The blue vault of heaven sank on the horizon in one direction into the dustiness of the plains, and in the other into the mists of the sea, and on the summit of the Acropolis, the pyramidal cypress trees, fringing the temple of Eschmoun, swayed murmuring like the regular waves that beat slowly along the mole beneath the ramparts.
Salammbo ascended to the terrace of her palace, supported by a female slave who carried an iron dish filled with live coals.
In the middle of the terrace there was a small ivory bed covered with lynx skins, and cushions made with the feathers of the parrot, a fatidical animal consecrated to the gods; and at the four corners rose four long perfuming-pans filled with nard, incense, cinnamomum, and myrrh.

The slave lit the perfumes.

Salammbo looked at the polar star; she slowly saluted the four points of heaven, and knelt down on the ground in the azure dust which was strewn with golden stars in imitation of the firmament.

Then with both elbows against her sides, her fore-arms straight and her hands open, she threw back her head beneath the rays of the moon, and said: "O Rabetna!--Baalet!--Tanith!" and her voice was lengthened in a plaintive fashion as if calling to some one.

"Anaitis! Astarte! Derceto! Astoreth! Mylitta! Athara! Elissa! Tiratha!--By the hidden symbols, by the resounding sistra,--by the furrows of the earth,--by the eternal silence and by the eternal fruitfulness,--mistress of the gloomy sea and of the azure shores, O Queen of the watery world, all hail!" She swayed her whole body twice or thrice, and then cast herself face downwards in the dust with both arms outstretched.
But the slave nimbly raised her, for according to the rites someone must catch the suppliant at the moment of his prostration; this told him that the gods accepted him, and Salammbo's nurse never failed in this pious duty.
Some merchants from Darytian Gaetulia had brought her to Carthage when quite young, and after her enfranchisement she would not forsake her old masters, as was shown by her right ear, which was pierced with a large hole.