Of this number, ten thousand is the proportion of
the towns north of Salt Lake City, and upward of fifteen thousand that
of the city itself and the settlements in its immediate neighborhood.
Considerably more than half the people of the Territory, therefore,
shared in this emigration. What was its object and what its destination
are still mysteries; but it was probably directed toward the
mountain-ranges in the southwestern portion of the Great Basin, of the
topography of which region--hitherto unvisited by Federal explorers--the
Mormons undoubtedly possess accurate information. At any rate, it was
initiated and conducted under the direction of the Church, and Young and
Kimball were among the first to lead the way. Commencing late in March,
it continued until June, and before the beginning of May more than
thirty-five thousand people were concentrated on the western shore of
Lake Utah, chiefly in the neighborhood of Provo, fifty miles south of
Salt Lake City. Such a scene of squalid misery, such a spectacle of want
and distress, was never before witnessed in America.
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