The Innocents Abroad


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heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall  
be desolate and your cities waste."  
No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah and say the prophecy has  
not been fulfilled.  
In a verse from the Bible which I have quoted above, occurs the phrase  
"all these kings." It attracted my attention in a moment, because it  
carries to my mind such a vastly different significance from what it  
always did at home. I can see easily enough that if I wish to profit by  
this tour and come to a correct understanding of the matters of interest  
connected with it, I must studiously and faithfully unlearn a great many  
things I have somehow absorbed concerning Palestine. I must begin a  
system of reduction. Like my grapes which the spies bore out of the  
Promised Land, I have got every thing in Palestine on too large a scale.  
Some of my ideas were wild enough. The word Palestine always brought to  
my mind a vague suggestion of a country as large as the United States.  
I do not know why, but such was the case. I suppose it was because I  
could not conceive of a small country having so large a history. I think  
I was a little surprised to find that the grand Sultan of Turkey was a  
man of only ordinary size. I must try to reduce my ideas of Palestine to  
a more reasonable shape. One gets large impressions in boyhood,  
sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life. "All these  
kings." When I used to read that in Sunday School, it suggested to me  
the several kings of such countries as England, France, Spain, Germany,  
Russia, etc., arrayed in splendid robes ablaze with jewels, marching in  
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