s common. Pietermaritzburg, the capital,
fifty miles from Durban in a straight line, is 2,200 feet above the
sea. Three hundred miles from its starting-point the road {p.019}
reaches an elevation of over five thousand feet, at Laing's Nek,
through which it passes by a tunnel.

[Footnote 2: "Impressions of South Africa." Third
Edition, p. 291.]

A topographical map of the country shows upon examination that the
mountain range, which forms the western boundary of Natal toward
Basutoland and the Orange Free State, and has a general north and
south direction parallel to the railroad, throws off to the eastward
spurs which, to repeat Mr. Bryce's expression, "break down in
tremendous precipices," forming a succession of terraces. The gorges
between these determine the direction of the river-beds whereby the
rainfall pours down to the sea; and the general easterly course thus
imparted is maintained and continued by the lie of the valleys,
separating the successive hills through which the territory of Natal
gradually rises to the northward. These various streams find their way
sooner or later to the Tugela, itself one of the many, but which
carries its own name until it reaches the Indian Ocean, some fifty
miles north-east of Durban.

Of these watercourses, the Tugela, which the road crosses at Colenso,
and the Mooi, some {p.020} fifty miles south, have been most often
mentioned. Another tributary called the Klip flows through the camp at
Ladysmith. The channels which these streams have cut for themselves in
time of torrent are both steep-banked and deep. They are therefore
among those accidents of the ground which, duly improved, can
seriously affect military operations. The destruction of a bridge
impedes the transport of troops and supplies; a sudden freshet,
occurring in the midst of an extensive movement, may imperil an army
by sundering its forces; while of the utility of such natural trenches
to the purposes of shelter and of defence, of awaiting attack, or
resisting an advance, both the Tugela and Paardeberg have given recent
striking illustration.

As a general rule such conditions favour the defence relatively to the
offence; the former, remaining comparatively motionless, is shielded
by obstacles, to surmount which the assailant must expose himself in
the open. Thus they compensate for inferior numbers, which is usually
the condition of the defence; and they conduce to delay