Salt Lake City is a brief but sharply observed stop in the railway journey: a carefully gridded town whose public buildings and temple anchor the narrative’s account of Mormon life. Seen during a short visit from Ogden, it becomes both a physical waypoint in the travelers’ rapid passage across the United States and a scene in which the book’s descriptions of unfamiliar societies are shaped by the visitors’ limited, sometimes comic perspective.

Setting and Urban Form

The party reaches Salt Lake City by a branch railway from Ogden, where the train pauses. The town stands between the banks of the Jordan and the spurs of the Wahsatch Range. Its plan is described as a checkerboard, with a regularity the narrator associates with Anglo-Saxon taste for symmetry; the description likens the effect to the sombre austerity of right angles.

The travelers see blue-brick houses with verandas and porches, gardens edged by acacias, palms, and locusts, and a clay-and-pebble wall built in 1853. The principal street contains the market and several hotels with pavilions. The town seems sparsely populated: its streets are almost deserted except near the temple, which the visitors reach after passing through several quarters enclosed by palisades.

Public Life and Mormon Society

The town’s visible institutions include the prophet’s mansion, the courthouse, the arsenal, and the temple. The travelers see few or no churches, a contrast that makes the temple especially prominent in the account of the visit. The description also notes the many women in the streets and connects their presence to what it calls the Mormons’ peculiar institution.

The narrator qualifies that portrayal: not all Mormons are polygamists, and individuals are free to marry or not. It also reports the religious belief that unmarried women cannot attain the faith’s highest joys, presenting this as a reason some women are eager to marry. The text depicts the women as neither prosperous nor happy, distinguishing those in short black silk dresses and shawls from others dressed in an Indian fashion. These observations tell as much about the travelers’ interpretive frame as about the town: Salt Lake City is presented through an outsider’s selection of visible customs and social arrangements, rather than through the accounts of its inhabitants.

Passepartout’s Response

Passepartout is disturbed by the prospect of one man having many wives. His reaction turns the account of local marriage customs into a comic reflection on the imagined burdens of the husband, whom he pities for having to guide so many wives through life. He is repelled by the thought of such a role and supposes that the women of Salt Lake City are casting alarming looks at him, while the narrative itself allows that he may be mistaken. The episode makes his discomfort and self-consciousness part of the scene, while leaving the supposed attention of the women uncertain.

A Stop on the Route

The party’s visit is brief. The narrative says they spend two hours in Salt Lake City during the halt at Ogden, then return to the station and board the train as it is about to depart. At that moment a late-arriving Mormon runs along the track, jumps onto the rear platform, and collapses into a seat, turning the departure into a small incident of hurried access to the railway.

The town’s role in the journey is therefore bounded by the timetable: the travelers have time to observe its grid, buildings, and social life, but not to linger. Salt Lake City gives the narrative a pause for cultural description before the train resumes its eastward movement, while the waiting train and last-second passenger keep the larger emphasis on onward travel.