There are other jewels used in the decorations inside the
houses and palaces, such as rubies, diamonds, sapphires, amethysts
and turquoises. But in the streets and upon the outside of the
buildings only emeralds appear, from which circumstance the place is
named the Emerald City of Oz. It has nine thousand, six hundred and
fifty-four buildings, in which lived fifty-seven thousand three
hundred and eighteen people, up to the time my story opens.
All the surrounding country, extending to the borders of the desert
which enclosed it upon every side, was full of pretty and comfortable
farmhouses, in which resided those inhabitants of Oz who preferred
country to city life.
Altogether there were more than half a million people in the Land of
Oz--although some of them, as you will soon learn, were not made of
flesh and blood as we are--and every inhabitant of that favored
country was happy and prosperous.
No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one
ever died unless he met with an accident that prevented him from
living. This happened very seldom, indeed. There were no poor people
in the Land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money, and all
property of every sort belonged to the Ruler.
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