the
Division occupied a front of about fourteen miles from near Muntar,
close to which the ancient road from Bethlehem to Jericho passes,
through Ras Umm Deisis, across the Jerusalem-Jericho road to Arak
Ibrahim, over the great chasm of the wadi Farah which has cliff-like
sides hundreds of feet deep, to the brown knob of Ras et Tawil. The
line was not gained without fighting. The Turks did not oppose us at
Muntar--the spot where the Jews released the Scapegoat--but there
was a short contest for Ibrahim, and a longer fight lasting till the
afternoon for an entrenched position a mile north of it; Ras et Tawil
was ours by nine in the morning. Tawil overlooks a track which has
been trodden from time immemorial. It leads from the Jordan valley
north-west of Jericho, and passes beneath the frowning height of Jebel
Kuruntul with its bare face relieved by a monastery built into the
rock about half-way up, and a walled garden on top to mark the Mount
of Temptation, as the pious monks believe it to be. The track then
proceeds westwards, winding in and out of the tremendous slits in
rock, to Mukhmas, and it was probably along this rough line that
the Israelites marched from their camp at Gilgal to overthrow the
Philistines. On the right of the Londoners were two brigades of the
Anzac Mounted Division, working through the most desolate hills and
wadis down to the Dead Sea with a view to pushing up by Nebi Musa,
which tradition has ascribed as the burial place of Moses, and thence
into the Jordan valley. Northward of the 60th Division the 53rd was
extending its flank eastwards to command the Taiyibeh-Jericho road,
and the Welsh troops occupied Rummon, a huge mount of chalk giving a
good view of the Wilderness. This was the position on the night of
19th February.

At dawn on the 20th the Londoners were to attack the Turks in three
columns. The right column was to march from El Muntar to Ekteif, the
centre column to proceed along the Jerusalem-Jericho road between the
highway and the wadi Farah, and the left column was to go forward by
the Tawil-Jebel Kuruntul track. The 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade
and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade were, if possible, to make
Nebi Musa.

The infantry attack was as fine as anything done in the campaign. I
had the advantage of witnessing the centre column carry out the whole
of its task and of seeing the right column complete as gallant an
effort as any troops could make, and as one sa