Story of the War in South Africa | Page 6

operations.
These successive watercourses indicate natural lines of defence,
stronger or weaker according to their individual distinctive features. As
the railroad, in its progress north, draws near the mountains in the neck
of Natal, the streams show smaller volume and less developed channels.
This comes from their having there a shorter course and descending
from heights which, though still considerable, are decidedly lower. But,
while the streams become less conspicuous as obstacles, the ground
toward the northward frontier is more broken and irregular, presenting
numerous scattered hills, sometimes isolated, sometimes in small
ranges or groups, which to a trained military skill afford positions too
{p.022} threatening to be disregarded, and yet which cannot be carried

without heavy loss. This characteristic is observable in the
neighbourhood of Glencoe, Dundee, and Ladysmith, and, as will be
seen, exercised a determinative influence upon the fighting.
In the extreme north a similar condition is emphasized conspicuously at
Majuba Hill and the surrounding country, which, however, and perhaps
for that very reason, seem unlikely to play much of a part in the war
now current.
Before proceeding to the narrative of the hostilities which, so far as
events of decisive interest are concerned, began in Natal, it is desirable
to note one broad topographical feature distinguishing the region to
which, in its eastern development, the war has been confined. From the
capital, Pietermaritzburg, the railroad ascends rapidly, so that in
twenty-five miles it has risen from 2,200 to 4,800 feet, after which it
begins again to go down, till fifty miles further, at Estcourt--the most
southern of the stations prominently named in the narratives of the
war--the elevation is 3,800 feet. Thence, till near Glencoe and Dundee,
{p.023} there is an extensive area of comparative depression, rarely
itself higher than 3,500 feet, but on the western side skirted by the
precipitous spurs of the border mountains, close to which the railroad
passes.
This district may be called the valley of the Tugela; for all the streams
tend to the latter, which finds its own bed in a broad belt of ground,
trending to the eastward, where the surface sinks to less than 3,000 feet.
Ladysmith itself, important not only as a railroad crossing and military
depot, but now also historically, on account of the operations centring
around it, is at a height of 3,300. Beyond it the country, though often
rough in detail, is gently rolling in general contour till near Glencoe,
where the road climbs eight hundred feet in ten miles. From Glencoe a
branch runs five miles east to Dundee, the site of extensive collieries,
upon which Natal largely depends for fuel.
The railroad from Ladysmith to Glencoe passes therefore through a
district the nature of which is favourable to rapid advance or retreat of
mounted men, as the Boer forces chiefly are, and which at the same
time is marked {p.024} by frequent and steep detached elevations,

adapted for defensive positions hastily assumed. These conditions, with
the nearness of the declivities of the western mountains, and the
proximity of the enemy's frontier, behind which movements of troops
would be "curtained"--to use a graphic military metaphor--gave the
Boers particular facilities for striking unexpectedly the railroad
between Ladysmith and Glencoe, upon which, in defect of other
transportation, the two British posts must depend for communication
between themselves, and with their base on the sea.
Further to the south, movements of the same kind would be decisively
more difficult. Not only would the Boers there be further from their
base, and the British nearer theirs, but the country is less favourable to
rapid horse movements, the line of the rail is contracted by lofty and
continuous ranges of hills, the space between which gives but a narrow
front to be covered by a defence, and the river beds, as already said, are
broader and deeper; notably, of course, the Tugela. Moreover, not only
are the mountains on the western frontier higher and more difficult as
one {p.025} goes south, they are also more remote; and, south of
Colenso, form the boundary of Basutoland, upon which the Boers could
not intrude without arousing armed resistance by the blacks. All these
conditions are more favourable to a pure defensive attitude, which was
that imposed at the outset upon the British, because they were then
numerically the weaker party.
And here at once must be made a distinction, which for intelligent
comprehension it is essential to keep in mind. Putting entirely to one
side all question of the merits of the quarrel--of its right or its wrong--it
must be steadily remembered that, although the comparative aggregate
strength of the two parties placed the Boers from the first on the
defensive in the general sense, they were at the beginning of hostilities
decisively superior in local force, and would so remain