what in the mischief he was making all that to-do about; but still I could not divest myself of the idea, somehow, that a frightful peril had been escaped through that man’s dare-devil bravery, and so I never could read about Wm. C. Grimes’ Bedouins and sleep comfortably afterward. But I believe the Bedouins to be a fraud, now. I have seen the monster, and I can outrun him. I shall never be afraid of his daring to stand behind his own gun and discharge it.
About fifteen hundred years before Christ, this camp-ground of ours by the Waters of Merom was the scene of one of Joshua’s exterminating battles. Jabin, King of Hazor, (up yonder above Dan,) called all the shieks about him together, with their hosts, to make ready for Israel’s terrible General who was approaching.
“And when all these Kings were met together, they came and pitched together by the Waters of Merom, to fight against Israel.
“And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea-shore for multitude,” etc.
But Joshua fell upon them and utterly destroyed them, root and branch. That was his usual policy in war. He never left any chance for newspaper controversies about who won the battle. He made this valley, so quiet now, a reeking slaughter-pen.
Somewhere in this part of the country—I do not know exactly where—Israel fought another bloody battle a hundred years later. Deborah, the prophetess, told Barak to take ten thousand men and sally forth against another King Jabin who had been doing something. Barak came down from Mount Tabor, twenty or twenty-five miles from here, and gave battle to Jabin’s forces, who were in command of Sisera. Barak won the fight, and while he was making the victory complete by the usual method of exterminating the remnant of the defeated host, Sisera fled away on foot, and when he was nearly exhausted by fatigue and thirst, one Jael, a woman he seems to have been acquainted with, invited him to come into her tent and rest himself. The weary soldier acceded readily enough,
