The Innocents Abroad

Chapter 50

We descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep ravine, followed a hilly,

rocky road to Nazareth--distant two hours. All distances in the East are

measured by hours, not miles. A good horse will walk three miles an hour

over nearly any kind of a road; therefore, an hour, here, always stands

for three miles. This method of computation is bothersome and annoying;

and until one gets thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no

intelligence to his mind until he has stopped and translated the pagan

hours into Christian miles, just as people do with the spoken words of a

foreign language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly enough to

catch the meaning in a moment. Distances traveled by human feet are also

estimated by hours and minutes, though I do not know what the base of the

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