soldiers were scattered beneath the trees, where numerous flat-roofed
buildings might be seen, wine-presses, cellars, storehouses, bakeries,
and arsenals, with a court for elephants, dens for wild beasts, and a
prison for slaves. 

Fig-trees surrounded the kitchens; a wood of sycamores stretched away
to meet masses of verdure, where the pomegranate shone amid the white
tufts of the cotton-plant; vines, grape-laden, grew up into the
branches of the pines; a field of roses bloomed beneath the plane-
trees; here and there lilies rocked upon the turf; the paths were
strewn with black sand mingled with powdered coral, and in the centre
the avenue of cypress formed, as it were, a double colonnade of green
obelisks from one extremity to the other. 

Far in the background stood the palace, built of yellow mottled
Numidian marble, broad courses supporting its four terraced stories.
With its large, straight, ebony staircase, bearing the prow of a
vanquished galley at the corners of every step, its red doors
quartered with black crosses, its brass gratings protecting it from
scorpions below, and its trellises of gilded rods closing the