uts and
reached their bivouac at Thomas' farm just before nightfall.

CHAPTER XIII.

BELMONT.[154]

[Footnote 154: See maps Nos. 10 and 10 (a).]

[Sidenote: The Boer position Nov. 23rd/99.]

Lord Methuen's dispositions for attack were necessarily determined by
the ground which the Boers had taken up to oppose his advance. Some
two miles to the south-east of Belmont station a hill, in form like a
sugar-loaf, rises abruptly about 280 feet above the veld. From it
extends northwards a broken line of kopjes which for several miles
runs parallel with the railway in its course from Orange River station
to Kimberley. Twelve hundred yards to the north of the "Sugar Loaf"
there is a precipitous hill of nearly equal height, which acquired the
name of the "Razor Back." The northern side of it overhangs a steep
ravine, some 600 yards wide. The most important feature of the range,
termed "Mont Blanc" by Lord Methuen, stretches northward from beyond
this ravine for three miles. It is irregular in outline and broadens
on its northern face to a width of a mile. Its average height may be
taken at 300 feet above the plain. To the south and west its slopes
are very steep; on the east they present fewer difficulties; on the
north they are comparatively easy. Between Mont Blanc and the railway
is a secondary line of heights about a mile and a half long, of an
average width of 1,200 yards. The northern portion of this western
range is a steep-sided, flat-topped hill, called "Table Mountain" in
the orders for the battle; it lies about a mile due west of the
central portion of Mont Blanc. Its average height is perhaps 100 feet
lower than Mont Blanc, but here and there its surface is broken by
knolls which dominate not only the plateau itself, but the surrounding
country in every direction. A well-defined depression, almost
amounting to a valley, running from south-east to north-west,
separates Table Mountain from the southern half of the western
heights. To these the name of "Gun Hill" has been given. Gun Hill
consists of a series of undulations, bounded on the west and south by
kopjes, in places as precipitous as the sides of Table Mountain, and
varying in height from 80 to 120 feet above the plain. After the
engagement the most southerly of these knolls became known to Lord
Methuen's force as "Grenadier Hill." The valley between Mont Blanc and
the western range is open, but intersected by deep dongas running from
the n