CHAPTER XVIII.
"WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE" _January 22, 1900._ Twelve weeks to-day since Black Monday, when our isolation really began! A heliogram came from Buller to say all was going well, and in this evening's Orders we were officially informed that relief is "within measurable distance." I don't know about time, but in space that measurable distance is hardly more than fifteen miles.

From Observation Hill I again watched the British shells breaking over the ridge above the ford.

The Boers had moved one of their waggon laagers a little further back, but the main camps were unchanged.

With a telescope I could make out where their hospital was--in a cottage by a wood--and I followed an ambulance waggon driving at a trot to three or four points on ridge and plain, gathering up the sick or wounded, and returning to hospital.
The mass of Boers appeared to be lying under the shelter of Taba Nyama (or Intaba Mnyama--Black Mountain).

It is a nine-mile range of hills running east and west, nearly parallel to the Tugela, and having Potgieter's Drift on its left.