The Innocents Abroad — Volume 05 eBook

Not content with doubling the legitimate stages, they switched off the main road and went away out of the way to visit an absurd fountain called Figia, because Baalam’s ass had drank there once.  So we journeyed on, through the terrible hills and deserts and the roasting sun, and then far into the night, seeking the honored pool of Baalam’s ass, the patron saint of all pilgrims like us.  I find no entry but this in my note-book: 

“Rode to-day, altogether, thirteen hours, through deserts, partly, and partly over barren, unsightly hills, and latterly through wild, rocky scenery, and camped at about eleven o’clock at night on the banks of a limpid stream, near a Syrian village.  Do not know its name—­do not wish to know it—­want to go to bed.  Two horses lame (mine and Jack’s) and the others worn out.  Jack and I walked three or four miles, over the hills, and led the horses.  Fun—­but of a mild type.”

Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips fore-and-aft, and “thort-ships,” and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a moment’s cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your conscience hurts you every time you strike if you are half a man,—­it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit and execrated with emphasis for a liberal division of a man’s lifetime.

CHAPTER XLIV.

The next day was an outrage upon men and horses both.  It was another thirteen-hour stretch (including an hour’s “nooning.”) It was over the barrenest chalk-hills and through the baldest canons that even Syria can show.  The heat quivered in the air every where.  In the canons we almost smothered in the baking atmosphere.  On high ground, the reflection from the chalk-hills was blinding.  It was cruel to urge the crippled horses, but it had to be done in order to make Damascus Saturday night.  We saw ancient tombs and temples of fanciful architecture carved out of the solid rock high up in the face of precipices above our heads, but we had neither time nor strength to climb up there and examine them.  The terse language of my note-book will answer for the rest of this day’s experiences: 

“Broke camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana valley and the rough mountains—­horses limping and that Arab screech-owl that does most of the singing and carries the water-skins, always a thousand miles ahead, of course, and no water to drink—­will he never die?  Beautiful stream in a chasm, lined thick with pomegranate, fig, olive and quince orchards, and nooned an hour at the celebrated Baalam’s Ass Fountain of Figia, second in size in Syria, and the coldest water out of Siberia—­guide-books