The river bent sharply. Just above the topmost plumes of the palms on the promontory thus formed hung a glitter as of fire, pendent against the cloudless blue.
“Flame!” exclaimed Darius, shaken out of his black mood.
“Gold!” answered Hanno, smiling; “the crest of the queen of ziggurats, the uppermost shrine of Bel-Marduk, the greatest temple-tower of the twenty in Babylon.” And Darius, fresh from the splendours of Susa, marvelled, for he knew the wondrous shining was still a great way off.
But even without this bright day-beacon they would have known they approached the city. The shores were still level as the stream, but the palm-groves grew denser. They saw great cedars and tamarisks, blossoming shrubs, strange exotic trees in pleasant gardens, and the splendour of wide beds of flowers. Tiny canals drained away inland. The villages were larger, and beyond them scattered white-walled, rambling farm-houses. They saw dirty-fleeced sheep and long-horned kine; and presently Hanno pointed out a file of brown camels swaying along the river road—a Syrian caravan, doubtless, just safe across the great desert.
But never in her mountain home had Atossa seen a sight like that upon the river. For the Euphrates seemed turned to life. Clumsy barges loaded with cattle were working with long sweeps against the current; skiffs loaded with kitchen produce were drifting southward; and especially huge rafts, planks upborne by inflated skins, and carrying building-stone and brick, were creeping down-stream towards Babylon. In and out sculled little wicker boats, mere baskets, water-tight, which bore a goodly cargo. And, as the bireme swept onward, the boatman gave many a hail of good omen. “Marduk favour you! Samas shine on you!” While others, who guessed the royal passenger, shouted, “Istar shed gladness on the great lady Atossa!”
So for the moment the young Persians forgot all cares, admiring river and land. All the time the tower of Bel shone with growing radiance. They could see its lower terraces. Around it other ziggurats, nearly as high, seemed springing into being, their cone-shaped piles of terraces glowing with the glazed brickwork,—gold, silver, scarlet, blue,—and about them rose masses of walls and buildings, stretching along the southern horizon almost as far as the eye could traverse.
Hanno stood smiling again at the wonderment of the Persians.
“Babylon the Great!” he would cry. “Babylon that endures forever!”
And truly Darius and Atossa thought his praise too faint, as they saw those ramparts springing up to heaven, worthy to be accounted the handiwork of the gods.