needed, both in the city and country. For because of the greatness of
their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and
the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses
of life. In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be
found there, solid as well as fusile, and that which is now only a name and
was then something more than a name, orichalcum, was dug out of the earth
in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than
anything except gold. There was an abundance of wood for carpenter's work,
and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were
a great number of elephants in the island; for as there was provision for
all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes
and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so
there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all.
Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or
herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and
thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the
dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for
food--we call them all by the common name of pulse, and the fruits having a
hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of
chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are
fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with
which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating--all
these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought
forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance. With such blessings the
earth freely furnished them; meanwhile they went on constructing their
temples and palaces and harbours and docks. And they arranged the whole
country in the following manner:--

First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the
ancient metropolis, making a road to and from the royal palace. And at the