Far As One
Could See In The Crystalline Air There Was Nothing But Desert.
The jagged Humboldt ranges flaming in the sunset, with snow in
their clefts, though forty-five miles off, looked within an easy
canter.
The bright metal track, purpling like all else in the
cool distance, was all that linked one with Eastern or Western
civilization.
The next morning, when the steward unceremoniously turned us out
of our berths soon after sunrise, we were running down upon the
Great Salt Lake, bounded by the white Wahsatch ranges. Along its
shores, by means of irrigation, Mormon industry has compelled the
ground to yield fine crops of hay and barley; and we passed
several cabins, from which, even at that early hour, Mormons,
each with two or three wives, were going forth to their day's
work. The women were ugly, and their shapeless blue dresses
hideous. At the Mormon town of Ogden we changed cars, and again
traversed dusty plains, white and glaring, varied by muddy
streams and rough, arid valleys, now and then narrowing into
canyons. By common consent the windows were kept closed to
exclude the fine white alkaline dust, which is very irritating to
the nostrils. The journey became more and more wearisome as we
ascended rapidly over immense plains and wastes of gravel
destitute of mountain boundaries, and with only here and there a
"knob" or "butte"[6] to break the monotony. The wheel-marks of
the trail to Utah often ran parallel with the track, and bones of
oxen were bleaching in the sun, the remains of those "whose
carcasses fell in the wilderness" on the long and drouthy
journey.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 26 of 274
Words from 6974 to 7249
of 74789
