apart, or rather less; and both parties kept
watch upon each other as if they were enemies, which hardly tended to
lull suspicion; and sometimes, whilst foraging for wood and grass and
so forth on the same ground, blows were exchanged, which occasioned
further embitterments. Three stages they had accomplished ere they
reached the wall of Media, as it is called, and passed within it. It
was built of baked bricks laid upon bitumen. It was twenty feet broad
and a hundred feet high, and the length of it was said to be twenty
parasangs. It lies at no great distance from Babylon.

From this point they marched two stages--eight parasangs--and crossed
two canals, the first by a regular bridge, the other spanned by a
bridge of seven boats. These canals issued from the Tigris, and from
them a whole system of minor trenches was cut, leading over the
country, large ones to begin with, and then smaller and smaller, till
at last they become the merest runnels, like those in Hellas used for
watering millet fields. They reached the river Tigris. At this point
there was a large and thickly populated city named Sittace, at a 13
distance of fifteen furlongs from the river. The Hellenes accordingly
encamped by the side of that city, near a large and beautiful park,
which was thick with all sorts of trees.

The Asiatics had crossed the Tigris, but somehow were entirely hidden
from view. After supper, Proxenus and Xenophon were walking in front
of the place d'armes, when a man came up and demanded of the advanced
guard where he could find Proxenus or Clearchus. He did not ask for
Menon, and that too though he came from Ariaeus, who was Menon's
friend. As soon as Proxenus had said: "I am he, whom you seek," the
man replied: "I have been sent by Ariaeus and Artaozus, who have been
trusty friends to Cyrus in past days, and are your well-wishers. They
warn you to be on your guard, in case the barbarians attack you in the
night. There is a large body of troops in the neighbouring park. They
also warn you to send and occupy the bridge over the Tigris, since
Tissaphernes is minded to break it down in the night, if he can, so
that you may not cross, but be caught between the river and the
canal." On hearing this they took the man to Clearchus and acquainted
him with his statement. Clearchus, on his side, was much disturbed,
and indeed alarmed at the news. But a young fellow who was present (1),
struck with an idea, suggested that the two sta