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Show vi INTRODUCTION. I commenced a series of letters, with m^ ny misgivings a. to my ability to make them entertaining or instructive. As the only record I kept of my experiences and observations was in a small pocket diary, I lacked the inspiration, which a record of scenes and events would have received if writ ten about when they were observed or transpiring, and had to trust much to memory for incidents. At the conclusion of the series my friend again comes forward and suggests their publication in book- form. Several other friends agreeing with him as to the fitness of things in doing so, I have relied upon their judgment more than upon my own, and compiled the letters for publication in their present form. All the letters have been carefully revised, and some of them considerably elaborated, while those in which I attempted a history of the Mormons have been almost entirely rewritten and very largely added to. It has been my fortune to have extraordinary opportuni ties of familiarizing myself with the practices and inner life of that strange people, and what I have herein recorded is no mere sensational narrative, to create a popularity for the work, but a plain statement of what 1 believe to be facts |