Mark Twain’s Journeys in the Holy Land – Day 9, September 25th
Leaving Jerusalem and heading toward the Jordan Valley, the landscape became more bleak and the temperature rose. From his journal, it seems Twain was continuing to become more disenchanted with the region as he wrote, “No Second Advent – Christ been here once – will never come again… I have only one pleasant reminiscence of the Palestine excursion -time I had the cholera in Damascus.”
Regarding the date listed in the journal, see here.
Excerpted from Mark Twain’s Notebook 9:
Sept. 24 – Left Jerusalem at 8 AM….
Village of Bethany.
….Over mountain saw Jordan Valley, Mountains of Moab & Dead Sea
Modern 2d Jericho.
8 Arched aqueduct…
Ancient Jericho.
Many ruins still there (arches, of course), & mosaics in the brook.
….Priest only entered Holy of Holies once a year & then sent a scape goat through Golden Gate to wilderness…
….God protect the relics of Jerusalem when our tribe get there.