ntributing to
this great propitiatory rite; and the whole people feasting on those
parts of the sacrifices which were not set apart for holy uses.

[Footnote 30: Gibbon, in one of his malicious notes, observes, "As the
blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient, Lightfoot,
the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le Clerc (_ad loc._) is
bold enough to suspect the fidelity of the numbers." To this I ventured
to subjoin the following illustration: "According to the historian
Kotobeddyn, quoted by Burckhardt, _Travels in Arabia_, p. 276, the
Khalif Moktader sacrificed during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year
of the Hegira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
carcasses given to the poor. Tavernier speaks of one hundred thousand
victims offered by the king of Tonquin." Gibbon, ch. xxiii., iv., p. 96,
edit. Milman.]

Though the chief magnificence of Solomon was lavished on the Temple of
God, yet the sumptuous palaces which he erected for his own residence
display an opulence and profusion which may vie with the older monarchs
of Egypt or Assyria. The great palace stood in Jerusalem; it occupied
thirteen years in building. A causeway bridged the deep ravine, and
leading directly to the Temple, united the part either of Acra or Sion,
on which the palace stood, with Mount Moriah.

In this palace was a vast hall for public business, from its cedar
pillars called the House of the Forest of Lebanon. It was 175 feet long,
half that measurement in width, above 50 feet high; four rows of cedar
columns supported a roof made of beams of the same wood; there were
three rows of windows on each side facing each other. Besides this great
hall, there were two others, called porches, of smaller dimensions, in
one of which the throne of justice was placed. The harem, or women's
apartments, adjoined to these buildings; with other piles of vast extent
for different purposes, particularly, if we may credit Josephus, a great
banqueting hall.

The same author informs us that the whole was surrounded with spacious
and luxuriant gardens, and adds a less credible fact, ornamented with
sculptures and paintings. Another palace was built in a romantic part of
the country in the valleys at the foot of Lebanon for his wife, the
daughter of the king of Egypt; in the luxurious gardens of which we may
lay the scene of that poetical epithalamium,[31