The Return of Mr. Twain

So I've gone a little crazy on Mark Twain...He is a great writer, being not only entertaining but eloquent as well...I found more quotes in The Innocents Abroad that relate to IBEX, so bear with me as I repeat them here...

Jerusalem

To us, Jerusalem and to-day's experiences will be an enchanted memory a year hence - a memory which money could not buy from us.

We paused on the summit of a distant hill and took a final look and made a final farewell to the venerable city [Jerusalem] which had been such a good home to us.

The Moslems watch the Golden Gate with a jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism will fall…

Travel

…I knew then what I had sometimes known before – that it is worth while to get tired out, because one so enjoys resting afterward.

One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before take to themselves a meaning.

Jericho

Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin. When Joshua marched around it seven times, some three thousand years ago, and blew it down with his trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely that he hardly left enough of the city to cast a shadow.

Elah Valley

We crossed the brook which furnished David the stone that killed Goliath, and, no doubt, we looked upon the very ground whereon that noted battle was fought.

Aijalon Valley

This was the plain of which Joshua spoke when he said, "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Aijalon."