Part 14

We started at seven this morning, came down to the old Salt Lake, Oregon, and California Trail at the Sweetwater, crossed and left that creek finally, and traversed a slightly rolling country for seven miles to the “Twin Buttes,” two low, clay-topped mounds which mark the point from which the water runs easterly to the Gulf of Mexico, and westerly to the Pacific. If any one has pictured to himself the South Pass as threading some narrow, winding, difficult, rocky mountain-gorge, he is grievously mistaken. The trail through the South Pass is the best part of the route from Atchison to California; the clay has here been almost wholly washed away and carried off, so that the road passes over a coarse, heavy, gravelly sand, usually as compact and smooth as the best illustrations of the genius of MacAdam. I never before traversed forty-five miles of purely natural road so faultless as that through the South Pass which I have traveled to-day. But this tract would be good for roads, as it seems absolutely good for nothing else. The natural obstacles to constructing a railroad through this region are not comparable to those overcome in the construction of the Camden and Amboy.

Passing the Twin Buttes—the distance between the mountains on the north and the hills on the south being not less than thirty miles, and thenceforth westward rapidly widening—we ran down the side of a dry, shallow water-course some five miles, to a wet, springy marsh or morass of fifteen or twenty acres, covered with poor, coarse grass, in which are found the so-called “Pacific Springs.” The water is clear and cold, but bad. Perhaps the number of dead cattle of which the skeletons dot the marsh, made it so distasteful to me. At all events, I could not drink it. This bog is long and narrow; and from its western end issues a petty brook, which takes its way south-westwardly to the Sandy, Green River, the Colorado and the Gulf of California. Hence, toward the south and west, no hills are visible—nothing but a sandy, barren plain, mainly covered with the miserable sage-bush.

Twelve miles further on, we crossed _Dry_ Sandy—not quite dry at this point, but its thirsty sands would surely drink the last of it a mile or so further south. Five miles beyond this, the old and well-beaten Oregon Trail strikes off to the north-west, while our road bends to the south-west. We are now out of the South Pass, which many have traversed unconsciously, and gone on wondering and inquiring when they should reach it. Seven miles further brought us to _Little_ Sandy, and eight more to _Big_ Sandy, whereon is the station at which, at four P. M. we (by order), stopped for the night. All these creeks appear to rise in the high mountains many miles north of us, and to run off with constantly diminishing volume, to join the Colorado at the south. Neither has a tree on its banks that I have seen—only a few low willow bushes at long intervals—though I hear that some cotton-wood is found on this creek ten miles above. Each has a “bottom” or intervale of perhaps four rods in average width, in which a little grass is found, but next to none on the high-sandy plains that separate them. Drouth and sterility reign here without rival.

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FORT BRIDGER, Utah, _July 8, 1859_.

We crossed Big Sandy twice before quitting it—once just at the station where the above was written, and again eighteen miles further on. Twelve miles more brought us to Green River—a stream here perhaps as large as the Mohawk at Schenectady or the Hudson at Waterford. It winds with a rapid, muddy current through a deep, narrow valley, much of it sandy and barren, but the residue producing some grass with a few large cotton-woods at intervals, and some worthless bushes. There are three rope ferries within a short distance, and two or three trading-posts, somewhat frequented by Indians of the Snake tribe. Eighteen miles more of perfect desolation brought us to the next mail company’s station on Black’s Fork, at the junction of Ham’s Fork, two-large mill-streams that rise in the mountains south and west of this point, and run together into Green River. They have scarcely any timber on their banks, but a sufficiency of bushes—bitter cotton-wood, willow, choke-cherry, and some others new to me—with more grass than I have found this side of the South Pass. On these streams live several old mountaineers, who have large herds of cattle which they are rapidly increasing by a lucrative traffic with the emigrants, who are compelled to exchange their tired, gaunt oxen and steers for fresh ones on almost any terms. R. D., whose tent we passed last evening, is said to have six or eight hundred head; and, knowing the country perfectly, finds no difficulty in keeping them through summer and winter by frequently shifting them from place to place over a circuit of thirty or forty miles. J. R., who has been here some twenty-odd years, began with little or nothing, and has quietly accumulated some fifty horses, three or four hundred head of neat cattle, three squaws, and any number of half-breed children. He is said to be worth seventy-five thousand dollars, though he has not even a garden, has probably not tasted an apple nor a peach these ten years, and lives in a tent which would be dear at fifty dollars. I instance this gentleman’s way of life not by any means to commend it, but to illustrate the habits of a class. White men with two or three squaws each are quite common throughout this region, and young and relatively comely Indian girls are bought from their fathers by white men as regularly and openly as Circassians at Constantinople. The usual range of prices is from forty to eighty dollars—about that of Indian horses. I hear it stated that, though all other trade may be dull, that in young squaws is always brisk on Green River and the North Platte. That women so purchased should be discarded or traded off, as satiety or avarice may suggest, and that they should desert or deceive their purchasers on the slightest temptation, can surprise no one. I met an Irishman on Big Sandy whose squaw had recently gone off with an Indian admirer, leaving him two clever, bright, half-breed children of seven and five years. I trust that plank in the republican national platform, which affirms the right and duty of Congressional prohibition, not only of slavery in the territories but of polygamy also, is destined to be speedily embodied in a law.

We passed yesterday the two places at which a body of Mormons late in 1857, surprised and burned the supply-trains following in the rear of the federal troops sent against them. The wagons were burned in corral, and the place where each stood is still distinctly marked on the ground. It seems incredible, yet I am assured it is undoubtedly true, that none of the military officers who were severally dispatched from Kansas, late that season on the road to Salt Lake without a commander and with no definite instructions, was directed to afford any protection or give any feed to these important towns. It is lamentable that presidents and secretaries of war are not subject to court-martials.

We have for the last two days been passing scores of good log or ox-chains—in one instance, a hundred feet together—which, having been thrown away by California emigrants to lighten the loads of their famished, failing cattle, have lain in the road for months, if not years, passed and noted by thousands, but by none thought worth picking up. One would suppose that the traders, the herdsmen, the Indians, or some other of the residents of this region, would deem these chains worth having, but they do not. I had already become accustomed to the sight of wagon-tire, wagon-boxes, etc., rejected and spurned in this way; but good, new chains thus begging for owners, I have only noted this side of the South Pass. They are said to be still more abundant further on.

This morning, I was agreeably surprised by a greeting from three acquaintances I made in Denver, who invited me to share their outfit and journey to California, who left Denver the morning before I did, and beside whom I camped my first night on the road to Laramie. They are just through the Cherokee Trail, entering the mountains at Cache-la-Poudre and crossing Green River by a ferry some thirty miles below the point at which I did. They were detained one day making a raft on which to ferry their wagon over the North Platte, and found some rough places in the mountains; at one of which they were obliged to unhitch their horses and let their wagon down a steep pitch by ropes. They found the water of Bitter Creek—along which lies their road for a hundred miles or so—bitter indeed; and in some places grass was deficient; but their horses look nearly as well as when they left Denver. Their route has of course been some two hundred and fifty miles shorter than mine, and they will reach Salt Lake scarcely a day behind me. I wish I had been able to accompany them on their rugged and little-traveled route.

On the other side of the Pass, we had mainly clear, hot days; on this side, they are cloudy and cool. We had a little shower of rain with abundance of wind night before last, another shower last night, and more rain is now threatened. Yet all old residents assure me that rain in Summer is very rare throughout this region.

We stop to-night at a point only one hundred miles from Salt Lake, with two rugged mountains to cross, so that we are not to reach that stopping-place till Monday.

XIX. FROM BRIDGER TO SALT LAKE.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, _July 11, 1859_.

Fort Bridger, whence my last was sent, may be regarded as the terminus in this direction of the Great American Desert. Not that the intervening country is fertile or productive, for it is neither; but at Bridger its character visibly changes. The hills we here approach are thinly covered with a straggling growth of low, scraggy cedar; the sage-bush continues even into this valley, but it is no longer universal and almost alone; grass is more frequent and far more abundant; Black’s Fork, which, a few miles below, runs whitish with the clay-wash of the desert, is here a clear, sparkling mountain torrent, divided into half a dozen streams by the flat, pebbly islets on which the little village—or rather post—is located; while, twelve miles up its course, an improvement of 500 acres, begun some years since by the Mormons, has this season been put under cultivation, with flattering prospects. Oats, barley, potatoes, peas, etc., are the crops sought; and the enterprising growers have contracts for the supply of Fort Bridger at prices which will insure them a liberal return in case they realize even a moderate yield. This may seem a small matter; but I doubt that there are, in all, 500 acres more under cultivation in the 250,000 square miles or more lying between the forks of the Platte on the east, the Salt Lake Basin on the west, the settlements of New Mexico on the south, and the Yellow Stone on the north. Yet in this radius are included several military posts at which every bushel of grain consumed costs an average of $5, while potatoes and other edible roots would command nearly as good prices, could they be had. There are herdsmen at intervals throughout all this region who have each their hundreds of heads of cattle, but who hardly know the taste of a potato or turnip, who have never planted nor sowed an acre, and never contemplated the possibility of growing an apple or cherry, though they expect to live and die in this region. I trust, therefore, that the Fort Bridger enterprise will succeed, and that it will incite to like experiments in the vicinity of each wilderness post. The present enormous cost of our military service in this immense desert may thus be slightly compensated by proving the great desert not absolutely worthless, and creating a basis of civilization for its rude, nomadic, lawless, but hardy, bold, and energetic pioneers.

From Fort Bridger (named after an Indian trader who first settled here; then settled as an outpost and relief-station by the Mormons when they began to people this valley, but abandoned by them on the approach, late in ’57, of the army, by which it has since been held) the Salt Lake trail rises over a high, broad ridge, then descends a very steep, rocky, difficult hill to Big Muddy, a branch of Black’s Fork, where—12 miles from Bridger—is the Mail Company’s station, at which we had expected to spend the night. But the next drive is 60 miles, and our new conductor wisely decided to cut a piece off of it that evening, as the road at the other end was hazardous in a dark night. So we moved on a little after sundown, rising over another broad ridge, and, after narrowly escaping an upset in a gully dug in the trail by that day’s violent shower, camped 15 miles on, a little after 11 P. M. The sky was densely clouded; the moon nearly down; it was raining a little and blowing more, as we lay down to rest, most of us under the sullen sky. An hour or more thereafter, our mules (which were simply tied in pairs by long ropes and thus turned out to graze) were somehow disturbed, and our stage-men challenged and stood ready to repel the supposed depredator. He proved, however, to be a friend, traveling on mule-back from Bridger to this place, who had wandered off the trail in the deep darkness, and perhaps been carried among our animals by the fondness of his own for congenial society; so all was soon right, and the new comer unsaddled, pulled off his blankets, and was soon couched among us. At daylight we were all astir, and drove down to Bear River, only three or four miles distant, for breakfast.

We halted before crossing, beside what is here called a grocery, the only other structure on that side of the river being a blacksmith’s shop (consisting, I believe, of a bellows and anvil under the open sky), to which some part of our rigging was sent for repair, while we prepared and ate breakfast. There were two or three men sleeping in wet blankets on the grass, who rose and made a fire on our appearance. The grocery was irregularly constructed of boxes which had once contained goods, but, having fulfilled that end, were thus made useful afresh. I suppose it was six feet high, and five by eight in diameter, though no two of its sides were of the same height. An old tent-cloth for covering completed the edifice, from which we obtained sardines, canned lobster, and prepared coffee which was said to contain sugar and cream, but which was voted by our drinkers a swindling humbug. I believe these articles exhausted the capabilities of the concern; but, as we had bread, we needed no more. Some of our party thought otherwise, however; they called for whisky or some kindred beverage, and were indignantly disgusted at its non-production. They had become inured to groceries containing nothing that could by possibility be eaten; but a grocery devoid of some kind of “rot,” as the fiery beverage was currently designated, was to them a novel and most distasteful experience. However, a man was at once dispatched across the creek to a similar establishment, but more happily furnished, whence he soon returned with the indispensable fluid (price $3 for a flask containing perhaps a pint and a half of some diabolic alcoholic concoction, wherein the small modicum of genuine whisky had taken to itself seven other devils worse than the first), and our breakfast was finished to general satisfaction.

A word here on the liquor traffic throughout this region. A mercantile firm in this city, in order to close out promptly its extra stock of liquors, offers to sell whisky at the extraordinarily low price of $3 50 per gallon. I believe the common price from Laramie westward to the Sierra Nevada is $8 per gallon; but it is usually sold to consumers by the bottle, holding less than a quart, for which the charge is $2 up to $3 50, but seldom below $2 50. And such liquor! True, I have not tasted it; but the smell I could not escape; and I am sure a more wholesome potable might be compounded of spirits of turpentine, aqua fortis, and steeped tobacco. Its look alone would condemn it—soapy, ropy, turbid, it is within bounds to say that every pint of it contains as much deadly poison as a gallon of pure whisky. And yet fully half the earnings of the working men (not including the Mormons, of whom I have yet seen little) of this whole region are fooled away on this abominable witch-broth and its foster-brother tobacco, for which they pay $1 to 2 50 per pound! The log-tavern-keeper at Weber, of whom our mail-boys bought their next supply of “rot,” apologetically observed, “There a’n’t nothing bad about this whisky; the only fault is, it isn’t good.” I back that last assertion with my whole heart.

Fording Bear River—here a swift, rocky-bottomed creek, now perhaps forty yards wide, but hardly three feet deep—we rose gradually through a grassy valley, partially inclosed by high, perpendicular stone Buttes, especially on the right. The stone (evidently once clay) outposts of one of the Buttes are known as “The Needles.” We thence descended a long, steep hill into the valley of “Lost Creek,”—_why_ “lost,” I could not divine, as the creek is plainly there—a fair trout-brook, running through a grassy meadow, between high hills, over which we made our way into the head of “Echo Cañon,” down which we jogged some twenty miles to Weber River.

This cañon reminded me afresh that evil and good are strongly interwoven in our early lot. Throughout the desolate region which stretches from the Sweetwater nearly or quite to Bridger, we had in the main the best natural road I ever traveled—dusty, indeed, and, in places, abrupt and rough, but equal in the average to the carefully-made and annually-repaired roads of New England. But in this fairly-grassed ravine, hemmed in by steep, picturesque bluffs, with springs issuing from their bases, and gradually gathering into a trout-brook as we neared the Weber, we found the “going decidedly bad,” and realized that in the dark it could not but be dangerous. For the brook, with its welcome fringe of yellow, choke-cherry, service-berry, and other shrubs, continually zigzagged from side to side of the cañon, compelling us to descend and ascend its precipitous banks, and cross its sometimes miry bed, often with a smart chance of breaking an axle, or upsetting.

We stopped to feed and dine at the site of “General Well’s Camp” during the Mormon War of 1857–8, and passed, ten miles below, the fortifications constructed under his orders in that famous campaign. They seem childish affairs, more suited to the genius of Chinese than of civilized warfare. I cannot believe that they would have stopped the Federal troops, if even tolerably led, for more than an hour.

We reached our next station on the Weber, a little after 5, P. M., and did not leave till after an early breakfast next (yesterday) morning. The Weber is, perhaps, a little larger than the Bear, and runs through a deep, narrow, rugged valley, with no cultivation so far as we saw it. Two “groceries,” a blacksmith’s shop, and the mail-station, are all the habitations we passed in following down it some four or five miles to the shaky pole-bridge, on which we crossed, though it is usually fordable. We soon after struck off up a rather steep, grassy water-course which we followed to its head, and thence took over a “divide” to the head of another such, on which our road wound down to “East Cañon Creek,” a fair, rapid trout-brook, running through a deep, narrow ravine, up which we twisted, crossing and recrossing the swift stream, until we left it, greatly diminished in volume, after tracking it through a mile or so of low, swampy timber, and frequent mud-holes, and turned up a little runnel that came feebly brawling down the side of a mountain. The trail ran for a considerable distance exactly in the bed of this petty-brooklet—said bed consisting wholly of round, water-worn granite bowlders, of all sizes, from that of a pigeon’s egg up to that of a potash-kettle; when the ravine widened a little, and the trail wound from side to side of the water-course as chances for a foothold were proffered by one or the other. The bottom of this ravine was poorly timbered with quaking-asp, and balsam-fir, with some service-berry, choke-cherry, mountain currant, and other bushes; the whole ascent is four miles, not very steep, except for the last half-mile; but the trail is so bad, that it is a good two hours’ work to reach the summit. But, that summit gained, we stand in a broad, open, level space on the top of the Wahsatch range, with the Uintah and Bear Mountains on either hand, forming a perfect chaos of wild, barren peaks, some of them snowy, between which we have a glance at a part of the Salt Lake Valley, some thirty miles distant, though the city, much nearer, is hidden by intervening heights, and the lake is likewise concealed further to the right. The descent toward the valley is steeper and shorter than the ascent from the side of Bear River—the first half-mile so fearfully steep, that I judge few passengers ever rode down it, though carriage-wheels are uniformly chained here. But, though the southern face of these mountains is covered by a far more luxuriant shrubbery than the northern, among which oaks and maples soon make their appearance for the first time in many a weary hundred miles. None of these seem ever to grow into trees; in fact, I saw none over six feet high. Some quaking-asps, from ten to twenty-five feet high, the largest hardly more than six inches through, cover patches of these precipitous mountain-sides, down which, and over the low intervening mountain, they are toilsomely dragged fifteen or twenty miles to serve as fuel in this city, where even such poor trash sells for fifteen to twenty dollars per cord. The scarcity and wretchedness of the timber—(I have not seen the raw material for a decent ax-helve growing in all my last thousand miles of travel)—are the great discouragement and drawback with regard to all this region. The parched sandy clay, or clayey sand of the plains disappeared many miles back; there has been rich, black soil, at least in the valleys, ever since we crossed Weber River; but the timber is still scarce, small, and poor, in the ravines, while ninety-nine hundredths of the surface of the mountains is utterly bare of it. In the absence of coal, how can a region so unblest ever be thickly settled, and profitably cultivated?