September 14 Saturday
The Pilgrims depart Sirghaya and travel to Damascus, making a side trip to Figia. The journey to Figia is approximately 19.8 miles and the final leg to Damascus, and additional 14.2 miles.
A Matter of Conscience
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.
[Saturday] ... 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: [See Figia]
Baalam's Ass Drank Here
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.”
Damascus
As the glare of day mellowed into twilight, we looked down upon a picture which is celebrated all over the world. I think I have read about four hundred times that when Mahomet was a simple camel-driver he reached this point and looked down upon Damascus for the first time, and then made a certain renowned remark. He said man could enter only one paradise; he preferred to go to the one above. So he sat down there and feasted his eyes upon the earthly paradise of Damascus, and then went away without entering its gates. They have erected a tower on the hill to mark the spot where he stood.
Robert Regan, in The Reprobate Elect in The Innocents Abroad, remarks: "It seems at least possible that the issue of Sabbath travel, always a favorite for Mark Twain, is a pure fiction-a serviceable fiction for dramatizing the differences, which were real enough, between the born-again and the unregenerated and for characterizing the pilgrims, the boys, and Mark Twain himself."
Bædeker's tour book describes the route from Damascus to Baalbek, whereas Twain's party traveled in the other direction. There is also a divergence in the route mapped here. Bædeker includes no details about the length from Baalbek to Ez-Zebedâni, Al Zabadani on today's maps, south of Twain's overnight at Sirghaya. Bædeker's route is from the east, Bloudan to Ez-Zebedâni and from Helbûn to Bludan. He mentions a location that I have been unable to find geographic coordinates for, Ain Fakhukh. The path looks difficult and I have not been able to plot a route. From Helbûn to Damascus is a straight shot. If Twain's party did take this route it would have been a simple matter to add extraneous trip to Figia and the Ass' Fountain by travelling west from Ain es Sahib.
See Murray ROUTE 37. DAMASCUS TO BA’ALBEK. He includes Damascus to Dummar to Ain Fîjeh to Sik Wady Barada, Abila to Zebdâny then to Surghâya.