The Boers' defences were now examined, and proved to be of a most formidable nature. On the south face of the hill the trenches were in tiers, line behind line. Most of them were fully six feet deep, and in many cases provided with shelter from the weather by sheets of corrugated iron, taken from the roofs of the houses in Colenso. In some cases these were supported by props, and covered with six feet of earth. These had evidently been used for sleeping and living places. The ground was strewn with straw, empty tins, fragments of food, bones, cartridge-cases, old bandoliers, and large quantities of unopened tinned food and sacks of mealie flour. Here and there were patches of dried blood, showing where the wounded by our shell had been brought in, and laid down until they could be removed to the hospital under cover of night. On the plateau the scene was similar. Here every irregularity of ground had been utilized, and long lines of trenches intersected it, showing that the Boers had intended to make a desperate resistance even after we had won our way up the hill. These were in a similar state of litter and disorder. Although they had saved their guns, they had left behind them large quantities of ammunition and provisions in the hurried flight, necessitated by our attack being delivered in a direction from which no danger had been apprehended, Four waggons full of ammunition had been left by them in a kloof near the river. These had been observed by the Engineers in the balloon, and their position had been signalled to the naval brigade, who, turning their guns upon them, before long succeeded in blowing them up. When the infantry prepared for their final rush the Boers appeared, indeed, to be entirely disconcerted at an attack from an altogether unexpected direction. While for weeks they had been working incessantly to render the hill impregnable, they had prepared it only on the face against which they made sure the British infantry would dash itself. Nevertheless, in this, as in every action, the Boers, as soon as they saw that there was a risk of the position being taken, began early to make preparations for retreat. While keeping up a very heavy musketry fire on the woods through which the British infantry were advancing, they began to withdraw their guns.