by a small body of the King's Royal Rifles, the other companies of which
hold King's Post, an eminence from which the northern horn of the
horse-shoe bends along by Cove Ridge, Junction Hill, Tunnel Hill, and
Cemetery Hill, to Helpmakaar Hill. Here the Devons are posted at the
heel of the shoe, which juts into a scrubby flat pointing towards the
neck between Lombard's Kop and Bulwaan. These hills are respectively
four and five miles distant from our outworks. Bulwaan stands across the
opening afar off like a huge, bevelled, flat-topped bar placed, as it
might be, for a horse-shoe magnet to attract it. The whole curve of our
defensive works must stretch nearly nine miles. In addition, there is an
undefended opening nearly two miles long, where the straggling town lies
naked to its enemies, or rather screened by nothing more formidable than
belts of mimosa, Australian willow, and eucalyptus trees. Between the
town and Bulwaan, however, flows Klip River, with many windings through
a broad plain, mostly pasturage, but with mimosa scrub closing it in
towards the gorge where river and railway converge at Intombi Spruit.

Long as our defensive line is for 10 or 12,000 men to occupy
effectively, it must be held at all costs, and a post must be kept on
Observation Hill north-west of the Cove Ridge, for if once the Boers got
possession of that kopje they might make other positions untenable. As
matters stand, they have planted guns on an outer ring of hills, whence
they can throw shells into the town. Sir George White was blamed for
giving up Lombard's Kop and Bulwaan, but these could not have been held
without weakening more important points. They seemed, moreover, too far
off to serve as artillery positions for the enemy's smaller guns, and
almost inaccessible for big Creusot 94-pounders. Against attacks by
riflemen from that direction the hard plain is a sufficient obstacle.
Any body of Boers attempting to cross that open could be met by
overwhelming infantry fire and the shrapnel of field-batteries. The idea