e are about it
Octavia felt we ought to see Salt Lake City and San Francisco, and go
down the coast to Los Angeles. Then we shall have done this side of
America thoroughly. We only rushed through everywhere, of course, but
got a general coup d'oeil. Crossing the great Salt Lake was wonderful.
It seemed like being at sea on a bridge, and I could not help wondering
what it would be like if the lake were rough. You can't think of
anything so intelligent as the way that Brigham Young laid out Salt Lake
City, seeing far ahead; he planned splendid avenues, and planted trees,
and even though lots of them still have only mud roads, and little board
shanties down them, they are there all ready for the time when the
splendid houses are built, and tram cars and electric light everywhere;
and such green and beautiful rich looking country! No wonder, after the
desert it seemed the promised land.

I should hate to be a Mormon, wouldn't you, Mamma? Worse than being a
Chinee and having to sit at the theatre penned up with only females.
Think of sharing a man with six other women, and being a kind of
servant. It is natural they look cowed and colourless,--the ones we saw;
at least they were pointed out to us. But really it seems much honester
to call them wives openly than to be like--but no, I won't speak of it
any more. Only _I_ will never share a man with another woman! Not the
least little scrap of him; and if Harry thinks I will he is mistaken. To
have six husbands is a much better plan; that, at least, would teach
one to be awfully agreeable, and to understand the creatures' different
ways; but a man to have six wives is an impossible idea,--specially as
now it is not necessary, the way they behave. I wish I had got Jane's
letter sooner, Mamma, because I could have amused myself more with
Gaston than I have. I feel I have lost some opportunities, snubbing him
all the time.

San Francisco is perfectly wonderful. Imagine colossal switchbacks going
for miles, and other switchbacks crossing them like a chess board,
and you have some idea of the way of the streets; hills as steep as
staircases, and the roads straight up and down, not zigzag, just being
obliged to take the land as it comes; some persons in the beginning, I
suppose, having ruled the plan on flat paper without considering what
the formation was like, and then insisting on its being ruthlessly
carried out.

When we arrived at the station, Octavia and I were put into a t