On the very eve of starting, intelligence came in that Modder River Station was strongly occupied, and the general, fearing under that condition to risk the railroad, decided to advance direct upon the river.

He was still ignorant, and even unsuspicious, that the enemy had massed to the number of 8,000 to oppose the passage of the 7,000 to which casualties and the care of lengthening communications had reduced his own division.
The {p.154} position taken by the Boers was on the south bank of the Modder, at the point where it is joined by the Riet.

The two streams, flowing respectively from east and south-east, inclose an angle of forty-five degrees, the ground between them being called an island, though not so properly.

The railroad crosses by a bridge--by this time destroyed--just below the junction; Modder River Station, a small, pleasant village, being on the north bank.

In the approach from the south, by which the British were advancing, the land--or veldt--slopes evenly and regularly downward to the river, rising again beyond in such wise that the island is higher than the southern bank, but is in turn commanded by the northern.
Cronje had intrenched his riflemen along a line of three miles of the river bed, by which they were entirely concealed.