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James Cox - My Native Land
When the locust plague swept over the fields of Kansas and destroyed the entire crop, the settlers
themselves hungered for the buffalo meat of which they had robbed themselves, and vengeance came in
more ways than one.
The extermination of the buffalo of the southern range was completed about 1875; to the bisons of the
northern range were given a few years' grace. But the same scenes which were enacted in the South,
repeated themselves in the North, and the white barbarians were not satisfied until they had killed the last
of the noble game in 1885. When the massacre was nearly over, a few isolated herds were collected and
transported to Yellowstone Park, where they have increased to about 400 during the last few years,
protected by the hunting laws, which are strictly enforced. With the exception of a very few specimens,
tenderly nursed by some cattle raisers in Kansas and Texas, and in some remote parts of British America,
these are the last animals of a species, which two decades ago wandered in millions over the vast prairies
of the West.
CHAPTER V. THE MORMONS AND THEIR WIVES.
The Pilgrimage Across the Bad Lands to Utah - Incidents of the March - Success of the New Colony -
Religious Persecutions - Murder of an Entire Family - The Curse of Polygamy - An Ideal City - Humors
of Bathing in Great Salt Lake.
About half a century ago one of the most remarkable pilgrimages of modern times took place. Across
what was then, not inaptly, described by writers as an arid and repulsive desert, there advanced a
procession of the most unique and awe-inspiring character. History tells us of bands of crusaders who
tramped across Europe in order to rescue the Holy Land from tyrants and invaders. On that occasion, all
sorts and conditions of men were represented, from the religious enthusiast, to the ignorant bigot, and
from the rich man who was sacrificing his all in the cause that he believed to be right, to the tramp and
ne'er-do-well, who had allied himself with that cause for revenue only.
But the distance traversed by the crusaders six or seven hundred years ago was insignificant compared
with the distance traversed by the pilgrims to whom we are referring. In addition to this, the country to be
crossed presented difficulties of a far more startling and threatening character. There was before them a
promised land in the extreme distance, but there intervened a tract of land which seemed as impassable a
barrier as the much talked-of, but seldom inspected, Chinese Wall of old. There was a region of
desolation and death, extending from the Sierra Nevadas to the border lines of Nebraska, and from the
Yellowstone to the Colorado Rivers. A profane writer once suggested that the same Creator could hardly
have brought into existence this arid, barren and inhospitable region and the fertile plains and beautiful
mountains which surrounded it on all sides.
Civilization and irrigation have destroyed the most awful characteristics of this region, but at the time to
which we are referring, it was about as bad from the standpoint of humanity and human needs as could
well be imagined. Here and there, there were lofty mountains and deep canons, as there are now, but the
immense plains, which occupy the bulk of the land, were unwatered and uncared for, giving forth
volumes of a penetrating alkali dust, almost as injurious to human flesh as to human attire. Here and
there, there were, of course, little oases of comparative verdure, which were regarded by unfortunate
travelers not only as havens of refuge, but as little heavens in the midst of a sea of despair. The trail
across the desert, naturally, ran through as many as possible of these successful efforts of nature to resist
decay, and along the trail there were to be found skeletons and ghastly remains of men whose courage
had exceeded their ability, and who had succumbed to hunger and thirst in this great, lonesome desert.
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