164 PRACIGA. @oReB OR MOU T UIE 
and many others, not included in David's realin, together with the large cities 
and numerous people in the Lebanon Valley, brought the population of 
Canaan up to ten millions. 
From both profane and sacred history we are reminded of the vast mul- 
titudes who peopled this country, and of the temples and works of art which 
they constructed. Solomon employed 153,600 laborers for twenty years in 
erecting his various religious and state buildings. At the same time he main- 
tained a standing army numbering half a million men; forty thousand stalls 
of horses were provided for his chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. While 
as compared with David's reign, his was one of peace, yet that was secured 
by a strong exhibition of power. 
Thus “Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his own vine and 
fig tree."—1 Kings I[V-2s5. 
David had thoroughly organized the army, and subdued the neighboring 
nation, but the power of Israel reached its zenith during Solomon's reign; all 
nations from Mediterranean to Euphrates acknowledged his sovereignty. 
To support a population so dense required an exceptionally fertile so‘l, 
intense cultivation with a regular and abundant rainfall. The land, culti- 
vated as in gardens, produced wheat, barley and all manner of fruits; the hill- 
sides were terraced and planted with grapes, pomegranates, olives and figs, 
horticulture being one of the arts which were thoroughly understood and 
practiced by the children of Israel. 
The abundant agricultural resources of the kingdom may be better real- 
ized as we read that 320,000 bushels of grain were annually sent to pay the 
Sidonians, who were making lumber for the Israelites, while a million gallons 
each of wine and oil were also sent for the same purpose, year by year, for 
twenty years.—Chron. II-10. 
A LUMBERING NATION. 
“Hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; for thou knowest that there is not 
among us any that have skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.” 
The Sidonians occupied the coast from Mt. Carmel northward some hun- 
dred and fifty miles, the mountains of Lebanon being within their territory. 
They were extensively engaged in cutting and hewing timber, building ships 
and exporting lumber. This was a sea-faring people whose trade extended 
to the farthermost coasts of western Africa and southern Europe as well as 
to the cities of the Mediterranean. They navigated the Nile in trade with the 
Egyptians. Timber was their chief export, for in the region of these African 
ports to which they sailed forests were unknown, while the skill of the Sido- 
mians was especially directed to wooderaft. 
Fortunately for the Orient the methods of the Sidonians, lumbering solely 
with the ax, gave some opportunity for forest renewals, and centuries were 
required to devastate the mountains of Canaan and accomplish their aridity. 
When King Solomon found it necessary to procure a navy, it was the 
Sidonians who constructed it in Ezion-geber, on the Red Sea, and manned it 
for the trade with Ophir in the Indian Ocean.—t Kings TX-206. 
