September 15 Sunday

Twain reports being very sick for the last 24 hours he spent in Damascus, so I'm not sure how his itinerary actually works out. He calls it cholera, I suspect he had a case of dysentery from drinking the water.

The last twenty-four hours we staid in Damascus I lay prostrate with a violent attack of cholera, or cholera morbus, and therefore had a good chance and a good excuse to lie there on that wide divan and take an honest rest. I had nothing to do but listen to the pattering of the fountains and take medicine and throw it up again. It was dangerous recreation, but it was pleasanter than traveling in Syria. I had plenty of snow from Mount Hermon, and as it would not stay on my stomach, there was nothing to interfere with my eating it—there was always room for more. I enjoyed myself very well. Syrian travel has its interesting features, like travel in any other part of the world, and yet to break your leg or have the cholera adds a welcome variety to it.

Dr. George B. Birch, one of the Pilgrim's on The Long Trip, stayed with Sam during his illness and would have stayed if the party had abandoned him there in Damascus.  On hearing of Dr. Birch's death in Allahabad, India in 1874, via Dan Slote, he wrote another of the Pilgrims, Emma Beach:  "I have just received from Dan Slote the enclosed, bringing the saddening news that another of our thinning band of pilgrims has gone the way of all flesh while in a far land among a strange people. I have always held Dr. Birch in grateful memory because he stood by me so stanchly when I was dangerously ill in Damascus. "  “SLC to Emeline B. Beach, 4 Feb 1874, Hartford, Conn."