struction of it. He commended Mandrocles for his skill and
fidelity in the highest terms, and loaded him with rewards and honors.
Mandrocles used the money which Darius thus gave him in employing an
artist to form a piece of statuary which should at once commemorate
the building of the bridge and give to Darius the glory of it. The
group represented the Bosporus with the bridge thrown over it, and the
king on his throne reviewing his troops as they passed over the
structure. This statuary was placed, when finished, in a temple in
Greece, where it was universally admired. Darius was very much pleased
both with the idea of this sculpture on the part of Mandrocles, and
with the execution of it by the artist. He gave the bridge builder new
rewards; he recompensed the artist, also, with similar munificence. He
was pleased that they had contrived so happy a way of at the same time
commemorating the bridging of the Bosporus and rendering exalted honor
to him.

The bridge was situated about the middle of the Bosporus; and as the
strait itself is about eighteen miles long, it was nine miles from the
bridge to the Euxine Sea. There is a small group of islands near the
mouth of this strait, where it opens into the sea, which were called
in those days the Cyanean Islands. They were famed in the time of
Darius for having once been floating islands, and enchanted. Their
supernatural properties had disappeared, but there was one attraction
which still pertained to them. They were situated beyond the limits of
the strait, and the visitor who landed upon them could take his
station on some picturesque cliff or smiling hill, and extend his view
far and wide over the blue waters of the Euxine Sea.

Darius determined to make an excursion to these islands while the
fleet and the army were completing their preparations at the bridge.
He embarked, accordingly, on board a splendid galley, and, sailing
along the Bosporus till he reached the sea, he landed on one of the
islands. There was a temple there, consecrated to one of the Grecian
deities. Darius, accompanied by his attendants and followers, ascended
to this temple, and, taking a seat which had been provided for him
there, he surveyed the broad expanse of water which extended like an
ocean before him, and contemplated the grandeur of the scene with the
greatest admiration and delight.

At length he returned to the bridge, where he found the preparations
for the movement of the fleet an