' So they busied
themselves in building the city even as Sheddad, King of the
whole earth in its length and breadth, had commanded them, laying
the foundations and leading the rivers therethrough in channels
after the prescribed fashion. Moreover, all the Kings of the
earth sent thither jewels and precious stones and pearls large
and small and cornelian and gold and silver upon camels by land
and in great ships over the waters, and there came to the
builders' hands of all these things so great a quantity as may
neither be told or imagined. They laboured at the work three
hundred years; and when they had wrought it to end, they went to
King Sheddad and acquainted him therewith. Then said he, 'Depart
and make thereto an impregnable citadel, rising high into the
air, and round it a thousand pavilions, each builded on a
thousand columns of chrysolite and ruby and vaulted with gold,
that in each pavilion may dwell a Vizier.' So they returned and
did this in other twenty years; after which they again presented
themselves before the King and informed him of the accomplishment
of his will. Then he commanded his Viziers, who were a thousand
in number, and his chief officers and such of his troops and
others as he put trust in, to prepare for departure and removal
to Many-Columned Irem, at the stirrup of Sheddad son of Aad, king
of the world; and he bade also such as he would of his women and
of his female slaves and eunuchs make them ready for the journey.
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