Throughout the winter months the weather was miserably wet, and the troops in Palestine, whether engaged in active operations or merely holding the line, suffered intense discomfort. The mails brought us letters from our friends at home, saying how much they envied us who were spending Christmas in the Holy Land. But those who were up the line spent Christmas Day soaked to the skin in a gale of wind and rain, while their Christmas dinner consisted of half-rations of bully beef and biscuit. They were wishing themselves anywhere else upon this earth. The appalling weather conditions made it impossible to get more than the bare necessities of life forward from railhead, and tons of Christmas luxuries sent from England through Egypt lay soaked and rotting in dumps at Deir Sineid.
January was much too wet for operations in this country. In February, however, General Allenby determined on the capture of Jericho. The country from round Jerusalem slopes down, as we have seen, very abruptly to Jericho and the Jordan Valley. Precipitous slopes, rocky ridges and narrow ledges, confined the advance to definite lines on which the enemy could concentrate fire. The advance began on the 19th, and, by the evening of the 20th, the 60th Division had reached a line 4 miles west of the cliffs overlooking Jericho. In the meantime, the mounted troops were working on the right or south of the infantry, towards the commanding position of Neby Musa, near the north-west corner of the Dead Sea. This advance was held up at the last wadi which was directly overlooked by, and subjected to, a heavy fire from Neby Musa. Other mounted troops, further to the right, discovered a way down to the Jordan Plain, where they were firmly established by dusk. That night the Turks withdrew, and our mounted troops, moving up the Plain, entered Jericho on the morning of the 21st.
There are two or three routes between Jericho and the summit of the Judæan plateau. That by which the British had now come down was not the route followed by Joshua and the Israelites. They, on the other hand, ascended by a route farther north, through Mukhmas (Michmash) and Beitin (Bethel), thus reaching the summit near Bireh. The route followed by the pilgrims was that of the main road, which hereafter became the main line of supply of the forces operating in this direction.