302 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



body of the king; and having closed the grave, they 

 allowed the imprisoned waters to return to their native 

 bed, and to flow over the spot. No one now can 

 point out the exact place where Alaric lies, although its 

 immediate neighbourhood is well known ; and the faith- 

 ful river, which has jealously kept the secret confided to 

 it for well nigh fifteen hundred years, ever murmurs as it 

 flows past its solemn requiem for the mighty dead. 



Two thousand years before this barbaric funeral, we 

 read of another equally remarkable and far more signifi- 

 cant, which took place in the bed of the Jordan. When 

 the Israelites came from the wilderness to the banks of 

 this river they found it in flood, for it was the spring- 

 time of the year, and the snows of Hermon were melt- 

 ing in the warm sunshine into the sources of the sacred 

 stream, which in consequence filled the whole of its bed 

 up to the margin of the jungle, with which its nearer 

 banks were fringed. But as the priests stood with the 

 ark on their shoulders on the bank, ready to plunge in, 

 depending upon God's promised help, the raging 

 waters suddenly retreated up the gorge and piled them- 

 selves in great crystal walls at its upper end, leaving the 

 whole bed of the river dry from north to south, through 

 its long windings. The mass of the Israelites, men, 

 women, and children, who were in the rear, quickly fol- 

 lowed the priests, and safely crossed over to the other 

 side. As a memorial of this wonderful passage, twelve 

 stones were selected from the rocky bed of the river, one 

 for each of the twelve tribes of Israel ; and these were 

 borne across before them on the shoulders of twelve 



