Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
by Lew Wallace
to THE WIFE OF MY YOUTH who still abides with me
BOOK FIRST
CHAPTER I
The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north. Standing on its red-and-white cliffs, and looking off under the path of the rising sun, one sees only the Desert of Arabia, where the east winds, so hateful ...