However, we pass safely through the land of the Piutes, unmolested by Buffalo James.This celebrated savage can read and write, and is quite an orator, like Metamora, or the last of the Wampanoags.
He went on to Washington a few years ago and called Mr.Buchanan his Great Father, and the members of the Cabinet his dear Brothers.
They gave him a great many blankets, and he returned to his beautiful hunting grounds and went to killing stage drivers.He made such a fine impression upon Mr.Buchanan during his sojourn in Washington that that statesman gave a young English tourist, who crossed the plain a few years since, a letter of introduction to him.The great Indian chief read the English person's letter with considerable emotion, and then ordered him scalped, and stole his trunks.
Mr.Ryder knows me only as "Mr.Brown," and he refreshes me during the journey by quotations from my books and lectures.
"Never seen Ward?" he said.
"Oh, no."
"Ward says he likes little girls, but he likes large girls just as well.Haw, haw, haw! I should like to see the d--- fool!"He referred to me.
He even woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me one of Ward's jokes.
....
I lecture at Big Creek.
Big Creek is a straggling, wild, little village; and the house in which I had the honor of speaking a piece had no other floor than the bare earth.The roof was of sagebrush.At one end of the building a huge wood fire blazed, which, with half-a-dozen tallow-candles, afforded all the illumination desired.The lecturer spoke from behind the drinking bar.Behind him long rows of decanters glistened; above him hung pictures of race-horses and prize-fighters; and beside him, in his shirt-sleeves and wearing a cheerful smile, stood the bar-keeper.My speeches at the Bar before this had been of an elegant character, perhaps, but quite brief.They never extended beyond "I don't care if I do," "No sugar in mine," And short gems of a like character.
I had a good audience at Big Creek, who seemed to be pleased, the bar-keeper especially; for at the close of any "point" that Isought to make he would deal the counter a vigorous blow with his fist, and exclaim, "Good boy from the New England States! listen to William W.Shakespeare!"Back to Austin.We lose our way, and hitching our horses to a tree, go in search of some human beings.The night is very dark.
We soon stumble upon a camp-fire, and an unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on.I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers.Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols.Dr.Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more room.The men were miners on a prospecting tour, and as we advanced upon them without sending them word they took us for highway robbers.
I must not forget to say that my brave and kind-hearted friend Ryder of the mail coach, who had so often alluded to "Ward" in our ride from Virginia to Austin, was among my hearers at Big Creek.
He had discovered who I was, and informed me that he had debated whether to wollop me or give me some rich silver claims.
4.9.GREAT SALT LAKE CITY.
How was I to be greeted by the Mormons? That was rather an exciting question with me.I had been told on the plains that a certain humorous sketch of mine (written some years before) had greatly incensed the Saints, and a copy of the Sacramento "Union"newspaper had a few days before fallen into my hands in which a Salt Lake correspondent quite clearly intimated that my reception at the new Zion might be unpleasantly warm.I ate my dinner moodily and sent out for some cigars.The venerable clerk brought me six.They cost only two dollars.They were procured at a store near by.The Salt Lake House sells neither cigars nor liquors.
I smoke in my room, having no heart to mingle with the people in the office.
Dr.Hingston "thanks God he never wrote against the Mormons," and goes out in search of a brother Englishman.Comes back at night and says there is a prejudice against me.Advises me to keep in.
Has heard that the Mormons thirst for my blood and are on the lookout for me.
Under these circumstances I keep in.
The next day is Sunday, and we go to the Tabernacle, in the morning.The Tabernacle is located on -- street, and is a long rakish building of adobe, capable of seating some twenty-five hundred persons.There is a wide platform and a rather large pulpit at one end of the building, and at the other end is another platform for the choir.A young Irishman of the name of Sloan preaches a sensible sort of discourse, to which a Presbyterian could hardly have objected.Last night this same Mr.Sloan enacted a character in a rollicking Irish farce at the theatre! And he played it well, I was told; not so well, of course, as the great Dan Bryant could; but I fancy he was more at home in the Mormon pulpit than Daniel would have been.
The Mormons, by the way, are preeminently an amusement-loving people, and the Elders pray for the success of their theatre with as much earnestness as they pray for anything else.The congregation doesn't startle us.It is known, I fancy, that the heads of the Church are to be absent to-day, and the attendance is slim.There are no ravishingly beautiful women present, and no positively ugly ones.The men are fair to middling.They will never be slain in cold blood for their beauty, nor shut up in jail for their homeliness.
