ook me down to Salt Lake.
The run between Delhi and Ahmedabad on a May day would have been bliss
compared to this torture. There was nothing but glare and desert and
alkali dust. There was no smoking-accommodation. I sat in the lavatory
with the conductor and a prospector who told stories about Indian
atrocities in the voice of a dreaming child--oath following oath as
smoothly as clotted cream laps the mouth of the jug. I don't think he
knew he was saying anything out of the way, but nine or ten of those
oaths were new to me, and one even made the conductor raise his
eyebrows.

"And when a man's alone mostly, leadin' his horse across the hills, he
gets to talk aloud to himself as it was," said the weather-worn retailer
of tortures. A vision rose before me of this man trampling the Bannack
City trail under the stars--swearing, always swearing!

Bundles of rags that were pointed out as Red Indians, boarded the train
from time to time. Their race privileges allow them free transit on the
platforms of the cars. They mustn't come inside of course, and equally
of course the train never thinks of pulling up for them. I saw a squaw
take us flying and leave us in the same manner when we were spinning
round a curve. Like the Punjabi, the Red Indian gets out by preference
on the trackless plain and walks stolidly to the horizon. He never says
where he is going....

_Salt Lake._ I am concerned for the sake of Mr. Phil Robinson, his soul.
You will remember that he wrote a book called _Saints and Sinners_ in
which he proved very prettily that the Mormon was almost altogether an
estimable person. Ever since my arrival at Salt Lake I have been
wondering what made him write that book. On mature reflection, and after
a long walk round the city, I am inclined to think it was the sun, which
is very powerful hereabouts.

By great good luck the evil-minded train, already delayed twelve hours
by a burnt bridge, brought me to the city on a Saturday by way of that
valley which the Mormons aver their efforts had caused to blossom like
the rose. Some hours previously I had entered a new world where, in
conversation, every one was either a Mormon or a Gentile. It is not
seemly for a free and independent citizen to dub himself a Gentile, but
the Mayor of Ogden--which is the Gentile city of the valley--told me
that there must be some distinction between the two flocks. Long before
the fruit orchards of Logan or the shining levels of the Salt Lak