The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

 

Between the spring and autumn of 1867 a group of notable Americans made a journey by ship from the USA to the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East. Prominent among them was the famous writer Mark Twain, who wrote a diary which was published after the voyage as 'The Innocents Abroad'.

 

Twain described in his sharp, hearty and humoristic style all the places they visited. Chapters XLV to LVII of the book are dedicated to their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. They traveled on horses from Damascus to the Golan and Galilee. From there they continued to Samaria, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. They ended in Jaffa, from where they continued to Egypt.

 

The whole visit lasted almost a month. It was very slow and methodical. The travelers insisted of visiting almost any important place from the old and new testaments. Twain combined descriptions of the ancient religious affairs with the travelers' human ones, and confronted between the images he had in his mind of an august and godly land, and the reality of a desolate, cursed place.

 

The book is an authentic document for scientific researchers and for those who wish to know how the Land of Israel did look like in its natural state, a generation before the massive modern development.

 

The chapters of the visit to the Holy Land are brought here.

 

The Innocents Abroad - Chapters XLV to LVII

 

 

The Innocents Abroad

 

Mark Twain

 

 

 

The Human Shape of the Holy Land