corrugated iron with which the works and men's houses are
constructed, and nearly every requirement of work and life, had to be
brought for over three hundred miles upon ox-wagons, the country
itself supplying scarcely anything, and even to this day (1897) wheat
being brought from Australia."[1]

[Footnote 1: Younghusband's "South Africa of
To-day." Second Edition, 1899.]

Regarded {p.017} as a source of supply, especially of military supply,
the demands of which are more urgent than those of common life, as its
needs and dangers are more imminent, the Natal railroad, though much
shorter in distance to the probable scenes of operations, labours
under two disadvantages. The port of Durban is not under all
circumstances safe for large vessels to enter, and there is therefore
in the facilities for landing goods an inferiority to Cape Town. The
country, too, is more difficult, the obstacles to movement, which also
favour defence, increasing as the frontier is approached, and
culminating on the borders of the Free State and the Transvaal. Being
thus nearer, the latter are here better able to concentrate and
sustain opposition than they are on the western flank.

"The mountains which on the edge of Basutoland rise to a height of ten
thousand feet," writes Mr. Bryce, "break down toward Natal in
tremendous precipices. Near Ladysmith the frontier of the Orange Free
State coincides with a high watershed, crossed by only a few
passes."[2] Where this boundary between {p.018} Natal and the Free
State ends, that of the Transvaal begins, and soon after turns sharply
to the southward, the new direction forming with the old a very acute
angle, with apex to the north. Here, just within the territory of
Natal, is Majuba Hill, whose name has been in the mouths of all men,
and Laing's Nek, less familiarly known. The narrow neck of rugged
country embraced between the legs of this angle is about sixty miles
long, from Majuba to Glencoe. Recent events have familiarised to us
many of the names along this line of rail--Glencoe, Dundee (the
terminus of a short branch), Colenso, Estcourt, and Ladysmith itself;
while the winding character of the track, as mapped, compared with the
Free State road, sufficiently indicates the character of the country,
in which obstacles have to be circumvented as well as overcome. The
grade is in places as high as one in thirty, though that is being
reduced; but one in forty i