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Show THE JOURNEY TO UTAH. 53 in large parties; 4,000 left Europe for Utah in 1868, that being the largest emigration of any year since the Church was founded. The number of arrivals now scarcely equals that of the apostates. Freight-ing to Salt Lake was also active, and teamsters being in demand, I took a position as engineer of a six- mule team, at a salary of forty dol-lars per month. Our " outfit " numbered ten wagons, sixty- one mules and sixteen men, including a night- herder, wagon- boss and four passen-gers. The four hundred miles to Salt Lake occupied four weeks, two-thirds of the way being through deserts of sand, soda and alkali, where we thought ourselves fortunate in finding a patch of bunch- grass once every twenty- four hours. The first night we formed corral at Raw-lins Springs, and the next in a walled basin on the old stage* road, at what is called " Dug Springs." In the center of the basin was an alka-line lake which, moved by the evening breeze, looked like foaming soapsuds; but on its margin was a spring of pure water. Thence we moved on to the " Divide of the Continent," a plateau of sand and rock, dotted with alkaline lakes in which " cat- fish with legs," as plainsmen style them, are abundant. I afterward saw tne same species at Cafion Bonito, Arizona, where the Navajo boys shot their arrows through them to secure me a few specimens. Science classes them as siredons, a species of lizards. Leaving this unpleasant country by way of Bridger's Pass, we were soon upon the westward slope, and for three days toiled down Bitter Creek the horror of overland teamsters where all possible ills of western travel are united. At daybreak we rose, stiff with cold, to catch the only temperate hour for driving. By nine A. M. the heat \ vas most exhausting. The road was worked up into a bed of blinding white dust by the laborers on the railroad grade, and a gray mist of ash and earthy powder hung over the valley, which obscured the sun, but did not lessen its heat. At intervals the " Twenty- mile Desert," the " Red Sand Desert," and the " White Desert " crossed our way, presenting beds of sand and soda, through which the half- choked men and animals toiled and struggled, in a dry air and under a scorching sky. In vain the yells and curses of the teamsters doubled and re-doubled, blasphemies that one might expect to inspire a mule with dia-bolical strength; in vain the fearful " black- snake" curled and popped over the animals' backs, sometimes gashing the skin, and sometimes raising welts the size of one's finger. For a few rods they would strug-gle on, dragging the heavy load through the clogging banks, and then stop exhausted, sinking to their knees in the hot and ashy heaps. Then two of us would unite our teams and drag through to the next solid |