The nearest available British troops, besides those already in the Transvaal, were in Natal. General Sir George Colley, governor of that colony, raised what force he could and marched northward to check the uprising. Before he could enter the Transvaal, however, Commandant-General Joubert crossed the border into Natal and took up a strong position at Laing’s Nek. This now historic spot is a steep ridge forming the watershed between the Klip River, a tributary of the Vaal, and Buffalo River, a confluent of the Tugela, which flows into the Indian Ocean. Here a sanguinary battle was fought on the 28th of January, 1881. The British attacked the Africanders with great spirit, but Joubert’s position was invulnerable. The ridge protected his men from the artillery fire of the British, while they, in charging up the slope, were cut down by the accurate rifle fire of the Africanders, and forced to retreat. On the 8th of February, in the same neighborhood, on the Ingogo heights, the British were again defeated after suffering severe loss. General Colley now decided to seize by night Majuba Hill, which is really a considerable mountain, rising nearly 2,000 feet above Laing’s Nek, and commanding that ridge for the purpose of artillery fighting. On the night of February 26th, leaving the main body of his army in camp, and unaccountably forgetting to order it to advance on the enemy so as to divert attention from his tactical movement, General Colley led a smaller division to the top of Majuba Hill. The burgher force was thrown into temporary dismay when they first observed British soldiers in that commanding position. But when there was no advance against them in front, and no artillery fire from the top of Majuba, they sent out a volunteer party to storm the hill. The story of that charge has gone into history to stay as an example, on the one side, of rugged bravery and splendid courage achieving victory, and on the other of equal bravery and courage strangely betrayed by some one’s blunder into defeat and ruinous disaster. Why the main force of the British army was not ordered to co-operate in the movement, why there were no entrenchments thrown up on the hill, why the order, “Charge bayonets,” so eagerly looked for by the British soldiers on the hill-top, was never given, General Colley did not live to tell—no one else knew. The Africanders scaled the hill, shooting as they went up every man that showed on the sky line—themselves protected by the steep declivities above them, and carried the hill-top, routing and almost annihilating the British force. General Colley and ninety-two of his men were killed, and fifty-nine were made prisoners.