Past Echo Cañon, we struck Weber Valley, and here found ourselves at last thoroughly among the Mormons. Fine little farms dotted the valley everywhere, and the settlements indeed were so numerous, that much of the valley resembled rather a scattered village. The little Weber River passes down the valley, on its way to Great Salt Lake, and its waters had everywhere been diverted, and made to irrigate nearly every possible acre of ground. Fine crops of barley, oats, wheat, potatoes, etc., appeared to have been gathered, and cattle and sheep were grazing on all sides. The people looked like a hardy, industrious, thrifty race, well fitted for their stern struggle with the wilderness. Everybody was apparently well-fed and well-clad, though the women had a worn and tired look, as if they led a dull life and lacked sympathy. Children of all ages and sizes flocked about the gates and crowded the doorway, and to all appearances they were about the same frolicking youngsters that we have east, though they seemed less watched and cared for. Near the head of the valley, we saw several coal-drifts that had already been worked considerably, and were told that these mines supplied all the coal then used in Utah, though it was thought coal would soon be found elsewhere. It was of a soft bituminous character, far from first-class, but nevertheless invaluable in the absence of something better. Just at dark, we found ourselves at the head of Parley's Cañon, and still several miles distant from Salt Lake City. Snow-flakes had sifted lazily downward all day, but at night-fall they changed to sleet, which thickened presently into a regular snow-storm, and soon the roads usually so good became heavy and slushy. In many places the track was merely a roadway, quarried out of the rocky bluffs, with a swollen and angry rivulet below; and as we wound cautiously along this, both the coach and horses were constantly slipping and sliding. Only a week before, in a similar snow-storm, the stage-horses lost their foot-hold here, and a crowded coach--team and all--went crashing down into the creek below. I had no fancy for this sort of an experience; but when, soon after dark, we saw the driver light up his side-lamps for the first time since leaving the Missouri, I concluded that our chances for an "upset" at last were perhaps improving. L. got nervous, and being somewhat mathematical in his turn of mind, fell to calculating how far it was down to the water and rocks, and what would be the probable results of plunging down there quite miscellaneously. But I was half sick and thoroughly tired out--in that worn and jaded condition, where a man becomes fairly indifferent as to what may happen--and at length, as L. averred, went soundly to sleep, though I had no recollection afterwards of anything but dozing. I only know that when the horses again struck a trot, as we began to descend the cañon westward, I roused up shivering with cold; and was only too glad, when far away