returning to their distant homes, to which we sent them back after loading them with tokens of our gratitude. It is a fact well worthy of note, that these two Indians not only never asked us for the least recompense for their journey and trouble, but even remained absolutely indifferent to our presents. What a contrast with the savages of Oceania, whom we could never satisfy, and who would remorselessly have allowed us to strip off the clothes from our backs for them!

The day after our arrival we reconnoitred the city to study its plan. All the streets are a hundred and thirty feet wide, and run from north to south, and from east to west. They are watered on either side by a stream of clear water, ingeniously brought from the neighbouring mountains. A double line of arborescent willows (cotton-wood) adorns each of these streams. The streets cross each other at right-angles, forming squares of houses, or blocks, each side of which measured about six hundred and fifty-seven feet. Each house, at least twenty feet from the street, is surrounded by garden-ground of greater or less extent. This arrangement, besides giving a countryfied aspect to the city, greatly augments its superficies; hence it is not less than three English miles in diameter. The majority of the houses are built of adobes, generally in a simple style, frequently elegant, and always clean. Some of these dwellings are very large; among others, Brigham Young's, which is comparatively a palace. This edifice, about ninety

VOL. I.

eight feet long by forty in width, is built of several kinds of stone, among which we remarked a magnificent granite, brought from the neighbouring mountains at a great expense. The long salient ogives of the windows of the upper story give to the roof which they intersect the appearance of a crenellated diadem, and render this monument a model of Mormon architecture. Thirty sultanas are intended to occupy this harem, which, although far from being finished, has already cost the Mormon pontiff 30,000 dollars, whose personal fortune, arising from his fortunate speculations, is stated to exceed 400,000 dollars. The house actually inhabited by Brigham Young with his seventeen wives, is situate by the side of this palace, and the roof is surmounted by a bee-hive, the emblem, as they say, of the industry and innocence of the inhabitants of Deseret, and probably having allusion to the word deseret itself, which, as we have observed before, means 'land of the bee.' Close by are the offices of the Governor, and the Tithing-office. Not far from the Governor's house is the Court-house, in which the courts of justice hold their sittings. A library, founded by the government at Wash ington, and constantly increased by donations, is attached to this establishment for public use. A little further on is the Social Hall. We visited the enclosure reserved for the construction of the temple. It is a block of 656 feet on every side, with a wall round it 11 feet in height, having three large gates each 58 feet in width. In the south-west

angle of this enclosure is the tabernacle, an edifice about 125 feet in length, by about sixty-four feet wide. It is, properly speaking, only a large house built of stones and adobes, and used for divine service during the construction of the temple. In front of the tabernacle is the Bowery, a species of immense shed covered in with planks and boughs, intended for the accommodation of those of the congregation who cannot find room in that building. At the south-west angle are the foundations of the temple, the length of which will be 150 feet 4 inches, and its width 119 feet 1 inches, with walls 9 feet 9 inches in thickness. This temple, which will be ornamented with six polyhedral steeples, and which, according to the Mormons, is intended by its splendour and the magnificence of its architecture to surpass all the edifices in the world, is being constructed of a beautiful granite, brought with much labour from a neighbouring mountain. The architect of this marvel of monuments is an English Mormon, named T. O. Angell.

In the office of the President is a plan of the temple, which we were allowed to copy. The Mormons do not say whether God gave the dimensions and proportions of the temple of Zion, even as he gave Joseph Smith those for the temple of Nauvoo. In the north-west angle of this great enclosure, which is called the Temple-block, is the Endowment House, a kind of sanctum sanctorum interdicted to the profane, and where only some privileged Saints may go and receive from the Prophet or