The Amorites were everywhere victorious, but our information is confined to this bare fact; soon after their victory, however, we find the territory they had invaded divided into two kingdoms: in the north that of Bashan, which comprised, besides the Haurân, the plain watered by the Yarrnuk; and to the south that of Heshbon, containing the district lying around the Arnon, and the Jabbok to the east of the Dead Sea.* They seem to have made the same rapid progress in the country between the Jordan and the Mediterranean as elsewhere. They had subdued some of the small Canaanite states, entered into friendly relation with others, and penetrated gradually as far south as the borders of Sinai, while we find them establishing petty kings among the hill-country of Shechem around Hebron, on the confines of the Negeb, and the Shephelah.** When the Hebrew tribes ventured to push forward in a direct line northwards, they came into collision with the advance posts of the Amorite population, and suffered a severe defeat under the walls of Hormah.*** The check thus received, however, did not discourage them. As a direct course was closed to them, they turned to the right, and followed, first the southern and then the eastern shores of the Red Sea, till they reached the frontier of Gilead.**** * The extension of the Amorite power in this direction is proved by the facts relating to the kingdoms of Sihon and Og Gent. i. 4, ii. 24-37, iii. 1-1.7. ** For the Amorite occupation of the Negeb and the hill- country of Judah, cf. Numb. xiii. 29; Bent. i. 7, 19-46; Josh. x. 5, 6, 12, xi. 3; for their presence in the Shephelah, cf. Judges i. 34-36. *** See the long account in Numb, xiii., xiv., which terminates with the mention of the defeat of the Israelites at Hormah; and cf. Bent. i. 19-46. **** The itinerary given in Numb. xx. 22-29, xxxi., xxxiii. 37-49, and repeated in Bent, ii., brings the Israelites as far as Ezion-geber, in such a manner as to avoid the Midianites and the Moabites. The friendly welcome accorded to them in the regions situated to the east of the Dead Sea, has been accounted for either by an alliance made with Moab and Ammon against their common enemy, the Amorites, or by the fact that Ammon and Moab did not as yet occupy those regions; the inhabitants in that case would have been Edomites and Midianites, who were in continual warfare with each other. There again they were confronted by the Amorites, but in lesser numbers, and not so securely entrenched within their fortresses as their fellow-countrymen in the Negeb, so that the Israelites were able to overthrow the kingdoms of Heshbon and Bashan.* * War against Sihon, King of Heshbon (Numb. xxi. 21-31; Beut. ii. 26-37), and against Og, King of Bashan (Numb. xxi. 32-35; Beut. iii. 1-13).