almost the highest
ground within the city-limits, and the land slopes gradually down from
them to the south, east, and west. This inclination suggested the mode
of supplying the city with water. A mountain-brook, pure and cold,
bubbling from under snow-drifts, is guided from this highland down
the gently sloping streets in gutters adjoining both the sidewalks. A
municipal ordinance imposes severe penalties on any one who fouls it.
Young's buildings and gardens occupy an entire square, ten acres in
extent, as do also Kimball's. They consist, first, of the Mansion, a
spacious two-storied building, in the style of the Yankee-Grecian villas
which infest New England towns, with piazzas supported by Doric columns,
and a cupola which is surmounted by a beehive, the peculiar emblem of
the Mormons, although there is not a single honey-bee in the Territory.
This, like all its companions, is of adobe, but it is coated with
plaster, and painted white. Next to it is a small building, used
formerly as an office, in which the temporal business of the Governor
was transacted. By its side stands another office, on the same model,
but on a larger scale, devoted to the business of the President of the
Church. These are connected by passage-ways both with the Mansion and
with the Lion-House, which is the most westerly of the group, and is the
finest building in the Territory, having cost nearly eighty thousand
dollars. Like both the offices, it stands with a gable toward the
street, and the plaster with which it is covered has a light buff tinge.
The architecture is Elizabethan. Above a porch in front is the figure
of a recumbent lion, hewn in sandstone. On each of the sides, which
overlook the gardens, ten little windows project from the roof
just above the eaves. The whole square is surrounded by a wall of
cobblestones and mortar, ten or twelve feet in height, strengthened by
buttresses at intervals of forty or fifty feet. Massive plank gates bar
the entrances. In one corner is the Tithing-Office, where the faithful
render their reluctant tribute to the Lord. Only the swift city-creek
intervenes between this square and Kimball's, which is encompassed by a
similar wall. His buildings have no pretensions to architectural merit,
being merely rough piles of adobe scattered irregularly all over the
grounds.
The Temple Square is in the immediate neighborhood, and is of the same
size. It is inclosed by a wall even more massive than the others
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