An Athenian came to Jerusalem. He devoted three and a half years to learn the language of wisdom,28Scholars would speak in riddles that could not be understood by the average person (see Eruvin 54a). That style of communication is referred to here as the language of wisdom. but he did not learn it. After three and a half years he purchased a slave who was blind.29He was blind in one eye. He said: ‘After three and one years, I buy a blind slave?’30He was upset that after devoting so much time to wisdom he could not even protect himself from purchasing a slave who had an obvious handicap (Etz Yosef). [The slave] said to him: ‘By your life, he is very wise and sees far.’ When they exited the city walls, [the slave] said to him: ‘Hurry so we can catch up to the caravan.’ He said to [the slave]: ‘Is there a caravan before us?’ [The slave] said to him: ‘Yes, and there is before us a female camel that is blind on one side, there are two in its womb, and it is laden with two leather flasks, one of wine and one of vinegar. It is at a distance of [no more than] four mil and its camel driver is a gentile.’ He said to [the slave]: ‘You of a stiff-necked people, with one eye, how do you know that it is blind in one eye?’ He said to him: ‘Look, one side of the road is grazed and one is not grazed.’ ‘And how do you know that it has two in the womb?’ He said to him: ‘It lay down and I saw the imprint of both of them.’ He said to him: ‘How do you know that it is laden with two leather flasks, one of wine and one of vinegar?’ He said to him: ‘From the drips; wine is absorbed, vinegar bubbles.’ ‘How do you know that the camel driver with them [is gentile]?’ ‘Because he urinated in the middle of the road, and a Jew does not urinate in the middle of the road, but rather on the side.’ ‘How do you know that it is at a distance of four mil?’ He said to him: ‘Until [the time it takes to travel] four mil, the hoofprint of the camel are distinct, from then on, it is not distinct.’