The Pallacopas, or canal of Opa (Palga Opa), which left the Euphrates
at Sippara (Mosaib) and ran into a great lake in the neighborhood of
Borsippa, whence the lands in the neighborhood were irrigated, may also
have been one of Nebuchadnezzar's constructions. It was an old canal,
much out of repair, in the time of Alexander, and was certainly the
work, not of the Persian conquerors, but of some native monarch anterior
to Cyrus. The Arabs, who call it the Nahr Abba, regard it as the oldest
canal in the country.

Some glimpses into the private life and personal character of
Nebuchadnezzar are afforded us by certain of the Old Testament writers.
We see him in the Book of Daniel at the head of a magnificent Court,
surrounded by "princes, governors, and captains, judges, treasurers,
councillors, and sheriffs;" waited on by eunuchs selected with the
greatest care, "well-favored" and carefully educated; attended, whenever
he requires it, by a multitude of astrologers and other "wise men," who
seek to interpret to him the will of Heaven. He is an absolute monarch,
disposing with a word of the lives and properties of his subjects, even
the highest. All offices are in his gift. He can raise a foreigner
to the second place in the kingdom, and even set him over the entire
priestly order. His wealth is enormous, for he makes of pure gold an
image, or obelisk, ninety feet high and nine feet broad. He is religious
after a sort, but wavers in his faith, sometimes acknowledging the
God of the Jews as the only real deity, sometimes relapsing into an
idolatrous worship, and forcing all his subjects to follow his example.
Even then, however, his polytheism is of a kind which admits of a
special devotion to a particular deity, who is called emphatically "his
god." In temper he is hasty and violent, but not obstinate; his fierce
resolves are taken suddenly and as suddenly repented of; he is moreover
capable of bursts of gratitude and devotion, no less than of accesses of
fury; like most Orientals, he is vainglorious but he can humble himself
before the chastening hand of the Almighty; in his better moods he shows
a spirit astonishing in one of his country and time--a spirit of real
piety, self-condemnation, and self-abasement, which renders him one of
the most remarkable characters in Scripture.

A few touches of a darker hue must be added to this portrait of the
great Babylonian king from the statements of another contemporary, the
proph