The Prince and the Pauper

"I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like manner had it of HIS father—and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it.  It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened:  but it COULD have happened.

The Innocents Abroad - Chapter 45

Of great interest to me, in this chapter, is the dress and behaviour of the tourists, especially their self-justified vandalism. Twain is amused by the former and offended by the later. He remarks on a somewhat related behaviour of the doctor. Once knowledge that a doctor was present in one of the Syrian villages they'd stopped in, the people flocked to him "... and upon his face was written the unquestioning faith that nothing on earth could prevent the patient from getting well now."

Full-Dressed Tourist
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