"This they accomplished in the space of twenty years, for the number
of rulers then reigning over the earth was three hundred and sixty
kings. And Shaddad presently assembled from all lands and countries
architects and engineers and men of art and laborers and
handicraftsmen, who dispersed over the world and explored all the
wastes and wolds and tracts and holds. At last they came to an
uninhabited spot, a vast and fair open plain clear of sand hills and
mountains, with founts flushing and rivers rushing, and they said,
'This is the manner of place the King commanded us to seek and ordered
us to find.' So they busied themselves in building the city even as
bade them Shaddad, King of the whole earth in its length and
breadth, leading the fountains in channels and laying the
foundations after the prescribed fashion. Moreover, all the kings of
earth's several reigns sent thither jewels and precious stones and
pearls large and small and carnelian and refined gold and virgin
silver upon camels by land, and in great ships over the waters, and
there came to the builders' hands of all these materials so great a
quantity as may neither be told nor counted nor conceived.
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