The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-01-27
a Visit 10 salt Lake.

A Visit 10 salt Lake.
a vIeIr TO SALT LAKE; being a Journey across
the Plains, and Residence in the Mormon
Settlements at Utah. By E-GLLIAM CuASD-
LESS.
We have not seen tho above book, but
the Home Journal contains lengthy re-
view of it, and as the Mormons are just
now exciting so great IN interest in the
public mind, VIC think some of the ex-
periences of Mr.. Chandless may interest
our readers.
Mr.. Chandless was led to Utah more
from a love of adventure, than for the re-
alization of any fixed purpose Being
at Fort A;tchison he accidentally learned
that the owner of wagon-train was in
want Of hands to drive his oxen, so he
hired out to drive an OK team through to
Salt Lake City.
Everybody knows that young steers, like
frolicsome young boys and girls are averse
to restraint, and when first yolled are
apt to make sundry motions, which would
be altogether Incompatible with the so
Der dignity of aged oxen. Mr.. .Chandess
no doubt had cheap of trouble, for he
thus narrates his first experience
"My first attempt at managing team
was a ludicrous failure, ending, in fact,
in double knot, every steer having
its feet over every chain, and most Of the
yokcs turned upside down. Some CON
ISOLATION was to be derived however, from
finding the team also failure, and uu-
manageable in other hands without It
change of leaders, mine leading every
thing to perdition as fast rs they possibly
could"
Although Mr.. Chandless experienced
all the toll and privation incident to such
ajourncy-- and the added suffering Of a
severe fit of sickness, yet he seems to
have enjoyed it all, and his imaginative
mind clothed even the rough aspenties
OF his experience with romance and beau
ty.
OF the hardest work of all-the night
watch, he thus pleasantly writes
"The work was hard; yet those night
watches had, and still have, in memory,
not q strange but Il most natural charm !;
the whole sense Of stiffness and repose as
one walked backwards and forwards 'thro'
the long and pleasant grass, now and
then stopping to listen TO the wolves howl
ing, or to the monotonous nuneLing Of
ali OK here and there; then walk Q on
again. greeting and greeted by each com
r&de, as we met, with friendly word or
Two always including question and an
swcr SIS to how wore the night, followed
by a look at our only clock, the Great
Bear; and then, as tho footsteps grew
fainter, liItlo star-gaz:ng on ones own
account, with thoughts Of homo, and how
perhaps this very night last year one had
looked at the stars, aud vino MAS then
with one, and what they were doing now
and whether they thought Of the wander
err on the prairie, and that il must be
breakfast time with them, and that it
could not be far from breakEast-time
with rs, as ones self began to wish for
breakfast. And then another round, (of-
ten a mile or two the approach Of day
now certainly shown by the whole herd
beginning to Craze, and the Pleiadcs to
sink, and the pointers (of the Great
BeRr) rising SO near TO level with the
pole-star, that it must be hard on fonr
O'Clock; and then at last wee bit of
east, tho pure Eight gliding mp the cloud-
less sk y-yes, there WAS pleasure to be
found in these night-watehes.'
Mr.. Chandless first acquaintance with
the Mormons was made through the en-
igrant parties. He speaks of them rs
mostly mere laborers, with few rsen of
talent and cultivation.
He says they all seemed willing to
suffer hardship, looking upon the journey
as pilgrimage to the promised land, and
in the main rs fully believed themselves
under divine guidance, as though pillar
OF cloud had marched before them by day
and pillar of fire given light to their
camp at night"
While In Utah our traveller was the
guest of man from Massachusetts,, whom
he speaks of as genuine yankee" intel
ligent enterprising and the husband of
four wives.
Mr.. Chandless speaking or his four
wives says:-''His sensitiveness and that
of the Mornons generally, about the
word "polygamy" indicates an uneasy
conscience. They never use it, and con-
slider it an Insult when used by others.
Plurality" is the softer term which they
always employ" i.