While searching for information on Ain Fijeh aka Figia, or The Fountain 
of Balaam's Ass, I was reading Robert Regan's article /The Reprobate 
Elect in The Innocents Abroad /and found the notion that the Pilgrims 
did not actually have an aversion to traveling on the sabbath.  Looking 
at the schedule of The Long Trip, it seems they had no problem traveling 
on the subsequent Sundays - 9/22 and 9/29.  They just wanted to get to 
Damascus.

On further reading this article I find that Sam, Dan and the Doctor did 
not visit the zoo in Marseilles and that the "gray-bodied, dark-winged, 
bald-headed, and preposterously uncomely bird"  came from a "fabulous 
bestiary."

Sabbaths have a long history with Mark Twain, particularly his 
relationship with GW Cable.  I had long held the Twain's writing on long 
ride to Figia on a par with Huck's moral dilemma.  Both are fictions yet 
both represent truths.  But then that preposterous bird was just a 
device to prepare the reader for future descriptions of the Pilgrims. So 
it goes ....