136 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



young enough to have needed the consent of parents or guar- 

 dians to his hymeneal venture. 



Under various pretexts we were kept at Beaver till the 24th. 

 Time passed slowly, for our provisions were going fast. We 

 spent it lounging around our campfire, practicing with our 

 rifles on imaginary Indians, and in making pumpkin pie raids 

 on the Mormon huts. We at last started on our way. The 

 mountains on the south we passed by a stony canon, and de- 

 scended to the valley of Little Salt Lake, where w^e encamped 

 after dark by a brackish spring in the centre of a green meadow 

 — a real oasis in the desert. The next day we came in sight 

 of the lake itself, which is fifteen miles long and embosomed 

 in a desert valley, and has no visible outlet. 



In the afternoon we reached Hed Creek settlement, which 

 was built on a plan admirably adapted for resisting Indian 

 attacks. An adobe wall, twenty feet high and pierced by a 

 single gateway, enclosed an area of one hundred feet each way, 

 and formed the rear wall for ranges of dwellings fronting on 

 the hollow square, where cattle and other belongings could be 

 kept at night. We reached Parowan before sunset, and camped 

 within its walls. This town is two hundred and fifty miles 

 south of Salt Lake, is among the oldest of the Mormon settle- 

 ments and, with one exception, the best-built town I saw in 

 Utah. It is surrounded by a wall twelve feet high and a mile 

 around, and the public square is enclosed by a picket fence and 

 planted with shade trees. Its people numbered about eight 

 hundred. 



Three of us visited one of the citizens after supper. As we 

 wanted to buy some provender, we were cordially met and 

 ushered into a common room, in which there was a bed 

 suggestively wide. We spent an entertaining evening talking 

 on matters not remarkably deep.. While on the Utah war, of 

 the incidents and causes of which he was profoundly ignorant, 

 my host said, "Uncle Sam's President now, ain't he?" I 



