Now, Media was a land of hills and mountains, whilst Babylon was on level ground and without even a hill in sight. Nebuchadnezzar’s queen found Babylonia so flat and uninteresting that she became homesick, and she longed for her own country with its wild mountain scenery. So, just to please her and keep her contented Nebuchadnezzar set to work and _built_ a hill for her, but the queer thing was he built it on top of the roof of his palace! On the sides of this hill he made beautiful gardens, and these gardens he planted not only with flowers but also with trees, so that his queen might sit in the shade and enjoy herself. These were called Hanging Gardens. The Hanging Gardens and the tremendous walls were known far and wide as one of the Seven Wonders of the world. Would you like to know what the other Wonders were? Well, the pyramids in Egypt were one; the magnificent statue of Jupiter at Olympia, where the Olympic Games were held, was another--so those with the Hanging Gardens make three. Nebuchadnezzar believed in idols like those terrible monsters the Phenicians worshiped. The Jews away off in Jerusalem believed in one God. Nebuchadnezzar wanted the Jews to worship his gods, but they would not. He also wanted them to pay him taxes, and they would not. So he sent his armies to Jerusalem, destroyed that city, burnt the beautiful Temple that Solomon had built, and brought the Jews and all their belongings to Babylon. There in Babylon Nebuchadnezzar kept the Jews prisoners, and there in Babylon the Jews remained prisoners for fifty years. Babylon had become not only the most magnificent city in the world; it had become also the most wicked. The people of Babylon gave themselves up to the wildest pleasures. Their only thought seemed to be, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry”; they thought nothing of the morrow; the more wicked the pleasure the more they liked it. But although Nebuchadnezzar seemed able to do and able to have everything in the world he wanted, he finally went crazy. He thought he was a bull, and he used to get down on his hands and knees and eat grass, imagining he was a beast of the field. And Babylon, in spite of its tremendous walls and brass gates, was doomed. Babylon was to be conquered. It didn’t seem possible. How could it be conquered, and who was to do the conquering? You would probably never guess. 19 A Surprise Party When I was a boy I was always told, and you have probably been told the same thing: “You can have no dessert until you have eaten your dinner.” No matter whether I was hungry or not, “No dinner, no dessert.” This was a rule which my father said was “like the laws of the Medes and Persians.”