lost their way, and silhouetted black against the red sunrise,
countless horsemen scouting ahead of our train, and guarding it against
the fate of the armored one lying wrecked at Chieveley. The darkness was
still heavy on the land and the only lights were the red eyes of the
armored train creeping in advance of ours, and the red sun, which showed
our silent escort appearing suddenly against the sky-line on a ridge, or
galloping toward us through the dew to order us, with a wave of the hand,
to greater speed. One hour after sunrise the train drew up at Colenso,
and from only a mile away we heard the heavy thud of the naval guns, the
hammering of the Boer "pom-poms," and the Maxims and Colt automatics
spanking the air. We smiled at each other guiltily. We were on time.
It was most evident that Ladysmith had not been relieved.

This was the twelfth day of a battle that Buller's column was waging
against the Boers and their mountain ranges, or "disarranges," as some
one described them, without having gained more than three miles of
hostile territory. He had tried to force his way through them six times,
and had been repulsed six times. And now he was to try it again.

No map, nor photograph, nor written description can give an idea of the
country which lay between Buller and his goal. It was an eruption of
high hills, linked together at every point without order or sequence. In
most countries mountains and hills follow some natural law. The
Cordilleras can be traced from the Amazon River to Guatemala City; they
make the water-shed of two continents; the Great Divide forms the
backbone of the States, but these Natal hills have no lineal descent.
They are illegitimate children of no line, abandoned broadcast over the
country, with no family likeness and no home. They stand alone, or
shoulder to shoulder, or at right angles, or at a tangent, or join hands
across a valley. They never appear the same; some run to a sharp point,
some stretch out, forming a table-land, others are gigantic ant-hills,
others perfect and accurately modelled ramparts. In a ride of half a
mile, every hill completely loses its original aspect and character.

They hide each other, or disguise each other. Each can be enfiladed by
the other, and not one gives up the secret of its strategic value until
its crest has been carried by the bayonet. To add to this confusion, the
river Tugela has selected the hills around Ladysmith as occupying the