OCR Text |
Show 384 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. people, the same as there are about Utah. How often are we of Utah annoyed by the scribbling of some wiseacre who has spent a whole day in Salt Lake City, rode around and been stuffed by a Liberal hack driver, obtain-ing all the information needed, being thoroughly posted he writes up the country, people, customs, facilities, and explains what is needed, and advises legislation, etc., with all the assurance of one thoroughly posted. Some of our Elders who have made a flying visit to Mexico appear to me about as presumptuous. What they don't see or know would make a book. What they do see is often through a glass dimly. If one fast traveler of note happens to make a mistake in describing something all the rest copy. Like some smart idiot wrote years ago that the flowers of Mexico had no perfume; the birds no song. This has often been copied when there is not a word of truth in the statement. Neither is it true that the thorns of the Giant Cactus, Sahuara, are crooked like a fish hook. I simply mention these things to show that these hasty scribblers are not reliable on things of more importance. A person to know and understand Mexico and her people, as the Latter- day Saints should know and under-stand them, will have to go into the interior away from the commercial towns and cities. There are large districts of country inhabited by an almost pure race, descendants of Lehi. Any one conver-sant with the Book of Mormon will have no trouble in finding abundant proof that the greater portion of the inhabitants of Mexico are descendants of the Jews, and are the very people, or a great portion of them, to which the gospel is to go to immediately from the Gentile. That the work in Mexico seems a little slow is a fact, but no fault can be laid to the natives, according to my observation and experience in that country. |