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Show 314 WESTERN WILDS. whether from fear or modesty was hard to say. At dark 1 reached Pipe Springs, where is a ranche kept by Bishop Windsor and one of his families. I found the Bishop a good landlord, and chatty, agreeable companion. The spring from which the place takes its name sends down a large stream of cold, clear water, which the Bishop leads in stone troughs through his houses, using one of them for a cheese factory. He milks eighty cows, and makes the business a splendid success. All this section is rich in pasture, but has so little arable land that most of the few inhabitants have to import their flour, paying for it in butter and cheese. Even with this large stream the Bishop can cultivate but fifteen acres, the porous, sandy soil re-quiring five times as much irrigation as the land around Salt Lake City. The place is just outside the rim of the Great Basin, and the country about of the same level as that within. From the foot of the mountain range along which we travel the surface slopes a very little toward the Colorado, but near that river rises again to a height above that along the road. Thence the next afternoon I traversed a sandy desert for twenty- five miles, reached the first pool and took supper, then rode nine miles further by dark, and made a " dry camp " iu a low, grassy valley be-tween two wooded hills. Thence I reached Gould's Ranche ( ten miles) in time for a late breakfast and another hot argument on poli-tics. The Church was then straining every nerve to get Utah ad-mitted as a State, the Gentiles fighting the proposition with the bit-terness of desperation, and all Southern Utah was hot over the matter. That day I mistook the road, but did not regret my error when it led me to the beautiful hamlet of Virgin City. The neat, white adobe houses were almost hidden in forests of peach, fig, apple, and mul-berry trees ; the climate rivaled that of Southern California, and dam-sons, apricots, and pears also abounded. All that part of Mormondom south of the rim of the Great Basin is called Dixie, and produces cot-ton, wine and figs. And here I first began to be conscious of the oddity of my dress. At Defiance, to avoid being too conspicuous among the Indians, I had dressed in a buckskin suit, with spangled Mexican jacket, stout moccasins handsomely worked, beaded scarf, and flowered calico head- wrap; so, at a distance, I was every- where taken for an Indian. Marriage with Indian women is a strong point in the religion of these Southern Mormons, and the men were de-lighted with my description of the grace, beauty, and general desira-bleness of Navajo girls, as they expect to form a close alliance with |