THE JEWEL-BEARING TREE

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and they always recall to mind the terpole or goldenvine made in ancient times by the goldsmiths ofJerusalem .’

One of these golden vines of Jerusalem decoratedthe entrance to Herod’s Temple. The gate, Josephus says, with the wall about it, was all covered with gold.

‘ It also had golden vines upon it, from which clustersof grapes hung down equal in height to that of aman.’ This appears to have been carried on the beamsof the Toran or isolated gate, and ‘whoever vowed aleaf, or grape, or bunch of grapes, suspended it fromthe vine.’ Thus adorned, the gate of sunrise musthave surpassed all imagination in splendour, as therising sun shone on the precious metal. Another vineof the value of five hundred talents called Terpole,‘the delight,’ was sent to Pompey , which seems tohave much impressed the people of Rome whencarried in the triumph, as it is mentioned by Pliny and Tacitus .

In Mediaeval and Eastern traditions there existedsomewhere, difficult, but mayhap not impossible ofaccess, the terrestrial Paradise, and there such treesexpanded, their branches swaying in the perfumed air.After the discovery of America and the riches ofPeru , the hope of finding this golden land seems tohave revived. Even men like Raleigh appear to havebeen moved by the illusion ; in his account of the dis-covery of Guiana he quotes with approval the descrip-tion by the Spanish historian of the Indies, Lopez, ofthe state and magnificence of the Emperor who had hisseat at Manoa, which the Spaniards call El Dorado.All the vessels of the kitchen were of gold, and he hadthe images of all beasts, birds, and trees in their dueproportion and bigness all of gold. ‘Yea, and theysay the Ingas had a garden of pleasure in an island