which the sirocco had powdered on us from the leaves of the wormwood.

But, lest we should forget devout thanksgiving in the levity of mere selfish safety and boastful joy, sudden reminders of the greatness of our salvation catch our eyes as we bend them eastward over the night-empurpled immensity of the far-down desert. Not meant as such reminders-ah, no! though the grateful heart turns all evilest things out of their evilest purpose into goodness and blessing, as the sun melts the very offal of the world into mother liquor for precious crystals and life-blood for flowers of Eden. The Goshoot devils, who have been dogging our steps with the arrow and tomahawk, are lighting up their signal fires on the black porphyry crags which rise from the floor of the desert. Like eyes of baffled fiends, they wink up at us out of the dark, opening, one after the other, till more than a score gleam balefully between our mighty mountain citadel and the far horizon. But we are forever out of the demons' clutches. We have passed the hostile boundary, we have climbed the tremendous barrier, and the key to our stronghold is held by a sturdy garrison of Californians, thousands of feet below in the Ruby Valley post. Each man rejoices after his temperament: one thanks God quietly; another utters a deep sigh of relief as for the first time in days he slings his rifle over his head, and shuts his eyes to sleep; another whirls his slouch about his head, breaking into cheers and song. Only Foiedelis remains stolid amid the general joy. Somebody has told him that he is not yet out of Utah, though he is out of the Goshoots. He will not halloo till he gets out of the woods. So he waits. When the day dawns,-when we cross the second ridge, go

through Chokup Pass, are at once over the 116th parallel and the Nevada line,-then our little Switzer has his own private jubilee in his own original way. While we stop to change horses he dances a pas-seul, which fills a family of Digger Indians, pensioning on the station-keeper, with admiration and dismay; he snaps his fingers; he shakes his fist to the eastward in sublime menace to a whole Territory at once; and finally, having expended the bottled feelings of the last three weeks, he rejoins us, wiping the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief.

The fact of meeting Mormons on the instant of stepping foot into the Territory did not surprise us, for we had by no means waited so long as this to make their first acquaintance on the Overland road. They are strewn all along from the Missouri River to San Francisco. Some of them are avowed, others known only to the initiated, others undoubtedly not known at all. A Mormon and his wife formerly kept the station at Liberty Farm, one hundred and ninetythree miles west of Atchison. Several of them I have known among drivers, numbers among stablehelpers and stock-tenders. They are, so far as I know, unblamable in the discharge of their duties; in fact, they must attend to their business as well as anybody obtainable for their places, or they would not be kept twenty-four hours under the strict regime of Ben Holladay. None of them are out of Utah in disgrace; they keep up their relations with the Church government as closely as ever. They are detailed to duty on the Church's behalf. Their enemies call them by the invidious name of spies. It is certainly the case, that, by some means or other, nothing happens along the great avenues to Salt Lake,

of which Brigham Young does not get the earliest advices. He is never surprised at the arrival of any person in his capital. Long before your arrival is announced in the "Deseret News," he has a memorandum of your name, your residence, your appearance, your circumstances, your purpose in coming to Utah, your intended length of stay there, and (unless you are enough of an old traveller to know "a pump at first sight, and keep your likes and dislikes to yourself in all promiscuous companies) your animus towards Mormonism, your value as an ally, and the importance of providing against you, or propitiating you if you are a foe. The secret police system of France was never more efficient than Brigham Young's; and, considering the much vaster territory that lies under his organized espionage, I might be justified in saying that in efficiency none ever equaled his. As a ruler of men, I think the earth has scarcely had his peer. The "one-man power" system is hastening towards its final extinction, but its last days are its greatest. It dies giving birth to two of its grandest examplars in a single age-Louis Napoleon and Brigham Young. I do not think the grandson of the Creole a match for the Ontario County ploughboy. Brigham Young is a religious fanatic; Napoleon has no enthusiasm of any sort; but I believe that the fanatic has the cooler business head. He would never have sent an expedition to Mexico. He may commit crimes, but he does not "do what is worse, make blunders."

After leaving Green River, we continued our way across a country of the same sterile aspect as that described the day before. The occurrence of extensive level tracts, covered with water-worn pebbles,