It was a beautiful sight in the sunshine.

Almost at our feet, half-hidden in palms and other trees, lay the flat-roofed town itself, a place of considerable extent, as every house of any consequence seemed to be set in a garden, since here there was no need for cramping walls and defensive works.

Beyond it to the northward, farther than the eye could reach, stretching down a gentle slope to the far-off shores of the great lake of glistening water, were cultivated fields, and amongst them villas and, here and there, hamlets.
Whatever might be the faults of the Abati, evidently they were skilled husbandsmen, such as their reputed forefathers, the old inhabitants of Judaea, must have been before them, for of that strain presumably some trace was still present in their veins.

However far he may have drifted from such pursuits, originally the Jew was a tiller of the soil, and here, where many of his other characteristics had evaporated under pressure of circumstances--notably the fierce courage that Titus knew--this taste remained to him, if only by tradition.
Indeed, having no other outlet for their energies and none with whom to trade, the interests of the Abati were centred in the land.

For and by the land they lived and died, and, since the amount available was limited by the mountain wall, he who had most land was great amongst them, he who had little land was small, he who had no land was practically a slave.