itish force strong enough to break through can be assembled quickly,
we are in for a long siege here. Nobody gave the Boers credit for so
much enterprise, and if Sir George White made a mistake, as I think he
did, in not sending all the women and children away from Ladysmith when
Dundee was abandoned, this error probably arose from faulty information,
for which those who thought they knew the Boers and their resources were
in the first instance responsible.

Our defences begin to take shape, so that their strong and weak points
can be estimated. Southward is a long brown hog-backed hill, which the
local people call Bester's Ridge, though military authorities divide it
into Caesar's Camp, with Maiden's Castle forming a spur in the inner
curve towards Ladysmith, and Waggon Hill. Altogether it is three miles
in length, and being the key of the position will want holding. For that
purpose the trusty Manchester battalion is placed there, having roughly
constructed sangars for rallying points. This ridge forms one horn of
the roughly-shaped horse-shoe which I have already spoken of, the toe of
which sweeps round from Maiden's Castle in low but rugged kopjes
overlooking slopes of open veldt to where Klip River loops the old camp
which, being constructed of corrugated iron, is called "Tin Town." That
would be a weak point, but that it is protected by an outlying kopje
known as Rifleman's Post on the far side of the river. This is occupied
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, m