ing shall be appointed you. I, and no
one else, will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. This day the
pleasant palace on the hanging-gardens shall be prepared for your
reception."

"A thousand, thousand thanks," cried Nitetis. "You little know the
blessing you are bestowing in this permission. Again and again I have
begged your brother Bartja to repeat the story of these gardens, and the
love of the king who raised that verdant and blooming hill, pleased us
better than all the other glories of your vast domains."

"To-morrow," answered the king, "you can enter your new abode. But tell
me now how my messengers pleased you and your countrymen."

"How can you ask? Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him?
Who could fail to admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends?
They have all become dear to us, but your handsome brother Bartja
especially, won all hearts. The Egyptians have no love for strangers, and
yet the gaping crowd would burst into a murmur of admiration, when his
beautiful face appeared among them."

At these words the king's brow darkened; he struck his horse so sharply
that the creature reared, and then turning it quickly round he gallopped
to the front and soon reached the walls of Babylon.

...........................

Though Nitetis had been brought up among the huge temples and palaces of
Egypt, she was still astonished at the size and grandeur of this gigantic
city.

Its walls seemed impregnable; they measured more than seventy-five
feet--[Fifty ells. The Greek ell is equal to one foot and a half
English.]--in height and their breadth was so great, that two chariots
could conveniently drive abreast upon them. These mighty defences were
crowned and strengthened by two hundred and fifty high towers, and even
these would have been insufficient, if Babylon had not been protected on
one side by impassable morasses. The gigantic city lay on both shores of
the Euphrates. It was more than forty miles in circumference, and its
walls enclosed buildings surpassing in size and grandeur even the
Pyramids and the temples of Thebes.

[These numbers and measurements are taken partly from Herodotus,
partly from Diodorus, Strabo and Arrian. And even the ruins of this
giant city, writes Lavard, are such as to allow a very fair
conclusion of its enormous size. Aristotle (Polit. III. I.) says
Babylon's dimensions were not those of a city, but of a nation.]

The migh