"E, bella, tu non piangera-a-a-i, Sul giorno ch'io saro mor-or-or-to-o-o-o-o-o."[D]

[Footnote D:

"And, dearest, you will never weep for me-e-e-e, The day when I shall be no mo-o-o-ore."]

Whether this constant habit of song among the Southern people, while at their work, indicates happiness and content, I will not undertake to say; but it is pleasanter in effect than the sad silence in which we Anglo-Saxons perform our tasks,—and it seems to show a less harassed and anxious spirit. But I feel quite sure that these people are more easily pleased, contented with less, less morose, and less envious of the ranks above them, than we are. They give little thought to the differences of caste, have little ambition to make fortunes or rise out of their condition, and are satisfied with the commonest fare, if they can get enough of it. The demon of dissatisfaction never harries them. When you speak to them, they answer with a smile which is nowhere else to be found. The nation is old, but the people are children in disposition. Their character is like their climate, generally sunny,—subject to violent occasional storms, but never growling life away in an uncomfortable drizzle of discontent. They live upon Nature, —sympathize with it and love it,—are susceptible to the least touch of beauty,—are ardent, if not enduring, in their affectations,—and, unless provoked and irritated, are very peaceful and amiable. The flaw in their nature is jealousy, and it is a great flaw. Their want of truth is the result of their education. We who are of the more active and busy nations despise them for not having that irritated discontent which urges us forward to change our condition; and we think our ambition better than their supineness. But there is good in both. We do more,—they enjoy more; we make violent efforts to be happy,—invent, create, labor, to arrive at that quiet enjoyment which they own without struggle, and which our anxious strife unfits us to enjoy when the means for it are obtained. The general, popular idea, that an Italian is quarrelsome, and ill-tempered, and that the best are only bandits in disguise, is quite a mistake; and when studied as they exist out of the track of travel, where they are often debased and denaturalized, they will be found to be simple, kind-hearted, and generous.



A LETTER TO A DYSPEPTIC.

Yes, my dear Dolorosus, I commiserate you. I regard your case, perhaps, with even sadder emotions than that excellent family-physician who has been sounding its depths these four years with a golden plummet, and has never yet touched bottom. From those generous confidences which, in common with most of your personal acquaintances, I daily share, I am satisfied that no description can do justice to your physical disintegration, unless it be the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds with which Mr. Addison winds up Cato's Soliloquy. So far as I can ascertain, there is not an organ of your internal structure which is in its right place, at present, or which could perform any particular service, if it were there. In the extensive library of medical almanacs and circulars which I find daily deposited by travelling agents at my front door, among all the agonizing vignettes of diseases which adorn their covers, and which Irish Bridget daily studies with inexperienced enjoyment in the front entry, there is no case which seems to afford a parallel to yours. I found it stated in one of these works, the other day, that there is iron enough in the blood of twenty-four men to make a broadsword; but I am satisfied that it would be impossible to extract enough from the veins of yourself and your whole family to construct a crochet-needle for your eldest daughter. And I am quite confident, that, if all the four hundred muscles of your present body were twisted together by a rope-maker, they would not furnish that patient young laborer with a needleful of thread.

You are undoubtedly, as you claim, a martyr to Dyspepsia; or if you prefer any other technical name for your disease or diseases, I will acquiesce in any, except, perhaps, the word "Neurology," which I must regard as foreign to etymological science, if not to medical. Your case, you think, is hard. I should think it would be. Yet I am impressed by it, I must admit, as was our adopted fellow-citizen by the contemplation of Niagara. He, you remember, when pressed to admire the eternal plunge of the falling water, could only inquire, with serene acquiescence in natural laws, "And what's to hinder?" I confess myself moved to similar reflections by your disease and its history. My dear Dolorosus, can you acquaint me with any reason, in the heavens above or on the earth beneath, why you should not have dyspepsia?

My thoughts involuntarily wander back to that golden period, five years ago, when I spent one night and day beneath your hospitable roof. I arrived, I remember, late in the evening. The bed-room to which you kindly conducted me, after a light but wholesome supper of doughnuts and cheese, was pleasing in respect to furniture, but questionable in regard to physiology. The house was not more than twenty years old, and the chamber must therefore have been aired within that distance of time, but not, I should have judged, more recently. Perhaps its close, oppressive atmosphere could not have been analyzed into as many separate odors as Coleridge distinguished in Cologne,—but I could easily identify aromatic vinegar, damp straw, lemons, and dyed silk gowns. And, as each of the windows was carefully nailed down, there were no obvious means of obtaining fresh air, save that ventilator said to be used by an eminent lady in railway-cars,—the human elbow. The lower bed was of straw, the upper of feathers, whose extreme heat kept me awake for a portion of the night, and whose abundant fluffy exhalations suggested incipient asthma during another portion. On rising from these rather unrefreshing slumbers, I performed my morning ablutions with the aid of some three teacupsful of dusty water,—for the pitcher probably held that quantity,—availing myself, also, of something which hung over an elegant towel-horse, and which, though I at first took it for a child's handkerchief, proved on inspection to be "Chamber Towel, No. 1."

I remember, as I entered the breakfast-room, a vague steam as of frying sausages, which, creeping in from the neighboring kitchen, obscured in some degree the six white faces of your wife and children. The breakfast-table was amply covered, for you were always what is termed by judicious housewives "a good provider." I remember how the beefsteak (for the sausages were especially destined for your two youngest Dolorosi, who were just recovering from the measles, and needed something light and palatable) vanished in large rectangular masses within your throat, drawn downward in a maelstrom of coffee;—only that the original whirlpool is, I believe, now proved to have been imaginary;—"that cup was a fiction, but this is reality." The resources of the house also afforded certain very hot biscuits or breadcakes, in a high state of saleratus;—indeed, it must have been from association with these, that certain yellow streaks in Mr. Ruskin's drawing of the rock, at the Athenaeum, awakened in me such an immediate sense of indigestion;—also fried potatoes, baked beans, mince-pie, and pickles. The children partook of these dainties largely, but without undue waste of time. They lingered at table precisely eight minutes, before setting out for school; though we, absorbed in conversation, remained at least ten;—after which we instantly hastened to your counting-room, where you, without a moment's delay, absorbed yourself in your ledger, while I flirted languidly with the "Daily Advertiser."

You bent over your desk the whole morning, occasionally having anxious consultations with certain sickly men whom I supposed to be superannuated bookkeepers, in impoverished circumstances, and rather pallid from the want of nutritious food. One of them, dressed in rusty black, with a flabby white neckcloth, I took for an ex-clergyman; he was absorbed in the last number of the "Independent," though I observed, at length, that he was only studying the list of failures, a department to which, as it struck me, he himself peculiarly appertained. All of these, I afterwards ascertained from your office-boy, were eminent capitalists; something had gone wrong in the market,—not in the meat-market, as I should have supposed from their appearance, but in the money-market. I believe that there was some sudden fall in the price of indigo. I know you looked exceedingly blue as we walked home to dinner.

Dinner was ready the instant we opened the front door. I expected as much; I knew the pale, speechless woman who sat at the head of your table would make sure of punctuality, if she died for it. We took our seats without a word. The party was smaller than at breakfast. Two of the children had staid at school, having their luncheon-baskets well filled from the cold remains of breakfast. Your eldest girl, Angelina, aged ten, one of those premature little grown women who have learned from the cradle that man is born to eat pastry and woman to make it, postponed her small repast till an indefinite future, and sat meekly ready to attend upon our wants. Nathaniel, a thin boy of eight, also partook but slightly, having impaired his appetite, his mother suspected, by a copious luncheon of cold baked beans and vinegar, on his return from school. The two youngest (twins) had relapsed to their couches soon after breakfast, in consequence of excess of sausage.

You were quite agreeable in conversation, I remember, after the first onset of appetite was checked. You gave me your whole theory of the indigo crisis, with minute details, statistical and geographical, of the financial condition and supposed present location of your principal absconding debtors. This served for what is called, at public dinners, the intellectual feast; while the carnal appetite was satisfied with fried pork, ditto roasted, strong coffee, turnips, potatoes, and a good deal of gravy. For dessert, (at which point Nathaniel regained his appetite,) we had mince-pie, apple-pie, and lemon-pie, the latter being a structure of a two-story description, an additional staging of crust being somehow inserted between upper and under. We lingered long at that noon meal,—fifteen minutes, at the very least; for you hospitably said that you did not have these little social festivals very often,—owing to frequent illness in the family, and other causes,—and mast make the most of it.

I did not see much of you during that afternoon; it was a magnificent day, and I said, that, being a visitor, I would look about and see the new buildings. The truth was, I felt a sneaking desire to witness the match-game on the Common, between the Union Base-Ball Club, No. 1, of Ward Eleven, and the Excelsiors of Smithville. I remember that you looked a little dissatisfied, when I came into the counting-room, and rather shook your head over my narrative (perhaps too impassioned) of the events of the game. "Those young fellows," said you, "may not all be shiftless, dissipated characters, yet,—but see what it comes to! They a'n't content with wasting their time,—they kill it, Sir, actually kill it!" When I thought of the manly figures and handsome, eager faces of my friends of the "Union" and the "Excelsior,"—the Excelsiors won by ten tallies, I should say, the return match to come off at Smithville the next month,—and then looked at the meagre form and wan countenance of their critic, I thought to myself, "Dolorosus, my boy, you are killing something besides Time, if you only knew it."

However, indigo had risen again, and your spirits also. As we walked home, you gave me a precise exhibit of your income and expenditures for the last five years, and a prospective sketch of the same for the next ten; winding up with an incidental delineation of the importance, to a man of business, of a good pew in some respectable place of worship. We found Mrs. D., as usual, ready at the table; we partook of pound-cake (or pound-and-a-half, I should say) and sundry hot cups of a very Cisatlantic beverage, called by the Chinese epithet of tea,—and went, immediately after, to a prayer-meeting. The church or chapel was much crowded, and there was a certain something in the atmosphere which seemed to disqualify my faculties from comprehending a single word that was spoken. It certainly was not that the ventilators were closed, for there were none. The minister occasionally requested that the windows might be let down a little, and the deacons invariably closed them again when he looked the other way. At intervals, females were carried out, in a motionless condition,—not, as it appeared, from conviction of sin, but from faintness. You sat, absorbed in thought, with your eyes closed, and seemed not to observe them. I remember that you were very much shocked when I suggested that the breath of an average sinner exhausted atmospheric air at the rate of a hogshead an hour, and asked you how much allowance the laws of the universe made for the lungs of church-members? I do not recall your precise words, but I remember that I finally found it expedient, as I was to leave for home in the early train, to spend that night at the neighboring hotel, where I indulged, on an excellent mattress, in a slumber so profound, that it seemed next morning as if I ought, as Dick Swiveller suggested to the single gentleman, to pay for a double-bedded room.

Well, that is all over now. You have given up business, from ill health, and exhibit a ripe old age, possibly a little over-ripe, at thirty-five. Your dreams of the forthcoming ten years have not been exactly fulfilled; you have not precisely retired on a competency, because the competency retired from you. Indeed, the suddenness with which your physician compelled you to close up your business left it closed rather imperfectly, so that most of the profits are found to have leaked out. You are economizing rather strictly, just now, in respect to everything but doctors' bills. The maternal Dolorosa is boarding somewhere in the country, where the children certainly will not have more indigestible food than they had at home, and may get less of it in quantity,—to say nothing of more air and exercise to aid digestion. They are not, however, in perfect condition. The twins are just getting up from scarlet fever; Nathaniel has been advised to leave school for a time; and something is thought to be the matter with Angelina's back. Meanwhile, you are haunting water-cures, experimenting on life-pills, holding private conferences with medical electricians, and thinking of a trip to the Bermudas.

You are learning, through all this, the sagest maxims of resignation, and trying to apply them. "Life is hard, but short," you say; "Providence is inscrutable; we must submit to its mysterious decrees." Would it not be better, my dear Dolorosus, to say instead, "Life is noble and immortal; God is good; we must obey his plain laws, or accept the beneficent penalties"? The rise and fall of health are no more accidental than the rise and fall of indigo; and it is the duty of those concerned in either commodity to keep their eyes open, and learn the business intelligently. Of the three proverbial desiderata, it is as easy to be healthy as to be wealthy, and much easier than to be wise, except so far as health and wisdom mean the same thing. After health, indeed, the other necessaries of life are very simple, and easily obtained;—with moderate desires, regular employment, a loving home, correct theology, the right politics, and a year's subscription to the "Atlantic Monthly," I have no doubt that life, in this planet, may be as happy as in any other of the solar system, not excepting Neptune and the fifty-five asteroids.

You are possibly aware, my dear Dolorosus,—for I remember that you were destined by your parents for the physician of your native seaside village, until you found a more congenial avocation in curing mackerel,—that the ancient medals represented the goddess Hygeia with a serpent three times as large as that carried by Aesculapius, to denote the superiority of hygiene to medicine, prevention to cure. To seek health as you are now seeking it, regarding every new physician as if he were Pandora, and carried hope at the bottom of his medicine-chest, is really rather unpromising. This perpetual self-inspection of yours, registering your pulse thrice a day, as if it were a thermometer and you an observer for the Smithsonian,—these long consultations with the other patients in the dreary parlor of the infirmary, the morning devoted to debates on the nervous system, the afternoon to meditations on the stomach, and the evening to soliloquies on the spine,—will do you no good. The more you know, under these circumstances, the worse it will be for you. You will become like Boerhaave's hypochondriacal student, who, after every lecture, believed himself to be the victim of the particular disease just expounded. We may even think too much about health,—and certainly too much about illness. I solemnly believe that the very best thing that could be done for you at this moment, you unfortunate individual, would be to buy you a saddle-horse and a revolver, and start you tomorrow for the Rocky Mountains, with distinct instructions to treat any man as a Border Ruffian who should venture to allude to the subject of disease in your presence.

But I cannot venture to hope that you will do anything so reasonable. The fascinations of your present life are too overwhelming; when an invalid once begins to enjoy the contemplation of his own woes, as you appear to do, it is all over with him. Besides, you urge, and perhaps justly, that your case has already gone too far, for so rough a tonic. What, then, can I do for you? Medicine I cannot offer; for even your respectable family-physician occasionally hints that you need something different from that. I suspect that all rational advice for you may be summed up in one prescription: Reverse instantly all the habits of your previous physical existence, and there may be some chance for you. But, perhaps, I had better enter more into detail.

Do not think that I am going to recur to the painful themes of doughnuts and diet. I fear my hints, already given, on those subjects, may wound the sensitive nature of Mrs. D., who suffers now such utter martyrdom from your condition that I cannot bring myself to heap further coals of fire on her head, even though the coals be taken from her own very ineffectual cooking-stove. Let me dwell rather on points where you have exclusive jurisdiction, and can live wisely or foolishly, at your pleasure.

It does not depend on you, perhaps, whether you shall eat bread or saleratus, meat or sole-leather; but it certainly does depend upon yourself whether you shall wash yourself daily. I do not wish to be personal, but I verily believe, O companion of my childhood! that, until you began to dabble in Hydropathy, you had not bestowed a sincere ablution upon your entire person since the epoch when, twenty years ago, we took our last plunge together, off Titcomb's wharf, in our native village. That in your well-furnished house there are no hydraulic privileges beyond pint water-pitchers, I know from anxious personal inspection. I know that you have spent an occasional week at the sea-shore during the summer, and that many people prefer to do up their cleanliness for the year during these excursions; indeed, you yourself have mentioned to me, at such times, with some enthusiasm, your daily sea-bath. But I have been privately assured, by the other boarders, that the bath in question always consisted of putting on a neat bathing-dress and sitting awhile on a rock among the sea-weed, like an insane merman, with the highest waves submerging only your knees, while the younger Dolorosi splashed and gambolled in safe shallows behind you. Even that is better than nothing, but—Soul of Mohammed!—is that called bathing? Verily, we are, as the Turks declare, a nation of "dirty Franks," if this be the accepted definition.

Can it be possible that you really hold with the once-celebrated Mr. Walker, "The Original," as he was deservedly called, who maintained, that, by a correct diet, the system became self-purifying, through an active exhalation which repelled impurity,—so that, while walking on dusty roads, his feet, and even his stockings, remained free from dust? "By way of experiment, I did not wash my face for a week; nor did any one see, nor I feel, the difference." My deluded friend, it is a fatal error. Mr. Walker, the Original, may have been inwardly a saint and a sage, but it is impossible that his familiar society could have been desirable, even to fools or sinners. Rather recall, from your early explorations in Lempriere's Dictionary, how Medea renewed the youth of Pelias by simply cutting him to pieces and boiling him; whereon my Lord Bacon justly remarks, that "there may be some boiling required in the matter, but the cutting to pieces is not needful." If you find that the water-cure agrees with your constitution, I rejoice in it; I should think it would; but, I implore you, do not leave it all behind you when you leave the institution. When you return to your family, use your very first dollars for buying a sponge and a tin-hat, for each member of the household; and bring up the five children to lead decent lives.

Then, again, consider the fact that our lungs were created to consume oxygen. I suppose that never in your life, Dolorosus, did those breathing organs of yours inhale more than one half the quantity of air that they were intended to take in,—to say nothing of its quality. Yet one would think, that, in the present high prices of other food, you would make the most of the only thing you can put into your mouth gratis. Here is Nature constantly urging on us an unexceptionable atmosphere forty miles high,—for if a pressure of fourteen pounds to the square inch is not to be called urging, what is?—and yet we not only neglect, but resist the favor. Our children commonly learn to spell much better than they ever learn to breathe, because much more attention is paid to the former department of culture. Indeed, the materials are better provided; spelling-books are abundant; but we scarcely allow them time, in the intervals of school, to seek fresh air out of doors, and we sedulously exclude it from our houses and school-rooms. Is it not possible to impress upon your mind the changes which "modern improvements" are bringing upon us? In times past, if a gentleman finished the evening with a quiet cigar in his parlor, (a practice I deprecate, and introduce only for purposes of scientific illustration,) not a trace of it ever lingered to annoy his wife at the breakfast-table; showing that the draft up the open chimney had wholly disposed of it, the entire atmosphere of the room being changed during the night. Now, on the other hand, every whiff lingers persistently beside the domestic altar, and betrays to the youngest child, next day, the parental weakness. For the sake of family example, Dolorosus, correct this state of things, and put in a ventilator. Our natures will not adapt themselves to this abstinence from fresh air, until Providence shall fit us up with new bodies, having no lungs in them. Did you ever hear of Dr. Lyne, the eccentric Irish physician? Dr. Lyne held that no house was wholesome, unless a dog could get in under every door and a bird fly out at every window. He even went so far as to build his house with the usual number of windows, and no glass in the sashes; he lived in that house for fifty years, reared a large family there, and no death ever occurred in it. He himself died away from home, of small-pox, at eighty; his son immediately glazed all the windows of the house, and several of the family died within the first year of the alteration. The story sounds apocryphal, I own, though I did not get it from Sir Jonah Barrington, but somewhere in the scarcely less amusing pages of Sir John Sinclair. I will not advise you, my unfortunate sufferer, to break every pane of glass in your domicile, though I have no doubt that Nathaniel and his boy-companions would enter with enthusiasm into the process; I am not fond of extremes; but you certainly might go so far as to take the nails out of my bed-room windows, and yet keep a good deal this side the Lyne.

I hardly dare go on to speak of exercise, lest I should share the reproach of that ancient rhetorician who,—as related by Plutarch, in his Aphorisms,—after delivering an oration in praise of Hercules, was startled by the satirical inquiry from his audience, whether any one had ever dispraised Hercules. As with Hercules, so with the physical activity he represents,—no one dispraises, if few practise it. Even the disagreement of doctors has brought out but little skepticism on this point. Cardan, it is true, in his treatise, "Plantae cur Animalibus diuturniores," maintained that trees lived longer than men because they never stirred from their places. Exercise, he held, increases transpiration; transpiration shortens life; to live long, then, we need only remain perfectly still. Lord Bacon fell in with this fancy, and advised "oily unctions," to prevent perspiration. Maupertuis went farther, and proposed to keep the body covered with pitch for this purpose: conceive, Dolorosus, of spending threescore years and ten in a garment of tar, without even the ornament of feathers, sitting tranquilly in our chairs, waiting for longevity! In more recent times, I can remember only Dr. Darwin as an advocate of sedentary living. He attempted to show its advantages by the healthy longevity attained by quiet old ladies in country-towns. But this is questioned by his critic, Dr. Beddoes, who admits the longevity, but denies the healthiness; he maintains that the old ladies are taking some new medicine every day,—at least, if they have a physician who understands his business.

Now I will not maintain, with Frederick the Great, that all our systems of education are wrong, because they aim to make men students or clerks, whereas the mere shape of the body shows (so thought King Frederick) that we are primarily designed for postilions, and should spend most of our lives on horseback. But it is very certain that all the physical universe takes the side of health and activity, wooing us forth into Nature, imploring us hourly, and in unsuspected ways, to receive her blessed breath into body and soul, and share in her eternal youth. For this are summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, given; for this do violet and bloodroot come, and gentian and witch-hazel go; for this do changing sunsets make yon path between the pines a gateway into heaven; for this does day shut us down within the loneliness of its dome of light, and night, lifting it, make us free of the vast fellowship of stars; for this do pale meteors wander nightly, soft as wind-blown blossoms, down the air; for this do silent snows transform the winter woods to feathery things, that seem too light to linger, and yet too vast to take their flight; for this does the eternal ocean follow its queen with patient footsteps round earth's human shores; for this does all the fair creation answer to every dream or mood of man, so that we receive but what we give;—all is offered to us, to call us from our books and our trade, and summon us into Nature's health and joy. To study, with the artist, the least of her beauties,—to explore, with the man of science, the smallest of her wonders,—or even simply to wander among her exhaustless resources, like a child, needing no interest unborrowed from the eye,—this feeds body and brain and heart and soul together.

But I see that your attention is wandering a little, Dolorosus, and perhaps I ought not to be surprised. I think I hear you respond, impatiently, in general terms, that you are not "sentimental." I admit it; never within my memory did you err on that side. You also hint that you never did care much about weeds or bugs. The phrases are not scientific, but the opinion is intelligible. Perhaps my ardor has carried me too fast for my audience. While it would be a pleasure, no doubt, to see you transformed into an artist or a savant, yet that is scarcely to be expected, and, if attained, might not be quite enough. The studies of the naturalist, exclusively pursued, may tend to make a man too conscious and critical,—patronizing Nature, instead of enjoying her. He may even grow morbidly sensitive, like Buffon, who became so impressed with the delicacy and mystery of the human organization, that he was afraid to stoop even to pick up his own pen, when dropped, but called a servant to restore it. The artist, also, becomes often narrowed and petty, and regards the universe as a sort of factory, arranged to turn out "good bits of color" for him. Something is needed to make us more free and unconscious, in our out-door lives, than these too wise individuals; and that something is best to be found in athletic sports. It was a genuine impulse which led Sir Humphrey Davy to care more for fishing than even for chemistry, and made Byron prouder of his swimming than of "Childe Harold," and induced Sir Robert Walpole always to open his gamekeeper's letters first, and his diplomatic correspondence afterwards. Athletic sports are "boyish," are they? Then they are precisely what we want. We Americans certainly do not have much boyhood under the age of twenty, and we must take it afterwards or not at all.

Who can describe the unspeakable refreshment for an overworked brain, of laying aside all cares, and surrendering one's self to simple bodily activity? Laying them aside! I retract the expression; they slip off unnoticed. You cannot embark care in your wherry; there is no room for the odious freight. Care refuses to sit behind the horseman, despite the Latin sentence; you leave it among your garments when you plunge into the river, it rolls away from the rolling cricket-ball, the first whirl in the gymnasium disposes of it, and you are left free, as boys and birds are free. If athletic amusements did nothing for the body, they would still be medicine for the soul. Nay, it is Plato who says that exercise will almost cure a guilty conscience,—and can we be indifferent to this, my fellow-sinner?

Why will you persist in urging that you "cannot afford" these indulgences, as you call them? They are not indulgences,—they are necessaries. Charge them, in your private account-book, under the heads of food and clothing, and as a substitute for your present enormous items under the head of medicine. O mistaken economist! can you afford the cessation of labor and the ceaseless drugging and douching of your last few years? Did not all your large experience in the retail-business teach you the comparative value of the ounce of prevention and the pound of cure? Are not fresh air and cold water to be had cheap? and is not good bread less costly than cake and pies? Is not the gymnasium a more economical institution than the hospital? and is not a pair of skates a good investment, if it aids you to elude the grasp of the apothecary? Is the cow Pepsin, on the whole, a more frugal hobby to ride than a good saddle-horse? Besides, if you insist upon pecuniary economy, do begin by economizing on the exercise which you pay others for taking in your stead,—on the corn and pears which you buy in the market, instead of removing to a suburban house and raising them yourself,—and in the reluctant silver you pay the Irishman who splits your wood. Or if, suddenly reversing your line of argument, you plead that this would impoverish the Irishman, you can at least treat him as you do the organ-grinder, and pay him an extra fee to go on to your next neighbor.

Dolorosus, there is something very noble, if you could but discover it, in a perfect human body. In spite of all our bemoaning, the physical structure of man displays its due power and beauty when we consent to give it a fair chance. On the cheek of every healthy child that plays in the street, though clouded by all the dirt that ever incrusted a young O'Brien or M'Cafferty, there is a glory of color such as no artist ever painted. I can take you to-morrow into a circus or a gymnasium, and show you limbs and attitudes which are worth more study than the Apollo or the Antinous, because they are life, not marble. How noble were Horatio Greenough's meditations, in presence of the despised circus-rider! "I worship, when I see this brittle form borne at full speed on the back of a fiery horse, yet dancing as on the quiet ground, and smiling in conscious safety."

I admit that this view, like every other, may be carried to excess. We can hardly expect to correct our past neglect of bodily training, without falling into reactions and extremes, in the process. There is our friend Jones, for instance, "the Englishman," as the boys on the Common call him, from his cheery portliness of aspect. He is the man who insisted on keeping the telegraph-office open until 2, A.M., to hear whether Morrissey or the Benicia Boy won the prize-fight. I cannot say much for his personal conformity to his own theories at present, for he is growing rather too stout; but he likes vicarious exercise, and is doing something for the next generation, even if he does make the club laugh, sometimes, by advancing theories of training which the lower circumference of his own waistcoat does not seem to justify. But Charley, his eldest, can ride, shoot, and speak the truth, like an ancient Persian; he is the best boxer in college, and is now known to have gone to Canada incog., during the vacation, under the immediate supervision of Morris, the teacher of sparring, to see that same fight. It is true that the youth blushes, now, whenever that trip is alluded to; and when he was cross-questioned by his pet sister Kate, (Kate Coventry she delights to be called,) as to whether it wasn't "splendid," he hastily told her that she didn't know what she was talking about, (which was undoubtedly true,)—and that he wished he didn't, either. The truth is, that Charley, with his honest, boyish face, must have been singularly out of place among that brutal circle; and there is little doubt that he retired from the company before the set-to was fairly begun, and that respectable old Morris went with him. But, at any rate, they are a noble-looking family, and well brought up. Charley, with all his pugilism, stands fair for a part at Commencement, they say; and if you could have seen little Kate teaching her big cousin to skate backwards, at Jamaica Pond, last February, it would have reminded you of the pretty scene of the little cadet attitudinising before the great Formes, in "Figaro." The whole family incline in the same direction; even Laura, the elder sister,—who is attending a course of lectures on Hygiene, and just at present sits motionless for half an hour before every meal for her stomach's sake, and again a whole hour afterwards for her often (imaginary) infirmities,—even Laura is a perfect Hebe in health and bloom, and saved herself and her little sister when the boat upset, last summer, at Dove Harbor,—while the two young men who were with them had much ado to secure their own elegant persons, without rendering much aid to the girls. And when I think, Dolorosus, of this splendid animal vigor of the race of Jones, and then call to mind the melancholy countenances of your forlorn little offspring, I really think that it would, on the whole, be unsafe to trust you with that revolver; you might be tempted to damage yourself or somebody else with it, before departing for the Rocky Mountains.

Do not think me heartless for what I say, or assume, that, because I happen to be healthy myself, I have no mercy for ill-health in others. There are invalids who are objects of sympathy indeed, guiltless heirs of ancestral disease, or victims of parental folly or sin,—those whose lives are early blighted by maladies that seem as causeless as they are cureless,—or those with whom the world has dealt so cruelly that all their delicate nature is like sweet bells jangled,—or those whose powers of life are all exhausted by unnoticed labors and unseen cares,—or those prematurely old with duties and dangers, heroes of thought and action, whose very names evoke the passion and the pride of a hundred thousand hearts. There is a tottering feebleness of old age, also, nobler than any prime of strength; we all know aged men who are floating on, in stately serenity, towards their last harbor, like Turner's Old Temeraire, with quiet tides around them, and the blessed sunset bathing in loveliness all their dying day. Let human love do its gracious work upon all these; let angelic hands of women wait upon their lightest needs, and every voice of salutation be tuned to such a sweetness as if it whispered beside a dying mother's bed.

But you, Dolorosus,—you, to whom God gave youth and health, and who might have kept them, the one long and the other perchance always, but who never loved them, nor reverenced them, nor cherished them, only coined them into money till they were all gone, and even the ill-gotten treasure fell from your debilitated hands,—you, who shunned the sunshine as if it were sin, and called all innocent recreation time wasted,—you, who staid under ground in your goldmine, like the sightless fishes of the Mammoth Cave, till you were as blind and unjoyous as they,—what plea have you to make, what shelter to claim, except that charity which suffereth long and is kind? We will strive not to withhold it; while there is life, there is hope. At forty, it is said, every man is a fool or a physician. We will wait and see which vocation you select as your own, for the broken remnant of your days.

* * * * *

THE UTAH EXPEDITION:

ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES.

[Continued.]

In the mean while Congress had assembled. The agitation on the subject of Slavery, far from being suppressed, or even overshadowed, burned more fiercely than ever before. The Pro-slavery faction in Kansas, stimulated by the constant support of the National Administration, was engaged in a final effort to maintain a supremacy over the affairs of that Territory which the current of immigration from the Free States had been steadily undermining. Against the will of nine-tenths of the population, it had framed, with a show of technical legality, a Constitution intended to perpetuate Slavery, which the Administration indorsed and presented to Congress with an urgent recommendation for the admission under it of Kansas as a State. In the commotion which these events excited throughout the country, the transient gleam of importance which had attached to the Mormon War was almost extinguished. The people of the States no longer felt a much more vital interest in news from that remote region than in tidings from the rebellion in India or of the wars in China. Their attention, sympathies, and curiosity—were all fastened upon the action of Congress with respect to Kansas,—for therein, it was believed, were contained the germs of the political combinations for the Presidential election of 1860. The same listlessness with regard to affairs in Utah pervaded the Cabinet. All its prestige was staked on the result of the impending struggle in the House of Representatives over the Lecompton Constitution, and its energies were abstracted from every other subject, to be concentrated upon that alone.

Just at this time, Mr. Thomas L. Kane, of Pennsylvania,—son of the late Judge of the United States District Court for that State, and brother of the late Dr. Kane, the Arctic explorer,—solicited the Administration for employment as a mediator between the Mormons and the Federal Government. Mr. Kane was one of the few persons of education and social standing who were well acquainted with Mormon history. He had visited them at Winter Quarters, in Iowa, during their exodus from Nauvoo, in the capacity of a commissioner to enlist the Mormon battalion which served in the Mexican War. During an illness which attacked him there, he was treated with an unremitting kindness, for which his gratitude has been proportionate. Belonging to a family whose members have been distinguished by strong traits of individuality, not to say eccentricity, from that moment forward he displayed a practical interest in the welfare of the sect. It is said that he became a convert to the religious doctrines of Mormonism. Whether this be true at all, and, if so, to what extent, it would he profitless at the present time to inquire. For the purposes of this narrative, it is sufficient to assert only, what is unchallenged, that he was a sincere admirer of the Mormons as a people, and for a long series of years had defended them from every reproach with a zeal which many of his friends thought inordinate.

Its experience in Kansas had familiarized the Cabinet with the use of secret agents; but, nevertheless, the proposition of Mr. Kane was coldly received. After a brief correspondence, he started for California, in no capacity a representative of the government, if he himself is to be believed, but bearing letters from Mr. Buchanan indorsing his character as a gentleman, and exhorting Federal officials to render him such courtesies as were within their power. Having arrived at San Francisco, he journeyed southward to the lately abandoned Mormon settlement of San Bernardino, near Los Angeles, travelling under the assumed name of Osborne, and proclaiming his business to be the collection of specimens for an entomological society in Philadelphia. There his real name and purpose were detected, but he succeeded in obtaining transportation to Salt Lake City, where he arrived on the 25th of February, 1858, and was greeted by Young and Kimball, and the rest of the Mormon magnates, as an old and cherished friend.

In the Annual Message of the President to Congress, his disposition to make every other issue subordinate to that of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution was manifest; and it influenced the tone of those paragraphs which treated of affairs in Utah. Notwithstanding the fact that the Mormons had committed every act of warfare against the United States short of taking life, Mr. Buchanan qualified his language concerning their conduct, stating, that, "unless Brigham Young should retrace his steps, the Territory of Utah will be in a state of open rebellion," but declining to accept the logical inference from his own expression, that the rebellion was at the time open and manifest. He recommended no further legislation concerning the matter than that four regiments should be added to the army, to supply the place of those which had been withdrawn from service in the East.

It was evident that the purpose for which he had originally planned the expedition had failed. Forced, after all, no less by inclination than by circumstances, into such a revival of Slavery agitation as he had never contemplated during the interval between his election and inauguration, the Utah War only incumbered his administration, promoting neither its policy nor its prosperity. However it might result, it would not in the least advance his interests; and it became his opinion, that, the sooner it was quieted, the better for the welfare of the Democratic party, which would be held responsible by the country for all mistakes in its management. "After us the deluge," seemed to be adopted as the motto of the entire policy of the Administration.

The only movement in Congress concerning Utah, before the New Year, was the introduction into the House of Representatives, by Mr. Warren of Arkansas, of a badly-worded resolution, prefaced by a worse-worded preamble, looking to the expulsion from the floor of Mr. Bernhisel, the Mormon delegate from the Territory. A lively discussion ensued concerning the question of privilege under which Mr. Warren claimed the right to introduce the resolution,—and when it was ruled in order, much hesitation was evinced about adopting it, some members fearing that it would establish a dangerous precedent for emergencies that might arise in the future history of the country. The tone of debate showed that there was little difference of opinion in the House concerning Utah affairs,—the unanimity, however, being due in great part to ignorance and indifference. The issue of Slavery in Kansas was absorbing. Mr. Warren's resolution was referred to the Committee on Territories, and slumbered upon their table through the whole session. The only other movement in Congress, which deserves mention in this connection, was the introduction, towards the close of January, by Senator Wilson of Massachusetts, of a joint resolution authorizing the appointment of commissioners to examine into the Mormon difficulties, "with a view to their adjustment." This was referred by the Senate to the Committee on Military Affairs, and was never heard of again.

The recommendation of the President for an increase of the army secured favorable consideration from committees of both Houses, and the discussion which ensued, upon the bills reported for that purpose, was filled with allusions to the Utah question. Mr. Thompson of New York, and Mr. Boyce of South Carolina, both made elaborate speeches on the subject; but neither of them proposed any scheme for its solution. Such a scheme, however, was suggested by Mr. Blair of Missouri, who advised a reorganization of the Territorial government, in order to vest the legislative power in the Governor and the Judges, for which a precedent existed in the instance of the old Northwestern Territory; but no action was had upon this suggestion. Through the entire debate, Mr. Bernhisel remained silent. During the winter, the President conferred upon Colonel Johnston the brevet rank of Brigadier-General, believing that the uniform discretion he had manifested entitled him to promotion; and the nomination was confirmed by the Senate.

While such were the transactions in Congress, the Mormons, in December, had organized a government like that under which they had hitherto subsisted. Their legislature—the same which had been elected under the Organic Act of the Territory—met at Salt Lake City on the second Monday of that month, in the hall of the Council House, and organized by the choice of Heber C. Kimball as President of the Council and John Taylor as Speaker of the House. Brigham Young retained the title and authority of Governor, and addressed to the legislature the customary annual message, reviewing the condition of the Territory. This document was prepared in reality by Taylor, and was worded with considerable ingenuity. Not the slightest allusion was made to the declarations of independence that had been reiterated throughout the summer and autumn, but the relations of Utah to the United States were discussed as those of a Territory to the Union. The President was himself charged with treason in his action towards the Mormons, the Governor and Judges whom he had appointed were reviled as depraved and abandoned men, and the army was again proclaimed a mob,—while Utah was lauded as the "most loyal Territory known since the days of the Revolution." The theory of Squatter-Sovereignty was the basis of the argument, and Mr. Buchanan was accused, and with some reason, of inconsistency in his application of that doctrine.

In response to this message, the legislature passed a series of resolutions, pledging itself to sustain "His Excellency Governor Young" in every act he might perform or dictate "for the protection of the lives, peace, and prosperity of the people of the Territory,"—asserting that the President had incurred the "contempt and decided opposition of all good men," on account of the "act of usurped authority and oppression" of which he was guilty, in "forcing profane, drunken, and otherwise corrupt officials upon Utah at the point of the bayonet,"—expressing a determination to "continue to resist any attempt on the part of the Administration to bring the people into a state of vassalage by appointing, contrary to the Constitution, officers whom the people have neither voice nor vote in electing,"—avowing the purpose not to suffer "any persons appointed to office for Utah by the Administration either to qualify for, or assume, or discharge, within the limits of the Territory, the functions of the offices to which they have been appointed; so long as the Territory is menaced by an invading army,"—and declaring that the people of Utah would have their voice in the selection of their officers. These were sweet-scented blossoms to blow so early on the tree of Squatter-Sovereignty, at that time scarcely four years old!

The only acts of the legislature were one disorganizing the County of Green River, in which the army was encamped, and attaching it for legislative and judicial purposes to Great Salt Lake County; another divesting the Governor of power to license the manufacture of ardent spirits, and conferring that authority upon the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and several others in pursuance of the system of granting away large tracts of public domain to private persons, in direct contravention of a clause in the Organic Act of the Territory, which provides that "no law shall be passed interfering with the primary disposal of the soil." To these acts Brigham Young attached his signature as Governor, and affixed the Territorial seal.

A Memorial to Congress was adopted also, which was transmitted to Washington, and received there and laid before the two Houses on the 16th of March. This document charged that the action of the National Government towards Utah was based upon the statements of "lying officials and anonymous letter-writers"; it rehearsed the history of the Mormons,—their persecutions in Missouri and Illinois,—and declared that the object of the Utah expedition was to inflict similar outrages. "Give us our constitutional rights," it said; "they are all we ask; and them we have a right to expect. For them we contend, and feel justified in so doing. We claim that we should have the privilege, as we have the constitutional right, to choose our own rulers and make our own laws without let or hindrance." Although this Memorial was nothing more than an infuriated tirade, it was honored in both Houses by reference to the Committees on Territories, from which it received all the consideration it deserved.

Indifferent and inactive as this review shows Congress and the President to have been concerning Utah, a similar apathy was impossible in the War Department. Not only the welfare, but the lives even, of the troops at Fort Bridger, depended on its action. Transactions of such magnitude had not been incumbent on its bureaus since the Mexican War. The chief anxiety of General Johnston was for the transmission of supplies from the East as early as possible in the spring. The contractors for their transportation during the year 1857 had wintered several trains at Fort Laramie, together with oxen and teamsters. The General entertained a fear that so great a proportion of their stock might perish during the winter as to cripple their advance until fresh animals could be obtained from the States. Combined with this fear was an apprehension for the safety of Captain Marcy. A prisoner, whom the Mormons had captured in October on Ham's Fork, escaped from Salt Lake City at the close of December, and brought news to Camp Scott that they intended to fit out an expedition to intercept the command and stampede the herds with which that officer would move from New Mexico. The dispatches in which these anxieties were communicated to General Scott, together with suggestions for their relief, were intrusted in midwinter to a small party for conveyance to the States. The journey taught them what must have been the sufferings of the expedition which Captain Marcy led to Taos. Reduced at one time to buffalo-tallow and coffee for sustenance, there was not a day during the transit across the mountains when any stronger barrier than the lives of a few half-starved mules interposed between them and death by famine. All along the route lay memorials of the march of the army, and especially of Colonel Cooke's battalion,—a trail of skeletons a thousand miles in length, gnawed bare by the wolves and bleaching in the snow, visible at every undulation in the drifts.

But before the arrival of these dispatches at New York, the arrangements of the War Department to forward supplies to Utah had been completed. The representations of the contractors' agents with regard to the condition of the cattle at Fort Laramie were received without question, and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann, of the Sixth Infantry, was dispatched to that post to superintend the advance of the trains. Additional contracts, of an unprecedented character, were entered into for furnishing and transporting all the supplies which would be needed during the year 1858, both for the troops already in the Territory and for the reinforcements which were ordered to concentrate at Fort Leavenworth and march to Utah as soon as the roads should be passable. These reinforcements were about three thousand strong, comprising the First Cavalry, the Sixth and Seventh Infantry, and two artillery-batteries. The trains necessary for so large a force, in addition to that at Fort Bridger, it was estimated would comprise at least forty-five hundred wagons, requiring more than fifty thousand oxen, four thousand mules, and five thousand teamsters, wagon-masters, and other employes. To the shame of the Administration, these gigantic contracts, involving an amount of more than six million dollars, were distributed with a view to influence votes in the House of Representatives upon the Lecompton Bill. Some of the lesser ones, such as those for furnishing mules, dragoon-horses, and forage, were granted arbitrarily to relatives or friends of members who were wavering upon that question. The principal contract, that for the transportation of all the supplies, involving, for the year 1858, the amount of four millions and a half, was granted, without advertisement or subdivision, to a firm in Western Missouri, whose members had distinguished themselves in the effort to make Kansas a Slave State, and now contributed liberally to defray the election-expenses of the Democratic party.

It was said to have been contemplated, for a while, during the winter, to operate against the Mormons from California, and to send General Scott to San Francisco to direct arrangements for the purpose; but the project, if ever seriously entertained, was soon abandoned, it being evident that for the speedy subjugation of Utah the Missouri frontier furnished the only practicable base-line of operations.

At Camp Scott, the winter dragged along wearily. Between November and March only two mails arrived there, and the great monetary crisis in the United States was unknown till months after it had subsided. The Mormons were constantly in possession of later intelligence from the States than the army; for, by a strange inconsistency, their mails to and from California were not interfered with. A brigade-guard was mounted daily at the camp larger than that of the whole American army on the eve of the battles before Mexico, and scouting parties were continually dispatched to scour the country in a circuit of thirty miles around Fort Bridger; for there was constant apprehension of an attempt by the Mormons to stampede the herds on Henry's Fork, if not to attack the regiment which guarded them. No tidings arrived from Captain Marcy, and a most painful apprehension prevailed as to his fate. At the close of January, Dr. Hurt, the Indian Agent, after consultation with General Johnston, started from the camp, accompanied only by four Pah-Utahs, and crossed the Uinta Mountains, through snow drifted twenty feet deep, to the villages of the tribe of Uinta-Utahs, on the river of the same name. It was his intention, in case of need, to employ these Indians to warn Captain Marcy of danger and afford him relief. It proved to be unnecessary to do so, and Dr. Hurt returned in April; but the hardships he endured in the undertaking resulted in an illness which threatened his life for weeks. On the 13th of March, an express had come in from New Mexico, bringing news of the safe arrival of Captain Marcy at Taos on the 22d of January. The sufferings of his whole party from cold and hunger had been severe. Their provisions failed them, and they had recourse to mule-meat. Many of the men were badly frost-bitten, but only one perished on the journey.

On the previous evening,—March 12th,—the monotony of the camp had been unexpectedly disturbed by the arrival, from the direction of Salt Lake City, of a horseman completely exhausted by fatigue and cold, who proved to be no other than Mr. Kane, whose mission to the Mormons by way of California was at that time totally unknown to the army. The next morning he introduced himself to the Governor, was received as his guest, and remained in conference with him throughout the day. What was the character of their communication is unknown, except by inference from its results. When presented to Judge Eckels, on the following day, Mr. Kane exhibited to him the letters he bore from the President, and other letters, also, from Brigham Young, accrediting him as a negotiator in the existing difficulties. To General Johnston he showed nothing; nor did the Governor, to the knowledge of the camp, acquaint either that officer or any other person with the purport of his business. It was evident to everybody, however, that the Mormon leaders, conscious of their inability to resist the force by which they would be assailed so soon as the snow should melt upon the mountains, were engaged in an effort, of which Mr. Kane was the agent, to secure through the Governor, if possible, indemnity for their past offences, in consideration of acknowledgment of his authority.

The domestic condition of the people of the Valley confirmed the belief that this was the purpose of Mr. Kane's mission. Dependent as they had always been, since their settlement in Utah, upon Eastern merchants for an annual supply of groceries, dry goods, wearing-apparel of all descriptions, and every article of luxury, their stock of some of even the necessaries of life—such as coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, calicoes, boots and shoes, stationery—was at this time nearly exhausted. Many of the poorer families were actually half naked, and, to supply them with covering, an ecclesiastical mandate had been issued, directing all persons who had spare clothing of any description to deposit it at the tithing-office in Salt Lake City, to be there exchanged for grain and cattle with those who were in need.

At the commencement of the rebellion, the Mormon settlements in Southern California had been broken up, and all the missionaries of the Church were summoned to return from foreign lands. The influx of population from these sources, though slight, yet increased the destitution. Almost all the people, too, had been withdrawn from productive employments throughout the autumn and winter. Although the number of militia kept under arms, after the formation of the camp at Fort Bridger, probably at no time reached fifteen hundred, while in October and November it had exceeded three thousand, still the fever of excitement which raged through the community distracted its members from any hearty labor. Great quantities of winter-wheat, to be sure, had been sown, and the fields were prepared for cultivation during the coming summer; but no public improvements were prosecuted, and everybody was prepared for such an exodus as had been predicted to Captain Van Vliet.

The complete subserviency of the people to the hierarchy was never more strikingly manifest than in a financial scheme which Brigham Young devised at this time. Among the Mormons there had always been a quantity of gold coin in circulation, much exceeding, in proportion to their number, the amount circulating in any other portion of America. This was owing to the fact, that the Church had unconstitutionally arrogated to itself the prerogative of coining and regulating the value of money. The Mormon battalion which had been enlisted at Winter Quarters in Iowa was disbanded in California at the close of the Mexican War, and most of its members went to the gold-diggings. The treasures they there accumulated were conveyed to Utah, where the Church established a mint and coined gold pieces of $2.50, $5, $10, and $20. The device on the obverse was two hands clasped in one of the grips of the Endowment; on the reverse, a figure from the Book of Mormon, with the motto, "Holiness to the Lord." The intrinsic value of these coins being more than ten per cent less than their denominations, they were all retained within the Territory. Young now prevailed upon his people to surrender whatever gold and silver they possessed, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, and accept in return the notes of a banking association of which he himself was president and one of his numerous sons-in-law cashier. These notes were redeemable, in amounts of not less than one hundred dollars, in live stock, the appraisement of the value of which rested with the officers of the association. So absolute was the degradation and ignorance of the population, that they submitted to this extortion without a murmur.

Mr. Kane had remained in Salt Lake City eight days before starting towards Fort Bridger,—a period quite long enough for a trusted friend of the Mormon leaders to ascertain the extremities to which the people were reduced. To secure the safety of those leaders who were under indictment for treason, there was no choice except between flight and inducing the Federal authorities to temporize. Both he and they were conscious that the advance of the army could not be successfully resisted, when the snow should cease to bar its way. In case of the flight of the leaders, or of a general exodus of the population, only two courses lay open to them,—northward toward the British Possessions, southward toward the provinces of Upper Mexico.

The first two days of Mr. Kane's sojourn in camp satisfied him of the cooperation of Governor Cumming in a plan for temporizing, as well as of the impossibility of enlisting General Johnston or Judge Eckels in any such scheme. An imaginary affront, to which he believed himself at this time to have been subjected by the General, led him into a course of action which, had it been followed out, might have terminated his mission abruptly. Considering the fact that he was within the guard-lines of a military encampment, in a country where a state of warfare existed, it was perhaps too great forbearance on the part of the General not to have required to be informed of his business, since he himself volunteered no explanation. An invitation to dinner being dispatched to him from head-quarters,—and such an invitation was no slight compliment in a camp where the rations were so abridged,—the orderly to whom it was intrusted for delivery, whether maliciously or not it does not appear, pretended to have mistaken his directions, and proceeded to place him under arrest. The mistake, when discovered, was of course immediately rectified; but Mr. Kane became so excited in consequence, that, with the assent of the Governor, he indited a challenge to the General, and applied to a gentleman from Virginia to act as his second. Having received a decided rebuff in that quarter, he was induced to abandon the design by the interposition of Judge Eckels, who became acquainted with what was passing, and informed the Governor that he had ordered the United States Marshal to arrest all the parties concerned, in case another step should be taken in the affair. It was not till some time afterwards that these transactions came to the knowledge of General Johnston.

Mr. Kane remained with the Governor until April, absenting himself once, however, for a day, in order to hold a secret interview with a party of Mormons who had come into the vicinity of the camp. Notwithstanding his presence, no precaution to protect the herds was neglected, nor was the guard-duty at all relaxed. On the 18th of March, although a furious snow-storm raged all day long, the encampment was moved down Black's Fork to the immediate neighborhood of Fort Bridger,—a spot less sheltered, but far more secure from attack. On the 3d of April, an event occurred for which everybody was prepared. The Governor announced to General Johnston his intention to proceed to Salt Lake City in company with Mr. Kane; and on the 5th, they started upon the journey.

The District Court commenced its spring term at Fort Bridger the same day. In his charge to the grand jury, Judge Eckels was explicit on the subject of polygamy, instructing them substantially as follows: That among the Territorial statutes there was no act legalizing polygamy, nor any act affixing a definite punishment to that practice as such; that, consequently, whether the old Spanish law or the Common Law constituted the basis of jurisprudence in the Territory, the definition of marriage recognized by both was to be received there, which limited that institution to the union of one man with one woman, and also the definition of adultery common to both, by which that crime consisted in the cohabitation of either the man or the woman with a third party; that among the Territorial statutes there was an act affixing a definite punishment to adultery, and accordingly that it was the duty of the grand jury to inquire whether that act had been infringed by parties liable to their inquisition.[A] No indictment, however, was returned for the offence; neither were any proceedings had upon the indictments for treason. The business of the court was restricted to such crimes as larceny, and assault and battery, among the heterogeneous mass of camp-followers.

[Footnote A: As this charge has become of great importance in the affairs of the Territory, we subjoin the precise language of that portion of it which refers to polygamy:—

"It cannot be concealed, gentlemen, that certain domestic arrangements exist in this Territory destructive of the peace, good order, and morals of society,—arrangements at variance with those of all enlightened and Christian communities in the world; and sapping as they do the very foundation of all virtue, honesty, and morality, it is an imperative duty falling upon you as grand jurors diligently to inquire into this evil and make every effort to check its growth. It is well known that all of the inhabited portion of this Territory was acquired by treaty from Mexico. By the law of Mexico polygamy was prohibited in this country, and the municipal law in this respect remained unaltered by its cession to the United States. Has it been altered since we acquired it? After a most diligent search and inquiry, I have not been able to find that any such change has been made: and presuming that this law remains unchanged by legislation, all marriages after the first are by this law illegal and void. If you are then satisfied that such is the fact, your next duty is to inquire by what law in force in this Territory are such practices punishable. There is no law in this Territory punishing polygamy, but there is one, however, for the punishment of adultery; and all illegal intercourse between the sexes, if either party have a husband or wife living at the time, is adulterous and punishable by indictment. No consequences in which a large proportion of this people may be involved in consequence of this criminal practice will deter you from a fearless discharge of your duty. It is yours to find the facts and to return indictments, without fear, favor, affection, reward, or any hope thereof. The law was made to punish the lawless and disobedient, and society is entitled to the salutary effects of its execution."]

At the distance of a few miles from Fort Bridger, the Governor and Mr. Kane were received by a Mormon guard. At various points on their journey squads of militia were encountered, and in Echo Canon there was a command of several hundred. The Big Mountain, which the road crosses twenty miles from Salt Lake City, was covered so deep with snow, that the party was obliged to follow the canons of the Weber River into the Valley. Upon arriving at the city, on the 12th of April, the Governor was installed in the house of a Mr. Staines, one of the adopted sons of Brigham Young, and was soon after waited upon by Young himself, in company with numerous ecclesiastical dignitaries. The Territorial seal was tendered to him, and he was recognized to his full satisfaction in his official capacity. He remained more than three weeks. Except fugitive statements in newspapers, the only connected account of his proceedings is from his own pen, and consists of two official letters,—one addressed to General Johnston, under date of April 15th, the other to the Secretary of State at Washington, dated May 2d. The former merely announces his arrival, reception, and recognition, transmits charges against Dr. Hurt, of having excited the Uinta Indians to acts of hostility against the Mormons, and suggests that he should desire a detachment of the army to be dispatched to chastise that tribe, but a requisition for that purpose was made neither then nor subsequently. The letter to Secretary Cass states that his time was devoted to examining the public property of the United States which was in the city,—the records of the courts, the Territorial library, the maps and minutes of the Surveyor General,—and exculpates the Mormons, in great part, from the charge of having injured or embezzled it.

During his stay, information was communicated to him, that there was a number of persons who were desirous of leaving the Territory, but unable to do so, considering themselves restrained of their liberty. Accordingly, on the following Sunday, he caused notice to be given from the platform in the Tabernacle, that he assumed the protection of all such persons, and desired them to communicate to him their names and residences. During the ensuing week, nearly two hundred persons registered themselves in the manner he proposed, and a greater number would undoubtedly have been glad to follow their example, but were deterred by the surveillance to which they were subjected by certain functionaries of the Church before being admitted to his presence. Those who were registered were organized into trains, with the little movable property they possessed, and dispatched towards Fort Bridger. They arrived there in the course of May,—as motley, ragged, and destitute a crowd as ever descended from the deck of an Irish emigrant-ship at New York or Boston. The only garments which some possessed were made of the canvas of their wagon-covers.

Many were on foot. For provisions, they had nothing except flour and some fresh meat. It is a fact creditable to humanity, that private soldiers, by the score, shared their own abridged rations and scanty stock of clothing with these poor wretches, and in less than a day after their arrival they were provided with much to make them comfortable.

On that same Sunday, the Governor made a speech to the congregation, being introduced by Brigham Young. He reviewed the relations of the Mormons to the Federal government; assumed that General Johnston and the army were under his control; pledged his word that they should not be stationed in immediate contact with the settlements; and gave assurances, also, that no military posse should be employed to arrest a Mormon until every other means had been tried and had failed. At the close, he invited any of their number to respond. Various persons immediately addressed the audience in almost frantic speeches, concerning the murder of Joseph and Hiram Smith at Carthage, the persecution of the Saints in Missouri and Illinois, the services rendered by the Mormon Battalion to an ungrateful country during the Mexican War, the toils and perils of the migration to Utah, and the character of the Federal officers who had been sent to rule the Territory. Personal insults were heaped upon the Governor, and a scene of the wildest confusion was the result, which was quieted with great difficulty by Young himself. It was manifest that the mass of the people, overconfident of their capacity to resist the troops, were not fully prepared for the capitulation the leaders were willing to make to save their own necks from the halter; and, at a second meeting during the afternoon, Young yielded somewhat to the popular clamor.

All this while, a movement of a most extraordinary character was being carried on, which had commenced before the Governor entered the Valley. The people of the northern settlements, along the base of the Wahsatch Mountains, including Salt Lake City, were deserting their homes, abandoning houses, crops, and their heavier furniture, and migrating southward. Long wagon-trains were sweeping through the city every day, accompanied by hundreds of families, and droves of horses and cattle. A fair estimate of the entire Mormon population of Utah is about forty-five thousand. Of this number, ten thousand is the proportion of the towns north of Salt Lake City, and upward of fifteen thousand that of the city itself and the settlements in its immediate neighborhood. Considerably more than half the people of the Territory, therefore, shared in this emigration. What was its object and what its destination are still mysteries; but it was probably directed toward the mountain-ranges in the southwestern portion of the Great Basin, of the topography of which region—hitherto unvisited by Federal explorers—the Mormons undoubtedly possess accurate information. At any rate, it was initiated and conducted under the direction of the Church, and Young and Kimball were among the first to lead the way. Commencing late in March, it continued until June, and before the beginning of May more than thirty-five thousand people were concentrated on the western shore of Lake Utah, chiefly in the neighborhood of Provo, fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. Such a scene of squalid misery, such a spectacle of want and distress, was never before witnessed in America. More than half this multitude could not be accommodated in the towns, and lodged in board-shanties, wigwams, mud-huts, log-cabins, bowers of willow-branches covered with wagon-sheets, and even in holes dug into the hill-sides. The most common quarters, however, were made by removing a wagon-body from its wheels, placing it upon the ground, and erecting in front of it a bower of cedars. It is needless to dwell on the exasperation which animated all who submitted to these sacrifices. In the history of the Albigenses hunted through Languedoc, or of the Jews writhing under the Spanish Inquisition, a record of similar bitterness of feeling may be found, but its parallel does not exist outside the annals of religious persecution.

Governor Cumming returned to Fort Bridger during the second week in May, still accompanied by Mr. Kane, and also by a party of Mormons who intended to escort the latter to Missouri. Upon his arrival, he addressed a letter to General Johnston, stating, officially, that the people of Utah had acknowledged his authority, and that the roads between the camp and Salt Lake City were free for the transit of mails and passengers, the Mormon forces having withdrawn from the canons, and none of the Territorial militia remaining under arms except with his consent and approbation. A day or two later, Mr. Kane bade him farewell and started toward the States, his mission having been completed.

It may be well to pause here and estimate its precise results. It had secured delay. The herds on Henry's Fork had thriven better than was expected, and toward the close of April the number of mules in working condition was sufficient to have dragged a train of two hundred wagons. The dragoon-horses which survived could have been assigned to the artillery-batteries, and the regiment have served as infantry. With this equipment, slight though it may appear, a rapid movement upon the Valley was possible; and whatever may have been the opinion during the previous autumn, it was the universal opinion in the spring that the force at Camp Scott could have routed any body of militia that might have opposed its advance, although, perhaps, it was not sufficient to subjugate the Territory, in case the Mormons should flee to the mountains. Provisions, also, were running low in the camp. The ration of flour had been further reduced. All the cattle had been slaughtered, and there was every prospect of recourse to mule-meat before the first of June. Everything, therefore, favored the plan of an early march toward the city; and it is certain that it would have been commenced without awaiting reinforcements from the States, had not the Governor's scheme for pacification intervened. Distrustful of its expediency or propriety though General Johnston might have been, he deemed it his duty to await its result. Neither he nor the Governor being supreme in the direction of affairs, it was the duty of each to defer so far as might be to the action of the other.

In the next place, Mr. Kane's interposition had produced an irreconcilable difference of opinion between the civil and the military authority. This is evident from what has already been stated, and there is no need to confirm the fact by argument. The Governor returned to Fort Bridger in May, believing the Mormons to be an injured people, whose cause was in the main just. But his position was full of difficulties. He had been recognized in his official character, it is true; but he was conscious that every Mormon acknowledged a political influence superior to his own, which was directing the emigration southward, and leaving him Governor of empty villages and deserted fields. The only hope he entertained of checking this exodus was by quashing the indictments for treason which had been found against the Mormon leaders, and by insuring them against contact with the troops. The first he was powerless to effect; it was a matter beyond his control,—solely within the cognizance of the courts. The second he had assumed to be within his power, and had so assured the Mormons; but there he was at variance with General Johnston, who denied his claim to absolute authority over the movements of the army.

Unknown, however, to the parties who were agitating these perplexing questions, a superior power had already intervened and solved the difficulty. On the 6th of April, the President had signed a Proclamation, at Washington, rehearsing to the people of Utah Territory, at considerable length, their past offences, and particularly those which immediately preceded and followed the outbreak of the rebellion, and declaring them traitors; but, "in order to save the effusion of blood, and to avoid the indiscriminate punishment of a whole people for crimes of which it is not probable that all are equally guilty," offering "a free and full pardon to all who will submit themselves to the authority of the Federal Government." This document was intrusted to two Commissioners for conveyance to the Territory;—one of them, Mr. L.W. Powell, lately Governor, and at the time Senator-elect, of the State of Kentucky; the other, Major Ben M'Culloch, of Texas, who had served with distinction in Mexico. In their appointment, Mr. Buchanan imitated the example of President Washington, who designated a similar commission to convey his proclamation to the whiskey-insurgents in Pennsylvania.

The reinforcements and supply-trains for the army were at this time concentrating at Fort Leavenworth, Major-General Persifer F. Smith was assigned to the command-in-chief, and it was intended that the whole force, after concentration in Utah, should be divided into two brigades, one to be commanded by General Harney, the other by General Johnston. Leaving the columns preparing to advance over the Plains, the Commissioners started from the Fort on the 25th of April. On the same day, Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann advanced from Fort Laramie with several companies of infantry and cavalry, escorting the supply-trains which were parked there through the winter, and on the speedy arrival of which at Camp Scott the subsistence of General Johnston's command depended, unless it should force its way into the Valley. On the 1st of May, he had reached La Bonte, a tributary of the North Platte, fifty miles from the Fort. There he encountered the severest storm that had occurred in that region for many years. The snow fell breast-deep, and was followed by a pelting rain which killed his mules by scores. He was forced to remain stationary more than a week, and when he renewed the march the trains were clogged by mud foot-deep.

The Commissioners reached Camp Scott on the 29th of May. The President's Proclamation had been received the day before. With the exception of a few persons who were prepared for such a document by reflection on Mr. Kane's mission, everybody was astonished at its purport. It seemed incredible that a lenity should have been extended to the Mormon rebels which was refused to the Free-State men in Kansas, who were once indicted for treason and sedition,—and equally incredible that all the advantages for the solution of the Utah problem which had been gained by the rising of the Mormons in arms should be thrown away. There was none of the bloodthirsty excitement in the camp which was reported in the States to have prevailed there, but there was a feeling of infinite chagrin, a consciousness that the expedition was only a pawn on Mr. Buchanan's political chess-board; and reproaches against his folly were as frequent as they were vehement. Had he excepted from the amnesty the Mormon leaders, who alone had been indicted, the Proclamation might have been considered an act of judicious clemency; for that exception would have accomplished every object that could be desired. As it was, it annihilated all that had been gained by the enormous expenditures and the toils and sufferings of the past year, and it sentenced the army to an indefinite term of imprisonment in an American Siberia. For the sake of ridding the Administration of immediate trouble, it turned the Church leaders loose again upon the community, purged of all offence, and postponed to a future day a terrible issue, the ultimate avoidance of which is impossible. "After us the deluge," was still the motto of the President and his Cabinet.

At the camp the Commissioners remained only three days, which they employed in obtaining accurate information concerning the transactions of the last three months; for when they started from Missouri, no news of the result of Mr. Kane's mission had reached the frontier.

On the 2d of June, they started for the Valley, intending to summon the leading Mormons to an interview, and receive their formal acceptance of the terms of the Proclamation,—of which, of course, there could be no doubt. They were accompanied by the postmaster of Salt Lake City, with the mails for the Mormons, which had been detained at the camp since the commencement of the rebellion. The Governor and the Superintendent of Indian Affairs followed them the next day. The rest of the Federal officers refused to join the party, or to make any movement based on a supposed capitulation of the Mormons, until their submission should be perfected. There were many circumstances attending the departure of the Governor which showed that he was doubtful of the stability of the positions he had been led by Mr. Kane to assume. He expressed himself distrustful of the cooperation of the Commissioners in his plan for pacifying the Territory; and he protested vehemently against allowing persons to accompany the party in order to report for the press the proceedings at the expected conferences. Every day made it more and more evident that he had committed himself to the Mormons farther than he cared to acknowledge.

Before the Commissioners left the camp, they urged General Johnston not to delay the advance of the army one moment beyond the time when he should be ready and desire to march. On the 8th of June, Captain Marcy arrived at the Fort with a herd of nearly fifteen hundred mules and horses, and an escort of five companies of infantry and mounted riflemen. He left the village of Rayado, on the Canadian River, in New Mexico, on the 17th of March, and, instead of retracing the route pursued on his winter journey, which had led him near the sources of Grand River, one of the great forks of the Colorado, he returned along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountain range past Long's and Pike's Peaks. When he had reached Fontaine-qui-bouille Creek, an express overtook him from General Garland, who commanded the Department of New Mexico, enjoining him to halt and await reinforcements. There he camped more than three weeks. Renewing his progress, he was overtaken, on the 29th of April, by the same snowstorm which was so disastrous to Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffmann on La Bonte. It was accompanied by a furious wind, the force of which there was nothing to break. Snow fell to the depth of three feet, and, at the very height of the storm, a part of the mule herd stampeded and ran fifty miles before the wind, for shelter. When the march was resumed, after an interval of several days, hundreds of antelopes were found frozen and buried in the drifts,—a circumstance almost unparalleled among the mountains. With this exception, nothing occurred to obstruct the march. Captain Marcy brought with him specimens of sand from many of the tributaries of the South Platte, which were found, on analysis, to contain particles of gold; and within two months after he gathered them, the same discovery, confirmed by others, originated the emigration to that region, the progress of which now promises the speedy birth of another Free State in the very heart of the continent. On the 9th and 10th, Colonel Hoffmann reached the camp with all his supply-trains; and on the following day, General Johnston issued the welcome order to prepare for the march to Salt Lake City. A strong detachment of infantry and artillery was detailed to garrison Fort Bridger.

On the 13th of June, the long camp was broken up, and the army moved forward in three columns on the route through the canons. Although the season was so far advanced, snow had fallen at the Fort only three days before. The streams were swollen and turbulent with spring floods, and difficulty was anticipated in crossing the Bear and Weber Rivers. Material for bridging had, therefore, been prepared, and accompanied the first column. Southwest of the Fort, at the distance of four or five miles, a singular butte, the top of which is as level as the floor of a ball-room, rises to the height of eight hundred feet above the valley of Black's Fork, and commands a view of the entire broad plateau between the Wind River and the Uinta and Wahsatch Ranges. Little parties of horsemen could be seen spurring up the gullies on its almost precipitous sides, to witness from its summit the departure of the army. The scene was in the highest degree picturesque. Almost at their feet lay the camp, the few tents which remained unstruck glittering like bright dots on the wing of an insect, the whitewashed wall of the Fort reflecting the sunshine, while stacks of turf chimneys, lodge-poles, and rubbish marked the spots where the encampment had been abandoned. The whole valley was in commotion. Along the strips of road were winding clumsy baggage-trains; the regiment of dragoons was trailing in advance; the gleam of the musket-barrels of the infantry was visible on all sides; and every puff of the breeze that blew over the bluff was freighted with the rumble of artillery-carriages and caissons. Here and there were groups of half-naked Indians galloping to and fro, with fluttering blankets, gazing at the show with the curiosity and delight of children.

The traveller who terminates his westward journey at Fort Bridger has entered only the portal of the Rocky Mountains. Along the interval between there and the Valley of the Great Lake, there is a panorama of mountain-scenery that cannot be surpassed in the Tyrol. For miles and miles in the gorges, at the season of the year when they were traversed by the army, the road winds through thickets of alders and willows and hawthorn-bushes, whose branches interlace and hang so low, under their load of leaves and blossoms, as to sweep the backs of horsemen. Through the interstices of the foliage, the sandstone cliffs that bound the canons are seen surrounded by flocks of twittering birds which build their nests in the crevices of the rock. The ridges which the road surmounts between canon and canon are covered with fields of luxuriant grass and flowers, in the midst of which patches of snow still linger. From them, in the clear noon sunshine, the broken line of the Wahsatch and Uinta Ranges is visible along the horizon; but through the morning and evening haze, only the tracery of their white crests can be discerned. The valleys of the Bear and Weber Rivers are peculiarly beautiful, the latter almost realizing the dream of the Valley of Rasselas. Corrugated and snow-capped ridges slope backward from the spectator, on whichever side he turns, until he wonders how and where the swift river, rushing under its canopy of rustling cotton-woods, finds a pathway through them.

It was into scenery like this that the troops advanced, speculating, along each day's march, upon what obstacles they would have encountered, had they attempted to reach the Valley during the winter. On the 14th, an express from the Commissioners arrived at the camp on Bear River, announcing that no resistance would be made by the Mormons, who pledged themselves to submit to Federal authority. It was suggested, at the same time, to General Johnston, that they apprehended ill-treatment from the army, which might feel an exasperation natural after the privations to which it had been subjected during the winter. To reassure them, the General immediately issued and forwarded to Salt Lake City a proclamation, informing them that no one should be "molested in his person or rights, or in the peaceful pursuit of his avocations." On the same day, Governor Cumming issued a proclamation announcing the "restoration of peace to the Territory."