Up to the foot of the berg our men met with no resistance, but at last a furious fire of rifles and Pom-poms broke out on our right centre from Boers concealed in dongas and trenches on the spurs.
Gradually their skirmishers worked round the left of the hill, moving by the dongas which ran down to the railway line, and were able to fire up into the rear of the defenders of the wall.
February 24th, 'B' company was sent to drive off small parties of the enemy who had crept down the dongas and reached the railway on the left.
The march lay across a stony, rugged plain, through the scrub of mimosa bush and among dongas deep and shallow.
Between these two eminences was the plain aforesaid, veined with dongas which reached to the terribly steep banks of the river, where were more intrenchments.
The enemy, triumphant, then opened fire with a Maxim and two 9-pounders from a kopje covered with brushwood, while Boer sharpshooters hidden in dongas and behind boulders also assisted.
As the storming of Vaal Krantz began there was an exciting episode, a Boer "Pom-Pom" galloping from Vaal Krantz towards the Doorn Kloof dongas across open ground.
The strength of Cronje's position was supposed to be the laager itself, whereas it was rather the river banks and tributary dongas which he had occupied.
They also brought in a number of families, some of whom had been hiding for months in kloofs and dongas in great fear of the Kaffirs.
The violent storm on the afternoon of the 6th filled all the dry dongas and turned them at once into mountain torrents.
These plains roll away to the horizon, and are broken only by kopjes and dongas and the everlasting ant-hills.
The Tugela glistened in the sun like a band of silver, and over the plain and in and out among the kopjes and round the dongas the brown road wound to Ladysmith.
While the Colonial crawled like a stalker along dongas and through gulleys to get at his quarry, the hardy Briton always exposed himself as though pluck demanded that he should make a mark of himself.
Presently from dongas and trenches, at ranges of 1000 yards and less, came the crackling of rifles, to which our troops responded by volleys now and again.
Drowsy, stupefied beings stumbled through dongas and broke their ankles against boulders, trying before they dropped to come in touch with their fellow-men.
Dongas were on this side, boulders on that; these had to be crept through and leapt over with stealthy, cat-like tread lest the enemy on the summit should be forewarned.
Dismounting with his men, and leaving his horses in rear of the heights, he cautiously crept round through a mealie field and various dongas which gave him cover from the storm of shot directed from the curve of the hills.
The valley between Mont Blanc and the western range is open, but intersected by deep dongas running from the north and north-east.
The remainder were held in reserve, as ordered, amongst the smalldongas and depressions in the wood.
To either side the forks of small dongas radiated, while the high banks were fringed with the feathery foliage of the mimosa and willow.
At first no signs of the enemy were visible, the Dutchmen, though not entrenched, being cunningly hidden in the dongas and thorn-bushes, which crowded the vicinity.
The country--a strip some two miles broad and stretching out between high hills and the river--was richly veined with irritating dongas and covered with bushes and scrub.
Darkness cramped, though it cloaked their movements, and the ground over which they sped was seamed with dongas and many impediments; and, moreover, a wide sweep had to be made to avoid Boer pickets.
In the dongas and spruits, where the crossings were often very bad and steep, the waggons would stick for hours, and the wear and strain on the exhausted cattle was killing: it was bad enough for the man who drove them.
In a couple of hours the water had run off; the flooded dongas were almost dry again; and we moved on.
The fall of the country is slight, yet the rich loamy soil has been washed out in places into dongas of considerable depth.
While these gallant acts of mercy were being done by men whose blood had been at fighting heat but a few minutes before, their comrades were forming for a charge on dongas thick with Boers, whose rifles rang out incessantly.
It ran along the dongas in which Boer pickets lie hidden, and was carried on to the south beyond Bester's Valley.
Skiet's Drift is a difficult way, leading through a bushy country scarred with dongas and commanded by successive ridges, of which the Boers, with their great mobility and rapidity of concentration, know how to make the most.
Smoke and flames from the dongas told that some of our shells had fallen among the wagons and their combustible stores.
But their progress was much retarded by the uneven veldt and dongas through which they had to ride.
So intolerable was the thirst that there were burghers who went down to the dongas below in search of water, where there was none, and where they knew that almost certain death awaited them.
At three o'clock we reached the deep dongas at the foot of the hill, and the foremost men passed through.
The wounded lay groaning in the trenches; the dead unburied outside, and the cannonading was so terrific that no one was able to leave the trenches and dongas sufficiently long to give a drink of water to a wounded companion.
On Monday morning it seemed as if the very blades of grass for miles around the Boer laager were belching shot and shell over the dongas and trenches where the burghers had sought shelter.
Of the Boers who were killed in the retreat no accurate estimate can be formed, but the dongas and kopjes beyond the position were strewn with occasional corpses.
The dongas ran into each other with numerous bends and curves, and were sometimes overgrown with high grass, then again quite bare.
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.
So intolerable was the thirst, that there were burghers who went down to the dongas below in search of water, where there was none, and where they knew that almost certain death awaited them.
If we had had no cannon with us, we could immediately have crossed the dongas near the mountains and have gone to the Pass.
In the wooded valley at the foot of the hill they themselves, under Geneva flags, were searching the bushes and dongas for their own dead, and disturbing the little wild deer beside the stream.
By about six we could see the Boers creeping forward over Bell Spruit and making their way up the dongas and ridges in our front.
Under shelter of the dongas some got right among our companies and fired from a few yards' distance.
This main body was attempting to take our left (north) side of the hill in flank, and kept edging through the thorns and dongas near the foot.
The enemy kept up a steady fire from the positions they had occupied during the night, some Boers in the dongas having advanced to within a short distance of our firing line.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "dongas" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
