the river, its low, sluggish stream was completely hidden. Had we not recently crossed, we would not have suspected that it ran across the seemingly unbroken plain. Not even the usual bushes fringed its bank to proclaim its winding course. =Effect of a Storm Upon the Plain.= Evidently the Hebrews waited before offering battle until the Canaanites had crossed and were thus cut off from the possibility of quick retreat. The ancient poem of Judges 5 also indicates that they chose for the battle the time of year most advantageous for them. The references to Jehovah coming on the clouds from Sinai and pouring out his waters, to the stars fighting in their course against the Canaanites, and to the swollen Kishon, clearly show that the battle was fought in the spring and that, while it was in progress, one of those drenching thunder-storms that sweep over the plain at this time of the year demonstrated to Hebrew and Canaanite alike the presence of Israel's God. The loamy soil of the plain dries quickly and is then very hard, but when wet becomes at once a hopeless morass. The horses' hoofs sink deep into the muddy soil and are withdrawn with that peculiar sucking sound which the author of the poem in Judges 5 has successfully reproduced. The Canaanites, never famous for bravery, were quickly thrown into confusion. In their mad endeavor to get back to Megiddo, chariots, horses, and horsemen plunged headlong into the treacherous, swollen Kishon, and were swept away. =Results of the Victory.= Apparently the Canaanite leader, Sisera, swerved to the northward from the Kishon and escaped over the hills of lower Galilee. Exhausted with his flight he took refuge in the tent of a wandering Kenite and there met the most ignominious of fates--death at the hands of a woman. Thus the Hebrews were left masters of central Canaan and possessors of the opulent cities and the material civilization, which had been developing in Palestine for over a thousand years. In the southern zone, the Canaanite cities remained unconquered until the days of the united Hebrew kingdom, but they ceased to be a menace to Hebrew expansion. Thus at last, after two or three centuries of wandering, of struggle, and of training, the different Hebrew tribes entered into their heritage and continued to occupy it until Assyria and Babylonia destroyed their independence and carried their leaders into exile.