Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/199

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A NEWPORT AQUARELLE.
191

As night drew near, trains of emigrants were passed, three or four wagons usually travelling together, for mutual protection. The great white-hooded vehicles, drawn by heavy cattle, moved slowly along. The family, with all their household goods, are packed away in the wagon, which is almost invariably attended by a pair of dogs and several cows. It is a weary road which they must travel over. Long lines of nodding sunflowers at intervals mark out the path of the overland trail.

To Farwell their golden beauty was an intense pleasure; he asked a fellow-traveller how they came to be so regularly planted, and learned a curious fact from the man whom he had questioned.

In the early days when Brigham Young and his fellow-prophets led out the band of saints to the New Jerusalem of Salt Lake City, across the wide prairies, many hardships were endured. In that first almost heroic journey the emigrants suffered se-