through an opening in the canyons, the light blue
        and the fleecy white clouds above seemed to be sinking into
        a plain of gold.  Two small portions of a level prairie were
        visible, and beyond rose a series of blue mountains, their
        peaks tipped with snow.  It was the Valley of the Great Salt
        Lake!

From the summit of the Big Mountain, they gazed long and earnestly on the glorious view.  First they looked upon the high walls surrounding their position at the time, but ever would their eyes turn longingly to that little panorama of life and colour which appeared through a gap in the mountains, the yellow and green of the valley, the blue and white of the sky, with a foreground of dark mountains clothed in darker shrubbery.  The Oquirrhs rose majestically in the centre of the picture, and far beyond them a dim, shadowy outline of the Onaqui range, which completed the glorious landscape.

Previous to their arrival in the valley, on the 23d of June, the Mormons met Jim Bridger and two of his employees en route to Fort Laramie.  Bridger was told that he was the man of all men whom they had been looking for, upon which he advised them to camp right where they were, and he would tell them all he knew about the country and the region around the Great Basin.  Camp was accordingly made, Bridger took supper with Brigham Young, and the information he had to impart was given in the old trapper’s usual irregular way.  Learning that the destination of the Mormons was in the Desert of the Salt Lake Valley, Bridger offered to give one thousand dollars for the first ear of corn raised there.  “Wait a little,” said the president of the Mormons, “and we will show you.”  In describing to Brigham Young the Great Salt Lake, which he called “Sevier Lake,” he said that some of his men had spent three months going around it in canoes hunting beaver, and that the distance was five hundred and fifty miles.

In 1856 thousands of European converts to the new religion emigrated to Utah.  On their arrival in this country, however, they had very little spare cash.  It was therefore decided by those in authority that they should cross the plains with hand-carts, in which was to be hauled their baggage.  Wagons were provided for tents, provisions, and those who were not able to walk.

In a circular published in Liverpool by the Presidency of the British Isles, among other things it recited that “The Lord, through his Prophet, says of the poor, let them gird up their loins, and walk through, and nothing shall hinder them.”

Iowa City was the point where the poor emigrants were outfitted and
received their hand-carts.  These were somewhat primitive in
construction: 
        The shafts being about five feet long, and of hickory or oak,
        with crosspieces, one of them serving for a handle, forming
        the bed of the cart, under the centre of which was a wooden
        axletree, the wheels being also made of wood, with a light
        iron band, and the entire weight of the vehicle about sixty
        pounds.  Better carts were provided in subsequent years.