Page 248 - AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

Around the World in 80 Days

marry, as, according to the Mormon religion, maiden
ladies are not admitted to the possession of its highest joys.
These poor creatures seemed to be neither well off nor
happy. Some—the more well-to-do, no doubt— wore

short, open, black silk dresses, under a hood or modest
shawl; others were habited in Indian fashion.
Passepartout could not behold without a certain fright
these women, charged, in groups, with conferring
happiness on a single Mormon. His common sense pitied,
above all, the husband. It seemed to him a terrible thing to
have to guide so many wives at once across the vicissitudes
of life, and to conduct them, as it were, in a body to the
Mormon paradise with the prospect of seeing them in the
company of the glorious Smith, who doubtless was the
chief ornament of that delightful place, to all eternity. He
felt decidedly repelled from such a vocation, and he
imagined—perhaps he was mistaken— that the fair ones of
Salt Lake City cast rather alarming glances on his person.
Happily, his stay there was but brief. At four the party
found themselves again at the station, took their places in
the train, and the whistle sounded for starting. Just at the
moment, however, that the locomotive wheels began to
move, cries of ‘Stop! stop!’ were heard.

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