OMNIANA.
287
one stone,) was in girth as much as a man could clasp: its height was twenty palms,.. about fourteen[1] feet. More than three thousand cart-loads of stone were employed in this work: they were chiefly brought from the ruins of the Monastery of St. Euphemia, which was near at hand.
The first cedars which were planted in Portugal[2] are said to have been in the little garden belonging to St. Joseph's Hermitage in this Desart. Cardoso says that Grisley the Botanist found upon this Serra almost every plant which Laguna has described in his Commentary upon Dioscorides: he speaks of it also as abounding with flowers.
244. Ophites.
The Ophites must have been just