NOTEBOOK

At this city also David's nephew, Amasa, was slain by
his cousin Joab.

Here too on Gibeon Solomon offered up his 1000 funeral
offerings and here the Lord appeared to him and gave
him the desire of his heart—"Wisdom and Understand-
ing."

Some idea of the care which Mark Twain took
in the matter of Biblical references and reading
is shown in this notebook by his having set down
no less than 20 pages of reference—specifications
of chapter and verse.

It is so long now that I do not remember what we did
after the morning that Dr. Birch and I went to the Pool
of Bethsaida to get a flask of the water. We visited the
Baths of Hezekiah where David fell in love with Uriah's
wife while she was bathing—also, occasionally, the church
of the Holy Sepulcher and around about the traditional
houses of Pilate, Caiaphas, Dives and Lazarus, and poked
through the Via Dolorosa etc. and so on—and got a most
infernal Turkish bath one night—nothing to the baths of
Damascus and Constantinople. These thieves don't like
to wash Christians, I think. X took his wife to dinner at
the Mediterranean Hotel one night when we were there
(they still lived in their tents outside the Damascus Gate)
and came in himself after all the courses were served but
dessert and coffee and tried to get off from paying because
he hadn't eaten a full meal. The old Dutchman made him
pay, though.

Major Barry, Griswold and party have been down to
Jericho, the ford of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, and
were attacked by a gang of Bedouins. A shot or two was
fired—nobody hurt, but Griswold scared a good deal.

Leary's party was threatened with raid one night, some-
where down there by the Fountain where the ravens fed

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