call by the general name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind,
affording drinks, and meats, and ointments, and good store of chestnuts
and the like, which may be used to play with, and are fruits which spoil
with keeping--and the pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after
dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these that sacred
island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and wondrous in infinite
abundance. All these things they received from the earth, and they
employed themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces, and
harbors, 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, and made a passage into and out of they began to
build the palace in the royal palace; and then the habitation of the god
and of their ancestors. This they continued to ornament in successive
generations, every king surpassing the one who came before him to the
utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for
size and for beauty. And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three
hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in
length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a
passage from the sea up to this, which became a harbor, and leaving an
opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress.
Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea,
constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage for a
single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed them over;
and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones
were raised considerably above the water. Now the largest of the zones
into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth,
and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two,
as well the zone of water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which
surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in
which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia. This, and