September 23 Monday – Sam and group left Lubban at 2:30 AM and reached Jerusalem at noon.

A fast walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not know how else to make one understand how small it is. The appearance of the city is peculiar. It is as knobby with countless little domes as a prison door is with bolt-heads. Every house has from one to half a dozen of these white plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a cluster upon, the flat roof. Wherefore, when one looks down from an eminence, upon the compact mass of houses (so closely crowded together, in fact, that there is no appearance of streets at all, and so the city looks solid,) he sees the knobbiest town in the world, except Constantinople. It looks as if it might be roofed, from centre to circumference, with inverted saucers. The monotony of the view is interrupted only by the great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and one or two other buildings that rise into commanding prominence.

Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live there [IA, Ch. 53].

The Daily Alta California, p. 1 col. 2 reported a small item of interest about the letters received from Mark Twain:

WHAT OBJECT? —We received by steamer mail yesterday a half a dozen letters from “Mark Twain” at Naples, each of which has had a knife or other sharp instrument, three-quarters of an inch in width, driven through it at the end, about half an inch from the edge. The knife was evidently driven through one end from the side on which the superscription appears and through the other end from the reverse side, cutting through envelope and contents each time. Had any of the letters contained photographs or any similar object, the knife would have played havoc with them. We are at a loss to understand what object any man could have in thus mutilating the letters, unless, indeed, the person making the incisions may have been a stranger—say an Italian brigand or something of that sort—and being totally unacquainted with the impecunious Mark, was on the lookout for bank checks, drafts, or greenbacks. The cut in each case would enable the outsider to ascertain what was inside the letter, and from the appearance of the envelopes the cutting must have been done long before the letters reached this continent.