340 Beyond the Sierrati. 



United States. You tind yourself circled entirely around with the mount- 

 ains. The air is exceedingly clear, and the mountain wall seems to rise 

 almost perpendicularly from the valley. The lake is not visible from the 

 city, and the aspect is very desert-like and oriental. A few trees have been 

 planted here and there along the highways issuing from the city ; l»ut other- 

 wise there is no symptom of vegetivble life. Still, you perceive from the 

 markets that the region is productive in the highest degree, and doubtless a 

 traveler in summer would find everything green and flourishing. I take it 

 that the facilitie.s for irrigation are as great as the exigency, and alreadj' the 

 Salt Lakers have availed themselves of the water supply of the mountains. 



Hundreds of correspondents and book-writer.s have already described 

 the running water in all the gutters of Salt Lake. Here it goes, in quite a 

 sluice, between the broad sidewalks and the still broader streets. I discov- 

 ered in and around the city a large display of municipal common sense. 

 The thoroughfares are hardlj' less than a hundred feet in width, and every- 

 thing is as clean as a pin. The place impressed me as being especially- 

 orderly and well-directed in all civic matters. I do not know who is respon- 

 sible for the good management displayed in this Mormon metropolis; but 

 the management is here, and I suppose it must be set down to thf- rredit of 

 the saints. 



Over most of the principal establishments in iSalt Luke City you tind the 

 cabalistic Z. C. M. I. The writer was green enough not to know at first 

 what they stand for, but soon discovered that the meaning is Zion'.-^ Co-oper- 

 ative Mercantile Institution. I was not aware, until visiting the place, that 

 co-operative industries were a part of the Mormon system : but that is their 

 idea of doing the business. I found, however, by a little close inquiry, that 

 the co-operation is generally run in the interest of the co-operators ; and 

 that means that little syndicate*, organized after the manner of white 

 men, have got control of what were intended to be really popular institution* 

 of trade, and are running them for their own benefit. So the saints are even 

 as the rest of us. But I found that prices were materially lower under the 

 influence of the system than in other places where the cupidity of the sell- 

 ers has no check at all. I went through the largest mercantile establishment 

 in the city, sizing it up in a casual way, as to its methods and peculiarities. 

 All the employes are Mormons; but I could not discover any particular 

 symptom of sanctimony. The young saints behind the desks and the ]>retty 

 saintesses at the counters were not perceptibly difl'erent from the young 

 people who sell and chat and court a little in the other big store- of the 

 country. 



It came to pass, in ancient times, in the reigns of King Tyler and King 

 Polk, that a certain Smith, whose surname was Joseph, arose and did 

 strangely in the land. He found a certain book of the prophets which he 

 took for the man of his counsel, and thought himself a holy man after his 

 kind. On a certain day, as he walked among the tents of the patriarchs, he 

 saw a ccrtiiin woman whose name was Poly Gamy. Her he took unto him- 



