In Kitezh and the kingdoms nearby, though they know of stone and timber and partly use them as conditions require, they prefer to build with water. The most prized houses employ three or more interwoven waterfalls for their walls and the roof is generally left open to the night sky. In inclement weather sheets of a certain plant painted with invisibility are used. Sleep, they say, is always deepest when surrounded by flowing water and the stars glitter with most tenderness when seen across a ceiling of shifting water. When a couple seek privacy they divert a waterfall around themselves – “to draw the curtain of the waterfall” is the common expression in their language to refer to lovemaking.

(Macrobius, A journey through Ebtesum, Kitezh and central Africa)


In periods of history when Eusebius has been on the wane or recently disappeared, following the cyclic collapse of its manifestations, alternate forms of wealth developed. For too long historians have neglected the lively trade in water and advanced water technologies that flourished in Africa. The export of such knowledge from Africa to regions of Europe, Arabia, and Southern India was crucial to the flourishing of the twin kingdoms of Kitezh and Ebtesum. Also worthy of further analysis is the fact that, when Eusebius triumphs, those parts of the world richest in water become the poorest – a direct punishment, many hold, for those eras when water regulated the affairs of men. Vast water distribution highways, of which the aqueducts of the Romans are but faint memories, linked many lands that the blessings of the fruitful clouds might be known to all. Likewise the craftsmen of Kitezh and central Africa knew how to use the power of water to run all manner of machines, to transport goods, to lift heavy weights. Many have written of the music created by special water machines, the criss-crossing melodies of water especially prized in Kitezh.

(Diogenes Laertes, Commentary on Received Knowledge)