But the curses of the despairing people had their effect.  Far down in the bed of the sea the grains of corn germinated, and a harvest of bare stalks grew until it reached the surface of the water.  The shifting quicksands at the bottom of the sea were bound together by the overspreading stalks into a mighty sand-bank which rose above the surface in front of the town of Stavoren.

No longer were the merchant-vessels able to enter the harbour, for it was blocked by the impassable bank.  Nay, instead of finding refuge there, many a ship was dashed to pieces by the fury of the breakers, and Stavoren became a place of ill-fame to the mariner.

All the wealth and commerce of this proud city were at an end.  Richberta herself, whose wanton act had raised the sand-bank, had her ships wrecked there one by one, and was reduced to begging for bread in the city whose wealthiest inhabitant she had once been.  Then, perhaps, she could appreciate the words of the old traveller, that bread was the greatest of earthly treasures.

At last the ocean, dashing against the huge mound with ever-increasing fury, burst through the dyke which Richberta had raised, overwhelmed the town, and buried it for ever under the waves.

And now the mariner, sailing on the Zuider Zee, passes above the engulfed city and sees with wonderment the towers and spires of the ‘Sunken Land.’

Historical Sketch

Like other world-rivers, the Rhine has attracted to its banks a succession of races of widely divergent origin.  Celt, Teuton, Slav, and Roman have contested for the territories which it waters, and if the most enduring of these races has finally achieved dominion over the fairest river-province in Europe, who shall say that it has emerged from the struggle as a homogeneous people, having absorbed none of the blood of those with whom it strove for the lordship of this vine-clad valley?  He would indeed be a courageous ethnologist who would suggest a purely Germanic origin for the Rhine race.  As the historical period dawns upon Middle Europe we find the Rhine basin in the possession of a people of Celtic blood.  As in Britain and France, this folk has left its indelible mark upon the countryside in a wealth of place-names embodying its characteristic titles for flood, village, and hill.  In such prefixes and terminations as magh, brig, dun, and etc we espy the influence of Celtic occupants, and Maguntiacum, or Mainz, and Borbetomagus, or Worms, are examples of that ‘Gallic’ idiom which has indelibly starred the map of Western Europe.

Prehistoric Miners