Solomon had resolved that Jerusalem should be the center of all
sacred, regal, and commercial magnificence. He set himself to work,
and monopolized the surrounding desert as a highway for his caravans.
He built the city of Palmyra around one of the principal wells of the
East, so that all the long trains of merchandise from the East were
obliged to stop there, pay toll, and leave part of their wealth in the
hands of Solomon's merchants. He manned the fortress Thapsacus at the
chief ford of the Euphrates, and put under guard everything that
passed there. The three great products of Palestine--wine pressed from
the richest clusters and celebrated all the world over; oil which in
that hot country is the entire substitute for butter and lard, and was
pressed from the olive branches until every tree in the country became
an oil well; and honey which was the entire substitute for
sugar--these three great products of the country Solomon exported, and
received in return fruits and precious woods and the animals of every
clime.

He went down to Ezion-geber and ordered a fleet of ships to be
constructed, oversaw the workmen, and watched the launching of the
flotilla which was to go out on more than a year's voyage, to bring
home the wealth of the then known world. He heard that the Egyptian
horses were large and swift, and long-maned and round-limbed, and he
resolved to purchase them, giving eighty-five dollars apiece for them,
putting the best of these horses in his own stall, and selling the
surplus to foreign potentates at great profit.

He heard that there was the best of timber on Mount Lebanon, and he
sent out one hundred and eighty thousand men to hew down the forest