irst with but moderate opposition. A pause of a few
weeks was necessary to enable fresh roads to be made. In the meantime,
the enemy had been heavily reinforced, and, when the next advance was
attempted, stout resistance was encountered. This hill-country lent
itself readily to defence. Mutually supporting heights could be held. A
hill, when captured thus, became a focus for fire concentrated from all
the hills around. So when the Turks attacked us in these hills they met
with much less success than in the Jordan Valley; and, on the other
hand, they were able to offer a stouter resistance to our attacks in
these hills than they could on the Coastal Plain.

The Jordan Valley, as we have already seen, is more than a thousand feet
below the level of the Mediterranean, that is, below what we speak of as
"sea level." In this respect it is unique in the geography of the world.
In winter time the climate is equable; in summer it is unbearable. In
peace time, even the Bedouin forsake it in summer. The district is
pestilential to a degree, and, in no sense of the word, a white man's
country. It possesses a feature of considerable importance in the river
Jordan itself, almost the only river in Palestine with a perennial flow.
The river is tortuous and rapid and not adapted to navigation. These
features indicate this area as a difficult one in which to hold a
fighting line, and a no less difficult one across which to maintain
communications. In the summer of 1918, our line ran along the river
valley, and the troops in this sector suffered much from diseases.

East of this strong natural boundary formed by the deep trough of the
Jordan, we find a very different country. It rises abruptly from the
Jordan Valley, and is in itself a plateau. It is at first fertile, but,
at distances ranging from 40 to 60 miles inland, it merges into steppe
and then into sheer desert. Thus it is a country apart, difficult of
access from Jerusalem and Western Palestine, more easy of access from
Damascus or from Arabia. Through it, from north to south, runs the Hejaz
railway, on its way from Damascus to Medina. And so it proved an area in
which the Turks, based on Damascus, and the Arabs, operating from Hejaz,
were at greater advantage than our columns based on Jerusalem.

We have now glanced at those portions of Palestine in which took place
the principal fighting in this campaign. Our review would still be
incomplete if we omitted all reference to the