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 describe with accuracy the defences which they had thrown up before that date. On the right and centre these appear to have consisted of narrow trenches, dug about 150 yards in front of the hills. They were three or four feet in depth, and owing to the peculiar nature of the soil it was possible to make them with perpendicular sides--mere narrow slits in the ground which afforded complete protection from shrapnel fire. These trenches were not in one continuous line, but were dug along the waving foot-line of the hills, and so arranged that they flanked one another. The parapets, slightly raised above the ground, were well concealed by bushes and stones. On the Boers' left but little work had been done, and the men who held this section were largely dependent on natural cover. Cronje's dispositions were as follows: When the action