By this time the booty captured by the British since the beginning of the operations had been counted and had been found to total ninety-nine guns and howitzers with carriages, about 400 limbers, wagons and other vehicles; 110 machine guns, more than 7,000 rifles, 18,500,000 rounds of small-arm ammunition, and over 58,000 rounds of gun and howitzer ammunition, besides various other stores. On December 22, 1917, troops on the extreme left of the British forces, with naval cooperation, continued their advance north of the Nahr-el-Auja, reaching the line Sheik-el-Ballutah-El Jelil, some four miles north of the river. Pushing eastward south of the river Fejja and Mulebbis, center of a Jewish colony, were occupied. This was followed by the capture of Rantieh on the Turkish railway to the north, and Kh.-el-Beida, and Kh.-el-Bireh, four miles southeast of Rantieh. The Turks, with German assistance, on December 27, 1917, made a determined attempt to retake Jerusalem. Repeated attacks were pressed with vigor and continued from two a. m. on the 27th for twenty-six hours. General Allenby at once launched a counterattack against the west flank of the Turkish attack. On the 27th this attack progressed two and one-half miles over very difficult country. Seeing that the Turkish attack was spent, on December 28, 1917, the British made a general advance. British troops on the Nablus road advancing north and the troops on their left advancing east drove the Turks back before them. By the morning of December 29, 1917, General Allenby had secured the line Burkah, Ras-et-Tahunieh, Ram Allah, El Tireh, Wadi-el-Kelh. On December 30, 1917, British troops occupied Beitin, or Bethel, two miles northeast of Bireh, El Balua, one mile north of Bireh, on the Nablus road, and Kh.-el-Burj, about one mile west of El Balua, Janiah and Ras Kerker, six and seven miles respectively northwest of Bireh. In the coastal sector of the line a patrol reached Kuleh, twelve miles east of Jaffa, and there found a Turkish gun ammunition depot, which it destroyed. Kuleh is two miles east of Rantieh, on the Damascus Railway, which had recently been occupied by the British. The Turks suffered heavily in killed and wounded, the killed alone being estimated at about 1,000. About 600 prisoners were taken and twenty machine guns. The British line was now, at its nearest point, twelve miles north of Jerusalem. The right wing reached some four miles east of the Sheehem road; the center extended across that road north of Beeroth, Bireh, and along the Ram Allah Ridge and the Wadi-el-Kalb, which lies north of and parallel to the Jerusalem-Beth Horon-Joppa road. On the coast the left wing of the British was north of the Auja, in the plain of Sharon. In describing the Turco-German attempt to regain Jerusalem the special correspondent of the London "Times" attached to the British forces in Palestine said in part: [Illustration: The British advance in Mesopotamia and Palestine.]