Latest / Classic Adventure Books Collection / 27 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne

Transcript

27 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne · Classic Adventure Books Collection

• 0:00
  Chapter twenty seven, in which past Partou undergoes at a speed of twenty miles
• 0:05
  an hour a course of Mormon history. During the night of the fifth of
• 0:11
  December, the train ran southeasterly for about fifty miles, then rose an equal
• 0:16
  distance in the northeasterly direction towards the Great Salt Lake. Past Partou about nine
• 0:22
  o'clock went out upon the platform to take the air. The weather was cold,
• 0:28
  the heavens gray, but it was not snowing. The sun's disk,
• 0:32
  enlarged by the mist, seemed an enormous ring of gold, and Past Partu
• 0:37
  was amusing himself by calculating its value impounds sterling, when he was diverted from
• 0:42
  this interesting study by a strange looking personage who made his appearance on the platform.
• 0:49
  This personage, who had taken the train at Elco, was tall and
• 0:53
  dark, with black mustache, black stockings, a black silk hat, a
• 0:58
  black waistcoat, black trousers, a white cravat, and dogskin gloves. He
• 1:04
  might have been taken for a clergyman. He went from one end of the
• 1:08
  train to the other and affixed to the door of each car a notice written
• 1:12
  in manuscript Passepartout approached and read one of these notices, which stated that Elder
• 1:19
  William Hitch, Mormon missionary, taking advantage of his presence on train number forty
• 1:23
  eight, would deliver a lecture on Mormonism in car number one seventeen from eleven
• 1:30
  to twelve o'clock, and that he invited all who were desirous of being instructed
• 1:34
  concerning the mysteries of the religion of the Latter day Saints to attend. I'll
• 1:40
  go, said Passepartout to himself. He knew nothing of Mormonism except the custom
• 1:46
  of polygamy, which is its foundation. The news quickly spread through the train,
• 1:52
  which contained about one hundred passengers, thirty of whom, at most attracted
• 1:57
  by the notice ensconced themselves. In Car number one seventeen. Passepartout took one
• 2:02
  of the front seats. Neither mister Fogg nor Fix cared to attend. At
• 2:07
  the appointed hour. Elder William Hitch rose, and, in an irritated voice,
• 2:14
  as if he had already been contradicted, said, I'll tell you that
• 2:19
  Joe Smith is a martyr, that his brother Hiram is a martyr, and
• 2:22
  that the persecutions of the United States government against the prophets, will also make
• 2:27
  a martyr of Brigham Young, who dares to say the contrary. No one
• 2:32
  ventured to gainsay the missionary, whose excited tone contrasted curiously with his naturally calm
• 2:38
  visage. No doubt his anger arose from the hardships to which the Mormons were
• 2:45
  actually subjected. The government had just succeeded, with some difficulty in reducing these
• 2:51
  independent fanatics to its rule. It made itself master of Utah and subjected that
• 2:57
  territory to the laws of the Union. After imprisoning Brigham Young on a charge
• 3:01
  of rebellion and polygamy. The disciples of the prophet had since redoubled their efforts
• 3:07
  and resisted by words at least the authority of Congress. Elder Hitch, as
• 3:15
  is seen, was trying to make proselytes of the very railway trains. Then
• 3:21
  emphasizing his words with his loud voice and frequent gestures, He related the history
• 3:25
  of the Mormons from biblical times, how that in Israel, a Mormon prophet
• 3:30
  of the tribe of Joseph published the annals of the New religion and bequeathed them
• 3:36
  to his son Mormon how many centuries later a translation of this precious book,
• 3:42
  which was written in Egyptian, was made by Joseph Smith Junior, a Vermont
• 3:47
  farmer who revealed himself as a mystical prophet in eighteen twenty five, and how
• 3:53
  in short, the celestial messenger appeared to him in an illuminated forest and gave
• 3:59
  him the annals of the Lord. Several of the audience, not being much
• 4:03
  interested in the missionaries narrative, here, left the car, but Elder Hitch,
• 4:08
  continuing his lecture, related how Smith Junior, with his father, two
• 4:12
  brothers, and a few disciples, founded the Church of the Latter day Saints,
• 4:16
  which adopted not only in America, but in England, Norway, and
• 4:20
  Sweden and Germany counts many artisans as well as men engaged in the liberal professions
• 4:26
  among its members. How a colony was established in Ohio, a temple erected
• 4:31
  there at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, and a town built at
• 4:35
  Kirkland. How Smith became an enterprising banker and received from a simple mummy showman
• 4:42
  a papyrus scroll written by Abraham and several famous Egyptians. The Elder's story became
• 4:47
  somewhat wearisome, and his audience grew gradually less until it was reduced to twenty
• 4:53
  passengers. But this did not disconcert the enthusiast, who proceeded with the story
• 4:58
  of Joseph Smith's bankruptcy in eighteen thirty seven, and how his ruined creditors gave
• 5:03
  him a coat of tar and feathers, his reappearance some years afterward more honorable
• 5:10
  and honored than ever at independence Missouri, the chief of a flourishing colony of
• 5:15
  three thousand disciples, and his pursuit thence by outraged gentiles and retirement into the
• 5:20
  far west. Ten hearers only were now left among them honest Passepartout, who
• 5:27
  was listening with all his ears. Thus he learned that after long persecutions,
• 5:32
  Smith reappeared in Illinois and in eighteen thirty nine founded a community at Navhu on
• 5:38
  the Mississippi, numbering twenty five thousand souls, of which he became mayor,
• 5:44
  chief Justice and general in chief. That he announced himself in eighteen forty three
• 5:48
  as a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and that finally being
• 5:54
  drawn into ambuscade at Carthage, he was thrown into prison and assassinated by a
• 6:00
  band of men disguised in masks. Passepartout was now the only person left in
• 6:05
  the car, and the elder, looking him full in the face, reminded
• 6:10
  him that two years after the assassination of Joseph Smith, the inspired prophet Brigham
• 6:15
  Young his successor, left Nauvoo for the banks of the Great Salt Lake,
• 6:19
  where, in the midst of that fertile region, directly on the route of
• 6:23
  the emigrants who crossed Utah on their way to California, the new colony,
• 6:28
  thanks to the polygamy practiced by the Mormons, had flourished beyond expectations. And
• 6:33
  this, added Elder William Hitch, this is why the jealousy of Congress has
• 6:39
  been roused against us. Why have the soldiers of the Union invaded the soil
• 6:44
  of Utah. Why has Brigham Young, our chief, been imprisoned in contempt
• 6:47
  of all justice? Shall we yield of force? Never driven from Vermont,
• 6:54
  driven from Illinois, driven from Ohio, driven from Missouri, riven from Utah,
• 7:00
  We shall yet find some independent territory on which to plant our tents.
• 7:04
  And you, my brother, continued the elder, fixing his angry eyes upon
• 7:10
  his single auditor, Will you not plant yours there too, under the shadow
• 7:15
  of our flag? No, replied passepartout courageously in his turn, retiring from
• 7:21
  the car and leaving the elder to preach to vacancy. During the lecture.
• 7:27
  The train had been making good progress, and towards half past twelve it reached
• 7:31
  the northwest border of the Great Salt Lake. Thence the passengers could observe the
• 7:36
  vast extent of this interior sea, which is also called the Dead Sea,
• 7:41
  and to which flows an American Jordan. It is a picturesque expanse, framed
• 7:46
  in lofty crags and large strata encrusted with white salt, a superb sheet of
• 7:53
  water which was formerly of larger extent than now, the shores having encroached with
• 7:58
  the lapse of time, and thus at once reduced its breadth and increased its
• 8:03
  depth. The Salt Lake, seventy miles long and thirty five wide, is
• 8:07
  situated three miles eight hundred feet above the sea, quite different from Lake Asphaltite,
• 8:15
  whose depression is twelve hundred feet below the sea. It contains considerable salt,
• 8:20
  and one quarter of the weight of its water is solid matter. Its
• 8:24
  specific weight being one point one seven zero and after being distilled one point zero
• 8:30
  zero zero. Fishes are of course unable to live in it, and those
• 8:35
  which descend through the Jordan, the Weber and other streams soon perish. The
• 8:41
  country around the lake was well cultivated, for the Mormons are mostly farmers,
• 8:46
  while ranches and pens for domesticated animals. Fields of wheat, corn and other
• 8:50
  cereals. Luxuriant prairies, hedges of wild rows, clumps of acacias and milkwort
• 8:58
  would have been seen six months later la Now the ground was covered with a
• 9:01
  thin powdering of snow. The train reached Ogden at two o'clock, where it
• 9:07
  rested for six hours. Mister Fogg and his party had time to pay a
• 9:11
  visit to Salt Lake City, connected with Ogden by a branch road, and
• 9:16
  they spent two hours in this strikingly American town, built on the pattern of
• 9:20
  other cities of the Union, like a chequerboard with the somber sadness of right
• 9:26
  angles. As Victor Hugo expresses it, the founder of the City of the
• 9:31
  Saints could not escape from the taste for symmetry, which distinguishes the Anglo Saxons
• 9:37
  in this strange country, where the people are certainly not up to the level
• 9:41
  of their institutions. Everything is done squarely, cities, houses and follies.
• 9:48
  The travelers then were promenading at three o'clock about the streets of the town,
• 9:52
  built between the banks of the Jordan and the spurs of the Wassatch Range.
• 9:58
  They saw few or no churches, but the prophet's mansion, the court house,
• 10:01
  and the arsenal, blue brick houses with verandas and porches surrounded by gardens
• 10:07
  boarded with acacias, palms and locusts. A clay and pebpal wall built in
• 10:13
  eighteen fifty three surrounded the town, and in the principal street, where the
• 10:18
  market and several hotels adorned with pavilions. The place did not seem thickly populated.
• 10:24
  The streets were almost deserted, except in the vicinity of the temple,
• 10:28
  which they only reached after having traversed several quarters surrounded by palisades. There were
• 10:35
  many women, which was easily accounted for by the peculiar institution of the Mormons.
• 10:41
  But it must not be supposed that all the Mormons are polygamists. They
• 10:45
  are free to marry or not as they please. But it is worth noting
• 10:48
  that is mainly the female citizens of Utah who are anxious to marry, as
• 10:54
  according to the Mormon religion, maiden ladies are not admitted to the possession of
• 10:58
  its highest joy. These poor creatures seemed to be neither well off nor happy.
• 11:05
  Some, the more well to do, no doubt, wore short,
• 11:09
  open black silk dresses under a hood or modest shawl. Others were habited in
• 11:13
  Indian fashion passepartout could not behold without a certain fright. These women charged in
• 11:20
  groups with conferring happiness on a single Mormon. His common sense pitied above all
• 11:28
  the husband. It seemed to him a terrible thing to have to guide so
• 11:31
  many wives at once across the vicissitudes of life, and to conduct them,
• 11:37
  as it were, in a body to the Mormon Paradise, with the prospect
• 11:41
  of seeing them in the company of the glorious smith, who doubtless was the
• 11:46
  chief ornament of that delightful place to all eternity. He felt decidedly repelled from
• 11:52
  such a vocation, and he imagined, perhaps he was mistaken that the fair
• 11:56
  ones of Salt Lake City cast rather alarming glances on his person. Happily,
• 12:03
  his stay there was but brief. At four, the party found themselves again
• 12:07
  at the station, took their places in the train, and the whistle sounded
• 12:11
  for starting. Just at the moment, however, that the locomotive wheels began
• 12:16
  to move, Cries of stop, stop were heard. Trains like time and
• 12:24
  tide stopped for no one. The gentleman who uttered the cries was evidently a
• 12:28
  belated Mormon. He was breathless with running. Happily, for him, the
• 12:33
  station had neither gates nor barriers. He rushed along the track, jumped on
• 12:37
  the rear platform of the train, and fell exhausted into one of the seats.
• 12:43
  Passepartout, who had been anxiously watching this amateur gymnast, approached him with
• 12:48
  lively interest and learned that he had taken flight after an unpleasant domestic scene.
• 12:54
  When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout ventured to ask him politely how
• 12:58
  many wives he had for from the manner in which he had decamped, it
• 13:03
  might be thought that he had twenty at least one, Sir, replied the
• 13:09
  Mormon, raising his arms heavenward. One and that was enough. End of chapter