[112] Diodorus (xvi, 24) tells us that Ariæus intended to guide them towards Paphlagonia; a very loose indication.
After an affected delay and hesitation, in order to impose upon the Persians, Klearchus concluded the truce, and desired that the guides would conduct the army to those quarters where provisions could be had. He was most circumspect in maintaining exact order during the march, himself taking charge of the rear guard. The guides led them over many ditches and channels, full of water, and cut for the purpose of irrigation; some so broad and deep that they could not be crossed without bridges. The army had to put together bridges for the occasion, from palm trees either already fallen, or expressly cut down. This was a troublesome business, which Klearchus himself superintended with peculiar strictness. He carried his spear in the left hand, his stick in the right; employing the latter to chastise any soldier who seemed remiss,—and even plunging into the mud and lending his own hands in aid wherever it was necessary.[113] As it was not the usual season of irrigation for crops, he suspected that the canals had been filled on this occasion expressly to intimidate the Greeks, by impressing them with the difficulties of their prospective march; and he was anxious to demonstrate to the Persians that these difficulties were no more than Grecian energy could easily surmount.
At length they reached certain villages indicated by their guides for quarters and provision; and here for the first time they had a sample of that unparalleled abundance of the Babylonian territory, which Herodotus is afraid to describe with numerical precision. Large quantities of corn,—dates not only in great numbers, but of such beauty, freshness, size and flavor, as no Greek had ever seen or tasted, insomuch that fruit like what was imported into Greece, was disregarded and left for the slaves,—wine and vinegar, both also made from the date-palm: these are the luxuries which Xenophon is eloquent in describing, after his recent period of scanty fare and anxious apprehension; not without also noticing the headaches which such new and luscious food, in unlimited quanity, brought upon himself and others.[114]