FOOTNOTES:

KAFFIR.

FOOTNOTES:[15]See Ayliff's Vocabulary.[16]Cussonia Thyrsiflora.

[15]See Ayliff's Vocabulary.

[16]Cussonia Thyrsiflora.

On the night of the 20th, the Kaffirs who, since their unsuccessful raid, had been constantly hovering about in small parties on the hill sides, watching our cattle and our movements, treated us at midnight with a volley into the middle of our encampment, which woke us suddenly from our first sleep; the bugles sounded the "assembly," and we had to tumble out of bed. As I groped about in the dark for my clothes, I felt a peculiar sensation of unprotectedness, in my night-shirt, as the balls whistled past the tent, not having been under fire before in that costume; something of the same sort of feeling prompted B——r, on a later occasion, in crossing the enemy's line of fire, to pull his jacket collar up on the exposed side of his face as a protection. After several frantic attempts to unhook my tent door, tightly contracted by the dew, I had to crawl out below, and found the men drawn up on their own lines as if they had been there all night. A few shots were fired from the river bank, which however did no harm, and were silenced by the sentries without our aid; the skulking thieves, frightened at the hornet's nest they had disturbed, takingthemselves off at once. In five minutes after we were dismissed, the camp was still as death, and in the morning I felt uncertain, on first waking, whether the whole had not been a dream.

His Excellency the Governor-General was at this time preparing a force to move across the Kei into Kreli's country, to punish that chief for robbing the traders, treacherously harbouring the fugitive Kaffirs and their cattle, and while professing the most friendly feelings and intentions towards us, aiding and abetting a war with which he was in no way identified.

That the Colony might be properly defended during the absence of so large a portion of the army as must necessarily be required for such an expedition, the following dispositions of the troops were ordered to be at once carried into effect for the formation of the frontier line of defence,—the 74th Highlanders and 91st regiment, with the Local Mounted and Fingo Levies, to be posted in Fort Beaufort and the district, under Lieut.-Col. Yarborough; the 12th regiment with detachments of Irregulars, as a line of patrol from Fort Brown to the mouth of the Great Fish River, under Lieut.-Col. Perceval; and a detachment at Fort Peddie, under Major Wilmot, R.A. This arrangement of course broke up our standing camp, and in the general movement of the troops, I found myself under orders for Post Retief, in the Winterberg Mountains, to accompany Bruce, appointed to that command; the detachment of the 12th, then garrisoning it, rejoining their regiment in the Albany district. As it was probable we might be imprisoned in that solitary place for six months at least, cut off during the absence of the expedition from all communication with the world, and as we had nothing with us in camp beyond the clothes on our backs and the contents ofour saddle bags, it was necessary to make some preparation for our change of quarters, and having to march for our destination at daylight next morning, I set off at once with a mounted servant for Beaufort to get such supplies and necessaries as were absolutely required, taking advantage of the escort just starting with the mail.

After hastily performing my errand and with some difficulty getting a waggon and oxen to return with me, I found to my annoyance that owing to the indolence or probably intended treachery of the driver, who kept me waiting two hours for his oxen, I was too late to join a party going out to the camp with waggons, and there being no escort to be obtained from Fort Beaufort, I had no alternative, as our early march from the Blinkwater next morning rendered my return that evening imperative, but to start a little before dusk accompanied only by the servant. We had got about half way or a little more, and had entered the most bushy and dangerous part of the road when it fell nearly dark, the sheet lightning becoming most brilliant. I rode along by the side of the oxen in the narrow track, and was in the act of lighting my second cheroot, when a volley was suddenly poured into us from the bush along the edge of the river on our right, so close as to blind me for an instant with the flash; one of the oxen, which were on my left, dropt down dead, and two more rolled over wounded, while the waggon was struck in half a dozen different places; the rest of the terrified cattle faced round kicking and plunging, got their legs over the trektow, and wound themselves into an inextricable mess. The driver and leader, one a Totty, the other a Ghonah, either purposely or from fear refused to assist in extricatingthem, and when I threatened them with my pistol, bolted into the bush on the other side of the road and disappeared. Left to our own devices, we made an ineffectual attempt to cut out the dead and wounded oxen from the trektow with a blunt tobacco knife, the Kaffirs firing at us from the bush all the time, but found it utterly impossible; they now completely surrounded us, forming across the road in front and rear, and firing in quick succession, one shot striking the cantle of my saddle, and another wounding my horse in the head, which made him almost unmanageable; it was madness to stand to be shot at by so many guns, so we determined to make a dash for the camp, and with a shout rode right at the fellows in front, who as I fired my second pistol jumped aside and let us pass, though a parting shower of bullets, as we galloped off, made the dust fly from the road under our horses' feet. In less than five minutes after reaching the camp, a party of Fingoes had turned out, and quickly getting a span of oxen together, we returned to the rescue of the unfortunate waggon at a sharp trot, most of the Fingoes keeping up with the horses the whole two miles. Though the oxen were gone, our speedy return prevented the rascals destroying or ransacking the waggon, from which they had only taken a box of cheroots and a case of brandy; the former, as we afterwards discovered by their spoor, they had chopped up into tobacco, and on the latter they had got so drunk that they lost two of the bullocks, which, as Bruce and I had to pay for the missing ones out of our own pockets, we were only too glad to recover. The dead ox was quickly skinned and cut up by the Fingoes, who, finding to their surprise I did not want it for my own use, regarded the affair from thatmoment as a great lark, and sat up all night eating beef. To ourselves the result was not so satisfactory, having subsequently to pay £70 for the oxen.

After accomplishing the ascent of the Blinkwater Pass, which we had hoped not to have seen again for some time, we, late the next day, came in sight of the little fort, which in the setting sun, with its background of green and purple mountains, distinctly defined against the clear sky, looked now as bright and cheerful as it had loomed dark and gloomy on our former melancholy visit.

Our approach caused an evident commotion in the little garrison, to whom our coming, and their consequent "relief," were entirely unknown.

About 800 yards from the post, a quantity of old trampled wheat-straw was pointed out to us, scattered along the roadside, where it had been left by the enemy, since the 6th of February, on which day they had thrashed out a whole stack in sight of the fort, at that time occupied by the Burghers and Dutch, with their families and herds. A party of about 700 or 800 Kaffirs and Hottentots, who had first attacked the post, took possession of the little water-mill out of musket shot from the walls, and their women, to the number of about 150, coolly commenced thrashing out the corn, which they took away with them in a waggon, while the men from the cover of the rocks and some old quarries, kept up a constant fire on the fort, the interior of which from its absurd position, was entirely commanded and raked from a hill within half musket range, so that no one dare move across the yard, or show himself within the walls. The besieged inmates were almost entirely without food or water, having hurriedly taken refuge from their adjacent farms on the first alarm. Three days afterwards, relief arrived;Commander Bowker, with 250 men, fell upon the enemy in rear, and drove them off after a fight of three hours. The walls and gates showed innumerable bullet marks, thickest round the windows and loop-holes, and in many the balls still sticking in the woodwork.

Post Retief was formerly a farm house (parts of which are still remaining, and built into the present walls of the fort) belonging to Piet Retief, a distinguished Field Cornet of the Winterberg district, who, while in treaty with Dingan, king of the Zulus, for a grant of territory, near Natal, for the settlement of the Dutch Border colonists, of whom he was Governor and Commander-in-chief, was barbarously murdered with his companions, by that prince, in the beginning of 1838, and while actually partaking of his treacherous hospitality.

We found the interior space, or barrack-square, almost impassable after rain, having been used for many months as a cattle kraal, the dung lying two or three feet thick. The removal of this was at once commenced upon, and men and waggons were busily employed each day until the steps up to the quarters, were again brought to light, and the oxen were no longer able to look in upon us at mess. The vrouws with their dirty children, pigs, poultry and lumber, were bundled out of the Fort; the rooms whitewashed and converted into soldiers' quarters once more; the private dung-heaps at each door made into one large conglomerate outside the walls, and the place put into thorough order in less time than it would have taken one of the lazy Dutchmen to comprehend the possibility of such a reform.

On the 30th of November, General Somerset arrived with about 500 men, at Whittlesea, the most remote of the frontier posts, and the following day, having been joined by Captain Tylden's force, marched through TambookieLand to the Umvani, where, on the 3rd of December, he was joined by Colonel Mackinnon's party from King William's Town, making his force amount to about 3000 men, with three guns. Lieut.-Col. Eyre with about 1000 men moved, two days later, on the missionary settlement of Butterworth, so that the enemy's attention being first attracted to the General's Division, the move on that station might be effected without danger to the inhabitants from Kreli's people, and the two forces then moved along the course of the Kei co-operating with each other.

On Sunday we had divine service performed by the Rev. J. Wilson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who having been a resident in the beleaguered fort, had, like Patrick Walker at the siege of Derry, taken his share of duty with the little garrison, mounting guard, and standing sentry with his musket like the rest. The best of the men's barrack rooms served for a church, and a large hand-bell having been rung outside to summon the few settlers living within musket-shot of the walls, the gates were locked. The walls of our humble church were hung round with battered arms, patched accoutrements, and water canteens, haversacks, and all the equipments of the field; the congregation of soldiers and settlers was large and most attentive; the "prayers for the ending of the war," and for the "sick and wounded within these walls," forcibly reminding us of our position, so different from that of the congregations at that hour assembled in the peaceful villages at home.

The change from the field to quarters was so great that we could not get over the novelty of sitting down, to chairs and tables at our meals, or sleeping on a bedstead and between sheets, and at first felt much astonishment each morning on awaking to find ourselves inbed in a barrack-room, though the said barrack-room was nothing more than four whitewashed walls, a floor of unhewn stones, a roof of naked rafters well browned with wood smoke, decorated, just over my bed, with a couple of swallows' nests, the birds having taken a dirty advantage of the broken window. The sense of suffocation at night, after so many months sleeping in the open air, was such that we found it impossible to sleep without every door and window wide open.

Our circle consisted of Bruce and myself; Dr. Warden the assistant-surgeon; the worthy Chaplain, and a commissariat officer, Mr. Hedley; totally isolated from the world, except at long intervals, we were now locked up in the little mountain fort 5000 feet above the level of the sea, and, with the exception of a few Dutch Laagers, thirty miles from any human habitation but those of hostile Kaffirs. Our little force was not more than seventy rank and file.

We had not been here more than two or three days, when the Kaffirs swept off a Boer's cattle grazing about three miles off; we saw them through the glass ascending the steep side of the lofty Didama, but as they were already more than half way up, and the distance to the foot of the ascent was at least four miles, we had to content ourselves with watching them; for by the time we could have got about half way, they would have been safely hidden in the extensive Zuurberg forest, on the other side of the ridge. There were about forty Kaffirs urging the cattle up the mountain side, and we could distinguish the forms of others covering their ascent, and crowning the crags on the summit. In the evening, soon after dark, as we sat smoking and chatting round the open hearth, on which blazed a cheerful wood fire, often very acceptable in the evenings of thislofty region, distant shots were heard, and the sentry on the walls reported firing at the nearest Laager, about a mile off, and at the same time two Burghers, living close outside the gates, having been admitted, brought word that the enemy were attacking the Laager, and they would all be cut off without immediate assistance. Bruce, accordingly, sent me off at once with a party of twenty-five men: the night was so dark, that when outside the gates we hardly knew which way to move, until the flashes of muskets in the direction of the Laager showed us to what point to steer. On approaching the place, the moon, which had been hidden by a mass of dark clouds, suddenly shone out clear as day, and at the same moment we were fired upon from the rocks on our left, just above the huts of the Fingo herds, a few balls whistling past us, though after our shots in reply no one dead or alive was to be seen. Having with some difficulty satisfied the suspicious Dutchman on sentry, we passed along the side of the house, which was pierced with narrow loop-holes, the windows being all bricked up, and leaving the men outside for a few moments, I was admitted through some out-works of timber and mud walls, likewise crenelled for musketry, and found myself in a large, low, dirty room, with sacks of meal and corn, furniture, barrels, and all sorts of supplies piled on every side, and a crowd of Dutch men, women, and children, the former in round jackets and broad-brimmed hats, with cow-horn powder flasks at their sides, and immense roers in their hands, all jabbering at once; while the latter squatted round the fire half dressed, or peeped out of the different beds allotted to each family.

It appeared that the Kaffirs had endeavoured to carry off the sheep and cattle from the kraal, but the unexpectedresistance, and our equally unlooked for reinforcement, had obliged them to abandon the attempt.

After the proferred "bidgte sopie," or wee dram of "Cape Smoke," which it would have been bad manners, if not bad taste, to have refused, we crossed the stream at the garden foot, and made our way to a second Laager, a mile further, where firing had also been heard; one of the Boers accompanying us as guide, and hailing the sentries in Dutch and Kaffir on our approach. Here they were more strongly fortified, a flanking block house and "covered way" rendering the defences complete. As at the last farm, we found all the people sitting up in a state of fear and excitement, the Boers and roers as before. Several Kaffirs had shortly before been seen hovering about; the dogs giving tongue in a manner not to be mistaken; but after making a circuit of the whole place, we found no one, and having shown ourselves sufficiently in case any of the enemy should be lurking about, we returned to the house. The people were delighted to have the troops with them in such an isolated position, and were very anxious that a part at any rate should remain all night; the "sopie" had again to be taken and no heeltaps; waiting till the setting moon dipped behind the hills, and all was once more in darkness, we silently moved off by a bridle path, and without a sound or a word regained the fort, so that any spies lurking about the Laagers could not possibly tell we were not still there.

For some days we made patrols in different directions round the country, constantly meeting with a magnificent pair of secretary birds, which appeared to move in a circle of about a mile radius from the post, and became like familiar friends. We visited the remaining two of the inhabited houses, the inmates of which we found ina state of barricade and constant alarm, guns loaded and capped standing in the corners of the rooms, and the labourers working close to the house with their roers by their sides; and one day made an excursion with a waggon to a ruined school-house, in a lonely position at the foot of a lofty mountain, from which we took the liberty of borrowing the forms and tables for our unfurnished lodgings in the Fort. Nothing could be more desolate and melancholy than the deserted building; the doors creaked in the wind, swallows and grey spreuwe had built their nests in every corner of the schoolroom, forlorn spelling books and catechisms lay strewed about the ground, imprinted with the footsteps of wolves and jackals, and the broken windows were darkened by a rank growth of jungle and weeds.

One day soon after this, as we were returning from covering the descent of a mounted patrol into the Kat River valley, getting occasional shots as we wound along a Kaffir path, round a higher ridge of the Didama, at Oribee and Rheebok, two Kaffirs were detected peeping over the tops of some detached rocks, which lay on the smooth green slope of the mountain side; we galloped in a few seconds across the short intervening space, but quick as we were they had disappeared in the most mysterious manner, and nothing was to be seen of them beyond a few foot-prints, which could not be traced, and three horses, of which we made prizes. While wondering whether they had sunk into the earth or vanished in air, several distant shots fired in quick succession, attracted our attention to a hill about a mile off, behind the fort, and on bringing our glasses to bear on the distant puffs of white smoke, we were astonished to perceive a large body of Kaffirs, mounted and on foot, engaged with our outlying picquet, and a fewBurghers. Away we went full "tripple" down the mountain side, at the risk of rolling head over heels to the bottom, dashed across the small stream at a flying leap, and spurred up the steep banks to the post, where we found the "alarm" signal flag flying, the gates locked, and the troops under arms. While Bruce brought on the infantry at the double, Hedley and I galloped up the hill and joined the Burghers, who, vastly outnumbered, were getting the worst of it, and retiring slowly before the enemy, who could not have been less than 300 at the very lowest computation, a third of them mounted. About 200 of their force pressed on the right of our little line of some two and twenty, while the remainder hovered round the left, and our only wonder at the moment was that they did not close upon us and annihilate the whole, which they might soon have done; but the Kaffir has a particular dislike to open plains and hand to hand fighting; this, and the bold determined bearing of the burghers, alone preserved us. Still it was impossible to hold our ground against such odds; we were being gradually driven back by their heavy fire, and our right flank was on the point of being turned by a fresh body of the enemy, who suddenly made their appearance from the krantz below, and rushed yelling onwards, till the party of infantry appeared over the rise, when they were seized with a panic, and took to flight, the whole of the force following their example, while we on horseback pursued them at full gallop, firing into them at close quarters, and driving them over the edge of the krantz down into the Koonap valley, killing and wounding many. As they scampered down the steep rocks at our feet, crossed the little basin, and clambered up the opposite rise, dodging among the mimosas, to get aparting shot, we brought down many of them, counting above a dozen as they were carried off, dead or severely wounded, thrown across the backs of their horses or their comrades' shoulders. The chief, Macomo, who was distinctly visible on his white horse, high up on the mountain side, with a sort of staff round him, shouted constantly to his people, sending mounted Kaffirs to communicate his orders to those fighting; but when he saw his men flying he moved higher up, his white charger grew smaller and his voice more indistinct, until he was lost to sight. Our only casualties were adogkilled, and a horse wounded.

It afterwards turned out that while we were thus engaged, a smaller party of Kaffirs had taken advantage of the opportunity and driven off a span of trek oxen, grazing at some little distance down the valley. By the time we had returned and discovered the fact it was too late to think of following them.

We found occupation and amusement for some time in surveying and making maps of the country; improving our defences, removing detached rocks, filling up the small quarries, of which the enemy had taken such advantage during the siege, and building a flanking bastion, enfilading the two unprotected faces of the fort.

For some weeks we had constant thunder and lightning every evening, at times most terrific, at others distant, when the sheet lightning was magnificent, continuing till eclipsed by daybreak; and we sat every night on thestoepor raised verandah, in front of our quarters, watching the dazzling coruscations, which flashed and flickered each moment over the whole face of the dark sky, showing for an instant the lofty rugged grey peak of the Didama, the sentries on the wall, and every loop-hole—leaving all in utter darkness next. On onesuch night a brighter flash discovered to one of the sentries the creeping black forms of two or three Kaffirs, making for the cattle kraal, a few yards only from the walls. Without firing, as at the best he could only have hit one, the sentinel quietly left thebanquette, and reported it to the Sergeant of the guard. We were on the stoep, enjoying the deliciously cool midnight air after a blazing midsummer day, and instantly snatching our rifles from the pegs in the passage, joined the guard, and having quickly got about a score of fellows out of bed, posted two or three at each loop-hole, with their muskets, which had a most absurd effect as the lightning showed them standing round the walls in their shirts, with bare legs, in solemn silence. These arrangements having been made in less time than it takes to describe them, by a bright flash we fired a volley at three Kaffirs whom we saw at the kraal, when half a dozen more jumped up from different spots, and by the flickering blue light we saw them move across, and a volley blazed the whole length of the wall, doubtless to their great astonishment, as all had been still as death till that instant. From the quantity of blood spoor found next morning, many must have been severely wounded, if not killed.

Immediately below the fort was a glorious orchard, full of peach, nectarine, apricot, fig, plum, and pomegranate trees, the branches literally weighed down with the glowing load of ripe fruit, which almost as thickly strewed the grass beneath. In our constant patrols, at every Dutch Laager and ruined farm that we came upon for miles round, we found the same; and as the Boers at the former were most pressing, and the owners of the latter had abandoned them, we everywhere got as much fruit as we could conveniently eat, and the men were,many of them, expiating their over indulgence by diarrhœa. The ripe fields of corn, sown in hopes of a peaceful harvest, waved uncut in many of the more distant valleys, but nearer to the post, the English Burghers and Dutch Boers mutually assisted in the harvest, working with their ammunition pouches on, and guns and arms within reach. To aid these half-ruined farmers, Bruce allowed about twenty of the soldiers to assist in reaping until all was secured, and our men worked most willingly all day in the heat of the sun, afterwards volunteering to help a poor old fellow who, unable to give his labour in return, was not helped by his neighbours; reaping and getting in his corn for him, as well as the produce of his little garden. Poor old Hayes had seen better and brighter times, had come out to the country with considerable means, and commenced farming with great energy on a large scale, but he had met with a series of reverses, and the total destruction of his property by the Kaffirs, at the commencement of the present war, which completed his ruin, had affected his mind. He lived at the foot of the walls in a small Kaffir hut; but in spite of his rags and poverty, he carefully treasured up a memento of bygone prosperous days,—in a small box he still preserved his old scarlet hunting-coat. Too proud to the last to accept charity, the only way in which we could relieve him was by purchasing our vegetables from him at a liberal price. Shortly after this, his hut one night caught fire and was burned to the ground before any water could be got; he looked on in utter helplessness, as if overwhelmed by this crowning disaster. When the roaring blaze was over, and nothing remained but a heap of smouldering ashes, he was gone, and we all supposed had been taken by some of hisneighbours to their dwellings for the night. In the morning he was found in his little garden, lying on his face, cold and dead.

To a Peace Congress, or an Aborigines Protection Society, such a history would suggest itself as a special retributive Providence on the unjust aggressor; for to such philanthropists the real object of sympathy would of course be the gentle Kaffir and the oppressed Hottentot. Still, it is unhappily but one out of many a colonist's history, not the less sad because unknown.

Many of the Burghers, who from the scarcity of forage could not any longer feed their extra horses, brought them to us, offering the use of them for their keep; and Bruce happily conceived the idea of mounting as many of his men as he could thus procure horses for, and in a very short time had at his disposal a party of most serviceable mounted men, an invaluable assistance in our position in this open country.

The scenery from and around the post was of a character totally different from anything we had before seen in the country. In place of the endless bush and wooded kloofs and hills were smooth grassy plains, and mountains verdant to their broken summits. The Didama, in front of the fort, rose abruptly to a vast height, crowned by a sharp-pointed peak of most rugged and fantastic form; on the left stretched the flat-topped range of the Winterberg, on which, from our verandah, ostriches and hartebeest were occasionally seen with the glass; and bounding its western extremity rose the lofty and remarkable "Great Winterberg" (seen from all points, and equally visible at Botha's Hill, near Graham's Town), white with snow, which glistened in changing hues of rose in the setting sun.

In the valley at the foot of the nearer range weresome romantic kloofs in which were the ruins of several farm houses, which must have been fine situations in time of peace, warm and sheltered, luxuriant in vegetation, with orangeries, vineyards, and orchards of peaches, figs, and nectarines, shut in by green, sloping mountains, on which their cattle found excellent grazing, and well supplied with water from the rocky burns which bubbled down from the hills to the river in the lower valley. Now these lately prosperous and peaceful homes were burnt and blackened ruins, the four walls alone standing, the orchards overgrown, and rusted implements of husbandry strewed about, or left as they had been used on the day of flight or attack. One, in particular, at Hartebeest Fontein, deserves mention, belonging to a veteran tar, named Smith, who had served under Nelson, and been for many years a prisoner in France, where he had married a French girl, whose history was as eventful as his own, and who still lived with him at Post Retief, and shared his misfortunes at threescore and ten. The house bore ample marks of a desperate conflict and resistance, the walls being literally riddled with balls, some three or four hundred at the very least. The attack had lasted nearly thirty hours, the little band of fifteen or sixteen defenders, under the direction of the gallant old tar, then upwards of seventy, never leaving their posts at the loop-holes the whole time; only one of their number was killed, and so gallant and determined was their resistance, that the enemy at last abandoned the capture or destruction of the house as impracticable, and retired, carrying off, however, nearly 1000 sheep, and all the cattle, horses, and corn.

At the only other farm house near us, beside those mentioned in our night expedition, on a former page, thewindows were bricked up, leaving only a few narrow loop-holes; we found the proprietor a perfect specimen of a Dutch Boer, with the universal round jacket and broad-brimmed hat, sitting on the stoep in front of his solitary house smoking the usual green-stone pipe in solemn silence. Saluting us with a "Goen dag, Baas," as we rode up, he requested us to walk in; so dismounting, we entered a large comfortless room, with a stone floor, dimly lighted by the narrow loop-holes, and half filled with sacks of meal, and heaps of Indian corn. His vrouw, of course, was sitting, as usual, in a large chair, doing nothing; but he hospitably produced the Cape Smoke, which was made from figs, and as we drank our sopie, we patiently listened to a long account of his losses and grievances, having already acquired sufficient Dutch to converse fluently and understand all he said. After duly reciting all his troubles, which by the way had not affected his bodily frame much, he led us into the vineyard, where we found abundance of the most deliciously flavoured grapes, one sort, called the "honey-pot," especially so, and of immense size. The vineyards are of considerable extent, and the vines kept in standard bushes about the size of a large gooseberry tree.

The manufacture of Cape wines, Pontac, and Cape Smoke, is very considerable; the latter is a kind of whiskey, of a peculiar, and to many, disagreeable flavour. The best is obtained from grapes, though it is also made from figs and peaches. At all the farms were large vineyards; those in the vicinity of the post carefully tended, but a few miles distant, at the deserted houses, grew in wild untrimmed luxuriance, the ripe grapes dropping to the ground unheeded.

The vintage is an odd and picturesque scene; strings of Fingo women and girls, bear baskets of white andpurple grapes on their heads to the vats, where the men tread them out, singing monotonous ditties, while the big drops of perspiration fall plentifully from their shining faces, and mingle with the rich juice oozing from between their black toes.

One of our daily patrolling parties returned on the 19th with a boy and a couple Hottentot women prisoners. They had been robbing a neighbouring farm, and were caught returning to the Waterkloof with their skin-sacks filled with half-ripe fruit and vegetables. We got out of them on cross-examination, that on the day of their last attack, when we pursued them with twenty horsemen only, that they had five Kaffirs killed on the field, and nine others, Kaffirs and Totties, wounded, several of whom had since died. We also learned that the enemy were meditating an attack upon us that night or the night following. In consequence of this warning, the truth of which there was no reason to doubt, we brought the cattle within walls at sunset, doubled the sentries after tattoo, and kept a sharp look out. About midnight the silence was gradually broken by the cries of night-hawks and hyænas, and the barking of jackals answering each other far and near round the walls, which, however, were in reality the signals of savages apprising their confederates of our unexpected state of preparation. After a time, the sounds, so admirably imitated, grew less frequent, till they died away altogether. The morning showed us the soft ground marked on three sides of the fort with the prints of bare feet and veldt schoenen.

Every evening we continued to be visited by most appalling storms of thunder and lightning, but generally without rain. The continued peals rolled and echoed in a most imposing manner among the surroundingmountains. A Hottentot boy was killed one afternoon by the lightning.

Christmas Day had now come round, but instead of snow outside, and a roaring fire within, it was a roasting, broiling midsummer day, too hot to stir till after sunset, when we sat on the stoep unbonnetted and in shirt sleeves, smoking far into the night, listening to the shrill chirp of the cicada and piping of the bullfrog, and talking of home and distant friends. We had neither wine nor grog to drink to their health and happiness, but pledged them cordially in coffee.

The Boers reporting a body of rebels to be living in one of the deserted farms of the Koonap valley, we set out with a party of mounted men to look them up; but, as far as the object of our ride was concerned, we had our trouble for nothing. We went round the foot of the hills by an extremely difficult path, along the face of a steep declivity overhanging the rocky bed of the river; up steep shingly ascents, and down steps or ledges of rock four or five feet deep, our horses jumping nimbly down after us, as none but Cape horses could. The farm was tenantless, and still as death, though there was plenty of spoor quite fresh; a small fire was still smouldering in one of the roofless chambers, and the ground under the fruit trees, which were perfectly stripped, was thickly trampled. The rebels had decamped, and were probably looking down on us from the mountain crags above.

We killed here an immense cobra capello, which rose erect a full yard above the long grass; spreading out his broad flat hood, he darted most savagely after a dog, and at a pace I should have thought impossible for anything in the form of a snake. Returning by the hill, we put up a fine leopard, or, as it is invariably called, a tiger,and got several shots as it bounded down the mountain side, but, from the extraordinary way in which it doubled and leaped, we all missed it.

December 31st.—A convoy of waggons from Fort Beaufort, with supplies for our garrison, having come within a few miles of us, and stuck fast at the foot of a steep mountain road, called Botha's Rant, we went down at dawn with all the available force that could be spared, to their assistance. Each waggon had to be unloaded before it could be moved a single foot up the steep slippery path, and the men had every sack and barrel to carry up to the top of the hill.

Taking advantage of the additional force of this escort, we made a patrol into Kaal Hoek, where parties of rebel Hottentots were said to be living on the deserted farms. Bruce, with about two hundred infantry, took up a position a few miles from the Post, on a high hill commanding the country below; while I, with a party of about twenty-five mounted men, made a circuit through the valley from south to north, encountering some very bad and dangerous ground. Several of the party got severe falls in deep holes hidden by the long waving grass that reached to our saddle girths; one entirely disappeared, horse and all, in a collection of holes made by the ant-bears, and dislocated his wrist. In fact, it was always rather nervous work riding over these plains, which every body does at a canter; for, independently of the fall, if one happens to be in the rear of a party, the chances are ten to one against the accident being noticed; and then, as the horses usually take themselves off on such occasions, the unlucky rider is left on foot to the mercy of lurking Kaffirs, and probably with some bodily hurt, or a broken rifle. This may account for therate at which such parties invariably ride, as every one tries to keep his horse well up in front.

In our progress each deserted farm was surrounded and carefully examined; but, though the spoor was plentiful, it was nowhere less than two days old, and no one was to be found. The crops had been carried off half-ripe, and every fruit tree stripped bare. We came in our route on the remains of the Tottie woman accidentally killed by the Dutchmen; her skull and a few rags were all that was to be seen. After a circuit of about thirty miles, we returned to the Post, where we found one of our men, M'Linden, at his last breath; he died very soon after, having been ill only a few hours. Two days previously he had helped in building a wall of loose stones round the graves of our departed comrades buried outside the fort, and now, before our work was half completed, he had found his last resting-place in the same enclosure. He was a brave soldier, and we followed his body to the grave with real sorrow.

Jan. 1st. 1852.—A small party of the Boers, who had gone out in the morning to reconnoitre the Zuurberg heights, on which the smoke of a Kaffir fire had been visible all the previous day, returned in the afternoon with the intelligence that they had been sharply engaged with a much larger body of rebels, strongly posted among the crags. They had killed three of the enemy, but were obliged to abandon the attempt to dislodge them with so small a party. It was determined to attack them at early dawn the following morning. For this purpose the Field-Cornet was ordered to warn all the Burghers in his district to attend the rendezvous.

A couple of hours' riding brought us, by daybreak, to the foot of the mountain. The ascent was commenced, and soon became so steep that we had to dismount, and lead our horses up its rocky slope, till at last the large detached blocks became so frequent as to render that impossible, and leaving them on a small open plateau, with half a dozen men, we scrambled up the rest of the ascent on our hands and knees. Our trouble was in vain; for, after expecting at every step to be fired on, we finally stood in their deserted nest, which wasthickly strewn with remains of fruit, corn, and vegetables, stolen from the gardens of the settlers in the valley. It was a curious and well-concealed retreat, under an enormous overhanging cliff, scored with the Boers' bullets of the day before; a large mass of rock and one or two thick bushes in front, making it nearly a cavern. There was a regular cooking place of stones; also a small cave for sleeping in, the floor being covered with a bed of dry grass, evidently very lately used, and stained here and there with blood. The smooth faces of the rock in this cave as well as the other places were covered with Bushmen paintings, not unlike in appearance to some of those on the tombs of Egypt. For the most part they represented animals of the chase, koodoo, gemsbok, hartebeeste, &c., with a dog or two, a man, an assegai, or bow and arrows. The execution was very good, and the colours, chiefly red, blue, black and white, still retained their brightness, though the country has been deserted by its former inhabitants, the Bushmen, for many years. The Boers said there was another cave at some distance, and high up on the same range, but much larger, and completely covered with similar paintings; but it was unsafe to visit it without a stronger party, and we had too many patrols to allow our finding either men or time for the purpose.

The Dutchmen believe them to be a century or two old, and allege that the Bushmen worshipped them; but though it is quite possible, yet there is no evidence to show it; and they were probably nothing more than a record of hunting achievements.

We had heard many persons speak of these paintings as curiosities very rarely found, and that only in remote districts, and were therefore as much surprised as pleased at finding them so near, though certainly ina sufficiently out-of-the-way place. I made a hasty sketch of some of them on the outside wrapper of a packet of cartridge. The whole locality was most beautiful; enormous detached masses of rock, scattered around, and stupendous cliffs of a bright yellow and orange colour, their crevices studded with bushes and scarlet and pink ivy-leaved geranium.

At mid-day on the 9th, a large body of the enemy, who had concealed themselves by night in the dry bed of a mountain torrent, suddenly rushed from their ambush, and having wounded a young man at work near the house, before he could seize his gun, instantly swept off the whole of Mynheer Rautenbach's horses, cattle, and sheep. The sound of shots, and especially the well-known "roer" of the old Dutchman, a huge weapon carrying a 4 oz. ball, gave us the alarm at the Post in a moment, though four miles off, for no idle firing was permitted. The alarm was taken up by the Fingoes on the look-out hills; the wall pieces at the Fort were fired as a signal to the Burghers, and in less than ten minutes a mounted party was rattling out of the barrack square, and galloping down the road amid clouds of dust. As we passed the two Laagers, some were loading their roers, others buckling on their powder-horns and pouches; while the "jungvrouws" were saddling the fresh-caught horses, for their fathers, husbands, and brothers; they soon overtook us by short cuts, and as we swept past old Rautenbach's barricaded house, our party was augmented to seventy or eighty men. At a turn in the lovely valley, which opened before us about a mile beyond the farm, we could see the enemy; the green sloping summit of the Zuurberg on our right, and half a mile further up the poort the cattle driven along by a party of mounted Kaffirs. Witha shout of exultation we again dashed forward, rattling along the road in an exciting chase; the long manes and tails of the Dutchmen's horses streaming in the wind, the bullets whistling over our heads from the Kaffir-crowned heights, and the enemy before us straining every nerve to reach a narrow gorge, called Tiger's Kloof, the entrance to which was guarded by parties of their comrades posted among the fort-like rocks on either side. The ground presently became so full of hidden holes that in three or four minutes, as many of our party were down.

In the midst of our career, we came to a sudden check at a deep drift, immediately under fire from a "koppie"[17]held by the rebels, who took deliberate aim as we leaped from rock to rock, leading our horses through the bed of the stream; but no one was hit, though three of the horses were wounded. Without waiting to form a party, each one as he mounted pushed on up the Kloof after the cattle, the enemy still keeping up a smart fire. As soon as all had fairly entered the gorge, the Kaffirs on the heights hurried down to take possession of its entrance, but a well directed fire from the party dropped behind to hold the opposing rocks, frustrated the attempt.

The sheep had fallen into our hands at the foot of the mountain, and now the fugitives, closely pressed, abandoned their spoil altogether, and many leaping from their horses, in the hope of escaping on foot among the rocks, were killed at close quarters, fighting bravely to the last.

The stolen horses escaped us, having reached the edge of the Zuurburg bush, but the whole of the oxen and sheep were recaptured, and six of the enemy's horses and some arms taken. Our own steeds were so completely done up that many came to a stand-still, compelling their riders to return a great part of the way on foot. Mynheer Rautenbach was very glad to get so much back again; but he deeply grieved over his nephew, the young man who had been wounded by a charge of "loopers," or slugs, which lodged in the shoulder joint. His sufferings were very severe, and our surgeon pronounced his recovery doubtful.

We were at this time visited by flights of locusts, more numerous than had been known for years. They came in such myriads as literally to darken the air, passing over for hours together in one continued cloud, stretching as far as the eye could see, and frequently shutting out from view objects at the distance of a few hundred yards. The sound of their flight was like the wind; the plain was completely covered with them for miles; and we moved through them with eyes half closed and heads bent down as they were borne along on the breeze. One while they looked like falling snow, and the ground was whitened over as the sun caught their wings in a particular light; another, they appeared sweeping across the sky like a dark smoke. Everything green disappeared in a few days, the young crops were gone, and the pasturage vanished. But what was not less extraordinary, every living thing in turn fed on them. Not only did the horses and cattle greedily devour the destroyers, and the dogs and poultry run after them with open mouths, doubling and turning and jumping off their feet in absurd attempts to catch them in the air, but the Dutch and Hottentot servants fried them in fat and eat them in quantities; the tribes up the country live on them during the season, and lay bya stock of locust meal[18]for the winter, drying them in the sun and pounding them between stones; but this is less surprising among people who kipper snakes, and store up bags of dried ants for family use. We tried fresh locusts, both cooked and uncooked, but found them, to say the least, very indifferent eating.

Our only communication with the world was by means of our faithful Fingoes, who, assuming the Kaffir characteristics, made their way down to Beaufort by secret bush paths under cover of night. On these occasions, which, except on emergencies, were only once a month, the "post party," equipped for the road, came at nightfall to our little whitewashed mess room for the mail; their tall, dusky figures filling the doorway as they stood folded in their blankets; the old chief, Umkye, a fine fellow of six feet three, minus an eye, receiving the mail-bag with many injunctions about its safety. Lingering at the door, the party invariably cast wistful glances at the bottles on the table, when, perhaps, some one, egged on by the rest, would venture to say, with assumed gravity, "Plenty cold night, Baas," and then (as all Kaffirs and Fingoes do) put the end of his thumb between his teeth, in a half deprecatory half-frightened manner. But finding the hint not taken, would return to the attack,—"Kleine sopie goot für de brieffe" (A little drop will be good for the mail). The thumb in the mouth again; "Banyou, Amakosa in de padt, Baas; ein bidtge sopie make big heart" (plenty of Kaffirs in the way, sir; a little dram, &c. &c.). The glistening eyes and animated expression that accompanied the pouring out the coveted dram, and the gusto with which the last drop was drained, would have made a fine subject for the pencil.

Their dislike to this duty was extreme; and unless old Umkye, whose authority none of them dared dispute, were of the party, ten to one the big hearts would get so small on approaching the bush, that they were pretty sure to turn back. On one occasion we found out that the rascals had only gone a few hundred yards from the Fort, and sitting down under the shelter of some rocks, indulged themselves with a pipe for a couple of hours, declaring, when they returned, that they had fallen in with Kaffirs, and barely escaped with their lives. Their escape, however, not being viewed in the light they had anticipated, they were consigned to the guard-room for the remainder of the night, and in the morning, their foot-prints having been tracked, they were told, very much to their surprise (never suspecting white men of tracing spoor), where they had been and what they had done, and were also given to understand that they would be kept prisoners till nightfall, when, though they had shown themselves rascals, they would graciously be permitted the undeserved privilege of proving they were not "amafazi" (women), and would be allowed to set off again. But they had really several narrow escapes, having been once or twice attacked and dispersed by war parties, and owing their escape solely to the darkness of the night and their intimate knowledge of the bush paths. Their journey this month with our letters for the English mail was the last for poor old Umkye; the post-party was waylaid by the Kaffirs, and he was killed; the rest, dispersed in all directions, escaping by superior activity, one to the Blinkwater, twoto the Rifle Brigade camp, and one to Post Retief, bringing the news to the chief's wife. We were startled from sleep, about six in the morning, by the most unearthly yells and howls in the barrack-square, all the women joining the widow and her family in their accustomed wild lament. We were deeply grieved at his loss. His amusing and eccentric habits, his respectful manner, and regular attendance at our Church service, had made him a great favourite. Though he could not understand a word of English, he never missed coming to service on Sunday; but could never be induced to venture further than the door, where he sat cross-legged on the floor, stood in a reverential posture, or knelt prostrate with his face on the ground. At his own kraal he nightly collected his household, and prayed and sung a hymn with them. His loss was longer regretted at the Post, if not more deeply felt, than by his wife; for when we gave her a cow and calf, her grief seemed to be forgotten in the calculation of their probable value.

Rautenbach's nephew continuing in a very precarious state, we rode over constantly to see him, taking any little thing in the way of delicacies that we had, though poor was the best. One day we found them thrashing out maize in the house; five or six Dutch Boers with pipes in their mouths, and one or two odoriferous Fingoes sat cross-legged on the stone floor round a heap of "cobs," hammering away at it with keeries—the grains flew all about the room, hitting the clock, the windows, and the glasses, and striking one in the face in a most unpleasant manner. All the time we were talking to the Baas we were screwing up our eyes and ducking our heads, though the old man did not seem to mind it inthe least, never winking even, unless actually hit in the eye. The noise could not have been very soothing to the wounded youth, who lay in a dark room adjoining, the window, like all the rest, being bricked up outside for defence. He was in great pain, and evidently sinking fast; two days afterwards death released him from his sufferings, adding another victim to the long list of murdered settlers.

The long dry grass having about this time been accidentally or purposely set on fire by the enemy, the plains around were burning for several days, nothing arresting the course of the flames except a road or a stream. During the day-time a dense cloud of smoke hung over the country; at night the sky was lurid from the blaze, and the effect was magnificent, whole mountain sides and countless thousands of acres presenting one sheet of flame. Nothing could be more dreary and desolate than the endless tracts of blackened country which the conflagration left behind.

January 11.—The Trans-Kei expedition returned at this date to King William's Town, after six weeks in the field without tents, and exposed to deluges of rain among high grass. The refractory and treacherous chief, Kreli, had been severely punished; many of his men killed; 30,000 head of cattle taken; 14,000 goats, and a great number of horses; besides 7000 Fingo slaves liberated, and brought away with their cattle, amounting to 30,000 more, all which had, of course, virtually belonged to Kreli. This crushing blow on the paramount chief of all the Kaffirs, produced a most salutary effect through the whole of Kaffirland.

On the last day of the month, a commando of mounted Boers having joined us from Tarka the previousday, we started at 2A.M., with all our available horsemen, the party altogether about 100 strong, to patrol the Koonap district. It was a fine moonlight morning, and as, for the first few miles, silence was not necessary, we trotted along with a cheerful sound of horses' hoofs, clanking stirrups, and jingling arms, mingled with a Babel of tongues, English and Dutch, Gaelic, broad Scotch, and Fingo. On reaching Kaal Hoek, and finding that we were a little too early, we off-saddled, and in silence, each one at his horse's head, waited for daylight, in front of a belt of wood on the hill-side, which echoed with the cries of wild pintados, as the sky brightened with the coming dawn.

We rode round by Bushneck, and from the heights could see a few stray Kaffirs moving across the Waterkloof valley far below. Thence we proceeded, over hill and plain, under a burning sun, through the Koonap district, passing many deserted farms, their orchards bent down with the weight of unheeded fruit, and threading our way by deep bush and eddying river, where, excepting the chattering of the flocks of brilliant scarlet bunting,[19]which built their pensile nests, and flitted among the tall papyrus, the silence and solitude were oppressive. Now and then we came on the print of naked feet and the remnants of half eaten prickly-pears, but the spoor was old, and consequently useless. On many of the mimosas, we observed large clusters of a very beautiful parasitical plant, aLoranthus, with dark glossy leaves, and orange coloured flowers.

After having descended the side of a steep rocky mountain where it was necessary to alight and lead our horses, I was in the act of remounting, when my horse suddenly started off at a gallop, and taking the bit in his mouth, left me at his mercy, with one foot in the stirrup and a loaded rifle in my hand. The saddle being loose, turned round, and after a short but mad career, down we came on the stones with a crash that made the sparks fly from my eyes; the next moment I found myself in the centre of a ring of kind-hearted Boers, eager to render me assistance; one trying to mend my favourite rifle, which was smashed to pieces, others offering water, and two or three feeling me all over, to ascertain whether any bones were broken. Happily I had not sustained any serious injury, though sufficiently severe to render me very unequal to the exertion of riding thirty miles further in the sun, over a country becoming at every step more rugged and difficult. Sometimes we had to cross roaring drifts of the Koonap with slippery shelving rocks, that frequently launched horse and rider into deep eddying pools; or, bent double on the saddle-bows, pushed our way through thorny thickets ofvacht um bidtge,[20]prickly-pear, and mimosa, occasionally creeping round some precipitous scaur, by a narrow and crumbling track, where a false step of our nimble and active steeds would have hurled us into the river beneath.

The sun was so hot, that my leg and thigh, from which the trews had been completely torn, became blistered by its burning rays, and continued very painful for many days after.

At Viljoens farm, we surprised a small party of Kaffirs robbing and destroying. A brisk scrimmage took place; three or four of them were killed, and some women captured, whom we liberated after getting all the information we could out of them, which was, as usual, very little.

Never had the sight of the little fort been more welcome than on that sultry evening, after sixteen hours patrolling over more than fifty miles of broken country, and the last thirty miles of it in great pain. I did not leave my bed for many days; the heat of the weather, and the peculiar tendency of the atmosphere to aggravate every wound, however trivial, rendering mine both tedious and troublesome.

A few days after our return, some little excitement was caused in our isolated community, by the report of a mounted party approaching through the glen. It proved to be a patrol from the Blinkwater camp, which, having fallen in with the enemy, and captured twelve horses, and killing also sundry Kaffirs without any casualty on their own side, had been prevented returning by the timely and fortunate discovery that their pass was "forelaid" by a very strong body of the enemy; consequently they had made for our post, which they reached safely with all their booty, completely outwitting the cunning savages.

Once more able to mount my horse, I rejoined our patrols, which were fully occupied in pursuing and waylaying the enemy, who, in small detached parties, made their appearance first on one side, then on another, in vain attempts to seize the government cattle; upwards of a thousand head being generally kept here in reserve. On clear bright days we were tolerably secure, as we could then discover with the glass, the solitary blanketted spy, perched on some lofty crag of the Didama or little Winterberg; but when their summits were hidden, and the clouds rolled half way down their sides, and hung there motionless, we were all on thequi vive, for the crafty Kaffirs, creeping down under the vapoury cover, would exchange shots with the cattle guard, or herdsmen, even though they did not venture to make a dash for the cattle.

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