B. Scott Holmes

Of great interest to me, in this chapter, is the dress and behaviour of the tourists, especially their self-justified vandalism. Twain is amused by the former and offended by the later. He remarks on a somewhat related behaviour of the doctor. Once knowledge that a doctor was present in one of the Syrian villages they'd stopped in, the people flocked to him "... and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth could prevent the patient from getting well now."

The attached letter, Number 29, was used by Twain in both this chapter and in chapter 45. The first two sections, a description of a Syrian village and the story of Nimrod were used in chapter 45 along with the final paragraph about his second horse of the journey, Baalbec. The section on the ruins of Baalbec (not the horse) were used in this chapter. Of particular interest, to me anyway, is Twain's discussion of the quality of mercy and how it is distinguished in issues of the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. In this case, in the keeping of the Sabbath.

This chapter contains a particularly interesting paragraph on how the Ottoman Empire repressed the native Syrians with a particularly odious system of taxation.

The Pilgrims are "busted" for vandalism, the pilfering of souvenirs from Ephesus. They are quite indignant about it when they think the order to empty their pockets originated with the Ottomans. They become contrite when it is discovered that the British Empire is only protecting an English company holding the excavation rights. I assume this is the same company John Turtle Wood is associated with.

I've been rather curious about the oyster beds described by Mark Twain, or rather the veins of shells mixed with broken crockery. My attempts at Google searching this rarely get me past New Smyrna Beach, Florida. What I have found out, though, is this region once supported a rather flourishing neolithic population that utilized shellfish and other marine resources. I did find one paper available on-line as a PDF, Neolithic Shellfish Gathering at Yeşilova: An Ethnoarchaeological View by Zafer Derin.

The crew of the Quaker City has some fun at the expense of the pilgrims, conducting parodies of the meeting with Alexander II. They sail from Constantinople to Smyrna, modern day Izmir. This is where journalist, writer, and adventurer Ian Strathcarron picks up the scent. He has written a book, Innocence and War Mark Twain's Holy Land Revisited, see http://web.me.com/strathcarron/MarkTwainHolyLand/Welcome.html After an extended prologue on the making of Mark Twain and how he found himself on the Quaker City Excursion Strathcarron joins the route, moored in the harbor of Izmir.

Be sure to read the section in the newspaper clipping on "Cheerful Bathing". This portion was omitted from the book, and is thus not part of the recording. But it is of interest.