t of
Mazares.--Flight of Pactyas.--Pactyas at Cyme.--The people consult the
oracle.--Reply of the oracle.--Aristodicus and the birds'
nests.--Capture of Pactyas.--Situation of Belshazzar.--Belshazzar's
feeling of security.--Approach of Cyrus.--Cyrus draws off the water
from the river.--The city captured.

In his advance toward the dominions of Croesus in Asia Minor, Cyrus
had passed to the northward of the great and celebrated city of
Babylon. Babylon was on the Euphrates, toward the southern part of
Asia. It was the capital of a large and very fertile region, which
extended on both sides of the Euphrates toward the Persian Gulf. The
limits of the country, however, which was subject to Babylon, varied
very much at different times, as they were extended or contracted by
revolutions and wars.

The River Euphrates was the great source of fertility for the whole
region through which it flowed. The country watered by this river was
very densely populated, and the inhabitants were industrious and
peaceable, cultivating their land, and living quietly and happily on
its fruits. The surface was intersected with canals, which the people
had made for conveying the water of the river over the land for the
purpose of irrigating it. Some of these canals were navigable. There
was one great trunk which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris,
supplying many minor canals by the way, that was navigable for vessels
of considerable burden.

The traffic of the country was, however, mainly conducted by means of
boats of moderate size, the construction of which seemed to Herodotus
very curious and remarkable. The city was enormously large, and
required immense supplies of food, which were brought down in these
boats from the agricultural country above. The boats were made in
the following manner: first a frame was built, of the shape of the
intended boat, broad and shallow, and with the stem and stern of the
same form. This frame was made of willows, like a basket, and, when
finished, was covered with a sheathing of skins. A layer of reeds was
then spread over the bottom of the boat to protect the frame, and to
distribute evenly the pressure of the cargo. The boat, thus finished,
was laden with the produce of the country, and was then floated down
the river to Babylon. In this navigation the boatmen were careful to
protect the leather sheathing from injury by avoiding all contact with
rocks, or even with the gravel of the shores. They k