It consisted of a grove of fine old olive trees, with terraces of fig and mulberry trees and vegetables, spread out to catch the morning sun upon a mountain side sloping to a wooded valley walled by rocky heights.
Water was there in plenty, but no house to speak of; the three small, cube-shaped houses on the property being in the occupation (which amounts to ownership) of workers of the land, who, according to the custom of the country, would become my partners.

Upon the other hand, the land was fairly cheap, and after paying for it, I should have a balance with which I might begin to build a proper house; for, as Suleyman remarked, 'here all things are done gradually.

No one will expect to see a palace all at once.

Begin with two rooms and a stable, and add a fresh room every time that you have forty pounds to spare.' The price of building appeared fixed in all that countryside at forty pounds a vault, which in ordinary buildings means a room, since every room is vaulted.
The trouble was to see just where to put the house without encroaching upon profitable land.

At last I hit on a position in the middle of the highest terrace on which grew olive trees so very old that they could well be sacrificed.