Long before dawn, Idina-aha, master of the hounds, had emptied his kennels of the fifty black mastiffs who were to accompany the royal hunt; and at gray dawn itself Darius met Belshazzar in the central palace court. A score of trained game beaters were mounted and ready; and what with the escort of dog boys, guardsmen, and eunuchs, the chariots, the lead horses, and the long mule train with the baggage, Belshazzar drove forth with no little army. The monarch had appeared in the best of spirits; had looked Darius fairly in the eye when he told the Persian that they intended to hunt the auroch—the wild bull—whom no dog could face; and that on this account he had with him his pride—his three hunting lions, to whom even the wild bull could have no terrors. When Darius saw the brutes, huge as the beast that he had slain so memorably, he had indeed marvelled, though not after the manner Belshazzar imagined; and the king laughingly vowed to him, that if the Persian should be so fortunate as to slay an auroch, he should have his choice of which of the lions he should take back to Susa, excepting always “Nergal,” the royal favourite, whom his master could not spare. So they set forth, Belshazzar with seemingly one end in the world—to make his fellow-huntsman merry. They passed the great Western Gate, and sped through the pleasant suburbs, past luxuriant gardens, prosperous farm-houses, and innumerable canals fringed with long arbours of trees. Now and then they saw countrymen dragging their hand-carts of kitchen produce to early market, two or three tugging together. As they halted to water beside a little village of dome-roofed huts Darius saw the peasants ploughing in the fields, with the usual team—a mule and a cow—and heard the ploughing song, already thousands of years old:— “A heifer am I, To the mule I am yoked. Where, where is the cart? Go look in the grass; It is high, it is high!” Fields of wheat, barley, and millet waved far and near. Darius grew weary counting the prosperous landed estates and thriving villages. Truly Hanno the Phœnician spoke well, the wealth of the country of Babylon was beyond that of the mine. The corn lands and the thrifty peasants had made possible Imgur-Bel and Belshazzar’s kingly glory. But at last the farms were falling wider apart. The canals were dwindling. The land where untilled was brilliant with spring flowers, and the wind crossing the plain came to the travellers sweet with all the fragrance of the unscorched verdure. The company kept on until, beside the last of the narrowing canals, the king cried, “Halt!” and the weary footmen were glad to drop by the roadside, beside the panting dogs. Then the panniers on the carrier mules were unloaded, wine was passed about, and food. The noon hours were spent in rest and chatter. Darius had gazed about him curiously. “So far, and no signs of jungle? Only the open plain.”