clock. We passed two nights on this journey, arriving at Ogden at eight o'clock on Thursday morning, the 7th. These forty hours or so comprehended two nights, and though a home bed is better than a Pullman car bed, yet two nights in a Pullman car bed were better than two whole days and a night, for so dreary, dusty, and wearying a stretch of country I never saw before. Nothing much more than harsh, dry sage-bush appeared. If we were not within the actual precincts of what is most justly called The Great American Desert, then the district we passed over ought to be added to that ill-omened region. It is already large enough. The maps mark it just to the south of the railway, and its dimensions are given in the last edition of Appleton's guide-book (A. and C. Black, Edinburgh)—which, unfortunately for me, has been published only since my return-as of sixty miles square; not of sixty square miles only, but "about sixty miles long, and of the same width." Talk of the wilderness of Judæa! Add to this that the average rate of the train was only some twenty-one miles or so per hour, and you will scarcely be inclined to apply American magniloquent adjectives about scenery, except in a contrary sense, or in contrary language. Hence Mr. Carter went on straight to New York, but Mr. Brewer and I continued to Salt Lake City, about another forty miles, and lodged ourselves at the Walker House Hotel.

For a certain period before arriving at Ogden, and thence to Salt Lake City, there was something more

of interest attaching to the journey, in that we skirted the Great Salt Lake; properly called "great," for its measurements, according to some, show 3150 square miles of water-ninety miles in length, with an average width of thirty-five. Others give seventy-five miles by thirty. It stands 4200 feet above the sea; several streams flow into it; it has no outlet, and its waters are intensely briny. All the minute descriptions concerning its qualities, including bathing in it, coincide very much with those of the Dead Sea in Syria; but though I bathed in the former, after insisting that I would not, I kept to this insistance as regards the Great Salt Lake. Some of the mountains round are grand, but all are dry; and, large as the lake is, many striking dry margins are pointed out, which appear to show that it has been a great deal larger.

As to Salt Lake City itself, what is there now to be said of it? Suppose I were to say it was becoming quite demoralized; that would mean, in one sense, that it was losing its original character; but in another sense, that it was gaining character by losing its polygamy. That much, we are all given to understand, is the fact; nor is it to be wondered at. However honest and honourable polygamy may be among other races—and we all very well know that it ever has been so, and still is-yet among our own it is wholly strange, and indeed abhorrent, because discordant. It is a transplanted tree that must wither. There is no room for it; and, at all events, it would certainly puzzle the Chinese in the States

and the Islands to practise it among themselves. During our short stay we had neither opportunity nor inclination to talk much about it, and what would be the use of copying all that has been said already? But in short conversations the observation was constantly and emphatically repeated, that Utah will never be raised to the dignity of a State while polygamy exists within it.

As regards the city itself, it is built upon a sandy flat, with very wide, straight streets laid out at right angles to one another, and of some 120 feet wide. They are planted, and have running water on both sides. The blocks are divided into lots of about an acre each, and the dwellings are generally surrounded by gardens and orchards. In these respects, where will you find a city laid out with such care and such. consideration for health and comfort?

The distinctive building is, of course, the Tabernacle, with its wonderful acoustic properties. It is oval in shape, and the great waggon-head roof is supported by an outside peristyle, of as many as forty-six very large sandstone pillars. It must be the only building which the world has yet seen in which every one of 15,000 listeners can hear what is said to them. There is also the still incomplete Temple which, when its roof and pinnacles are added, will be an imposing building; and there is, again, the Endowment House. Appleton says that the Temple is to cost $10,000,000, or more than £2,000,000 sterling.

From Salt Lake City, Mr. Brewer returned to Ogden, on his way to Boston, and I prepared myself for a journey over the Denver and Rio Grande line, where I expected to be rewarded for the dreary country I had hitherto passed through. I therefore went to the office and obtained an outline as to times and spots, and at ten minutes past eleven on Friday morning, October 8th, the train started for Denver, a distance of 735 miles. We were very soon winding among dry mountains, jagged and picturesque, but not lofty; but by-and-by we came to what is called the Castle Gate and Castle Cañon. The Gate consists of two huge pillars, standing out integrally from a huge mass of rocks behind, to a height, one of 500, and the other of 450 feet. They are of a rich-coloured sandstone, and are dressed in parts with dark fir-trees. The impression as you pass between them, if you stand on the footboard, is very striking; great effect being caused by the rushing Price river, that stream and the train crowding one another, as it were, side by side, as they both rush through. Hence during the whole afternoon the rugged scenery was constantly presenting some new grouping of interest, until sunset approached and threatened us with darkness. But sunset contributed its share to the effects.

A very remarkable dappled sky gradually grew into strong colouring, presenting, as was remarked by more than one of us, the appearance of a large Turkey carpet spread semi-transparently over the west. Then a long range of rather distant mountains

took on that very favourite colour, rose-madder, of which I have seen so much on arid surfaces, such as those on the Egyptian mountains and the Andes. I could not but give vent to the expression that we might fancy ourselves on the Nile, when a lady, suddenly turning round, said, “I was making the very same remark to my husband: we have both been there." There seems to be a peculiar property in dry and friable surfaces for producing this especial colour. Presently all these tints were transferred to a then spotless sky, and gradually died away; and so came on the night.

There are fifteen miles enjoyment of all the

Early in the morning we were to wake to see the Black Cañon of the Gunnison river; and we accordingly breakfasted very early at a station called Cimarron. Here an open "observation car" was put on the end of the train. of this cañon; so that for varieties of red rock and tree, rushing water of the river running towards us so close that it seemed trying to wash us back again from our intrusion, chasms, heights, sharp curves threatening catastrophe to the astonished eye-for the enjoyment of all these varieties, there was ample time. The morning, it is true, was cold, and several of us, though unable to resist the open car, crouched as nearly as possible to the forepart, so as to get the protection of the next carriage. But, of course, this cost them a great part of the scenic effects. One saw directly that the proper place was as far back as possible (and the car was a very long