our pilot-engine, looking like a child's toy in the midst of this grand landscape, which was only marred by the inevitable snowsheds, the one near the summit being just four miles long. No human being inhabits this wild region save coyotes, bears, and eagles, and the men who live in huts along the track, to see that it is cleared of the falling boulders from the rocks above. At last we reached an elevation of 10,857 feet, the highest railway track in America, and witnessed a glorious sunrise. Then began our descent on the other side, five hours bringing us to Gunnison. After this we entered the Black Canyon, where the rocks are as high as those of the Royal Gorge, and the chasm wider. Another climb by a steep grade-213 feet to the mile-and we were at the Cedar Divide; before me lay the Uncompahyne Valley and the Wahsatch Mountains beyond. At the Grande Junction a veritable desert of 150 miles of prairie had to be traversed; our train struck on a mining camp at which there had been an accident, and stopped to take four injured men "on board," to procure them medical help at the nearest town.

The sunset that evening was a worthy pendant to the sunrise seen at the Marshall Pass: the last glorious rays of the departing sun lighted up the peaks and snowy summits of the mountains with a brilliancy of colour no artist would dare, even were it possible, to represent on canvas; and then, as there is no twilight here, darkness quickly ensued, the Pullman car was lighted up, the porter began to make the beds, and before ten o'clock every one was comfortably sleeping, while the train sped on through the night, and landed us at six o'clock the following morning at Salt Lake City. If travellers from New York to San Francisco

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care to enjoy some of the grandest scenery in the world, they will abandon the old road across the dull prairies. Branch off at Denver by this new route, and there is an everchanging panorama of snow-crowned mountains, deep gorges, forest-covered slopes, and a remembrance for a lifetime. Even those to whom the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas are familiar, will appreciate the glimpses of glory to be obtained as they stand on the brink of those terrible precipices during a railroad journey over the Rocky Mountains.

CHAPTER XI.

Brigham Young and the "true inwardness of Mormonism"-Inducements to converts to emigrate to the "promised land"-Polygamy kept out of sight-Zion's poet-laureate, Eliza Snow-Mrs. Emmeline Wells, etc.-Mormon women and wives-The effects of polygamy— Sermons in the Tabernacle and Sunday evening ward meetingsBrigham Young and others on the "women's discontent "-Exclusion of unmarried women from the kingdom of heaven-Introduction of second wives-The effect of any lengthened visit to Salt Lake City-War between Mormons and Gentiles-Endowment House, with its religious dramas, baptisms, and sealings.

WHEN Brigham Young and his Mormon followers were driven from Nauvoo in 1847, he started with a band of pioneers to find "fresh fields and pastures new," and following for several hundred miles a trapper's trail, according to the directions received from scouts wisely sent in advance, he reached the summit of the Wahsatch Mountains, and there before him lay the beautiful valley which extends some forty miles to the Great Salt Lake. No wonder that the keen eye of the "prophet" at once discerned his opportunities, and that he resolved to build up his "Zion" on this fertile spot. The territory really belonged to Mexico, but Brigham Young hoisted the United States flag, and under the banner of religion established a temporal power which his followers retain to the present hour.

Many persons expected that Mormonism would collapse when Brigham Young died, but such people little understood

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its "true inwardness." There are few systems so thoroughly well organised; the Jesuits themselves are not a more disciplined body than the Latter Day Saints.

In the opinion of those best fitted to form an unprejudiced and independent judgment, I found Mormonism regarded as "a carefully organised land speculation scheme." The land "flowing with milk and honey" is what the agent missionaries have ever promised to intending converts, and everywhere their spies have gone forth to search for fertile places in the West, where they might build cities and plant vineyards. One-thirteenth part of Utah can be irrigated, and the best positions in Idaho, Arizona, and South-Western Colorado have been chosen for the same reason. Between three or four hundred missionaries are constantly employed in Europe and having been furnished with lists of the people who have already emigrated to various parts of Utah, they find out their relatives and friends, and tell them how admirably these settlers are getting on, offering them forty acres of land, if they like to join them in these happy valleys, where every man sits under the shadow of his own fig-tree, and owns his own house and land. Of course to avail themselves of these advantages they must embrace the Mormon faith. For the most part the doctrine of polygamy is carefully suppressed till the promised land is in sight and retreat impossible. These ignorant people, drawn from English hamlets, the rural districts of Scotland, Wales, Sweden, and Germany, gratefully accept the land as the generous gift of the Mormon Church, instead of realising the source from which it really comes, the United States Homestead Law, and they willingly agree to pay the yearly tax imposed by the Mormon hierarchy-a tax which produces

such a splendid annual revenue for the support of the Church.

I endeavoured as far as I could during my residence in Salt Lake City to study, without prejudice, the problem this extraordinary community presents; and while it is very painful to me, after the kindness and courtesy I received from the President of the Mormons downwards, to write any words which must sound harsh and condemnatory, I must needs speak without fear or favour from my own “point of view," even if the judgment formed be crude and erroneous. I have studied the literature given to me by friends who were anxious I should not be misled by the Gentiles surrounding me, and I have patiently listened to the arguments in favour of the system; but the more I read and the more I hear, the less justification can I discover for a religion which has in times past countenanced the grossest frauds, coldblooded murders, the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and to the present hour sanctions the hateful system of polygamy, which strikes, in my opinion, the deadliest blow at the purity of family life, and involves the cruellest subjection and the most hopeless degradation of the women belonging to the community.

It must of course be acknowledged that even among the Mormon ladies themselves there is a vast amount of conflicting testimony as to the happiness enjoyed, notwithstanding the very much married condition of their lords and masters! Eliza Snow, known as "Zion's poet-laureate," and "high priestess "the first plural wife of Joseph Smith, after he received the astounding revelation, and subsequently one of Brigham Young's wives, assured me with apparent sincerity of her perfect faith and entire satisfaction in the teachings