Mosiah's people, when they reached the great and beautiful valley drained by what was subsequently called among the Nephites the river Sidon, [49] found it inhabited by a numerous people, whose chief city was named (at least from that time forth) Zarahemla. At this point it becomes necessary to suspend the account of Mosiah's people in order to say a word of the people inhabiting the valley of the Sidon, for they are the descendants of the third colony which, according to the Book of Mormon, came to the land of promise. _Mulek's Colony_. According to the Bible narrative of King Zedekiah's reign, when Jerusalem fell into the hands of the king of Babylon (588 B. C.), King Zedekiah himself well-nigh made his escape. For when the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night, by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden, the king went the way toward the plain. But his flight being betrayed by an enemy among his own people, [50] the army of the Chaldeans pursued Zedekiah early in the morning and overtook him in the plain near Jericho. The king's army was scattered from him at the time he was captured; for "those friends and captains of Zedekiah who had fled out of the city with him, when they saw their enemies near them, they left him, and dispersed themselves, some one way and some another, and every one resolved to save himself; so the enemy took Zedekiah alive, when he was deserted by all but a few, with his children and his wives." [51] The unfortunate king was taken before the king of Babylon, whose headquarters were then at Riblah, in Syria, where "they gave judgment upon him." The sons of Zedekiah were slain in his presence; after which his eyes were put out; he was bound in fetters and carried to Babylon, where subsequently he died. But among the king's friends who escaped were a number who carried with them one of Zedekiah's sons, named Mulek; and according to the Book of Mormon, this company "journeyed in the wilderness and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters," [52] into the western hemisphere. It is learned by an incidental remark in the Book of Mormon that the colony of Mulek landed somewhere in the north continent of the western hemisphere; and for that reason the north continent was called Mulek, by the Nephites; and the south continent, Lehi; and this for the reason that the Lord brought the colonies bearing these names to the north and south land [53] respectively. How many years the colony of Mulek traveled, and in what direction, cannot be learned from the Book of Mormon. But it is quite evident that they landed in the north continent of the western world, most likely in the southern part of that continent, say in the region of what is known in modern times as Central America. [54] Thence they drifted southward to the valley of the Sidon, where they were found by the migrating hosts of Nephites under Mosiah.