116 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



belligerents, but the little army, having been refreshed, goes 

 on its way and in due time reaches Salt Lake City, which it 

 finds deserted. Having taken formal possession of the place, 

 the arm 3^ moves off to a locality where it can quietly repose 

 itself after the exploit, it having orders to molest the Saints 

 no longer. Other troops follow in the wake of this gallant 

 vanguard, and numerous trains follow these, laden with pro- 

 visions and munitions of war. They arrive in Utah and find 

 peace declared and the enemy not only going unpunished, but 

 as saucy and insulting as ever, and revelling in the pickings 

 it gleans from the very army which it was so lately in arms 

 against and with armed impudence defying in the rock-bound 

 fastness of Echo Caiion. 



Still when we remember how the Mormons were persecuted 

 by the people of Illinois and Missouri, we cannot wonder at 

 the bitter feeling they bear towards Americans in general, 

 particularly as the State authorities did so little to check the 

 persecution. B}^ pitiless mobs they were the victims of mur- 

 ders and other outrages. The memories of these kept alive 

 the most bitter feelings. Tar forms an attractive background 

 for feathers, but for the purpose of cementing friendship be- 

 tween the Mormons and Western Americans it proved a dismal 

 failure. 



In regard to the people of Salt Lake City, then regarded in 

 the East as a set of fanatical brutes, I was agreeably disap- 

 pointed in them. Though generally ignorant, they were in- 

 dustrious and sober. Intelligence was generally confined to 

 the leaders, but not altogether. I was an uninvited listener, 

 one evening, to an argument between a Mormon lady and a 

 Gentile of the opposite sex. The former was refined in ap- 

 pearance, and her intelligence was manifest in the way she 

 met the arguments of her opponent. She was the defender 

 of the Mormon faith, inclusive of polygamy. To see a woman 

 among these people well dressed and intelligent was startling. 



