188 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



this absurd and incredible faith. There were also many 

 poor wretches from different parts of England, mostly of 

 the farm-labouring class, with wives and families, crawling 

 along with helpless and almost idiotic despair, but urged 

 forward by the fanatic leaders of the movement, who pro- 

 mised them a land flowing with milk and honey to reward 

 them for all their hardships and privations. 



Their numbers were soon reduced by want and disease. 

 When too late, they often wished themselves back in the 

 old country, and sighed many a time for the beer and 

 bacon of former days, now preferable to the dry buffalo- 

 meat (but seldom obtainable) of the Far West. 



Evil fortune pursued the Mormons, and dogged their 

 steps. The year following, some struggled on towards the 

 promised land, and of these a few reached Oregon and 

 California. Many were killed by hostile Indians ; many 

 perished of hunger, cold, and thirst, in passing the great 

 wilderness ; and many returned to the States, penniless 

 and crestfallen, and heartily cursing the moment in which 

 they had listened to the counsels of the Mormon prophet. 

 The numbers who reached their destination* of Oregon, 

 California, and the Great Salt Lake, are computed at 20,000, 

 of whom the United States had an unregretted riddance. 



One party had followed the troops of the American 

 Government intended for the conquest of New Mexico and 

 the Calif ornias. Of these a battalion was formed, and part 

 of it proceeded to Upper California ; but the way being 

 impracticable for waggons, some seventy families pro- 

 ceeded up the Arkansa, and wintered near the mountains, 

 intending to cross to the Platte the ensuing spring, and join 

 the main body of emigrants on their way by the South 

 Pass of the Rocky Mountains. 



In the wide and well-timbered bottom of the Arkansa, 

 the Mormons had erected a street of log shanties in which 

 to pass the inclement winter. These were built of rough 

 logs of cotton- wood laid one above the other, the interstices 

 filled with mud, and rendered impervious to wind or wet. 

 At one end of the row of shanties was built the " church " 

 or temple a long building of huge logs, in which the 



