Show in all the of holidays there is not one around which to the people of utah there cluster so many tragic and tender memories as the day we are now cole celebrating brating the events of the day of july 1847 were but the climax of the most remarkable rem journey ever undertaken by men women and ob children ildren history furnishes no parallel to 4 the 11 he exodus from nauvoo of the cormon yvio Wo rmon people and their right flight from the outposts of civilization liza tion to the rallying point on the missouri river and the subsequent journey into and across the wilderness except by the great herds of buffalo elk door deer and antelope and by the hardly less lees wild mild and more savage indians those who ten years year after the first caravan crossed the great american desert followed the well beaten highway which had been blazed by tho tha pioneers and deepened by subsequent travel found not the milestones of civilization instead there were well rou rounded tided mounds of earth that marked the resti resting nR places of the sleeping dead meu men women chi children chilgren laren and babes whose journey to the promised land had been broken by the hand ofa 0 death eath those desolate graves a broken down wagon a stove or other articles discarded because of over ladon laden teams the remains of work animals that had bad perished in the hard service of the overland journey and the dark sinuous trail ever reaching out towards the land of the setting sun were the only reminders that human voices other than the uncivilized j jargon ar of savages had ever disturbed the weird silence ce of those seemingly inter plains my friends go back with me to the little town of flor florence once p perched erch edon on the high bluffs on the west bank of the missouri river and some four miles nor north korthof of the present site of omaha let the time be the 1857 when F lorence florence was the rendezvous of the mormon emigration together lot let us make the journey of the thousand miles which marked the vast and toilsome distance between the missouri river and the valley of the great silt salt lake we cannot make the fournoy in the luxurious palace cars of today to day nor drawn by the iron horse which on a road of steel and with the clang of bell and screams of triumph rushes onward day and night with the speed of the hurricane but in covered wagons with patient G oxen cen for the motive power no necessarily essa rily tho the halting places on maeline eline ta of wara iiii bo bb bwy thai 1 iclef i lef and the scones painted with the augments figments fig ments of a memory somewhat dimmed by forty five years 1 in I which have been crowded a swift procession of stirring experiences ces and incidents in tact fact your companion and guide ILS as 1 I now remember him was a email boy denim overalls overal ove rally lp clad in a a calico shirt a straw hat and feet shod with the covering that nature gives to all mankind from nearly every clime and nation there are gathered at florence some souls the remnant of the seasons emigration the provisions raiment bed ding cooking utensils and keepsakes keep sakes sacredly guarded in memory ot of homes and relatives beyond thelea th esea are areston stow ed away in th the white ewhite topped wagons the extremely aged the th sick and helpless makride may ride cherest erest th the rest of us will walk on a bright morning early in july the cattle are yoked joked and hitched to the wagons the animals tire are of all ages sizes and sex with from four to eight in each team A pair of large oxen are used on the tongue while a pair of cows perhaps or he heffers heifers if ers are placed in the lead many of the cattle have not before been yoked joked nor heard the tattle rattle of eb chains ains As arule a rule the teamsters are as aa green and even more akward than the cattle and as the train pulls palls out on its journey of nearly a hundred days it is not an unusual sight to see a whole family perhaps from denmark strung out on each side of the team and in their th air native tongue urging english understanding bovines to keep on the road fortunately the country is level and no wagons are overturned afdera after afew a few days of hard experience the patient cattle pick ul up a few words of a fore and everything moves along with the regu larity and smoothness of clockwork cloo kwork the incidents of each day abid and night are pretty much the same and we will be satisfied with the experiences of be twenty four hours far out on that great stretch of undulating country called the plains the sunrises sunrises in a cloudless sky and be beats rits down with almost tropical intensity I 1 on the heads of bronzed and weary pilgrims often great clouds of dust rises from the road and envelopes tho the slow moving caravan ever onward towards the west as if under a sky of hot and burnished brass those fever ever patient cattle toll toil laboriously with their heavy loads From the heated earth arises almost impalpable dust that clogs the nostrils of those patient brutes and fills their blinded eyes until almost human tears course down their drawn and wrinkled cheeks dust covered tongues pro protrude trado from mouths months parched with thirst the cruel bows sink deep behind the dh shoulder joints yet onward through the dust and heat they toil with no murmur of bf compla complaint lut at their hard lot athe the ability to complain is alone albrie vouchsafed to man the memory of those faithful brutes urged on by voice and whip inspires one with gratitude that the tireless iron horse has relieved the descendants of those mute toilers boilers of the old time burdens except where attacks of the are imminent the pilgrims grav gravitate state into small knots of congenial spirits and trudge in front in the roar rear or be side the slow moving train the small boys and girls ever alive to the strange life and here there and everywhere hunting flowers smooth pebbles to shy at serious look 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