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Show UTAH ARGENTIFERA. 165 the march of Israel ; he was Pharaoh, enslaving God's chosen ; he was Herod, thirsting for innocent blood; he was Pilate, crucifying the Lord afresh. Daniel and Revelations were reopened : the Govern-ment was like haughty Babylon rushing on to destruction ; war was soon to scourge America ; all our cities were to be desolated, and Washington in particular was to be sown with salt and rooted up by swine ! The Gentiles were equally fierce in their zeal to prove Utah's mineral wealth ; religious fanaticism and the love of gain were playing a strange drama in the shadow of the Wasatch. It was the dryest and sickliest season I ever knew in that Terri-tory. The Great Salt Lake, which had risen year by year till it stood ,,,.,, ,, THE MORMON MILITIA. fifteen feet higher than when first surveyed, had suddenly fallen far below the water- marks set up by Captain Stansbury in 1849. On the north and east the bordering marshes were dry, their basins shining with salt. The pleasant babble of the water- seeks along the city streets was not heard; the channels were dry, and full of dust and refuse. What little water City Creek supplied was needed for irrigating the inner lots, and every- where on the streets the shade- trees had a strange, half- dead look, the leaves curled and withering. When I arrived from California, September 1st, fifty- five persons had died in three weeks out of a population of fourteen thousand. Two- thirds of the people complained of the malaria. No such season had been known in Salt Lake since the notable " famine year." So I soon took stage for the hills, and for three months devoted most of my time to inspecting the mines. Sixteen miles across the valley and over the " bench," brought us to the mouth of Little Cottonwood Caflon ; while a storm swept over us and tipped the summits of the Wasatch with snow. In these en-closed basins clouds rise from the lakes and marshes and float away, without shedding their moisture, to the mountains; there they are checked and fall in rain, causing the mountain sides in places to be covered with timber, while the valleys are always bare. A damp, numbing wind swept down the cafion, growing colder as we gained in height, till overcoats and gloves failed to secure warmth ; while above and around us every- where the peaks glistened with snow, seeming by imagination to add to the cold, and by the middle of the afternoon we |
