their
officers, reluctant, wretched, and despairing.

This helpless mass was overtaken one night, among the gloomy and rugged
defiles and passes of Mount Ida, by a dreadful storm of wind and rain,
accompanied by thunder and lightning. Unprovided as they were with the
means of protection against such tempests, they were thrown into
confusion, and spent the night in terror. Great numbers perished, struck
by the lightning, or exhausted by the cold and exposure; and afterward,
when they encamped on the plains of Troy, near the Scamander, the whole
of the water of the stream was not enough to supply the wants of the
soldiers and the immense herds of beasts of burden, so that many
thousands suffered severely from thirst.

All these things conspired greatly to depress the spirits of the men, so
that, at last, when they arrived in the vicinity of Abydos, the whole
army was in a state of extreme dejection and despair. This, however, was
of little consequence. The repose of a master so despotic and lofty as
Xerxes is very little disturbed by the mental sorrows of his slaves.
Xerxes reached Abydos, and prepared to make the passage of the strait in
a manner worthy of the grandeur of the occasion.

The first thing was to make arrangements for a great parade of his
forces, not, apparently, for the purpose of accomplishing any useful end
of military organization in the arrangement of the troops, but to
gratify the pride and pleasure of the sovereign with an opportunity of
surveying them. A great white throne of marble was accordingly erected
on an eminence not far from the shore of the Hellespont, from which
Xerxes looked down with great complacency and pleasure, on the one hand,
upon the long lines of troops, the countless squadrons of horsemen, the
ranges of tents, and the vast herds of beasts of burden which were
assembled on the land, and, on the other hand, upon the fleets of ships,
and boats, and galleys at anchor upon the sea; while the shores of
Europe were smiling in the distance, and the long and magnificent
roadway which he had made lay floating upon the water, all ready to take
his enormous armament across whenever he should issue the command.

Any deep emotion of the human soul, in persons of a sensitive physical
organization, tends to tears; and Xerxes's heart, being filled with
exultation and pride, and with a sense of inexpressible grandeur and
sublimity as he looked upon this scene, was softened by the pleasurable