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Show 360 THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. VHT. crow-flight avenues, which, bordered by distance-dwarfed trees, narrowed to threads as they drew toward a vanishing point. Beyond the suburbs stretched the valley plain, sprinkled with little plantations clustering round the smaller settlements, and streaked by the rivulets which, arising from the frowning pine-clad heights on the left, flowed toward the little Jordan of this young Judea on the right. The extreme south was bounded by the denticulated bench which divided like a mole the valleys of the Great Salt and Utah Lakes. Already autumn had begun: the purpling plain and golden slopes shed a dying glory over the departing year, while the mellowing light of evening, and aerial blue from above, toned down to absolute beauty each harsher feature of the scene. After lingering for a while over the fair coup d'cezl, we descended, holding firm the sage-bushes, the abrupt western slope, and we passed by the warm Harrowgate spring, with its sulphury blue waters, white lime-like bed, and rushy margins in dark earth, snowcapped with salt efflorescence. As we entered the city we met a noted Gentile innocently driving out a fair Saint: both averted their faces as they passed us, but my companion's color darkened. All races have their pet prohibitions and aversions, their likes and dislikes in matters of sin. Among the Mormons, a suspicion of immorality is more hateful than the reputation of bloodshed. So horse-thieving in the Western States is a higher crime than any other-in fact, the sin which is never forgiven. An editor thus unconcernedly sums up the history of one lately shot when plundering stock: " He was buried by those who meted out to him summary justice, not exactly attending to law, but upon a more speedy, economical, and salutary principle, and a stake was placed at the head of his grave, on which was inscribed ' A. B. B , shot for horse-stealing, July 1, I860.'" Entering the city by the northwest, we passed the Academy of the 7th Ward. Standing in a 10-acre block, it is a large adobe building with six windows, built for a hotel, and bought for educational purposes by the Prophet. Forms and tables, scattered with the usual school-books, were the sole furniture, and the doors were left open as if they had nothing to defend. My companion had a truly brotherly way of treating his co-religionists; he never met one, however surly-looking, without a salute, and when a door was opened he usually walked in. Thus we visited successively a water-power-mill, a tannery, and an English coachmaker, painter, and varnisher. Some of the houses which we passed were neat and cleanly curtained, especially that belonging to an Englishwoman whose husband, Captain E , had lately left her in widowhood. We finished with the garden of Apostle Woodruff, who introduced us to his wife, and showed us work of which he had reason to be proud. Despite the hard, ungrateful soil which had required irrigation for the last ten years, there were apricots from Malta, the Hooker strawberries, here worth $5 the plant, |
