The Innocents Abroad


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"
199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though  
they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers."  
I have set these extracts down, as I found them. Everywhere among the  
cathedrals of France and Italy, one finds traditions of personages that  
do not figure in the Bible, and of miracles that are not mentioned in its  
pages. But they are all in this Apocryphal New Testament, and though  
they have been ruled out of our modern Bible, it is claimed that they  
were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen centuries ago, and ranked as high  
in credit as any. One needs to read this book before he visits those  
venerable cathedrals, with their treasures of tabooed and forgotten  
tradition.  
They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth--another invincible Arab  
guard. We took our last look at the city, clinging like a whitewashed  
wasp's nest to the hill-side, and at eight o'clock in the morning  
departed. We dismounted and drove the horses down a bridle-path which I  
think was fully as crooked as a corkscrew, which I know to be as steep as  
the downward sweep of a rainbow, and which I believe to be the worst  
piece of road in the geography, except one in the Sandwich Islands, which  
I remember painfully, and possibly one or two mountain trails in the  
Sierra Nevadas. Often, in this narrow path the horse had to poise  
himself nicely on a rude stone step and then drop his fore-feet over the  
edge and down something more than half his own height. This brought his  
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610 611 612 613 614

Quick Jump
1 187 374 560 747