re
two well-marked knolls upon its surface; one, equidistant between the
kopjes and the railway bridge, was chosen by Lord Methuen to be his
Headquarters for the coming battle; the other, about a mile to the
southward of the main hill, was held by the Horse artillery battery
during the engagement. The greater part of the plain was comparatively
free from scrub, but in the neighbourhood of the low ridge the bush
was thick enough to retard the movement of the troops, and in places
it was so dense as to limit the range of vision to a few yards. Nor
was the scrub the only obstacle for the assailants--two high wire
fences crossed the plain; one, stretching away towards the north-east,
marked the frontier of the Orange Free State; while the other ran
across the trenches which guarded the centre of the Boer position. The
reproduction of the freehand sketch of Magersfontein will show the
strength of the ground taken up by the enemy.

[Sidenote: Boers gather from all quarters. Their occupation of the
ground.]

During the twelve days which elapsed between the engagement at the
Modder and the battle of Magersfontein large reinforcements reached
General Cronje. These additions to his army were chiefly due to the
energy of President Steyn, who ordered up every available burgher to
oppose the British advance. Parties of men summoned from the commandos
watching the Basuto border; the Bloemhof and Wolmaranstad commandos,
and detachments of Free Staters, were marched southward from the
investment of Kimberley; and the Heilbron, Kroonstad, and Bethlehem
commandos, detached from the Boer camps in Natal, increased Cronje's
righting power. Nor were the exertions of the President of the Orange
Free State confined to hurrying fresh troops to the point of immediate
danger, for realising that the _moral_ of the Boers had been shaken
by the losses they had already sustained, he went down to the laager
on the 5th December, and by his fiery eloquence infused fresh life
into the somewhat depressed burghers. By the 10th December the right
and centre of the enemy were entrenched along the line of kopjes which
runs south-east from Langeberg farm on the west to Magersfontein Hill
on the east; their left held the low scrub-covered ridge which extends
from Magersfontein Hill to Moss Drift on the Modder. Owing to the fact
that many of the Boer field-works at Magersfontein were constructed
after the battle of the 11th December, it is impossible to descri