t number of lateral and
winding channels for the river, wherever the natural disposition of
the surface afforded facilities for doing so, and the earth which was
taken out in the course of these excavations was employed in raising
the banks by artificial terraces, such as are made to confine the
Mississippi at New Orleans, and are there called _levees_.[B] The
object of Nitocris in these measures was two-fold. She wished, in the
first place, to open all practicable channels for the flow of the
water, and then to confine the current within the channels thus made.
She also wished to make the navigation of the stream as intricate and
complicated as possible, so that, while the natives of the country
might easily find their way, in boats, to the capital, a foreign
enemy, if he should make the attempt, might be confused and lost. These
were the rivers of Babylon on the banks of which the captive Jews sat
down and wept when they remembered Zion.

[Footnote B: From the French word _levee_, raised.]

This queen Nitocris seems to have been quite distinguished for her
engineering and architectural plans. It was she that built the bridge
across the Euphrates, within the city; and as there was a feeling of
jealousy and ill will, as usual in such a case, between the two
divisions of the town which the river formed, she caused the bridge to
be constructed with a movable platform or draw, by means of which the
communication might be cut off at pleasure. This draw was generally up
at night and down by day.

Herodotus relates a curious anecdote of this queen, which, if true,
evinces in another way the peculiar originality of mind and the
ingenuity which characterized all her operations. She caused her tomb
to be built, before her death, over one of the principal gates of the
city. Upon the facade of this monument was a very conspicuous
inscription to this effect: "If any one of the sovereigns, my
successors, shall be in extreme want of money, let him open my tomb
and take what he may think proper; but let him not resort to this
resource unless the urgency is extreme."

The tomb remained for some time after the queen's death quite
undisturbed. In fact, the people of the city avoided this gate
altogether, on account of the dead body deposited above it, and the
spot became well-nigh deserted. At length, in process of time, a
subsequent sovereign, being in want of money, ventured to open the
tomb. He found, however, no money within. Th