and drag the timber through the mountain gorges, to construct it into
rafts to be floated to Joppa, and from thence to be drawn by ox-teams
twenty-five miles across the land to Jerusalem. He heard that there
were beautiful flowers in other lands. He sent for them, planted them
in his own gardens, and to this very day there are flowers found in
the ruins of that city such as are to be found in no other part of
Palestine, the lineal descendants of the very flowers that Solomon
planted. He heard that in foreign groves there were birds of richest
voice and most luxuriant wing. He sent out people to catch them and
bring them there, and he put them into his cages.

Stand back now and see this long train of camels coming up to the
king's gate, and the ox-trains from Egypt, gold and silver and
precious stones, and beasts of every hoof, and birds of every wing,
and fish of every scale! See the peacocks strut under the cedars, and
the horsemen run, and the chariots wheel! Hark to the orchestra! Gaze
upon the dance! Not stopping to look into the wonders of the temple,
step right on to the causeway, and pass up to Solomon's palace!

Here we find ourselves amid a collection of buildings on which the
king had lavished the wealth of many empires. The genius of Hiram, the
architect, and of the other artists is here seen in the long line of
corridors and the suspended gallery and the approach to the throne.
Traceried window opposite traceried window. Bronzed ornaments bursting
into lotus and lily and pomegranate. Chapiters surrounded by network
of leaves in which imitation fruit seemed suspended as in hanging
baskets. Three branches--so Josephus tells us--three branches
sculptured on the marble, so thin and subtle that even the leaves
seemed to quiver. A laver capable of holding five hundred barrels of
water on six hundred brazen ox-heads, which gushed with water and