_Gilead._--The boundary of the tribe of Gad was some few miles north of the Jabbok, for the territory included Mahanaim; while on the south it extended to the Arnon. The region had belonged to the Ammonites; and it was long before they were driven out, for even after Saul was anointed King of Israel, Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh Gilead and sought to lay a hard condition of surrender upon the Israelites there (1 Sam. xi.). This district is the land of Gilead or “Mount Gilead” of the Bible. It is a good land for cattle, and would be prized by agricultural people in any part of the world. “It is not to be wondered at,” says Dr Merrill, “that the two and a half tribes were perfectly willing to stay on the east of Jordan. Judea has no land to compare with it; neither has Samaria, except in very limited portions. The surface of the country is slightly rolling, but the fields are broad and comparatively free from stone. Here common Arab trails broaden out into fine roads. Here are rich pasture lands and luxuriant fields of wheat and barley, and the ignorant Bedouin who own the soil point with pride to the green acres that are spread out beneath the sun.” _Amman_, called in the Bible Rabbath Ammon (Deut. iii. 11; 2 Sam. xi. 1, &c.), was the chief city of the children of Ammon fifteen hundred years before Christ. Here the bedstead of Og, the king of Bashan, was taken by Joab, David’s general (2 Sam. xi. xii.), and Uriah the Hittite was killed in one of the sorties. Rabbath Ammon was rebuilt by Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, and its name changed to Philadelphia. Again it was destroyed by the Saracens when they conquered Syria. The stream of the Jabbok ran right through Rabbath Ammon, and it was called the “City of Waters.” It was after Joab had taken the City of Waters that he sent to David and suggested that he should come and capture the citadel himself, lest all the glory should go to his servant. Major Conder regards _Amman_ as the most important ruin surveyed in Palestine, as regards its antiquarian interest, and the best specimen of a Roman town that he visited, except the still more wonderful ruins of Gerasa, which yield only to Baalbec and Palmyra among Syrian capitals of the second century of our era. The Roman remains include two theatres, baths, a street of columns, and remains of what was once a very great temple on the highest part of the acropolis of the city. Several noble families must have lived in the town, as shown by the magnificent private tombs surrounding the city. But the oldest remains visible at _Amman_ are the dolmens, of which, with other rude stone monuments, there are some twenty in all. Next to these come the old rock-cut tombs, which Conder supposes to be of the early Hebrew period. But who knows whether there be not a buried city underneath _Amman_? The whole region south of _Amman_, and also north and west of it, abounds in ruins.