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Show 122 WESTERN WILDS'. But occasionally comedy and tragedy are united, as in the case of Bishop Smith, married to two of his cousins and two of his nieces ; or in that of Elder Allsop, who has a mother and daughter for wives, both mothers of his children, the " whole brood living together in a little cabin. In the southern part of Utah may be seen two towns without parallels in America Taylorsville and Winnville. Two worthy Mormon patriarchs, Elder Taylor and Elder Winn, have each taken numerous " wives," and each of their sons has done the same. The result is two villages, in one of which all the inhabitants are Taylors, and in the other all Winns. The Taylors have been the better Saints, and outnumber the others two to one, which is very disheartening to the Winns. Old man Winn is reported to have said, to an official who visited him not long ago, that life to him was but a weary desert, and at times he felt like fainting by the way- side. At other times he declared that never more would he go through the Endowment House and take another young wife, " for that old Taylor can just naturally raise two chil-dren to my one." After six weeks' travel in the mines, and a winter's work for Gentile interests, the opening months of 1871 found me again a traveler. This time I came eastward, and, after a brief rest, made a tour of the Missouri Valley. I had been three years in the Far West, and before I relate more extensive journeys, perhaps this is as good a place as any to present a general view of our Territories and the adjacent States. First let it be noted that our maps give no idea of the nature of the country ; they do not show the comparative elevation and bar-renness. Here and there on the common maps may be seen the words " Great American Desert," the assumption being that all the rest of the region is fertile. The fact is that barrenness is the rule and fertility the exception ; though much of the land that is not cultivable still furnishes a coarse grass. Draw a line on longitude 100 from British America to Texas; then go 800 miles westward, and draw another from British America to Mexico, and all the area between these two lines 800 by 1200 miles in extent; or in round numbers a million square miles is the " American Desert:" a region of varying mountain, desert, and rock; of prevailing drought or complete sterility, broken rarely by fertile valleys; of dead volcanoes and sandy wastes; of excessive chemicals, rock, gravel, and other inorganic matter. Only the lower valleys, bordering perennial streams, or more rarely some plateau |
