was a trial by fire. One gets
a notion of its deadliness from the fact that over five thousand people
died of cholera alone. The trail was marked throughout its length by
the shallow graves of those who had succumbed. He who arrived in
California was a different person from the one who had started from the
East. Experience had even in so short a time fused his elements into
something new. This alteration must not be forgotten when we turn once
more to the internal affairs of the new commonwealth.

CHAPTER VI

THE MORMONS

In the westward overland migration the Salt Lake Valley Mormons played
an important part. These strange people had but recently taken up their
abode in the desert. That was a fortunate circumstance, as their
necessities forced them to render an aid to the migration that in better
days would probably have been refused.

The founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, Jr., came from a
commonplace family.

Apparently its members were ignorant and superstitious. They talked much
of hidden treasure and of supernatural means for its discovery. They
believed in omens, signs, and other superstitions. As a boy Joseph had
been shrewd enough and superstitious enough to play this trait up for
all it was worth. He had a magic peep-stone and a witch-hazel
divining-rod that he manipulated so skillfully as to cause other boys
and even older men to dig for him as he wished. He seemed to delight in
tricking his companions in various ways, by telling fortunes, reeling
off tall yarns, and posing as one possessed of occult knowledge.

According to Joseph's autobiography, the discovery of the Mormon Bible
happened in this wise: on the night of September 21, 1823, a vision fell
upon him; the angel Moroni appeared and directed him to a cave on the
hillside; in this cave he found some gold plates, on which were
inscribed strange characters, written in what Smith described as
"reformed Egyptian"; they were undecipherable except by the aid of a
pair of magic peep-stones named Urim and Thummim, delivered him for the
purpose by the angel at Palmyra; looking through the hole in these
peep-stones, he was able to interpret the gold plates. This was the
skeleton of the story embellished by later ornamentation in the way of
golden breastplates, two stones bright and shining, golden plates united
at the back by rings, the sword of Laban, square stone boxes, cemented
clasps, invisible blows, suggestions of Satan, and si