, and could hear the sound of its
bells. The natives of Yebnah had oranges and figs for sale but they did
not appreciate the fixation of prices, and their admiration for Colonel
Morrison, their first Christian governor for six centuries, was tempered
by their love of profiteering, now impossible of fulfilment. It was in
this town that the Colonel gave orders to the omdeh or provost for the
production of all arms held by the inhabitants. In about an hour some
forty of the male population paraded at Battalion Headquarters in proud
possession of the most suicidal collection of converted gas-pipes that
the eye of man ever beheld. Abraham might have used them on the plains
of Mamre. There were guns seven feet long, there were guns which might
have been fired in the days of the owner's grandfather, but there was no
gun which would not have been infinitely more dangerous to the firer
than to the target. Of modern rifles, Turkish or British, there was
none. They were probably too deeply buried to be dug up at half an
hour's notice.

[Illustration: ORANGE SELLERS, MEJDEL.]

At 10.30 on the morning of the 18th the Brigade moved northwards along a
road strewed with the jetsam of a retreating army, until Ramleh was
reached. Here a bivouac area was taken up in an olive grove but after
three hours' halt, orders were received for an advance on Ludd, the
ancient Lydda. We arrived at 19.00 and bivouacked beside the road about
half a mile south-west of the town.

Next morning the Battalion passed their starting-point, the
railway-crossing of the Ramleh-Ludd road, at 09.30 and struck eastwards
for Jimzu and Jerusalem. By this time our cavalry had entered Jaffa and
the right wing of the Turkish army was far to the north. The left of
their Gaza force were retreating on or through Jerusalem, and the
intention of our G.H.Q. now was to throw the 52nd and 75th Divisions
across country to try and cut the road running north out of the Holy
City. The 75th had been coming up on our right but some miles away and
slightly in rear, so that while we were crossing the Judean Hills they
were skirting the foothills and advancing through Enab to Biddu. The
155th Brigade was pushed up to Berfilyah and the 156th to Beit Likkia to
protect the left flank of our march across the face of the enemy. The
only road across the hills appeared on the map as an ancient Roman Road,
but it was no better than a goat-track, and in places impossible of
identification. Li