That evening, when dining out, I took a lesson in Mormon modesty. The mistress of the house, a Gentile, but not an anti-Mormon, was requested by a saintly visitor, who was also a widow, to instruct me that on no account must I propose to see her home. “Mormon ladies,” said my kind informant, “are very strict;” unnecessarily so on this occasion, I could not but think. Something similar occurred on another occasion: a very old lady, wishing to return home, surreptitiously left the room and sidled out of the garden gate, and my companion, an officer from Camp Floyd, at once recognized the object of the retreat. I afterward learned at dinner and elsewhere among the Mormons to abjure the Gentile practice of giving precedence to that sex than which, according to Latin grammar, the masculine is nobler. The lesson, however, was not new; I had been taught the same, in times past, among certain German missionaries who assumed precedence over their wives upon a principle borrowed from St. Paul.

I took the earliest opportunity of visiting, at his invitation, the Prophet’s gardens. The grounds were laid out by Mr. W. C. Staines,MR. STAINES. now on Church business in London.[150] Mr. Staines arrived at Great Salt Lake City an exceptionally poor emigrant, and is now a rich man, with house and farm, all the proceeds of his own industry. This and many other instances which I could quote prove that although, as a rule, the highest dignitaries are the wealthiest, and although the polygamist can not expect to keep a large family and fill at the same time a long purse, the Gentiles somewhat exaggerate when they represent that Church discipline keeps the lower orders in a state of pauperdom. ADOPTION.Mr. Staines is also the “son of ‘Brigham’ by adoption.” This custom is prevalent among the Mormons as among the Hindoos, but with this difference, that while the latter use it when childless, the former employ it as the means of increasing their glory in the next world. The relationship is truly one of parent and child, by choice, not only by the mere accident of birth, and the “son,” if necessary, lives with and receives the necessaries of life from his “father.” Before entering the garden we were joined by Mr. Mercer, who, long after my departure from India, had missionarized at Kurrachee in “Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley.”

FRUIT.The May frost had injured the fruit. Grapes were but quarter-grown, while winter was fast approaching. I suggested to the civil and obliging English gardener that it would be well to garnish the trellised walls, as is done in Tuscany, with mats which roll up and can be let down at night. Bacchus appeared in three forms: the California grape, which is supposed to be the Madeira introduced into the New World by the Franciscan Missions; the Catawba—so called from an Indian people on a river of the same name—a cultivated variety of the Vitis labrusca, and still the wine-grape in the States. The third is the inferior Isabella, named after his wife by “ole man Gibbs,”[151] who first attempted to civilize the fox-grape (Vitis vulpina), growing on banks of streams in most of the temperate states. A vineyard is now being planted on the hill-side near Mr. Brigham Young’s block, and home-made wine will soon become an item of produce in Utah. Pomology is carefully cultivated; about one hundred varieties of apples have been imported, and of these ninety-one are found to thrive as seedlings: in good seasons their branches are bowed down by fruit, and must be propped up, or they will break under their load. The peaches were in all cases unpruned: upon this important point opinions are greatly divided. The people generally believe that the foliage is a protection to the fruit during the spring frosts. The horticulturists declare that the “extremes of temperature render proper pruning even more necessary than in France, and that the fervid summers often induce a growth of wood which must suffer severely during the inclement months, unless checked and hardened by cutting back.” Besides grapes and apples, there were walnuts, apricots and quinces, cherries and plums, currants, raspberries, and gooseberries. The principal vegetables were the Irish and the sweet potato, squashes, peas—excellent—cabbages, beets, cauliflowers, lettuce, and broccoli; a little rhubarb is cultivated, but it requires too much expensive sugar for general use, and white celery has lately been introduced. Leaving the garden, we walked through the various offices, oil-mill, timber-mill, and smithy: in the latter oxen are shod, according to the custom of the country, with half shoes. The animal is raised from the ground by a broad leather band under the belly, and is liable to be lamed by any but a practiced hand.

On the evening of the 3d of September, while sauntering about the square in which a train of twenty-three wagons had just bivouacked, among the many others to whom Mr. Staines introduced me was the Apostle John Taylor, the “Champion of Rights,” Speaker in the House, and whilom editor. I had heard of him from the best authorities as a man so morose and averse to Gentiles, “who made the healing virtue depart out of him,” that it would be advisable to avoid his “fierceness.” The véridique Mr. Austin Ward describes him as “an old man deformed and crippled,” and Mrs. Ferris as a “heavy, dark-colored, beetle-browed man.” Of course, I could not recognize him from these descriptions—a stout, good-looking, somewhat elderly personage, with a kindly gray eye, pleasant expression, and a forehead of the superior order; he talked of Westmoreland his birthplace, and of his European travels for a time, till the subject of Carthage coming upon the tapis, I suspected who my interlocutor was. Mr. Staines burst out laughing when he heard my mistake, and I explained the reason to the apostle, who laughed as heartily. Wishing to see more of him, I accompanied him in the carriage to the Sugar-house Ward, where he was bound on business, and chemin faisant we had a long talk. He pointed out to me on the left the mouths of the several kanyons, and informed me that the City Creek and the Red Buttes on the northeast, and the Emigration, Parley’s, Mill Creek, Great Cotton-wood and Little Cotton-wood Kanyons to the east and southeast, all head together in two points, thus enabling troops and provisions to be easily and readily concentrated for the defense of the eastern approaches. When talking about the probability of gold digging being developed near Great Salt Lake City, he said that the Mormons are aware of that, but that they look upon agriculture as their real wealth. The Gentiles, however—it is curious that they do not form a company among themselves for prospecting—assert that the Church has very rich mines, which are guarded by those dragons of Danites more fiercely than the Hesperidian Gardens, and which will never be known till Miss Utah becomes Mistress Deserét. Arriving at the tall, gaunt Sugar-house—its occupation is gone, while the name remains—we examined the machinery employed in making threshing and wool-carding machines, flanges, wheels, cranks, and similar necessaries. After a visit to a nail manufactory belonging to Squire Wells, and calling upon Mrs. Harris, we entered the Penitentiary.THE PENITENTIARY. It is a somewhat Oriental-looking building, with a large quadrangle behind the house, guarded by a wall with a walk on the summit, and pepper-caster sentry-boxes at each angle. There are cells in which the convicts are shut up at night, but one of these had lately been broken by an Indian, who had cut his way through the wall; a Hindoo “gonnoff” would soon “pike” out of a “premonitory” like this. We found in it besides the guardians only six persons, of whom two were Yutas. When I remarked to Gentiles how few were the evidences of crime, they invariably replied that, instead of half a dozen souls, half the population ought to be in the place. On our return we resumed the subject of the massacre at Carthage, in which it will be remembered that Mr. John Taylor was severely wounded, and escaped by a miracle, as it were. I told him openly that there must have been some cause for the furious proceedings of the people in Illinois, Missouri, and other places against the Latter-Day Saints; that even those who had extended hospitality to them ended by hating and expelling them, and accusing them of all possible iniquities, especially of horse-thieving, forgery, larceny, and offenses against property, which on the borders are never pardoned—was this smoke quite without fire? He heard me courteously and in perfect temper; replied that no one claimed immaculateness for the Mormons; that the net cast into the sea brought forth evil as well as good fish, and that the Prophet was one of the laborers sent into the vineyard at the eleventh hour. At the same time, that when the New Faith was stoutly struggling into existence, it was the object of detraction, odium, persecution—so, said Mr. Taylor, were the Christians in the days of Nero—that the border ruffians, forgers, horse-thieves, and other vile fellows followed the Mormons wherever they went; and, finally, that every fraud and crime was charged upon those whom the populace were disposed, by desire for confiscation’s sake, to believe guilty. Besides the theologic odium there was also the political: the Saints would vote for their favorite candidates, consequently they were never without enemies. He quoted the Mormon rules: 1. Worship what you like. 2. Leave your neighbor alone. 3. Vote for whom you please; and compared their troubles to the Western, or, as it is popularly called, the Whisky insurrection in 1794, whose “dreadful night” is still remembered in Pennsylvania. Mr. Taylor remarked that the Saints had been treated by the United States as the colonies had been treated by the crown: that the persecuted naturally became persecutors, as the Pilgrim fathers, after flying for their faith, hung the Quakers on Bloody Hill at Boston; and that even the Gentiles can not defend their own actions. I heard for the first time this view of the question, and subsequently obtained from the apostle a manuscript account, written in extenso, of his experience and his sufferings. It has been transferred in its integrity to Appendix No. III., the length forbidding its insertion in the text: a tone of candor, simplicity, and honesty renders it highly attractive.