MARK TWAIN

of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, pota-
toes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious
grapes; the viands were better cooked than any
we had eaten for weeks and the table made a finer
appearance, with its large German-silver candle-
sticks and other finer/ than any table we had sat
down to for a good while, and yet that polite
dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apol-
ogizing for the whole affair, on account of the
unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a
very long trip, and promising to do a great deal
better in future!

It is midnight now, and we break camp at six
in the morning!

They call this camping out. At this rate it is
a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy
Land.

It would not all be a "glorious privilege," but
not many things in this world could be more
inspiring than their start. To be young (he was
not yet 32), starting with boon companions on a
trip into historic Syria and the Holy Land—days
of it, weeks of it, no hurry—and then, next
morning:

The saloon tent had been stripped of its sides,
and had nothing left but its roof; so when we
sat down to table we could look out over a noble
panorama of mountain, sea, and hazy valley. And
sitting thus, the sun rose slowly up and suffused
the picture with a world of rich coloring.

Sept. 12. Broke camp at 7 A.M. just as Col. Foster and
Col. Hyde went by in the diligence bound for Damascus.
We passed the Leary party and the Bond party during
the day.

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