{"product_id":"2940012773470","title":"INNOCENTS ABROAD Volume VI","description":"CHAPTER L.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly,\u003cbr\u003erocky road to Nazareth--distant two hours.  All distances in the East are\u003cbr\u003emeasured by hours, not miles.  A good horse will walk three miles an hour\u003cbr\u003eover nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands\u003cbr\u003efor three miles.  This method of computation is bothersome and annoying;\u003cbr\u003eand until one gets thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no\u003cbr\u003eintelligence to his mind until he has stopped and translated the pagan\u003cbr\u003ehours into Christian miles, just as people do with the spoken words of a\u003cbr\u003eforeign language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to\u003cbr\u003ecatch the meaning in a moment.  Distances traveled by human feet are also\u003cbr\u003eestimated by hours and minutes, though I do not know what the base of the\u003cbr\u003ecalculation is.  In Constantinople you ask, \"How far is it to the\u003cbr\u003eConsulate?\" and they answer, \"About ten minutes.\"  \"How far is it to the\u003cbr\u003eLloyds' Agency?\"  \"Quarter of an hour.\"  \"How far is it to the lower\u003cbr\u003ebridge?\"  \"Four minutes.\"  I can not be positive about it, but I think\u003cbr\u003ethat there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloons, he says he wants them\u003cbr\u003ea quarter of a minute in the legs and nine seconds around the waist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo hours from Tabor to Nazareth--and as it was an uncommonly narrow,\u003cbr\u003ecrooked trail, we necessarily met all the camel trains and jackass\u003cbr\u003ecaravans between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular place and\u003cbr\u003enowhere else.  The donkeys do not matter so much, because they are so\u003cbr\u003esmall that you can jump your horse over them if he is an animal of\u003cbr\u003espirit, but a camel is not jumpable.  A camel is as tall as any ordinary\u003cbr\u003edwelling-house in Syria--which is to say a camel is from one to two, and\u003cbr\u003esometimes nearly three feet taller than a good-sized man.  In this part\u003cbr\u003eof the country his load is oftenest in the shape of colossal sacks--one\u003cbr\u003eon each side.  He and his cargo take up as much room as a carriage.\u003cbr\u003eThink of meeting this style of obstruction in a narrow trail.  The camel\u003cbr\u003ewould not turn out for a king.  He stalks serenely along, bringing his\u003cbr\u003ecushioned stilts forward with the long, regular swing of a pendulum, and\u003cbr\u003ewhatever is in the way must get out of the way peaceably, or be wiped out\u003cbr\u003eforcibly by the bulky sacks.  It was a tiresome ride to us, and perfectly\u003cbr\u003eexhausting to the horses.  We were compelled to jump over upwards of\u003cbr\u003eeighteen hundred donkeys, and only one person in the party was unseated\u003cbr\u003eless than sixty times by the camels.  This seems like a powerful\u003cbr\u003estatement, but the poet has said, \"Things are not what they seem.\"  I can\u003cbr\u003enot think of any thing, now, more certain to make one shudder, than to\u003cbr\u003ehave a soft-footed camel sneak up behind him and touch him on the ear\u003cbr\u003ewith its cold, flabby under-lip.  A camel did this for one of the boys,\u003cbr\u003ewho was drooping over his saddle in a brown study.  He glanced up and saw\u003cbr\u003ethe majestic apparition hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to\u003cbr\u003eget out of the way, but the camel reached out and bit him on the shoulder\u003cbr\u003ebefore he accomplished it.  This was the only pleasant incident of the\u003cbr\u003ejourney.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt Nazareth we camped in an olive grove near the Virgin Mary's fountain,\u003cbr\u003eand that wonderful Arab \"guard\" came to collect some bucksheesh for his\u003cbr\u003e\"services\" in following us from Tiberias and warding off invisible\u003cbr\u003edangers with the terrors of his armament.  The dragoman had paid his\u003cbr\u003emaster, but that counted as nothing--if you hire a man to sneeze for you,\u003cbr\u003ehere, and another man chooses to help him, you have got to pay both.\u003cbr\u003eThey do nothing whatever without pay.  How it must have surprised these\u003cbr\u003epeople to hear the way of salvation offered to them \"without money and\u003cbr\u003ewithout price.\"  If the manners, the people or the customs of this\u003cbr\u003ecountry have changed since the Saviour's time, the figures and metaphors\u003cbr\u003eof the Bible are not the evidences to prove it by.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47166230954224,"sku":"2940012773470","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012773470_p0.jpg?v=1763572428","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012773470","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}