| educated, and was generally employed in obtaining converts and | | explaining to them the meaning of Smith’s visions and the | | doctrines of the new religion. | | | | He described Brigham Young, with whom he was also acquainted, as | | being a person of determined character, with a domineering manner. | | | | When I was at Salt Lake City, in the following December, I had a | | long interview with that able and astute leader of men. | | | | Within twenty years from the time when he conducted the flight | | of the Mormons across the deserts from Nauvoo to Utah, he had | | succeeded in establishing a highly satisfactory condition of | | good order and prosperity throughout the territories under his | | government; and controlled, with unquestioned authority, a | | community consisting of one hundred and forty thousand people. | | | | [34] As I looked at the cliff and the reflection of its shadow in | | the calm smooth waters of the lake, I recalled to mind a similar | | scene viewed from the deck of H.M.S. Racer when passing at sunset | | the promontory of Cape Leucate, in Santa Maura, the classical site | | of Sappho’s leap. There is a special interest attached to the | | fate of Winona, for it proves that Indian girls of Dakota birth | | are capable of higher degrees of sentiment with regard to their | | marriage, than those believed to exist among other tribes. She | | was not permitted for some tribal reason to marry the man she had | | chosen, and preferred death to marriage with the warrior to whom | | she was assigned by the command of her parents. | | | | [35] The accompanying illustration is drawn from a pencil sketch | | made by the author near this spot. | | | | [36] “I was greatly surprised,” states Captain Carver, “at | | beholding an instance of such elevated devotion in so young an | | Indian, and instead of ridiculing the ceremonies attending it, as | | I observed my Catholic servant tacitly did, I looked on the prince | | with a greater degree of respect for these sincere proofs he gave | | of his piety; and I doubt not, but that his offerings and prayers, | | were as acceptable to the universal Parent of mankind, as if they | | had been made with greater pomp, or in a consecrated place.” | | _Travels in North America_, pp. 62. |