And yet he could not have told whether the element was contained in that beauty, or in his thought of Olivia.
At last they emerged upon a narrow, grassy terrace where white steps mounted to a wide parapet.

Jarvo ran up the steps and turned: "Behold Med, adon," he said modestly, as if he had at that moment stirred it up in a sauce-pan and baked it before their astonished eyes.
They were standing at the top of an immense flight of steps extending as far to right and left as they could see, and leading down by easy stages and wide landings to the white-paved city itself.

The clear light flooded the scene--lucid, vivid, many-peopled.

Far as the eye could see, broad streets extended, lined with structures rivaling in splendour and beauty those unforgotten "topless towers." Temples, palaces, and public buildings rose, storey upon storey, built of hewn stones of great size; and noble arches faced an open square before a temple of colossal masonry crowning an eminence in the centre of the city.

Directly in line with this eminence rose the mountain upon whose summit stood the far-seen pillars where burned the solitary light.
If an enchanted city had risen from the waves because some one had chanced to speak the right word, it could have been no more bewildering; and yet the look of this city was so substantial, so adapted to all commonplace needs, so essentially the scene of every-day activity and purpose, that dozens of towns of petty European principalities seem far less actual and practicable homes of men.