The Genteel Gentile, Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857 - 1858

Genteel Gentile, page 069

Govr Powell & Major McCullough, commissioners of govern- ment sent out to Utah io do what Alfred had already done, before the aentlemen had left Waihm~ton, had preceded "5 by a few h&s on the journey. At this-hollow & maw a cleft stick, upright in the ground & a paper in the cleft! It was a note from our commissioners, telling US where they would encamp&await our coming. This camp was near the Yellow. 1 We passeda tolerable night, & in the morning were sur- rounded bv the most disagreeable looking Indians I have ever seen-& we have been surrounded by IndIani for several , months-so very ugly, & illthy & hideous m expression Two or three squaws were with the party, who looked Idmtlc, yet fierce & mmrable I wx glad to get away from the creatures" We enter to-da" Echo Ca,=mn These cafions are sad to have been the beds of rivcr~, many centuries ago. The first ten des or so the calion wx one long grassy valley, w,th very h,eh ereen hdls r,~,n~ on each s,dc-averarw about half a mile E, width a little pebbly stream twists& &rm & winds about in the valley. We crow it every few steps. The world is quite shut out from the quiet valley-but soon the banks became rocky cliffs, & a~mme all kinds of strange fantastic shapes, &the valley narrows to a mere httle road-then-then -words fail me to desmbe the exceedw emot,on that illled my heart to aching as we advanced-oily in the month of June does Echo Canon look a~ ii did when it wx my good fortune to see grandeur & beauty such a~ 1 can never forget. On my right were copper or orange cold. cliffs, 54 to be two thousand feet high in many places. These cliffs overhung our path (hardly a road, it was 50 grassy) &made it dim in broad 69