e infantry by thousands, all delighted to
march every mile nearer the front.

We passed a wet and watchful night without food or sleep, and were glad
to find the break of day unbroken by the musketry of a heavy attack.
From our lofty position on the heights the whole country beyond the
Tugela was spread like a map. I sat on a great rock which overhung the
valley, and searched the landscape inch by inch with field glasses.
After an hour's study my feeling of insecurity departed. I learned the
answer to the questions which had perplexed the mind. Before us lay the
'devilry' the Boers had prepared, and it was no longer difficult to
understand why the Springfield bridge had been spared and the heights
abandoned.[2]

The ground fell almost sheer six hundred feet to the flat bottom of the
valley. Beneath, the Tugela curled along like a brown and very sinuous
serpent. Never have I seen such violent twists and bends in a river. At
times the waters seemed to loop back on themselves. One great loop bent
towards us, and at the arch of this the little ferry of Potgieter's
floated, moored to ropes which looked through the field glasses like a
spider's web. The ford, approached by roads cut down through the steep
bank, was beside it, but closed for the time being by the flood. The
loop of river enclosed a great tongue of land which jutted from the
hills on the enemy's side almost to our feet. A thousand yards from the
tip of this tongue rose a line of low kopjes crowned with reddish
stones. The whole tongue was virtually ours. Our guns on the heights or
on the bank could sweep it from flank to flank, enfilade and cross
fire. Therefore the passage of the river was assured. We had obtained
what amounted to a practical bridgehead, and could cross whenever we
thought fit. But the explanation of many things lay beyond. At the base
of the tongue, where it sprang from the Boer side of the valley, the
ground rose in a series of gentle grassy slopes to a long horseshoe of
hills, and along this, both flanks resting securely on unfordable
reaches of the river, out of range from our heights of any but the
heaviest guns, approachable by a smooth grass glacis, which was exposed
to two or three tiers of cross-fire and converging fire, ran the enemy's
position. Please look at the sketch on p. 261, which shows nothing but
what it is meant to.

[Illustration: Plan of Potgieter's Ferry.]

It will be seen that there is no difficulty in shelling th