Records of Nebuchadrezzar's building operations exist in plenty, but of his annals only a small fragment has as yet been discovered. This, however, contains an allusion to his campaign in Egypt, of which Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied, and which an over-hasty criticism has denied. The campaign, we learn, took place in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. Other references to it have been detected on the Egyptian monuments, and we gather from these that the Babylonian army swept the whole of the northern part of Egypt, and penetrated as far south as Assouan, from whence they were forced to retreat by the Egyptian general Hor. Amasis was at this time king of Egypt, having dethroned and murdered Apries, the Pharaoh Hophra of the Bible, whose miserable end had been foretold by Jeremiah (xliv. 30).
No account has yet been discovered among the cuneiform documents of the campaigns of Nebuchadrezzar against Tyre and Judah. But a curious memorial of them was found two years ago on the northern bank of the Nahr el-Kelb, or Dog River, about eight miles to the north of Beyrût. The ancient high road from Damascus to the sea-coast led along the gorge through which this river makes its way to the sea, and traces of it can still be seen cut here and there in the rock. The foreign conquerors of Asia, whether Egyptian or Assyrian have left monuments of themselves carved by the side of this old road, where it winds round a promontory that forms the southern bank of the river. Ramses II, Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, all have recorded their names and deeds upon the face of the cliff; and the obliterated monuments of other and perhaps older kings may still be seen near to them. The existence of these monuments has long been known. But it was never suspected that a long inscription of Nebuchadrezzar also existed on the loftier cliff on the northern side of the river, completely concealed from view under a mass of luxuriant shrubs and drooping maiden-hair fern. It was brought to light by an accident, and though much injured by time and weather is still partly decipherable. Unfortunately, the royal author gives no history in it of his Syrian and Jewish campaigns; the clearest part of the text is occupied only with a list of the wines of the Lebanon, among which the wine of Helbon, near Damascus, was the most highly prized.(13)