Chapter 27
In Which Passepartout Undergoes, at a Speed ofTwenty Miles an Hour, a Course of Mormon History
During the night of the 5th of December, the train ransouth-easterly for about fifty miles; then rose an equal distancein a northeasterly direction, towards the Great Salt Lake.
Passepartout, about nine o'clock, went out upon the platform totake the air. The weather was cold, the heavens grey, but it wasnot snowing. The sun's disc, enlarged by the mist, seemed anenormous ring of gold, and Passepartout was amusing himself bycalculating its value in pounds sterling, when he was divertedfrom this interesting study by a strange-looking person who madehis appearance on the platform.
This person, who had taken the train at Elko, was tall and dark,with black moustache, black stockings, a black silk hat, a blackwaistcoat, black trousers, a white cravat and dogskin gloves. Hemight have been taken for a clergyman. He went from one end ofthe train to the other, and affixed to the door of each car anotice written in manuscript.
Passepartout approached and read one of these notices. It statedthat Elder William Hitch, Mormon missionary, taking advantage ofhis presence on train No.48, would deliver a lecture on Mormonismin car No.117, from eleven to twelve o'clock; and that he invitedall who were desirous of being instructed concerning themysteries of the religion of the "Latter Day Saints" to attend.
"I'll go," said Passepartout to himself. He knew nothing ofMormonism except the custom of polygamy, which is its foundation.
The news quickly spread through the train, which contained aboutone hundred passengers, thirty of whom, at most, attracted by thenotice, seated themselves in car No.117. Passepartout took one ofthe front seats. Neither Mr. Fogg nor Fix cared to attend.
At the appointed hour Elder William Hitch rose, and, in anirritated voice, as if he had already been contradicted, said, "Itell you that Joe Smith is a martyr, that his brother Hiram is amartyr, and that the persecutions of the United States Governmentagainst the prophets will also make a martyr of Brigham Young.Who dares to say the contrary?"
No one ventured to contradict the missionary, whose excited tonecontrasted curiously with his naturally calm expression. No doubthis anger arose from the hardships to which the Mormons wereactually subjected. The government had just succeeded, with somedifficulty, in reducing these independent fanatics to its rule.It had made itself master of Utah, and subjected that territoryto the laws of the Union, after imprisoning Brigham Young on acharge of rebellion and polygamy. The disciples of the prophethad since redoubled their efforts, and resisted, by words atleast, the authority of Congress. Elder Hitch, as is seen, wastrying to make proselytes on the railway trains.
Then, emphasizing his words with his loud voice and frequentgestures, he related the history of the Mormons from Biblicaltimes. He told how in Israel, a Mormon prophet of the tribe ofJoseph published the annals of the new religion, and bequeathedthem to his Mormon son; how, many centuries later, a translationof this precious book, which was written in Egyptian, was made byJoseph Smith, Jr., a Vermont farmer, who revealed himself as amystical prophet in 1825; and how, in short, the celestialmessenger appeared to him in an illuminated forest, and gave himthe annals of the Lord.
Several of the audience, not being much interested in themissionary's narrative, here left the car; but Elder Hitch,continuing his lecture, related how Smith, Jr., with his father,two brothers, and a few disciples, founded the church of the"Latter Day Saints," which, adopted not only in America, but inEngland, Norway and Sweden and Germany, counts many artisans, aswell as men engaged in the liberal professions, among itsmembers; how a colony was established in Ohio, a temple erectedthere at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, and a town builtat Kirkland; how Smith became an enterprising banker, andreceived from a simple mummy showman a papyrus scroll written byAbraham and several famous Egyptians.
The Elder's story became somewhat wearisome, and his audiencegrew gradually less, until it was reduced to twenty passengers.But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded withthe story of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in 1837, and how hisruined creditors gave him a coat of tar and feathers; hisreappearance some years afterwards, more honorable and honoredthan ever, at Independence, Missouri, the chief of a flourishingcolony of three thousand disciples, and his pursuit thence byoutraged Gentiles, and retirement in the Far West.
Ten hearers only were now left, among them honest Passepartout,who was listening with all ears. Thus he learned that, after longpersecutions, Smith reappeared in Illinois, and in 1839 founded acommunity at Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, numbering twenty-fivethousand souls, of which he became mayor, chief justice andgeneral-in-chief; that he announced himself, in 1843, as acandidate for the Presidency of the United States; and thatfinally, being drawn into ambush at Carthage, he was thrown intoprison, and assassinated by a band of men disguised in masks.
Passepartout was now the only person left in the car. The Elder,looking him full in the face, reminded him that, two years afterthe assassination of Joseph Smith, the inspired prophet, BrighamYoung, his successor, left Nauvoo for the banks of the Great SaltLake, where, in the midst of that fertile region, directly on theroute of the emigrants who crossed Utah on their way toCalifornia, the new colony, thanks to the polygamy practised bythe Mormons, had flourished beyond expectations.
"And this," added Elder William Hitch, "is why the jealousy ofCongress has been aroused against us! Why have the soldiers ofthe Union invaded the soil of Utah? Why has Brigham Young, ourchief, been imprisoned, in contempt of all justice? Shall weyield to force? Never! Driven from Vermont, driven fromIllinois, driven from Ohio, driven from Missouri, driven fromUtah, we shall yet find some independent territory on which toplant our tents. And you, my brother," continued the Elder,fixing his angry eyes upon his single hearer, "will you not plantyours there, too, under the shadow of our flag?"
"No!" replied Passepartout courageously, in his turn retiringfrom the car, and leaving the Elder to preach to vacancy.
During the lecture the train had been making good progress, andtowards half-past twelve it reached the northwest border of theGreat Salt Lake. Here the passengers could observe the vastextent of this interior sea, which is also called the Dead Sea,and into which flows an American Jordan. It is a picturesquelake, framed in lofty crags in large strata, encrusted with whitesalt--a superb sheet of water, which was formerly of largerspace than now, its shores having encroached with the lapse oftime, and thus at once reduced its breadth and increased itsdepth.
The Salt Lake, seventy miles long and thirty-five wide, issituated three miles, eight hundred feet above the sea. Quitedifferent from Lake Asphaltite, whose depression is twelvehundred feet below the sea, it contains considerable salt, andone quarter of the weight of its water is solid matter, itsspecific weight being 1,170, and, after being distilled, 1,000.Fishes are, of course, unable to live in it, and those whichdescend through the Jordan, the Weber, and other streams soonperish.
The country around the lake was well cultivated, for the Mormonsare mostly farmers; while ranches and pens for domesticatedanimals, fields of wheat, corn and other cereals, luxuriantprairies, hedges of wild rose, clumps of acacias and milk-wort,would have been seen six months later. Now the ground was coveredwith a thin powdering of snow.
The train reached Ogden at two o'clock, where it rested for sixhours. Mr. Fogg and his party had time to pay a visit to SaltLake City, connected with Ogden by a branch road. They spent twohours in this strikingly American town, built on the pattern ofother cities of the Union, like a checker-board, "with thesombre sadness of right-angles," as Victor Hugo expresses it. Thefounder of the City of the Saints could not escape from the tastefor symmetry which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxons. In thisstrange country, where the people are certainly not up to thelevel of their institutions, everything is done "squarely"--cities,houses and follies.
The travelers, then, were promenading, at three o'clock, aboutthe streets of the town built between the banks of the Jordan andthe spurs
of the Wahsatch Range. They saw few or no churches, butthe prophet's mansion, the courthouse, and the arsenal,blue-brick houses with verandas and porches, surrounded bygardens bordered with acacias, palms and locusts. A clay andpebble wall, built in 1853, surrounded the town. In the principalstreet were the market and several hotels adorned with pavilions.The place did not seem thickly populated. The streets were almostdeserted, except in the vicinity of the temple, which they onlyreached after having traversed several quarters surrounded bypalisades. There were many women, which was easily accounted forby the "peculiar institution" of the Mormons; but it must not besupposed that all the Mormons are polygamists. They are free tomarry or not, as they please; but it is worth noting that it ismainly the female citizens of Utah who are anxious to marry, as,according to the Mormon religion, maiden ladies are not admittedto the possession of its highest joys. These poor creaturesseemed to be neither well off nor happy. Some--the morewell-to-do, no doubt--wore short, open black silk dresses, undera hood or modest shawl; others were clothed in Indian fashion.
Passepartout could not behold without a certain fright thesewomen, charged, in groups; with conferring happiness on a singleMormon. His common sense pitied, above all, the husband. Itseemed to him a terrible thing to have to guide so many wives atonce across the vicissitudes of life, and to conduct them, as itwere, in a body to the Mormon paradise, with the prospect ofseeing them in the company of the glorious Smith, who doubtlesswas the chief ornament of that delightful place, to all eternity.He felt decidedly repelled from such a vocation, and heimagined--perhaps he was mistaken--that the fair ones of Salt LakeCity cast rather alarming glances on his person. Happily, his staythere was but brief. At four the party found themselves again atthe station, took their places in the train, and the whistlesounded for starting. Just at the moment however, that thelocomotive wheels began to move, cries of "Stop! Stop!" wereheard.
Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one. The gentleman whouttered the cries was evidently a belated Mormon. He wasbreathless with running. Happily for him, the station hadneither gates nor barriers. He rushed along the track, jumped onthe rear platform of the train, and fell, exhausted, into one ofthe seats.
Passepartout, who had been anxiously watching this amateurgymnast, approached him with lively interest, and learned that hehad taken flight after an unpleasant domestic scene.
When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout venturedto ask him politely how many wives he had; for, from the mannerin which he had decamped, it might be thought that he had twentyat least.
"One, sir," replied the Mormon, raising his arms heavenward--"one,and that is enough!"