A JOURNEY TO THE GREAT SALT 'LAKE* A FRENCH traveller
has usually only one fault—he invents 'so very many of his facts. No one observes more keenly, or seeks opportu- nities of observation with greater hardihood, bears toil and hardship with greater sang-froid, or tells his story in a pleasanter or more colloquial style. No Frenchman would dream of pitchforking his diary into type in the style of Dr. Barth, or even of running into the endless repetitions which deform the 'latter half of Dr. Living- stone's great work. But the national appetite for effect is usually too much for his sense of honesty. If he has a theory, the facts are made to fit it most remorselessly; if he wants to amuse, everybody from Pekin to the Cape says piquant things which are hits at owe at the motives and the rulers of the hour in Paris ; while, if he isgiven to self-glorification, his adventures are irresistibly suggestive of Sinbad. Jacquemont, the Indian traveller, wrote, perhaps, the most agreeable book ever written about India, the adventures in which are, we believe, without an exception, fictions. Anglo-Chinese say that M. Hue's exquisite narrative of his travels, so full of information and piquant details, is, from heginnirg to end, an invention so gross as to suggest a doubt if the worthy Abbe ever left the seaboard, while Sir John Bowring could not find a single fact corroborative of a pre- decessor's account of the Philippines, failing even once or twice to identify the localities. French travellers, it is true, do not alp quite this length, do not absolutely invent, but they suffer their imagina- tions and their passion for epigram to colour every fact, incident, and discovery, till their descriptions are as worthless as a bad photograph. So strong, indeed, is the impression produced by this habit of colour- ing, that French travellers are generally rejected in England, grave inquirers doubting 'whether facts so piquantly related ever occurred, whether a scene ever can be so suggestive as the narrator declares it to have been.
This prejudice is not unlikely to affect the reception of M. Remy's travels to the Salt Lake, and not absolutely without justice. it is very nearly impossible to believe that a Mormon lady ever did
• 4 1 Journey to the Great ,Halt Lake. By J. Remy and J. Brencigny, kublished by W. Jeffs. suggest to M. Remy the physiological defence of polygamy recorded in page 100, or whether the Mormons do really show strangers the attention and deference the travellers are stated to have received. But apart from touches such as these, the two splendid volumes before us, so far as a comparison with other accounts will enable us to judge, seem fairly free from even unconscious misrepresenta- tion. M. Remy and his companion, it would appear, have been travelling in the islands of the Pacific and California for some ten years, and on returning have resolved to give to the public a portion only of their observations. This portion comprises their visit to the Salt Lake, combined with a very complete account of the rise, pro- gress, and doctrine of the Mormon faith. The latter section of the work, though valuable on the Continent, could have been spared in England. Joseph Smith's history and his views are well known here, and M. Remy adds little to our information beyond some evidence as to the personal fascination the illiterate prophet exercised over his disciples. It is rather as to the development of Mormonism, the actual workday outturn of the phenomenon that the world is desirous of unprejudiced information. This M. Remy considers himself singularly qualified to give, and we are not disposed seriously to question his claim. With the exception of the half-unconscious prejudice every Frenchman has in favour of polygamy, he seems to decide solely on evidence, to care nothing for the effect of the facts he states on preconceived opinions, and to let out, as if by chance, facts favourable as well as hostile to the strange community he de- scribes. He has, indeed, a theory of his own about the eclectic character of Mormonism, which he might find it hard to substantiate; but it does not in any perceptible degree affect his report on the social condition of Deseret any more than his account of the geo- graphical features of the country.
The Great Salt Lake is, in fact, an inland sea, or vast marsh, formed by the retiring of an ocean, which has left a vast bed of salt, into which pour Lake Zimpanogos and several small streams, form- ing a reservoir about two hundred and fifty miles in circum- ference, but nowhere exceeding thirty-three feet in depth, and with an average of barely eight, studded with islands, some of
which rise 3250 feet above the level of the water. The water is as blue as that of the ocean, but so densely impregnated with salt, that nothing with life can exist in it, and the human body will not sink, a remark often made of the Dead Sea also. The lake has no tide, and is never used for navigation, but the salt-makers near it report that it rises rapidly, and that the water is gradually becoming less salt, a process which will continue, as the flow of fresh water gradually, from the slight change of climate said to be going on, becomes greater than the evaporation. To the east of this lake, at the foot of a range of mountains, in a deliciously clear atmosphere, lies the Mormon city, looking in the distance like a heap of white rocks jutting from the hill. The plan of the city is simple, lime streets running towards the hills parallel with a stream which the Mormons have called the Sordan, and intersected by cross streets at right angles, the whole surrounded with a low mud wall, built as a protection against the Indians :
"All the streets are a hundred and thirty feet wide, and run from north ,to south, and from east to west. They are watered on either side by a stream of clear water, ingeniously brought from the neighbouring mountains. A double line of arborescent willows (cotton-wood) adorns each of these streams. The streets cross each other at right-angles, forming squares of houses, or blocks, each side of which measured about six hundred and fifty-seven feet, kach house, at least twenty feet from the street, is surrounded by garden ground of greater or less extent. This arrangement, besides giving a countrified aspect to the city, greatly augments its superficies ; hence it is not less than three English miles in diameter. The majority of the houses are built of adobes, generally in a simple style, frequently elegant, and always clean. Some of these dwellings are very large; among others, Brigham Young's, which is comparatively a palace. This edifice, about ninety-eight feet long by forty in width, is built of several kinds of stone, among which we remarked a magnificent granite, brought from the neigh- bouring mountains at a great expense. The long. salient °gives of the windows of the upper story give to the roof which they intersect the appearance of a crenellated diadem, and render this monument a model of Mormon architecture."
The grand temple is still unfinished, but is to be a splendid build- ing of granite, one hundred and fifty feet by one hundred and nine- teen feet, with six polyhedral steeples, and bearing, in M. Remy's drawing, an inexplicable likeness to the Duomo of Milan. This great city, built in the desert by emiarants, is filled with a population estimated at one hundred and eighty-six thousand, gathered from all the nations of the earth, the proportions being given in the following order : English, Scotch, Canadians, Americans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Swiss, Poles, Russians, Italians, French, Negroes, Hindoos, Australians, and a solitary Chinese. Whatever their nation or their sacerdotal rank, they must work with their hands, the church and the state finding work when private employ is scarce or is refused. The diligence of the Mormons, indeed, struck M. Remy, like all other observers, with surprise, the only trade unrepresented being the physician's. Physic is never used, and a resort to it would be considered an evidence of infidelity, disease being cured by herbs, olive-oil, and prayer.
This collection of all nationalities is as orderly as a European city. The rowdyism which infests American cities is totally absent, brawls are unknown, and the state judges declare that they have little to do except to decide on debts. -Liquor shops, gaming houses, and brothels are forbidden, though out-of-door games and drilling are en- couraged, and theatricals and other amusements provided in the Social Hall, a building erected by the Church. The state of order is supported by severe laws, which inflict death for murder, dueling, and adultery, and impose high penalties on the keeping of the for- bidden establishments, playing games of chance, and seduction, the latter offence being punished with twenty years' imprisonment. Besides these laws are others enacted by the Church, and, it is believed, carried out by the Church, though M. Remy declares he found no evidence whatever of the Danites, who are supposed to carry out the orders of the "prophet" even to the extent of taking life. M. Remy, however, confirms the idea that Brigham Young is a temporal as well as spiritual chief. He affirms emphatically over and over again that lie is a Sovereign, theoretically and practically absolute, as absolute as a pope, and though holding a semi-annual election, which is a mere farce, still reigning by virtue not of elec- tion but of divine appointment. He has a palace, the largest harem in the country, and property valued at four hundred thousand dollars, and never removes Ms hat to one of his own people—a curious little mark of the monarchical spirit. The Church is incarnate in him, but it acts also through another power, the Great Council, an institution which M. Remy has, we think, been the first to describe. It is, he says,
"An ecclesiastical tribunal, the members of which are selected from the body of high-priests, and which sits, at intervals more or less long, for the purpose of adjudicating, nut merely on religious matters, but also on matters which in other places are brought before the civil courts. At every trial the members of the councildivide themselves into two parts, one of which acts for the defendant, or, as the Mormons say, for mercy, and the other against him, or, as it is styled, for justice. . . . . No one knows beforehand the members who will compose either of these groups; they are chosen by lot after the question to be decided is brought before the court. The court, by a special vote, fixes the number of members who are to speak for or against the defendant, and this number varies according to the gravity of the charge. The President of the Great Council, who is always its senior member, gives his judgment as soon as the pleadings are over, and it is upon this judgment that the votes of the other members are taken. Almost always the President's judgment is unanimously confirmed; but when there is not unanimity, the opposing members are called upon to give the reasons of their disagreement, and then the verdict is decided by the majority. The Great Council, so the Mormons confess, is not regulated by special laws or technical terms,—I ant using their own expressions,—but judges according to evi- dence and the plain justice of the case. Should the parties be dissatisfied with the judgment, they can appeal to the first Presidency, and in the last resort to the great semi-annual conference before the whole people. Up to this time it does not appear that there has been any instance of such an appeal.
It is added that this council constantly withdraws cases front before the regular tribunals, and that time President gives his decree on the advice of Brigham Young. The council, it is adniitted, is a tyranny, but M. Remy thinks it is usually just, though, as he allows, an adroit mode of defeating the United States constitution. He does not inform us how its sentences are executed, though there is no want of physical force at its back, and the only persons who can resist are the gentiles, or residents not Mormons, who number less than two hundred. He affirms also that the Mormons heartily acquiesce in this form of government, which they hold to be at once reasonable and right, and consequently implicitly obey orders received. How far a spirit of secret revolt permeates Mormonism must remain unknown, but M. Remy saw no evidence of it, and it is quite possible it does not exist. The Mormons are almost without exception not only illiterate, but hostile to education; they are physically comfortable, and they are actively employed. To men so situated, implicit reliance on one strong guiding intellect, seldom oppressive, and never feeble, is almost a luxury. We would not guarantee the liberalism of the Romnans if the Pope were a Sextus Quintus of the nineteenth century, governing absolutely but governing well, and careful to keep Ins people fat and contented.
The social gangrene of Mormonism, which will one day cause a revolution in the organization of Utah, is polygamy. Upon this sub- iect M. Remy is clear and emphatic. Polygamy exists in the State in its very worst form, some men having as many as twenty wives, little attention being paid to relationships—the president, for example, marrying in one case a lady and her daughter—and a system of proxies existing on which it is well not to be diffuse. This system, which though a mystery of the Church, M. Remy believes to be in full force, supplies, for the time, the place of the husband who hap- pens to be on his travels, or who is dead, a natural enough develop- ment of the Mormon doctrines, which M. Remy has been the first to record. We are not 'concerned with the traveller's arguments for and against the institution, or with the insufferable physiological trash lie puts into the mouth of one of his interlocutors. Science no less than morality has long ago decided that the sexes being born equal, every man with two wives deprives somebody else of one, and that polygamy tends to anything rather than the rapid population of the country in which it exists. The only point of interest is the working of time system, and of this M. Remy gives an unusually favourable account. He says, the Mormons are too industrious to be licentious, and are, as a rule, persons of chaste lives, while the women are decorous, quite beyond the ordinary reproach of more civilized countries, and appear to be tolerably content. He suspects, however, this may be feigned, and gives one horrible story of an affair which occurred before his own eyes, in which the wife of a " missionary," whose hospitality he had often enjoyed, was driven out with blows at time instigation of the second wife, because she would not permit her own daughter to become the third. Little evidence is required beyond the fact that such a scene could occur, and ' brother Joseph" still remain an honoured missionary of the sect. `The truth we believe to be in Utah what it is in Mussulman countries, viz. that a severe external decorum, enforced by penalties extending to death, covers boundless discontent, and whenever terror is removed, boundless licentiousness. The following table, carefully prepared in 1858 by the officers of the United States army, will show how general is the practice among the aristocracy of the desert city :
Husbands with seven wives and upwards 387 Husbands with five wives . 730 Husbands with four wives 1100 Husbands with more than one wife, and less than four 1400 8617
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