e wadi. Both sides strove all day without gaining ground.
Divisional headquarters were only a short distance behind the 6th, and
the 8th Brigade was moved up into the same area to be ready to assist.
By two o'clock in the afternoon the 22nd Brigade got into Ain Arik and
found a strong force of the enemy holding Beitunia and the hill of
Muntar, a few hundred yards to the north of it, thus barring the way
to Ramallah and Bireh. Rain fell copiously and the wind was chilly.
After a miserable night in bivouac, the 6th Brigade was astir before
daylight on the 21st. They were fighting at dawn, and in the half
light compelled the enemy to retire to within half a mile of Beitunia.
A few prisoners were rounded up, and these told the brigadier that
3000 Turks were holding Beitunia with four batteries of field guns and
four heavy camel guns. That estimate was found to be approximately
accurate. A regiment of the 8th Brigade sent to reinforce the 6th
Brigade on their left got within 800 yards of the hill, when the guns
about Bireh and Ramallah opened on them and they were compelled to
withdraw, and a Turkish counter-attack forced our forward line back
slightly in the afternoon. The enemy had a plentiful supply of
ammunition and made a prodigal use of it. While continuing to shell
fiercely he put more infantry into his fighting line, and as we had
only 1200 rifles and four mountain guns, which the enemy's artillery
outranged, it was clear we could not dislodge him from the Beitunia
crest. The 22nd Mounted Brigade had made an attempt to get to Ramallah
from Ain Arik, but the opposition from Muntar and the high ground
to the east was much too severe. Our casualties had not been
inconsiderable, and in face of the enemy's superiority in numbers and
guns and the strength of his position it would have been dangerous and
useless to make a further attack. General Barrow therefore decided to
withdraw to Foka during the night. All horses had been sent back in
the course of the afternoon, and when the light failed the retirement
began. The wounded were first evacuated, and they, poor fellows, had
a bad time of it getting back to Foka in the dark over four miles of
rock-strewn country. It was not till two o'clock on the following
morning that all the convoys of wounded passed through Foka, but by
that time the track to Tahta had been made into passable order, and
some of these helpless men were out of the hills soon after daylight,
journeying in