Thereupon the squadron retired, but unfortunately Lieutenant Milford Turner and twenty-seven men were left behind in a donga which none would leave, determining to remain there and protect Lieutenant Warren of Brabant's Horse, who was wounded.
A sharp fight now ensued, and, after some clever manoeuvring on both sides, the enemy retired with the loss of eight killed, while the party in the donga was relieved, and returned in safety to Dordrecht.
A deep dongaformed excellent cover, and out of that they crept along the water's edge, completely screened by the rank vegetation.
They got too far within the enemy's lines, and with river and a dangerous donga between them, on the road back to camp found themselves attacked by about fifty Zulus, all armed with Martini-Henry rifles.
Lieutenant Carey and two others crossed the dongaat a difficult place, while the others, who were followed by the prince, took an easier route.
He saw, about fifty yards off, the prince running down the donga with fourteen Zulus in close pursuit.
Two troopers have been found between the donga and the kraal, covered with assegai wounds.
I crossed the donga behind two or three men, but could only get beyond one man, the others having ridden off.
As landmark we steered by a good-sized butte namedDonga Rasha.
Just before noon we passed Donga Rasha and emerged on the open plains.
With these the party started to return, but were fired on by six Boers from a neighbouring dongaor ditch.
Nicholson's Nek lies about four miles up Bell's Spruit, a donga due north of Ladysmith.
Pom-pom in a donga in the valley, which we silenced many times, and at the end of the day had fired some 230 rounds.
These had stripped them of all their clothes, and, after herding them in a donga for a couple of hours, had sent them back into camp with Commandant Vermaas's best compliments.
The corporals let their men advance in groups of four from the donga to the kopje, using the ant-hills as cover when they lay down.
After a while one of the men wounded a buck, and they both rode into the donga after it.
I lost the traces of the horse's hoofs, and the dongas looked to me so different that in one place where a donga branched off I did not know which to follow.
Just by the ambulance waggon he disappeared in a donga leading to the valley.
As the donga next to which we rode seemed to be a favourite resort for game, I took the same direction as they did, more to the left.
While we were busy inspanning we heard the enemy's bomb-Maxim, and before the waggons had forded the dangerous drift of the donga near Bodenstein's farm the bullets flew over our heads from the bult behind us.
But when I had crossed the donga the buck had disappeared, and I began to seek for the traces of blood, but I soon had to give up the search, not to lose sight of the other two men.
The general at first had taken up his position with the guns, but as soon as the men advanced from the donga he joined them and accompanied them as far as the plantation.
If they start at the point where we turned off they will track the horses down that donga without any difficulty, and even if they have strayed away they will soon have them.
The ground between the camp and the nearest point of the donga was thickly strewn with boulders, with bushes growing between them.
At last they reached a deep donga running into the river; this was crossed by a small bridge, and in passing over it they had to run the gauntlet of the Boer fire.
It will deepen into a donga presently, no doubt, and we can leave our horses there and go on on foot.
With the others I will go down farther to the left, and work along in that little donga running into the flat a hundred yards to the east of the house.
Beyond the donga in which they were lying the rise of the ground was gradual, up to a plantation which surrounded Smith's farm.
Then they took a long sweep round to a point where the ground was broken, and a shallow donga ran up in a direction that would bring them within a hundred yards of the position occupied by their hidden assailants.
I ran back for the rifle and followed, and he had already disappeared down the steep bank of the donga when, through the trees on the opposite side, I saw a koodoo cow moving along at a slow cramped walk.
Only fifty yards away they should have stopped in the hollow--the shallow dry donga of the morning; but they were gone!
Every hunter has seen a whole troop, old and young, following the example of the leader, clear a road ordonga twenty feet wide, apparently in an effortless stride.
Jantje followed eagerly until they came to a small donga with a sandy bottom, and then the honey-bird calling briskly, fluttered from tree to tree on either bank, leading him on.
I sent Jim for the rifle, and led the old front ox to the edge of the donga where a bleached tree lay across it.
DONGA (n), a gully or dry watercourse with steep banks.
He dropped into the donga under the dead tree; and I packed the dry branches over him and set fire to the pile.
By creeping up along thedonga we had managed to get unobserved right into the middle of the dozing herd, so they were literally on every side of us.
The stalking looked very easy, as a few yards further up the donga there was excellent cover in some dense thorns, behind which we could walk boldly across open ground to within easy range of the buck and get a clear shot.
Several times I heard sounds of rustling bush or feet cantering away: something had heard us and made off unseen; so I dropped down into the sandy bed of a dry donga and used it as a stalking trench.
Never a bush or ant-heap, never a donga or a patch of reeds, did I pass for many days after that without the conviction that something was lurking there.
The koodoo had gone along the right bank of the donga which, commencing just below the pool, extended half a mile or more down the flat valley.
On emerging from the donga at Kruger's Post on to the open veldt a further halt was made; the leading troops lay down in the soaking grass and were fast asleep in a moment.
Along the donga the march was continued for some six miles, when a cross donga was met with, the sides of which were steep and about fifteen feet high.
On the far side a steep cliff, at the bottom of which was a deep donga and a mountain torrent, was encountered, and this had to be negotiated on hands and knees.
It is said that all the wounded Boers in this donga were swept out into the Klip River and drowned.
A large donga was utilized by the Boers as a dressing station.
Slipping and sliding down, the bottom of the donga was reached and the mountain torrent waded, and then after a steep ascent the top of the plateau was reached.
The force kept to the donga almost the whole march, scarcely for a moment leaving its shelter.
Colonel Byng made his way along the donga to within about twelve or fourteen hundred yards, and from excellent cover opened fire on the Boers holding the summit of the hill.
The other side, at the back of which was the donga we were 'fanning,' was raked by the heavy artillery on the Hlangwani spur and by the field batteries arranged along the south side of the river.
Between us and the wood ran a deep donga with a river only fordable in places flowing through it.
The donga afforded an excellent line of retreat, and when the adventurous patrol had retired safely into the camp they were amused to hear the Boers still busy with the supposed chastisement of their audacious assailants.
Whenever the Donga Dasaris are caught by the police, they give false names and false castes.
Even nowDonga Dasaris intermarry with Kabberas, i.
As the latter is a family name of the Kabberas, it is an evidence that members of the latter community have joined the Donga Dasaris.
The way an alien is made a Donga Dasari is as follows.
A sub-division of Okkiliyan, an exogamous sept of Jogi, and a name for temple Dasaris, to distinguish them from the Donga or thieving Dasaris.
Sometimes Muhammadan budmashes (bad-mash, evil means of livelihood) and the worst characters from other castes, also become Donga Dasaris.
The regular Donga Dasaris take the party who wants to enter their brotherhood to the side of a river, make him bathe in oil, give him a new cloth, hold a council, and give a feast.
Of course, none of the respectable members of these castes would join them, and only those who were excommunicated found a ready home among these Donga Dasaris.
In addition to this, these Donga Dasaris are notorious for taking vows before starting on a thieving expedition, and the way these ceremonies are gone through is as follows.
They commit much the same class of crime as the Donga Dasaris, frequenting railway trains and crowded gatherings, and they avert suspicion by their respectable appearance and pleasant manners.
Mr. Quatermain has just said that the donga was filled by a roaring torrent.
Meantime the donga beneath roared with the flooded torrent that the rain was bringing down from the heights of Umbopobekatanktshiu.
When the smoke cleared away, the man had reached the right side of the donga safe and sound.
The long level silver shafts of the dawn were flooding the heights, raindrops glittered like diamonds on every kopje and karroo bush, leaving the deep donga bathed in the solemn pall of mysterious night.
One deep donga and a shallower had to be crossed as well.
Boers came down the deep ravine or donga at the further end of the ridge.
Follow me, mother," and he led the way across the donga to the cave, the woman limping after him painfully.
Now and again we cross a transverse donga or tributary watercourse that runs into our stream, the donga sometimes rising to the dignity of a ravine with steep and broken sides.
There was--so it has been described to me--a long dongathat led up the steep slope.
It was not until darkness was setting in that it was possible to venture from the scant shelter the donga provided.
One wagon had fallen headlong into a donga in the dark, and was an utter wreck.
Delarey, hiding in a donga with 700 of his gang, waited till the convoy and men got within effective range, and sent a shower of bullets into their midst.
About 500 yards behind the guns was a donga in which some of the few horses and drivers left alive were sheltered.
The officer who had doggedly held firm in the blood-dyed donga at Colenso till the Dutchmen had threatened to murder the wounded unless he gave in, was not the man to surrender without a tussle.
Connal insisted on having one end of the donga to himself, and of course his end is the one nearest the Boers.
Somehow I thought that Raffles was going to smile, but the grim set of his mouth never altered, neither was there any change in the ashy pallor which had come over him in the donga when Connal mouthed his name.
But Raffles paid no attention to their fire; he was pointing downward through the bushes to where Corporal Connal stood with his back to us, shooing a last charger out of the mouth of the donga towards the Boer trenches.
There were trenches for us men, but no place of safety for our horses nearer than this long and narrow donga which ran from within our lines towards those of the Boers.
It was now very evident that the donga was held in force, and, as the General was aware by this time of the arrival of Colonel Hicks' column, he launched a vigorous attack.
Opposite 'A' company a donga ran up the hill, and at first sight seemed to offer an excellent line of approach for an attacking force.
The companies pushed forward, however, by successive rushes until they reached a donga some three hundred yards from the kopje.
But when a shell fell just behind the ranks, Major Bird moved it at the double through the camp to a donga which afforded good cover.
Now, however, looking backwards, I saw three or four men riding out of a donga two thousand five hundred yards away.
Every kopje was a natural fortress, every sluit a perfect line of trenches, and every donga a nursery for death.
Now somewhat behind and perhaps half a mile to the right of this hill a long, shallow dongaruns across the Isandhlwana plain.
He said he did not know, but he had seen a number of tall men come to the mouth of the donga to fetch food that had been placed there.
We fell back to a donga which we held for a little while, and then as we saw that there we should presently be overwhelmed, withdrew gradually for another two miles or so, keeping off the Zulus by our fire.
He muttered that it was cold, and lied for the donga was extremely hot and stuffy.
