minstrelsy of the harp. And the sweet singer of Israel has for
ever invested those sterile hills of Gil boa with a charm, by his
incomparable lament for Saul and Jonathan, — by the womanly
love which it breathes for his old friend, and the chivalrous
generosity, the godlike charity, which it pours out in tears over
his old enemy : — " Saul and Jonathan were pleasant in their lives,
and in their death they were not divided ! "

As if to make the scene of that battle-field still mor£ complete,
the top of the hill of Beth-sbaan (now called Beisan) rises, like
Dumbarton rock, close under the hill of Gilboa, and overhangs
the valley of th£ Jordan. To. the gates of its citadel the bodies of
Saul and his three sons were fastened, until removed by the brave
men of Jabesh-gilead,* from the opposite side of the Jordan, who
thus testified their remembrance of the time when Saul had
delivered them, thirty years before, from the Amorites.-f"

But the interest and teaching of this old battle-plain are not
yet exhausted. As we look out of the opposite window, towards
the south and west, we see to the left a long line of low hills
which here and there send points into the plain, with retiring
bays and valleys between, and end at the smooth ridge of Mount
Carmel. On the shore of one of those green bays, seven or eight
miles off, we see Taanach, and four miles or so beyond, Megiddo,
past which "the waters of Megiddo " flow to join the Eishon.
