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, taking themselves 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 of our 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 extricating them, 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 that moment 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 Tambookie Land 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 in bed 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 this lofty 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 unexpected resistance, 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 in a 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 few Burghers. 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 a parting 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 a dog killed, 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 the stoep or 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 one such 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 the banquette, 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 diarrhoea. 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 his neighbours 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 were some 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, the windows 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 and purple 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 surrounding mountains. 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 the rate 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.