defences they had to capture before the Turks could be forced out
of Jerusalem. We will first look at it from Enab, the ancient
Kir-jath-jearim, which the Somersets, Wilts, and Gurkhas had taken at
the point of the bayonet. From the top of Enab the Jaffa-Jerusalem
road winds down a deep valley, plentifully planted with olive and fig
trees and watered by the wadi Ikbala. A splendid supply of water
had been developed by Royal Engineers near the ruins of a Crusader
fortress which, if native tradition may be relied on, housed Richard
of the Lion Heart. From the wadi rises a hill on which is Kustul,
a village covering the site of an old Roman castle from which,
doubtless, its name is derived. Kustul stands out the next boldest
feature to Nebi Samwil, and from it, when the atmosphere is clear,
the red-tiled roofs of houses in the suburbs of Jerusalem are plainly
visible. A dozen villages clinging like limpets to steep hillsides are
before you, and away on your right front the tall spires of Christian
churches at Ain Karim tell you you are approaching the Holy Sites.
Looking east the road falls, with many short zigzags in its length, to
Kulonieh, crosses the wadi Surar by a substantial bridge (which the
Turks blew up), and then creeps up the hills in heavy gradients till
it is lost to view about Lifta. The wadi Surar winds round the foot of
the hill which Kustul crowns, and on the other side of the watercourse
there rises the series of hills on which the Turks intended to hold
our hands off Jerusalem. The descent from Kustul is very rapid and the
rise on the other side is almost as precipitous. On both sides of the
wadi olive trees are thickly planted, and on the terraced slopes vines
yield a plentiful harvest. Big spurs run down to the wadi, the sides
are rough even in dry weather, but when the winter rains are falling
it is difficult to keep a foothold. South-west of Kustul is Soba, a
village on another high hill, and below it and west of Ain Karim, on
lower ground, is Setaf, both having orchards and vineyards in which
the inhabitants practise the arts of husbandry by the same methods
as their remote forefathers. An aerial reconnaissance nearly a year
before we took Jerusalem showed the Turks busily making trenches on
the hills east of the wadi Surar. An inspection of the defences proved
the work to have been long and arduous, though like many things
the Turk began he did not finish them. What he did do was done
elaborately.