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 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 filled the whole place with coolness and crystalline brightness and musical plash.  Ten tables chased with chariot wheel and lion and cherubim.  Solomon sat on a throne of ivory.  At the seating place of the throne, on each end of the steps, a brazen lion.  Why, my friends, in that place they trimmed their candles with snuffers of gold, and they cut their fruits with knives of gold, and they washed their faces in basins of gold, and they scooped out the ashes with shovels of gold, and they stirred the altar fires with tongs of gold.  Gold reflected in the water!  Gold flashing from the apparel!  Gold blazing in the crown!  Gold, gold, gold!