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 ....