History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

THE JOURNEY WESTWARD. 221
beef two cents a pound, and all payable in labor at
what was then considered good wages, say forty or
fifty cents a day.
Into the wilderness they went, journeying day
after day on toward the setting sun, their hearts
buoyant, their sinews strengthened by a power not of
this world. Forever fades the real before the imaginary.
There is nothing tougher than fanaticism.
What cared they for wind and rain, for comfortless
couches or aching limbs?—the kingdom of the Lord
was with them. What cared they for insults and injustice
when the worst this world could do was to
hasten heaven to them ? So on toward the west their
long train of wagons rolled, leaving each day farther
and farther behind the old, cold, fanatical east, with
its hard, senseless dogmas, and its merciless civilization,
without murmurings, without discord, the man above
any other on earth they most loved and feared riding
at their head, or standing with uplifted and extended
hands as his people passed by, blessing and comforting
them. "We were happy and contented," says John
Taylor, " and the songs of Zion resounded from wagon
to wagon, reverberating through the woods, while the
echo was returned from the distant hills." 11
There were brass or stringed instruments in every
company, and night and morning all were called to
prayers 12 at the sound of the bugle. Camp-fires
drew around them the saints when their day's work
was finished, and singing, dancing, and story-telling
enlivened the hour.
As they went on their way their ranks were swelled
by fresh bands, until there were brought together
3,000 wagons, 30,000 head of cattle, a great number
of mules and horses, and immense flocks of sheep.
11 ' It is true,' he writes, ' that in our sojourning we do not possess all the
luxuries and delicacies of old-established countries and cities, but we have
abundance of the staple commodities, such as flour, meal, beef, mutton, pork,
milk, butter, and in some instances cheese, sugar, coffee, tea, etc' Letter in
Millennial Star, viii. 114.
12 Each family had prayers separately. Taylor's Rem., MS., 9.