=Well Watered and Fertile.= In contrast to western Palestine, the east-Jordan land is well supplied with springs and perennial rivers. Grass grows almost everywhere in rich profusion, even far out toward the desert. Great forests are still found in Gilead, and fruit trees that yield abundantly. East of the Jordan are the chief grain fields of Palestine, but it is pre-eminently the home of the herdsman and shepherd. Herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats dot the landscape almost everywhere from the foot of Hermon to the southern end of Moab.
=The Four Great Natural Divisions.= The east-Jordan land falls into four great natural divisions. The first is the Jaulan or Golan, the Gaulanitis of the Roman period, which extends from the foot of Mount Hermon to the Yarmuk River and from the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee to the Nahr el-Allân, a northern tributary of the Yarmuk. To the east and southeast of the Jaulan is the second great division, the Hauran. It extends northward to the vast lava-beds of El-Lejah, and eastward to the Druse Mountains, which look out upon the desert. In certain passages of the Old Testament the term Bashan seems to have been applied to the entire region north of the Yarmuk, but its exact bounds are not clearly defined. The third division includes the mountains of Gilead, which extend from the Yarmuk to the Wady Heshbân at the northern end of the Dead Sea, and from the Jordan out to the desert beyond the territory of ancient Ammon. The fourth division is the plateau of Moab, which extends from the Wady Heshbân to the Wady el-Hesa, southeast of the Dead Sea, and from the Salt Sea to the great pilgrim road on the borders of the desert.
=Characteristics of the Northern and Western Jaulan.= The Jaulan slopes southward to the Yarmuk and westward to the Jordan. Its characteristic features are two parallel ranges of isolated volcanic mountains between two and four thousand feet in height extending southward from Mount Hermon.
In some of these bold peaks the outlines of the ancient craters are still visible. Tell Abu Neda, of the western range, rises to the height of nearly four thousand feet. Its crater is broken at one side and its ulterior is cultivated, producing a variety of vegetables and grains. Another peak farther south, Tell el-Faras, about three thousand one hundred feet high, has a well-preserved, round crater, which inclines to the north. From these craters in early times successive waves of lava flowed toward the Jordan valley, covering this entire region. The northern part of the Jaulan is a great rocky pasture land, strewn with black basaltic boulders. In the spring it is a mass of green, which attracts thousands of Bedouin with their flocks. In the summer it becomes dry and desolate except where a few perennial springs develop little oases. The villages are small and far apart. Inland a few wadies supply water for irrigation, but as they run westward toward the Jordan they soon cut deep torrent beds through the rocks and thus become practically useless for purposes of agriculture.