because of the greatness of their empire many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided most of what was required by them for the uses of life.
In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, solid as well as
fusile, and that which is now only a name and was then something more than a name,
ORICHALCUM, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, being more precious in those days than anything except gold.
There was an abundance of wood for carpenter’s work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of
elephants in the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all.
Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; and the pleasant kinds of
dessert, with which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating
[*] – all these that sacred island which then beheld the light of the sun, brought forth fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance.
[Plato, ‘Critias’, Collected Dialogues, p. 1219]
things we eat when we are tired of eating = deserts / desserts
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