Utrecht is the most southerly part of the Transvaal, and lies upon the border of both Natal and Zululand. It is separated from the former by the Buffalo river, and, after crossing the Blood river, a few marches bring one to the territories of King Cetywayo. From the lowest, or most southerly portions of Utrecht, just where the Buffalo and Blood rivers form a junction, to the port of Durban, on the coast of Natal, is but 100 miles, and the capital city is about thirty miles from Newcastle, the most northern of Natal towns. The two districts are connected by a tolerably fair road and a drift over the Buffalo river. Utrecht, in a strategical point of view, wedged in as it were between Natal and Zululand, cannot be equalled by any position of a similar nature. The interior of this district extends away to the summit of the Drakenberg range, one of which reaches an altitude of 4000 feet. Most of the Utrecht land lies in what is called the "terrace country," and has the advantage of the most splendid bracing air, added to which are mountain ridge and peak, precipice, wooded gorge, and grass-land, and scenery whose characteristics are of a grander and nobler nature than that of the Cape Colony. The portion of the Drakenberg which runs through Utrecht has its eastern front and glacis looking towards the sea, which is about eighty miles distant, and as each terrace or range slopes down the character of the country changes, presenting many of the features of the upper portions of the Cape Colony, that is to say, broad undulating downs in one part and immense flats covered with bush on the other. All the principal rivers and streams of Utrecht and their tributaries flow eastward to the Indian Ocean. On one boundary there is the Pongola, and on the other the Buffalo, while the Blood river passes through it with a south-eastern flow, and the Pifan does the same, but with an inclination to the north-east. From the wild highlands between these two streams issue the head waters of the Umoolosi, which traverses Zululand and empties itself into St. Lucia Bay.