In front of it and a little at each side was a semi-circular pier, or, better, a plaza of what appeared to be glistening, pale-yellow ivory.

At each end of its half-circle clustered a few low-walled, rose-stone structures, each of them surmounted by a number of high, slender pinnacles.
We looked at each other, I think, a bit helplessly--and back again through the opening.

We were standing, as I have said, at its base.
The wall in which it was set was at least ten feet thick, and so, of course, all that we could see of that which was without were the distances that revealed themselves above the outer ledge of the oval.
"Let's take a look at what's under us," said Larry.
He crept out upon the ledge and peered down, the rest of us following.
A hundred yards beneath us stretched gardens that must have been like those of many-columned Iram, which the ancient Addite King had built for his pleasure ages before the deluge, and which Allah, so the Arab legend tells, took and hid from man, within the Sahara, beyond all hope of finding--jealous because they were more beautiful than his in paradise.

Within them flowers and groves of laced, fernlike trees, pillared pavilions nestled.
The trunks of the trees were of emerald, of vermilion, and of azure-blue, and the blossoms, whose fragrance was borne to us, shone like jewels.

The graceful pillars were tinted delicately.