophet,
Brigham Young, his successor, left Nauvoo for the banks of the
Great Salt Lake, where, in the midst of that fertile region, directly
on the route of the emigrants who crossed Utah on their way to
California, the new colony, thanks to the polygamy practised by
the Mormons, had flourished beyond expectations.
"And this," added Elder William Hitch, "this
is why the jealousy of Congress has been aroused against us! Why
have the soldiers of the Union invaded the soil of Utah? Why has
Brigham Young, our chief, been imprisoned, in contempt of all
justice? Shall we yield to force? Never! Driven from Vermont,
driven from Illinois, driven from Ohio, driven from Missouri,
driven from Utah, we shall yet find some independent territory
on which to plant our tents. And you, my brother," continued
the Elder, fixing his angry eyes upon his single auditor, "will
you not plant yours there, too, under the shadow of our flag?"
"No!" replied Passepartout courageously, in his turn
retiring from the car, and leaving the Elder to preach to vacancy.
During the lecture the train had been making good progress,
and towards half-past twelve it reached the northwest border of
the Great Salt Lake. Thence the passengers could observe the vast
extent of this interior sea, which is also called the Dead Sea,
and into which flows an American Jordan. It is a picturesque expanse,
framed in lofty crags in large strata, encrusted with white salt--
a superb sheet of water, which was formerly of larger extent than
now, its shores having encroached with the lapse of time, and
thus at once reduced its breadth and increased its depth.
The Salt Lake, seventy miles long and thirty-five wide, is
situated three miles eight hundred feet above the sea. Quite different
from Lake Asphaltite, whose depression is twelve hundred feet
below the sea, it contains considerable salt, and one quarter
of the weight of its water is solid matter, its specific weight
being 1,170, and, after being distilled, 1,000. Fishes are, of
course, unable to live in it, and those which descend through
the Jordan, the Weber, and other streams soon perish.
The country around the lake was well cultivated, for the Mormons
are mostly farmers; while ranches and pens for domesticated animals,
fields of wheat, corn, and other cereals, luxuriant prairies,
hedges of wild rose, clumps of acacias and milk-wort, would have
been seen six months later. Now the ground was covered with a
thin powdering of snow.
The train reached Ogden at two o'clock, where it rested for
six hours, Mr. Fogg and his party had time to pay a visit to Salt
Lake City, connected with Ogden by a branch road; and they spent
two hours in this strikingly American town, built on the pattern
of other cities of the Union, like a checker-board, "with
the sombre sadness of right-angles," as Victor Hugo expresses
it. The founder of the City of the Saints could not escape from
the taste for symmetry which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxons. In
this strange country, where the people are certainly not up to
the level of their institutions, everything is done "squarely"--cities,
houses, and follies.
The travellers, then, were promenading, at three o'clock, about
the streets of the town built between the banks of the Jordan
and the spurs of the Wahsatch Range. They saw few or no churches,
but the prophet's mansion, the court-house, and the arsenal, blue-brick
houses with verandas and porches, surrounded by gardens bordered
with acacias, palms, and locusts. A clay and pebble wall, built
in 1853, surrounded the town; and in the principal street were
the market and several hotels adorned with pavilions. The place
did not seem thickly populated. The streets were almost deserted,
except in the vicinity of the temple, which they only reached
after having traversed several quarters surrounded by palisades.
There were many women, which was easily accounted for by the "peculiar
institution" of the Mormons; but it must not be supposed
that all the Mormons are polygamists. They are free to marry or
not, as they please; but it is worth noting that it is mainly
the female citizens of Utah who are anxious to marry, as, according
to the Mormon religion, maiden ladies are not admitted to the
possession of its highest joys. These poor creatures seemed to
be neither well off nor happy. Some--the more well-to-do, no doubt--
wore short, open, black silk dresses, under a hood or modest shawl;
others were habited in Indian fashion.
Passepartout could not behold without a certain fright these
women, charged, in groups, with conferring happiness on a single
Mormon. His common sense pitied, above all, the husband. It seemed
to him a terrible thing to have to guide so many wives at once
across the vicissitudes of life, and to conduct them, as it were,
in a body to the Mormon paradise with the prospect of seeing them
in the company of the glorious Smith, who doubtless was the chief
ornament of that delightful place, to all eternity. He felt decidedly
repelled from such a vocation, and he imagined--perhaps he was
mistaken-- that the fair ones of Salt Lake City cast rather alarming
glances on his person. Happily, his stay there was but brief.
At four the party found themselves again at the station, took
their places in the train, and the whistle sounded for starting.
Just at the moment, however, that the locomotive wheels began
to move, cries of "Stop! stop!" were heard.
Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one. The gentleman
who uttered the cries was evidently a belated Mormon. He was breathless
with running. Happily for him, the station had neither gates nor
barriers. He rushed along the track, jumped on the rear platform
of the train, and fell, exhausted, into one of the seats.
Passepartout, who had been anxiously watching this amateur
gymnast, approached him with lively interest, and learned that
he had taken flight after an unpleasant domestic scene.
When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout ventured
to ask him politely how many wives he had; for, from the manner
in which he had decamped, it might be thought that he had twenty
at least.
"One, sir," replied the Mormon, raising his arms
heavenward --"one, and that was enough!"
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