While the 75th Division were making their magnificent effort at Enab the Lowlanders had breasted other and equally difficult hills to the north.  General Hill had posted a strong force at Beit Likia, and then moved south-east along the route prepared by Cestius Gallus nearly 1900 years ago to the height of Beit Anan, and thence east again to Beit Dukku.  On the 21st the road and ground near it were in exceedingly bad condition, and the difficulty of moving anything on wheels along it could hardly have been greater.  Already the 52nd Division had realised it was hopeless to get all their divisional artillery into action, and only three sections of artillery were brought up, the horses of the guns sent back to Ramleh being used to double the teams in the three advanced sections.  It was heavy work, too, for infantry who not only had to carry the weight of mud-caked boots, but were handicapped by continual slipping upon the rocky ground.  The 75th advancing along the road from Enab to Kustul got an idea of the Turkish lack of attention to the highway, the main road being deep in mud and full of dangerous ruts.  They won Kustul about midday, and officers who climbed to the top got their first glimpse of the outskirts of Jerusalem from the ruined walls of a Roman castle that gives its name to the little village perched on the height.  They did not, however, see much beyond the Syrian colony behind the main Turkish defences, and the first view of Jerusalem by the troops of the British Army was obtained by General Maclean’s brigade when they advanced from Biddu to Nebi Samwil, that crowning height on which many centuries before Richard the Lion Heart buried his face in his casque and exclaimed:  ’Lord God, I pray that I may never see Thy Holy City, if so be that I may not rescue it from the hands of Thine enemies.’

What a fight it was for Nebi Samwil!  The Turk had made it his advanced work for his main line running from El Jib through Bir Nabala, Beit Iksa to Lifta, as strong a chain of entrenched mountains as any commander could desire.  General Maclean’s brigade advanced from Biddu along the side of a ridge and up the exposed steep slope of Nebi Samwil, not all of which, in the only direction he could select for an advance, was terraced, as it was on the Turks’ side.  He was all the time confronted by heavy artillery and rifle fire, and, though supported by guns firing at long range from the neighbourhood of Enab, he could not make Nebi Samwil in daylight.  Round the top of the hill the Turk had dug deeply into the stony earth.  He knew the value of that hill.  From its crest good observation was obtained in all directions, and if, when we had to attack the main Jerusalem defences on December 8, the summit of Nebi Samwil had still been in Turkish hands, not a movement of troops as they issued from the bed of the wadi Surar and climbed the rough face of the western buttresses of Jerusalem would have escaped notice.  The brigade won the hill and held it just before midnight,