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5 unusual facts about Battle of Laing's Nek


Battle of Laing's Nek

At Bronkhorstspruit the force was stopped by Boers who courteously required the “Red Soldiers” to turn back.

The first British camp on the march lay some 4 miles short of Laing’s Nek, a ridge in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains that blocked the road between Newcastle and Standerton in Natal, South Africa.

On 20 December 1880, Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther and elements of his regiment, the 94th, marched from Lydenburg to Pretoria, the regiment’s band leading the column playing the popular song “Kiss Me, Mother Darling”.

Colley gathered his force at Newcastle in Natal, dispatched an ultimatum to the Boers and, on its rejection, advanced towards the Transvaal border.

Battle of Schuinshoogte

General Sir George Pomeroy Colley's communications with Newcastle were under constant harassment by mounted Boer patrols under Commander J D Weilbach after the Battle of Laing's Nek (another British defeat) and as a result he planned to clear a path along the Newcastle-Mount Prospect road to better protect the British supply line, and receive fresh reinforcements he needed to bolster his ranks.


Charles Granville Fortescue

He was in the Siege of Ladysmith, and afterwards served as a staff officer in the operations in Northern Natal (including the action at Laing's Nek) and in Eastern Transvaal (including the actions at Belfast and Lydenburg).

Phuthi language

Phuthi is spoken in dozens (perhaps many dozens) of scattered communities in the border areas between where the far northern Eastern Cape meets Lesotho: from Herschel northwards and eastwards, and in the Matatiele area of the northeastern Transkei; and throughout southern Lesotho, from Quthing in the southwest, through regions south and east of Mount Moorosi, to mountain villages west and north of Qacha (Qacha's Nek).

Qacha's Nek

The town is home to Lesotho's first and only Snake Park, which is conveniently situated at the foot of the historic Letloepe hill/rock formation, where the cave of Qacha, the son of Baphuthi's Chief Moorosi and after whom the town is named, is situated.


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