MORMON LILIES 



most impressively sublime I ever beheld. 

 Snowy, ice-sculptured ranges bounded the 

 horizon all around, while the great lake, eighty 

 miles long and fifty miles wide, lay fully re 

 vealed beneath a lily sky. The shore-lines, 

 marked by a ribbon of white sand, were seen 

 sweeping around many a bay and promon 

 tory in elegant curves, and picturesque islands 

 rising to mountain heights, and some of them 

 capped with pearly cumuli. And the wide 

 prairie of water glowing in the gold and purple 

 of evening presented all the colors that tint the 

 lips of shells and the petals of lilies the most 

 beautiful lake this side of the Rocky Moun 

 tains. Utah Lake, lying thirty-five miles to 

 the south, was in full sight also, and the river 

 Jordan, which links the two together, may be 

 traced in silvery gleams throughout its whole 

 course. 



Descending the mountain, I followed the 

 windings of the main central glen on the north, 

 gathering specimens of the cones and sprays 

 of the evergreens, and most of the other new 

 plants I had met; but the lilies formed the 

 crowning glory of my bouquet the grandest 

 I had carried in many a day. I reached the 

 hotel on the lake about dusk with all my fresh 

 riches, and my first mountain ramble in Utah 

 was accomplished. On my way back to the 

 133 



