OCR Text |
Show 170 WHERE THE MORMONS ing to their ability, the means of transportation neces sary for the immigrants. Each individual who furnishes any, keeps an account of the number of wagons or animals furnished, and if they are not returned in the fall, the owner is remunerated from the Emigration Fund ; but he is allowed nothing for the use of them. He is supposed to be loaning them to the Lord, and expects to receive ten fold, in some other way, what their use may be worth. The drivers of these teams are selected with great care, and be fore they are sent out are required to go through the endow ment house, a secret institution of Mormonism, where by oaths, and ceremonies, the initiated are supposed to be made purer, and with drivers fresh from this solemn and holy (?) service the women are supposed to be safer. Upon the arri val of the trains at the river all is life and activity among the immigrants in preparing for their long journey, and no little amusement is afforded by the sight of ox- teams, which is quite a novel thing to them. These wagons are only for the transportation of baggage and rations. The people are all required to walk the thou sand mile journey without even suitable conveyance for those who are sick on the road such can be accommodated only on the loaded wagons. They have no tents, nor any pro tection from the storm. It is a sad sight to see the road lined with these people laboring to get along in a severe snow- storm, as I have seen them. Old and decrepid men and women, some with their wooden shoes, others without any, totter along in the rear of the slow- moving ox- trains; but slow as they move it is too fast for some of these who are borne down by the infirmities of age or disease. I have been informed that many such die on the road, and from what I have witnessed I cannot doubt the truth of the state ment. Out of a party of nine hundred that crossed the plains in the summer of 1864, twenty- two died after leaving the Missouri River. One of this number was an old man who for some offence was ducked in a stream until he was drowned. This I learn from the lips of a witness of the n>* irder. Another of the casualties was the destruction of |