were deeply enlisted in behalf of the Mormons, as will be further seen.

"Ascending the upper Mississippi in the autumn (1846), when its waters were low, I was obliged to travel by land past the region of the rapids. I had left the steamer at Keokuk, at the foot of the lower fall, and hired a carriage to where the deep water of the river returns. I was descending the last hillside upon my journey, when a charming landscape broke upon my view.

Half encircled by a bend in the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the morning sun. Its bright new buildings were set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately, dome-shaped hill, which was crowned by a noble marble edifice, whose high, tapering spire was radiant with white and gold.

"The city appeared to cover several miles, and behind it in the background there rolled off a fair country, checkered by the careful lines of industry, enterprise, and educated wealth; everywhere the scene was one of singular and most striking beauty.

"It was natural to visit this interesting region. I was rowed across the river, landing at the chief wharf of the city. No one met me there. I looked and saw no one. I could hear no one. It was quiet everywhere, save for the buzzing of the flies and the water-ripples on the shallow of the beach. The town lay in a dream, under some deadening spell of loneliness, from which I almost feared to waken it, for plainly it had not slept long. There was no grass growing up in the paved ways; rain had not entirely washed out the prints of dusty footsteps; yet I went about unchecked into empty workshops, rope-walks, and smithies. The spinner's wheel was idle, shavings were on the carpenter's work-bench, fresh bark was in the tanner's vat, light wood stood piled

1

against the baker's oven. No work-people looked to learn my errand. I went into gardens, clinking the latch loudly after me, to pull the marigolds, heartsease, and lady-slippers; drank from a well with a noisy chain, but no one called out to me from the windows or dog came forward to bark an alarm. The house-doors were all unfastened, and when at last I timidly entered them, I found dead ashes white upon the hearths, and awoke irreverent echoes by walking over the naked floors. On the outside of the town was the city graveyard, but there was no record of a plague. Some of the stones were newly set, and their dates recent. Beyond the graveyard, out in the fields, I saw where the fruited boughs of a young orchard had been torn down, and noticed the still smouldering remains of a barbecue fire, which had been made from the fence-rails that surrounded it. It was the latest sign of life there; fields upon fields of yellow grain lay rotting around.

"Only two portions of the city seemed to suggest the import of this mysterious solitude. In the southern suburb the houses looking out upon the country showed, by their splintered woodwork and walls battered to their foundations, that they had lately been the mark of a destructive cannonading. In and around the splendid temple, which had been the chief object of my admiration, armed men were barracked with their stacks of musketry and pieces of heavy ordnance. These challenged me, and wondered I had had the temerity to cross the river without a written order from their leader. They told me the story of the dead city; that it had been a great manufacturing and commercial mart, sheltering over twenty thousand persons; that they had waged war for several years with its inhabitants, and had only lately been successful in driving them away at the

point of the sword. They boasted of their powers in the three days' battle, and of their exploits; told how they killed a boy of fifteen and his father, who had just become residents, and whom they admitted were without reproach. They conducted me to the sculptured walls of the curious temple, where they said the banished in- . habitants had been accustomed to celebrate the mystic rites of an unhallowed worship, and pointed out certain features of the building which they had sedulously destroyed as having been peculiar objects of a former superstitious regard. There was a deep well in one of the chambers, which they said had been constructed with some dreadful design; and they told me romantic stories of a great marble basin supported by twelve oxen the size of life. They said 'here parents went into the water for their lost children, and children for their parents;' widows for their spouses, and young persons for their lovers;' and thus the great vase' was associated to them with tender memories, and was the object of all others in the building of the most idolatrous affection. They permitted me to ascend to the steeple to see where it had been struck by lightning the Sunday previous, and to look out east and west on wasted farms, like the one mentioned, extending until they were lost in the distance.

"It was nightfall when I crossed the river on my return. The water was rough, so I made for a point higher up, landing where a faint glimmering light invited me to steer. Here among the rushes, sheltered only by the darkness, were several hundred human creatures in an uneasy slumber on the ground. My movements roused them. Dreadful indeed were the sufferings of these forsaken beings, bowed and cramped by the cold and sunburn alternating, as each weary day and

night dragged on. Almost all of them were the crippled victims of disease. They were there because they had no homes, nor hospital, nor poorhouse, nor friend to offer them any. They were all alike bivouacked in tatters. These were Mormons turned out of Nauvoo, too poor, too ill, to follow their more fortunate companions, who were en route for Council Bluffs. There were six hundred and forty persons thus lying on the Iowa flats opposite Nauvoo, and the last who were turned out of it."

Mrs. Emma Smith, the true wife of the first Mormon Prophet, with her children and several of the elder members of the numerous Smith family who had followed the fortunes of Joseph to Nauvoo, did not leave the neighborhood of the city to go west with the other Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young. Mrs. Smith afterward married Major L. C. Bidamon, and died a few years ago.

The temple, after being partially destroyed by the militia in 1846, was burned in 1848. Two years later it was partly rebuilt by the French Icorrians (brought to Nauvoo by Monsieur Cabet, the Socialist) for their own use; but a terrible tornado in 1850 threw most of the splendid edifice to the ground.

The rise, progress, and destruction of Nauvoo occupied seven years. Its history is as wonderful as that of any city ever built, and many of its mysteries have yet to be told.

CHAPTER X.*

The journey through the wilderness-The arrival of the Saints in Utah-The early political situation of the Mormons in "the Land of the Honey Bee'-The Mountain Meadow butchery-The influence of the Mormons over the Indians.

WE have seen how Brigham Young hastened from Boston to Nauvoo, "convinced of his right to lead the people," and that the Mormons willingly yielded to his conviction, and obeyed him implicitly. He was at this time under forty years of age. He is said to have had a most prepossessing countenance, a very frank and pleasing address, and to have had the art of inspiring enthusiasm without allowing it to influence his own motives or actions.

We have also seen that, owing to his persuasive eloquence, Rigdon had been sent adrift, and that he had commanded that the temple should be completed, as he said, to fulfil Joseph Smith's " revelation" to that effect, but probably to make plans for the future welfare of the Saints. Seeing that their position was fraught with dangers of both a seen and unseen character, he determined that it must be changed-in short, that his followers must seek "pastures new," find fresh surroundings and possibilities somewhere. Meanwhile he announced to his people that they must be ready to

* In continuation of the history of the wanderings of the Saints from Kirtland to Deseret, and the events following in their career up to the present time, the most reliable authorities upon this subject have been carefully consulted.