Centuries later, this brook was the scene of events less peaceful. Obeying the heroic Gideon, the men of Ephraim took possession of this ford and slew the fugitive Midianites;[282] and ninety years thereafter the Gileadites under Jephthah, descending from their native mountains, held the passage of the stream, and slew every Ephraimite whose betraying tongue could not correctly pronounce the password Shibboleth.[283] The Pilgrim’s Ford, opposite Jericho, is no less enchanting in its natural scenery than it is memorable for its sacred associations. A hundred feet wide and twelve deep, the Jordan sweeps by at the rate of six knots an hour. From this point to the Dead Sea the river retains its general peculiarities of sinuosity, of color, of rapidity, of banks, and foliage. The inlet to the Asphaltic Lake is three feet deep and 540 wide, and here is the third and largest reservoir of the Jordan――its first and only stage of rest. Here it ends. This being an ancient ford, the western bank is worn down to the water’s edge by the tread of many generations. On either side willows bend their graceful limbs to touch the rapid stream, tamarisks wave gently in the soft zephyrs, oleanders bloom amid foliage of lighter and deeper green, and the crystal streamlet from Rîha flows into the turbulent Jordan among trees of statelier form. A little to the south the banks are steep, and the bottom is soft and covered with weeds and lacerating briers. Directly opposite, the Mountains of Moab rise in all their rugged grandeur, with their sides broken by deep ravines and their summits veiled in a purple haze. Forgotten in the lapse of time, yet somewhere on those loftier peaks were the high places of Baal,[284] the “field of Zophim,”[285] and the “top of Peor,”[286] whither Balak led Balaam to curse Israel. From those summits of vision the prophet of Pethor looked down upon the Lord’s chosen people, but could not “count the dust of Jacob.”[287] He beheld them “crouching like a lion,”[288] and, in the rapture of his song, exclaimed, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel.”[289] Under more auspicious circumstances, a greater than Balaam surveyed the Land of Promise from Pisgah’s top.[290] Turning northward, “his eye that was not dim” swept the land of Gilead unto the icy crown of Hermon; turning westward, he beheld the distant hills of Naphtali standing out against the sky; nearer, he saw the possessions of Ephraim and Manasseh; directly before him was the Land of Judah and Benjamin, the City of the Great King, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean beyond; while at his feet lay the rich plain of Jericho, the “city of palm-trees,” the first conquest of the triumphant arms of Joshua. In his tent, or in some retired glen, or on some solitary peak, the son of Amram wrote most of his inspired history; and yonder, when the work of his wondrous life was finished, when the farewell view of the goodly Canaan had been completed, when