Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/706

570 four really pretty faces among them, but as a whole, they were far from possessing the royal dower of beauty.

Asking several of the women—unmarried ones and married—what inducement led them to leave their homes, the reply always was, that "they had come in obedience to the Lord's will, and that they would be perfectly willing to pass through the same, and far heavier hardships, to render that obedience." They seemed earnest and sincere, and of average intelligence. They complained much of the cars without springs—cattle cars—in which they were transported through Canada, six of their number having died from the fatigue and heat.

One strong woman, who had been helping her husband move the luggage, was then prostrate from the heat, and they were striving in their simple way to help her, but in vain, as we afterward learned.

I have rarely seen so touching a sight as the bewildered look of the husband as he stood there beholding his wife so mysteriously stricken down in the midst of perfect health, and trying in every way to aid her. There seemed to be no provision for any medical assistance for them; in this case, it was plain nothing could avail.

The poor emigrants, ignorant of the danger of exposure to the sun, and with no provision made for their protection, fall easy victims to this unknown foe. This is especially the case with the Norwegian emigrants, who pass through Chicago in large numbers.

I was much surprised to find among them a group, whose bright eyes, dark hair, and olive cheeks, spoke unmistakably of sunny Italy; the little three-year old "Catterina" was as beautiful, with her large dark speaking eyes, as any of the innocents Raffaelle delighted to picture. They were from Turin, a family of eight, father, mother, one son, and five daughters, "Protestants"—"Vaudois." They told me they were "Mormons" now, and that there were some seventy Italians at Salt Lake. I had not before known that Brigham had found any disciples beyond the Alps.

What strange power of attraction it is which has enabled these despised ones to go to this distant desert among the mountains, and call in workers from all the world; to come across sea and land, and then face the thousand miles of of desert that lie between them and the last limit of civilization, and there to make the wilderness literally "to blossom like the rose." The bald statement of the fact is like a story out of the Eastern wonder book. It seems to have been left for the West to realize, and to put into actual being, the most wonderful imaginings of the dreamers of the East. Nothing in the "Arabian Nights" exceeds in romance the story of Salt Lake, or the magical building of this railroad here, which is to take these emigrants so many hundred miles on their way to that other wonder. Truly the "old men" of the East "have dreamed dreams," but the "young men" of the West "see visions."

Three thousand emigrants are expected to arrive soon. The men will go to work at once on the railroad, for sixty miles of which Brigham Young has a contract. The emigrants make already a large portion of the business of the road, and also furnish labor for its construction. The Mormons are very anxious to have it finished to Salt Lake, so as to avoid the long journeys by teams. They expect large and rapid accessions when it is completed.

An hour's ride from Omaha brings us to the Valley of the Platte. It opens before us, first, like a little inlet pushing back among the hills, then, broadening out suddenly, we are in the grassy sea. Far as the eye can reach, north and