From Nauvoo to Salt Lake in the Van of the Pioneers. II

412 IMPR0VEMEN1 ERA. and cold rains for about one week. It became muddy, and we had so many teams to cut up the road that we could not move, and it was even so extremely difficult to haul feed from the settle- ments to sustain our teams, that we kept them in the woods and sustained them chiefly on browse. Here we remained until the 5th of April, and our situation was worse than at Richardson's Point, for the mud in our camp became intolerable. We, however, peeled bark, gathered brush and split out puncheon, etc., to lay down in our tents and about our doors and fireplaces. When we wished to go to our neighbors, or see to our teams, we forded the seas of mud and congratulated each other on the prospects before us. While here, my horse got away, and led off my mules in a snow, storm, which cost me and two other brethren about a fifty mile ride and three days' time, and about six dollars cash, to get them again. They swam the Chariton and made their way into Missouri, where they were taken up; but glad was I to get them, even at that expense and trouble. I afterwards sent the same horse back to the settlements and traded him off, because I found he would run away every chance he could get, and so caused me much trouble. We now had sixty miles to travel from Chariton to the east fork of the Grand river, where there were only two or three scat- tered houses and no chance of obtaining food. We therefore made arrangement to take with us three days' feed from the Chariton settlements. While lying on the Chariton, we were divided into six companies for convenience in traveling, with cap- tains over tens, fifties and hundreds. The company with which I journeyed contained about ninety teams, Col. A. P. Rockwood captain, and President B. Young, president. Besides these com- panies we had a company of pioneers, consisting exclusively of active men, who kept a few days in advance of us to repair roads, build bridges, make ford- ways over streams, etc. After leaving the Chariton, we crossed Shoal creek and sev- eral smaller creeks, and entered upon a twelve-mile prairie, about noon on the 6th of April, intending to reach the East Locust creek that night; but it began to rain heavily just as we entered the prairie, and continued with little cessation until about sunset, and before we got across, the roads became almost impassable for

FROM NAUVOO TO SALT LAKE. 413 the rear teams, and we were enabled only to make a point of tim- ber about three miles from Locust creek. The rain continued almost incessantly for about a week. Our place of encampment on Hickory Point becoming very disagreeable, we removed, on the 8th, to the bottom of Locust creek. This we did by doubling teams the entire distance. It rained constantly all day, and almost every one in camp was wet to the skin. This move was made for two reasons: first, because there was a prospect of a long storm, and we had invariably found tin bottom of streams better than the points of ridges, in a wet time; and second, because these bottoms were extensive and well timbered, and afforded browse for our teams, which was our only means of subsist- ing them; for our grain was exhausted, and we were about an equal distance between Chariton and Grand rivers, with the roads impass- able to either settlement. The cre:jks being swimming deep, and the bridges built by our pioneers nearly all swept away, the rear companies, who did not cross the prairie before the rain, were unable to reach Locust creek before about a week. The weather and ground did not become settled so that we could pursue our journey until the 15th. During this time our encampment was about on a par with those at the Chariton and Richardson's Points — barks, dead grass, brush, etc., in our tents to keep us from the mud, for many of us had to sleep in tents. While here we had some snow and cold weather for that season of the year, and high winds. [TO BE CONTINUED.] Instead of wasting hard-earned dollars in "schools of drawing, cari- cature, telegraphy or advertising writing, " in two or three lodges or mining shares, put that money in chickens, pigs, a calf or a cow, study their needs as hard as you would the course of study, and you will have more sure cash. You will find all the ab >ve branches overcrowded with experts, and college graduates at that-, who can hardly find bread at it. There are too many after the easy jobs — or jobs that are supposed to be easy. — Farm Journal.

Photograph loaned by Alfred Lambourne. 'THE CAPfAIN," SCENE ON THE RIO VIRGEN.

President Brigham Young's Excursion Party. BY SOLOMON F. KIMBALL. III. When daylight dawned on the morning of September 20, 1864, the president's party left Grafton and continued their journey up the Rio Virgen until they came to Rockville, which is the last settlement on the river. Here they remained several hours, gazing with wonder and admiration on the magnificent scenery that surrounded them on all sides. Utah's celebrated landscape artist, Mr. H. L. A. Culmer, paints in words the sky-scraping cliffs of this canyon as follows: The cliffs are as high as in Yosemite, but very much finer in color and sculpture. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone does not compare with it, and even the splendor of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, in Arizona, fails before it; for the cliffs, rising sheer three to four thousand feet above the sparkling river, hem in the little valley on every side, and present scenes of grandeur in every direction. It is a region of romance and beauty, wonderful beyond the power of the imagination to conceive, awe-invoking, tremendous, sublime, proving once more that in Utah the scenery of the world reaches its climax. Of "The Narrows," a portrait of which place is found in a previous article in this series, page 320, he says: At a point about half way up Little Zion Valley, the walls come so H L A. CULMER.

closely together that the vigorous stream occupies almost the entire space between them. This place is called "The Narrows," and here the river makes a great tumult in the midst of echoing cliffs that darken the passage below. "The Narrows" also marks the entrance to the upper valley, where the scenery is even more stupendous than that around Rockville. Gorge after gorge, spires and towers, temples, crags and pinnacles, are thrown together in confusion, and on such gigantic scale that it seems as if the very heavens mingle with the earth itself. President Brigham Young was a great lover of natural scen- ery, and while journeying through these valleys of the mountains, whenever he came to beautiful landscapes, or discovered anything of unusual interest in the heavens, he nearly always stopped long enough to point out to his traveling companions such sights, giving them a touch of his own admiration, and what he himself so much enjoyed. He was one of the most interesting men to travel with that Photo by H. L. A. Culmer. THE RIO VIRGEN, NEAR ROCKVILLE. This is the Indian Valley of Mu-kun-tu-weap, or the "Valley of Babbling Waters," afterward called Tattle Zion Valley, by the settlers.