=Situation of Heshbon.= Sihon's capital, Heshbon, became the capital of the first Israelite state. It crowned the top of a low rocky hill, which rose gradually from the rolling plains. On the east the plains extend unbroken to the desert with its fringe of purple mountains. It lay, therefore, in the midst of one of the most fruitful regions in the east-Jordan land and commanded the wide plains which extended in every direction. The city itself did not possess great natural strength. Its inhabitants were obliged to depend upon walls for defence. At present its top is strewn for acres with ruins of small ancient houses and what were once an ancient fortress and temple; but there are no traces of a great encircling wall. The water supply apparently came from the large pools in the shallow valley to the east. The city was, therefore, ill-fitted to stand a protracted siege. This fact probably explains why the ancient Amorite king chose to meet his foe farther south. The city is two thousand eight hundred and sixty-six feet above the sea-level and commands a wonderful view of the blue Gilead mountains in the north, the gorge of the Jordan to the southwest, the central plateau of Canaan on the west, and Medeba, set on a slightly elevated hill across the rolling plains, to the south. =Sojourn of the Hebrews East of the Jordan.= Heshbon was the key to the east-Jordan land. Through it ran the central highway from Moab northward. Westward the road led rapidly down to the Jordan Valley, past Abu Shittim, the Meadow of the Acacias, to the main fords opposite Jericho. At Heshbon and on these high uplands of the east-Jordan the Hebrews had ever before them the land of Canaan and the open road inviting them to enter. According to the oldest biblical narratives, the tribes of Machir and Manasseh also won for themselves homes in Gilead, in the rich territory between the Jabbok and the Yarmuk. A later narrative states that even at this early period the Israelites crossed the Yarmuk and conquered the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, whose capital was the strange, rock-cut city of Edrei in the valley of the upper Yarmuk.