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, 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