CHAPTER XXVII
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!"
