Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
During the night of December 5 to 6, the train ran to the south-east over a space of about fifty miles; then it climbed back as far to the north-east, approaching the great Salt Lake.
Passepartout, toward nine in the morning, came out to take the air on the footbridges. The weather was cold, the sky grey, but it was snowing no longer. The sun's disc, enlarged by the mists, appeared like an enormous gold coin, and Passepartout was busy reckoning its worth in pounds sterling, when he was distracted from this useful task by the appearance of a rather strange personage.
This personage, who had boarded the train at the Elko station, was a man of tall stature, very dark, with black moustaches, black stockings, a black silk hat, black waistcoat and black trousers, a white cravat, and gloves of dogskin. One would have said a reverend. He worked his way along the train from end to end, and, on the door of each car, he stuck with wafers a notice written by hand.
Passepartout drew near and read on one of these notices that the honourable «elder» William Hitch, a Mormon missionary, making the most of his presence on train no. 48, would give, from eleven o'clock to noon, in car no. 117, a lecture on Mormonism—inviting all the gentlemen anxious to instruct themselves in the mysteries of the «Latter-day Saints» religion to come and hear it.
«Certainly I will go,» said Passepartout, who knew hardly anything of Mormonism but its polygamous customs, the basis of Mormon society.
The news spread rapidly through the train, which was carrying a hundred or so travellers. Of that number, thirty at most, lured by the bait of the lecture, occupied at eleven o'clock the benches of car no. 117. Passepartout figured in the front rank of the faithful. Neither his master nor Fix had thought fit to put themselves out.
At the appointed hour, the elder William Hitch rose, and in a rather irritated voice, as if he had been contradicted in advance, he cried out:
«I tell you, I do, that Joe Smyth is a martyr, that his brother Hyram is a martyr, and that the Union government's persecution of the prophets is going to make a martyr of Brigham Young as well! Who would dare maintain the contrary?»
No one ventured to contradict the missionary, whose exaltation contrasted with his naturally calm features. But no doubt his anger was explained by the fact that Mormonism was at that time subjected to harsh trials. And indeed, the government of the United States had just, not without difficulty, brought these independent fanatics to heel. It had made itself the master of Utah and had brought it under the laws of the Union, once it had imprisoned Brigham Young, accused of rebellion and polygamy. Since that time, the prophet's disciples had redoubled their efforts, and, while awaiting deeds, they resisted by word the pretensions of Congress.
As we see, the elder William Hitch was making proselytes even on the railway.
And then he recounted, making his tale impassioned by the bursts of his voice and the violence of his gestures, the history of Mormonism from biblical times: «how, in the land of Israel, a Mormon prophet descended from the tribe of Joseph set down the annals of the new faith and left them to his son Morom; how, whole centuries afterward, a rendering of this precious volume, written in Egyptian characters, was made by Joseph Smyth junior, a farmer of the state of Vermont, who revealed himself as a mystic prophet in 1825; how, finally, a heavenly messenger appeared to him in a luminous forest and handed him the annals of the Lord.»
At this moment, a few listeners, little interested by the missionary's retrospective narrative, left the car; but William Hitch, going on, recounted «how Smyth junior, bringing together his father, his two brothers, and a handful of disciples, founded the religion of the Latter-day Saints—a religion which, taken up not only in America but also in England, in Scandinavia, in Germany, counts among its faithful artisans and also numbers of people practising the liberal professions; how a colony was founded in Ohio; how a temple was raised at the cost of two hundred thousand dollars, with a city built at Kirkland; how Smyth became a bold banker and received from a mere exhibitor of mummies a papyrus containing a narrative written by the hand of Abraham and other famous Egyptians.»
This narration becoming a little long, the ranks of the listeners thinned still further, and the audience now consisted of no more than a score of persons.
But the elder, without troubling himself over this desertion, recounted in detail «how Joe Smyth went bankrupt in 1837; how his ruined shareholders coated him with tar and rolled him in feathers; how he was found again, more honourable and more honoured than ever, a few years later, at Independence, in Missouri, and head of a flourishing community that numbered no fewer than three thousand disciples, and how, then, pursued by the hatred of the Gentiles, he had to flee into the American Far West.»
Ten listeners were still there, honest Passepartout among them, drinking in every word. It was thus that he learned «how, after long persecutions, Smyth reappeared in Illinois and founded in 1839, on the banks of the Mississippi, Nauvoo-the-Beautiful, whose population rose as high as twenty-five thousand souls; how Smyth became its mayor, its supreme judge, and its commander-in-chief; how, in 1843, he put his name forward for the United States presidency; and how, finally, lured into an ambush at Carthage, he was cast into prison and murdered by a band of masked men.»
At this moment, Passepartout was absolutely alone in the car, and the elder, gazing straight into his face and spellbinding him with his words, reminded him that, two years after Smyth's assassination, his successor, the inspired prophet Brigham Young, abandoning Nauvoo, came to settle on the shores of the Salt Lake, and that there, on that admirable territory, in the midst of that fertile region, on the road of the emigrants who crossed Utah to reach California, the new colony, thanks to the polygamous principles of Mormonism, took on an enormous expansion.
«And there,» added William Hitch, «that is why the jealousy of Congress has come down upon us! why the soldiers of the Union have trodden the soil of Utah! why our chief, the prophet Brigham Young, has been imprisoned in defiance of all justice! Shall we bow to force? Never! Driven out of Vermont, out of Illinois, out of Ohio, out of Missouri, out of Utah, we shall yet come upon some independent territory where we shall pitch our tent... And you, my faithful one,» added the elder, fixing wrathful looks upon his sole listener, «will you plant yours in the shadow of our flag?
--No,» Passepartout replied bravely, fleeing in his turn, and leaving the fanatic to preach in the desert.
But during this lecture, the train had run rapidly, and, toward half past noon, it touched at its north-west tip the great Salt Lake. From there one could take in, over a vast perimeter, the aspect of this inland sea, which also bears the name of Dead Sea and into which an American Jordan empties. An admirable lake, framed by beautiful wild rocks in broad strata crusted over with white salt—a magnificent sheet of water that once covered a wider space; but with time its shores, rising little by little, have reduced its surface while increasing its depth.
The Salt Lake, about seventy miles long, thirty-five wide, is situated three thousand eight hundred feet above sea level. Very different from Lake Asphaltite, whose depression registers twelve hundred feet below, its salinity is considerable, and its waters hold in dissolution a quarter of their weight in solid matter. Their specific gravity is 1,170, that of distilled water being 1,000. And so fish cannot live in it. Those that the Jordan, the Weber, and other creeks throw into it soon perish there; but it is not true that the density of its waters is such that a man cannot dive into it.
Around the lake the countryside was admirably cultivated, for the Mormons are skilled at the labours of the soil: ranchos and corrals for the domestic animals, fields of wheat, maize, sorghum, luxuriant meadows, everywhere hedges of wild roses, clumps of acacias and euphorbias—such would have been the aspect of this region six months later; but at this moment the ground was disappearing under a thin layer of snow, which lightly powdered it.
At two o'clock, the travellers got out at the Ogden station. The train not being due to leave again until six, Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda, and their two companions had time to go to the City of the Saints by the little branch line that leaves the Ogden station. Two hours were enough to visit this absolutely American city and, as such, built on the pattern of all the cities of the Union—vast chessboards with long cold lines, with the «lugubrious sadness of right angles,» in Victor Hugo's expression. The man who founded the City of the Saints was unable to escape that craving for symmetry which marks the Anglo-Saxons. In this singular country, where the men are surely not equal to their institutions, everything is done «four-square»—the cities, the houses, and the follies.
At three o'clock, the travellers were therefore strolling through the streets of the city, built between the bank of the Jordan and the first undulations of the Wahsatch mountains. They noticed there few or no churches, but, by way of monuments, the prophet's house, the Court-house, and the arsenal; then houses of bluish brick with verandas and galleries, ringed by gardens and edged with acacias, palms, and carob trees. A wall of clay and pebbles, built in 1853, girded the city. In the main street, where the market is held, rose a few hotels adorned with pavilions, and among others the Lake-Salt-house.
Mr. Fogg and his companions did not find the city very populous. The streets were almost deserted—except, however, the part around the Temple, which they reached only after crossing several quarters surrounded by palisades. The women were fairly numerous, which is explained by the singular composition of Mormon households. One must not believe, however, that all the Mormons are polygamous. One is free, but it is well to note that it is the female citizens of Utah who are especially keen on being married, for, according to the religion of the country, the Mormon heaven does not admit unmarried women to the possession of its beatitudes. These poor creatures seemed neither well-off nor happy. Some, the richest no doubt, wore a jacket of black silk open at the waist, under a hood or a very modest shawl. The others were dressed only in printed calico.
Passepartout, for his part, in his capacity as a confirmed bachelor, did not look without a certain dread at these Mormon women charged with jointly making the happiness of a single Mormon. In his good sense, it was the husband he pitied above all. It seemed terrible to him to have to guide so many ladies at once through the vicissitudes of life, to lead them thus in a flock all the way to the Mormon paradise, and there to expect to find them again for eternity in the company of the glorious Smyth, who was to be the ornament of that place of delights. Decidedly, he did not feel the vocation, and he found—perhaps he deceived himself in this—that the female citizens of Great-Lake-City were casting rather disquieting looks upon his person.
Very fortunately, his stay in the City of the Saints was not to be prolonged. At a few minutes to four, the travellers were back at the station and taking their places again in their cars.
The whistle sounded; but just as the driving wheels of the locomotive, slipping on the rails, were beginning to give the train some speed, these cries—«Stop! stop!»—rang out.
One does not stop a moving train. The gentleman raising these cries was plainly a Mormon who had fallen behind. He was running fit to burst. Fortunately for him, the station had neither doors nor barriers. So he dashed onto the track, sprang onto the step of the last carriage, and fell, out of breath, onto one of the benches of the car.
Passepartout, who had followed the incidents of this gymnastics with emotion, came to contemplate this latecomer, in whom he took a lively interest when he learned that this citizen of Utah had thus taken flight only as the result of a domestic scene.
When the Mormon had got his breath back, Passepartout made bold to ask him politely just how many wives he had, all to himself—and, from the way he had just decamped, he supposed him to have a good twenty at least.
«One, sir!» the Mormon answered, lifting his arms to heaven, «one, and that was quite enough!»