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. He employed masons to chisel the stone used for revetting, and in places the stones fit well and truly one upon the other, while an enormous amount of rock must have been blasted to excavate the trenches. The system adopted was to have three fire trenches near the top of the hills, one above the other, so that were the first two lines taken the third would still offer a difficult obstacle, and, if the defenders were armed with bombs, it would be hard for attackers to retain the trenches in front of them. There was much dead ground below the entrenchments, but the defences were so arranged that cross fire from one system swept the dead ground on the next spur, and, if the hills were properly held, an advance up them would have been a stupendous task. The Turk had put all his eggs into one basket. Perhaps he considered his positions impregnable--they would have been practically impregnable in British hands--and he made no attempt to cut support trenches behind the crest. There was one system only, and his failure to provide defences in depth cost him dear.