he spires of the Mormon
temple which a previous writer had described prettily as glittering in
the sunlight. All he could find was "a great hole in the ground," said
to be the beginning of a baptismal font, with a plain brick building,
the Tabernacle, at a little distance. After a service at the
"Tabernacle" he was introduced to Brigham Young, a farmer-like man of
45, who evinced much interest in the Tanganyika journey and discussed
stock, agriculture and religion; but when Burton asked to be admitted as
a Mormon, Young replied, with a smile, "I think you've done that sort
of thing once before, Captain." So Burton was unable to add Mormonism to
his five or six other religions. Burton then told with twinkling eyes a
pitiful tale of how he, an unmarried man, had come all the way to Salt
Lake City, requiring a wife, but had found no wives to be had, all the
ladies having been snapped up by the Saints. A little later the two men,
who had taken a stroll together, found themselves on an eminence which
commanded a view both of the Salt Lake city and the Great Salt Lake.
Brigham Young pointed out the various spots of interest, "That's Brother
Dash's house, that block just over there is occupied by Brother X's
wives. Elder Y's wives reside in the next block and Brother Z's wives
in that beyond it. My own wives live in that many-gabled house in the
middle."

Waving his right hand towards the vastness of the great Salt Lake,
Burton exclaimed, with gravity:

"Water, water, everywhere"

and then waving his left towards the city, he added, pathetically:

"But not a drop to drink."

Brigham Young, who loved a joke as dearly as he loved his seventeen
wives, burst out into hearty laughter. In his book, "The City of the
Saints," Burton assures us that polygamy was admirably suited for the
Mormons, and he gives the religious, physiological and social motives
for a plurality of wives then urged by that people. Economy, he tells
us, was one of them. "Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper and
more comfortable to marry them. Many converts are attracted by the
prospect of becoming wives, especially from places like Clifton, near
Bristol, where there are 64 females to 36 males. The old maid is, as the
ought to be, an unknown entity." [178]

Burton himself received at least one proposal of marriage there; and the
lady, being refused, spread the rumour that it was the other way about.
"Why," said Burton, "it's like

A cert