been shelled by the
Naval guns on the two previous days, and in face of Sir Redvers'
message that the actual attack would probably be made on the 17th,
there was doubt whether the firing heard on the 15th might not be
merely a continuation of the preliminary bombardment. A premature
sortie before the signal had been given might seriously hamper, or
possibly entirely frustrate, concerted action between the two forces.

[Sidenote: Features of Colenso position.]

Map 15 and the hand sketch show that the hills facing Colenso from the
north form a great amphitheatre, the western horn of which reaches
down to the river near E. Robinson's farm about four miles due west of
the village, the eastern horn being Hlangwhane. Immediately after
completing the loop in front of the village, in which lie the
road[220] and railway bridges, the Tugela turns sharply to the north
for two miles, and then dashes north-eastward down a series of rapids
through an abrupt gorge in the hills, ultimately resuming its course
towards the east.

[Footnote 220: Shown on map No. 15 as the Bulwer bridge.]

[Sidenote: Hlangwhane.]

[Sidenote: The Colenso kopjes.]

[Sidenote: Fort Wylie.]

Hlangwhane, the eastern horn of that amphitheatre, which, with its
included area, formed the Boer position, lies on the southern bank of
the river; and, as soon as the occupation of Chieveley by Barton's
brigade denied the use of the Colenso bridges to the enemy, was for
the time only accessible to the Boers by two bridle drifts near the
rapids. It was not until after the Colenso fight that a bridge was
thrown across the river near its junction with the Langewacht Spruit.
The northern portion of the hollow of the amphitheatre is crossed from
west to east by the Onderbrook Spruit. To the south of this spruit
stand the Colenso kopjes, described by Sir Redvers as "four
lozenge-shaped, steep-sided, hog-backed hills, each, as it is further
from the river, being higher and longer than the next inner one."[221]
The southernmost of these kopjes, Fort Wylie, had been used as a
bridge-head by the British troops prior to their retirement from the
Tugela. The Onderbrook road to Ladysmith runs north-west from the
bridge across the arena of the amphitheatre and then ascends through
the steep gorge of Grobelaar's Kloof, a defile of forbidding
appearance. The other road and railway run north, following at first
the general trend of the great bend of the Tugela, then pen