August 15 Thursday – The entire Clemens party took a two-day excursion to the Rigi-Kulm. They spent the night in a hotel on the Rigi to watch the sunset and sunrise.

In a letter of Aug. 20, Sam described the ascent and descent to his mother:

Twichell & I took a stroll ... to the summit of Rigi, where the rheumatism captured me once more & we had to come down with the others by rail. It was a good deal like coming down a ladder by rail. I did not like it.

We got away from Bethlehem and its troops of beggars and relic-peddlers in the afternoon, and after spending some little time at Rachel’s tomb, hurried to Jerusalem as fast as possible. I never was so glad to get home again before. I never have enjoyed rest as I have enjoyed it during these last few hours. The journey to the Dead Sea, the Jordan and Bethlehem was short, but it was an exhausting one. Such roasting heat, such oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation can not surely exist elsewhere on earth. And such fatigue!

 In the huge Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, built fifteen hundred years ago by the inveterate St. Helena, they took us below ground, and into a grotto cut in the living rock. This was the “manger” where Christ was born. A silver star set in the floor bears a Latin inscription to that effect. It is polished with the kisses of many generations of worshiping pilgrims. The grotto was tricked out in the usual tasteless style observable in all the holy places of Palestine. As in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, envy and uncharitableness were apparent here.

We staid at this great convent all night, guests of the hospitable priests. Mars Saba, perched upon a crag, a human nest stuck high up against a perpendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand masonry that rises, terrace upon terrace away above your head, like the terraced and retreating colonnades one sees in fanciful pictures of Belshazzar’s Feast and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other human dwelling is near.

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers

The Valley of the Kidron, now called Wâdi Sitti Maryam, or valley of St. Mary, bounds Jerusalem on the E. side. The floor of the valley deepens somewhat rapidly. The upper part is broad and planted with olive and almond trees, while the lower part is narrower.

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers

The Valley of Hinnom is bounded on the S. (left) by the Jebel Abu Tor, a hill also called the Hill of the Tombs, the Hill of the Field of Blood, and most usually by the Franks the Mount of Evil Counsel.  It is most easily ascended from the Bethlehem road (p. 117). It derives the last of these names from a legend of the 14th cent., to the effect that Caiaphas possessed a country-house here, where he consulted with the Jews how he might kill Jesus.

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers

The view of the valley of the Jordan is finest in the evening, but Jerusalem (from the Mount of Olives) is best seen in the light of the rising sun.  The hill should therefore certainly be visited twice, especially as an interesting walk to the S. as well as to the N. can be taken.

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers

Carriage-road as far as the Tombs of the Kings. It is necessary to take a light when visiting the different caverns. — The key to the Cotton Grotto must he procured (through the landlord of the hotel) from the Serai, whence a guide will also he sent (fee 6-9 pi., or more in proportion for a party).

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers

Palestine and Syria:  Handbook for Travelers