latter part of their advance the Turks were exposed to a heavy cross fire from machine guns and rifles of the 9th Light Horse Regiment, and this fire and the guns of the 268th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and the Hong Kong and Singapore battery prevented the retirement of the enemy.  The capture of the prisoners was effected by an encircling movement round both flanks.  Our casualties were 9 killed and 47 wounded.  That storming battalion left over 100 dead about our trenches.  At the same time a violent attack was made on the Tahta defences held by the 157th Brigade; the enemy, rushing forward in considerable strength and with great impetus, captured a ridge overlooking Tahta—­a success which, if they had succeeded in holding the position till daylight, would have rendered that village untenable, and would have forced our line back some distance at an important point.  It proved to be a last desperate effort of the enemy at this vital centre.  No sooner were the Scots driven off the ridge than they re-formed and prepared to retake it.  Reinforced, they attacked with magnificent courage in face of heavy machine-gun fire, but it was not until after a rather prolonged period of bayonet work that the Lowland troops got the upper hand, the Turks trying again and again to force them out.  At half-past four they gave up the attempt, and from that hour Tahta and the rocks about it were objects of terror to them.

Nor did the Turks permit Nebi Samwil to remain in our possession undisputed.  The Londoners holding it were thrice attacked with extreme violence, but the defenders never flinched, and the heavy losses of the enemy may be measured by the fact that when we took Jerusalem and an unwonted silence hung over Nebi Samwil, our burying parties interred more than 500 Turkish dead about the summit of that lofty hill.  Their graves are mostly on the eastern, northern, and southern slopes.  Ours lie on the west, where Scot, Londoner, West Countryman, and Indian, all equally heroic sons of the Empire, sleep, as they fought, side by side.

The last heavy piece of fighting on the XXth Corps’ front before the attack on Jerusalem was on December 3, when a regiment of yeomanry, which like a number of other yeomanry regiments had been dismounted to form the 74th Division, covered itself with glory.  The 16th (Royal Devon Yeomanry) battalion of the Devon Regiment belonging to the 229th Brigade was ordered to make an attack on Beit ur el Foka in the dark hours of the morning.  All the officers had made reconnaissances and had learned the extreme difficulties of the ground.  At 1 A.M. these yeomen worked their way up the wadi Zeit to the head of that narrow watercourse at the base of the south-western edge of the hill on which the village stands.  The attack was launched from this position, the company on the right having the steepest face to climb.  Here the villagers, to get the most out of the soil and to prevent the winter rains washing it off the rocks into the wadi, had built