THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON
The Hanging Gardens have been attributed to Semiramis, although Nebuchadnezzar is also said to have built them to please one of his wives, who, coming from a hilly country to Babylon, in the midst of a vast and barren plain, sighed for some reminder of the leafy beauty of her old home. The gardens, built in the form of a square extending some 700 feet on each side, rose to a great height in terrace upon terrace supported by massive pillars. A remarkable hydraulic system kept their multitudinous plants and trees in almost perpetual verdure.
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THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT
For six thousand years the Pyramids have thrown their shadow across the sands of Egypt. The stone of which they are built would make a great wall from Cairo to New York; the white marble which covered them would have built more king’s palaces than Egypt has had need of. The building of the Great Pyramid employed 100,000 slaves for 30 years, and the geometrical perfection of it is a marvel to this day. Khufu, or Cheops, who built the Great Pyramid—probably as his tomb—reigned about 4700 B.C., so that the pyramid is more than three times as old as the Roman Empire.
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