scenery. Clouds, with peculiarly" target="_blank" title="ad.特有地；古怪地">peculiarlyrestless and self-conscious
gestures, were marshaling themselves along the mountain-tops, and

sending out long, overlapping wings across the valley; and even where
no cloud was visible, an obscuring film absorbed the sunlight, giving

rise to a cold, bluish darkness. Nevertheless, distant objects along
the boundaries of the landscape were revealed with wonderful

distinctness in this weird, subdued, cloud-sifted light. The
mountains, in particular, with the forests on their flanks, their mazy

lacelike canyons, the wombs of the ancient glaciers, and their
marvelous profusion of ornate sculpture, were most impressively

manifest. One would fancy that a man might be clearly seen walking on
the snow at a distance of twenty or thirty miles.

While we were reveling in this rare, ungarish grandeur, turning from
range to range, studying the darkening sky and listening to the still

small voices of the flowers at our feet, some of the denser clouds
came down, crowning and wreathing the highest peaks and dropping long

gray fringes whose smooth linear structure showed that snow was
beginning to fall. Of these partial storms there were soon ten or

twelve, arranged in two rows, while the main Jordan Valley between
them lay as yet in profound calm. At 4:30 p.m. a dark brownish cloud

appeared close down on the plain towards the lake, extending from the
northern extremity of the Oquirrh Range in a northeasterly direction

as far as the eye could reach. Its peculiar color and structure
excited our attention without enabling us to decide certainly as to

its character, but we were not left long in doubt, for in a few
minutes it came sweeping over the valley in a wild uproar, a torrent

of wind thick with sand and dust, advancing with a most majestic
front, rolling and overcombing like a gigantic sea-wave. Scarcely was

it in plain sight ere it was upon us, racing across the Jordan, over
the city, and up the slopes of the Wahsatch, eclipsing all the

landscapes in its course--the bending trees, the dust streamers, and
the wild onrush of everything movable giving it an appreciable

visibility that rendered it grand and inspiring.
This gale portion of the storm lasted over an hour, then down came the

blessed rain and the snow all through the night and the next day, the
snow and rain alternating and blending in the valley. It is long

since I have seen snow coming into a city. The crystal flakes falling
in the foul streets was a pitiful sight.

Notwithstanding the vaunted refining influences of towns, purity of
all kinds--pure hearts, pure streams, pure snow--must here be exposed

to terrible trials. City Creek, coming from its high glacial
fountains, enters the streets of this Mormon Zion pure as an angel,

but how does it leave it? Even roses and lilies in gardens most loved
are tainted with a thousand impurities as soon as they unfold. I

heard Brigham Young in the Tabernacle the other day warning his people
that if they did not mend their manners angels would not come into

their houses, though perchance they might be sauntering by with little
else to do than chat with them. Possibly there may be Salt Lake

families sufficiently pure for angel society, but I was not pleased
with the reception they gave the small snow angels that God sent among

them the other might. Only the children hailed them with delight.
The old Latter-Days seemed to shun them. I should like to see how Mr.

Young, the Lake Prophet, would meet such messengers.
But to return to the storm. Toward the evening of the 18th it began

to wither. The snowy skirts of the Wahsatch Mountains appeared
beneath the lifting fringes of the clouds, and the sun shone out

through colored windows, producing one of the most glorious after-storm
effects I ever witnessed. Looking across the Jordan, the gray

sagey slopes from the base of the Oquirrh Mountains were covered with
a thick, plushy cloth of gold, soft and ethereal as a cloud, not

merely tinted and gilded like a rock with autumn sunshine, but deeply
muffled beyond recognition. Surely nothing in heaven, nor any mansion

of the Lord in all his worlds, could be more gloriously carpeted.
Other portions of the plain were flushed with red and purple, and all

the mountains and the clouds above them were painted in corresponding
loveliness. Earth and sky, round and round the entire landscape, was

one ravishing revelation of color, infinitelyvaried and interblended.
I have seen many a glorioussunset beneath lifting storm clouds on the

mountains, but nothing comparable with this. I felt as if new-arrived
in some other far-off world. The mountains, the plains, the sky, all

seemed new. Other experiences seemed but to have prepared me for
this, as souls are prepared for heaven. To describe the colors on a

single mountain would, if it were possible at all, require many a
volume--purples, and yellows, and delicious pearly grays divinely

toned and interblended, and so richly put on one seemed to be looking
down through the ground as through a sky. The disbanding clouds

lingered lovingly about the mountains, filling the canyons like tinted
wool, rising and drooping around the topmost peaks, fondling their

rugged bases, or, sailing alongside, trailed their lustrous fringes
through the pines as if taking a last view of their accomplished work.

Then came darkness, and the glorious day was done.
This afternoon the Utah mountains and valleys seem to belong to our

own very world again. They are covered with common sunshine. Down
here on the banks of the Jordan, larks and redwings are swinging on

the rushes; the balmy air is instinct with immortal life; the wild
flowers, the grass, and the farmers' grain are fresh as if, like the

snow, they had come out of heaven, and the last of the angel clouds
are fleeing from the mountains.

VIII
Bathing in Salt Lake[10]

When the north wind blows, bathing in Salt Lake is a glorious baptism,
for then it is all wildly awake with waves, blooming like a prairie in

snowy crystal foam. Plunging confidently into the midst of the grand
uproar you are hugged and welcomed, and swim without effort, rocking

and heaving up and down, in delightfulrhythm, while the winds sing in
chorus and the cool, fragrant brine searches every fiber of your body;

and at length you are tossed ashore with a glad Godspeed, braced and
salted and clean as a saint.

The nearest point on the shoreline is distant about ten miles from
Salt Lake City, and is almost inaccessible on account of the boggy

character of the ground, but, by taking the Western Utah Railroad, at
a distance of twenty miles you reach what is called Lake Point, where

the shore is gravelly and wholesome and abounds in fine retreating
bays that seem to have been made on purpose for bathing. Here the

northern peaks of the Oquirrh Range plant their feet in the clear blue
brine, with fine curbing insteps, leaving no space for muddy levels.

The crystalbrightness of the water, the wild flowers, and the lovely
mountain scenery make this a favorite summer resort fro pleasure and

health seekers. Numerous excursion trains are run from the city, and
parties, some of them numbering upwards of a thousand, come to bathe,

and dance, and roam the flowery hillsides together.
But at the time of my first visit in May, I fortunately found myself

alone. The hotel and bathhouse, which form the chief improvements of
the place, were sleeping in winter silence, notwithstanding the year

was in full bloom. It was one of those genial sun-days when flowers
and flies come thronging to the light, and birds sing their best. The

mountain ranges, stretching majestically north and south, were piled
with pearly cumuli, the sky overhead was pure azure, and the wind-swept

lake was all aroll and aroar with whitecaps.
I sauntered along the shore until I came to a sequestered cove, where

buttercups and wild peas were blooming close down to the limit reached
by the waves. Here, I thought, is just the place for a bath; but the

breakers seemed terriblyboisterous and forbidding as they came
rolling up the beach, or dashed white against the rocks that bounded

the cove on the east. The outer ranks, ever broken, ever builded,
formed a magnificentrampart, sculptured and corniced like the hanging

wall of a bergschrund, and appeared hopelessly insurmountable, however
easily one might ride the swelling waves beyond. I feasted awhile on

their beauty, watching their coming in from afar like faithful
messengers, to tell their stories one by one; then I turned

reluctantly away, to botanize and wait a calm. But the calm did not
come that day, nor did I wait long. In an hour or two I was back

again to the same little cove. The waves still sang the old storm
song, and rose in high crystal walls, seemingly hard enough to be cut

in sections, like ice.
Without any definitedetermination I found myself undressed, as if