On the afternoon of Sunday the 12th of September, as we were leaving church, the 73rd regiment, from King Williams' Town, under Colonel Eyre, marched through the town on their way to join the force assembling for a grand and final attack on the Waterkloof. They encamped on the other side the river, on the Blinkwater road; though absolutely in rags, patched with every description and colour of cloth and leather, many a shirt tail dangling from under the lappels of their coats, they looked most soldier-like, and marched with the greatest regularity, the Rifle Brigade band playing them through the streets.

The following day a detachment of the 74th being ordered to reinforce Colonel Eyre's column, I unexpectedly found myself in orders to join him at day-break next morning, delighted, after having shared in all the former attacks, to be in at the last. At four in the morning of the 14th we left the barrack square by starlight, and marching through the sleeping town, halted outside the line of Colonel Eyre's camp-fires as day was breaking. The troops were already accoutred, and the tents struck, and in a few minutes we were advancing through the open bush along the foot of the Kromme to the Yellow-Wood River, where we remained two hours for breakfast. On one or two of the grassy ridges overtopping the forest on the mountain side mounted Kaffirs now and then showed themselves, watching our movements.

Three or four miles further on, we halted and bivouacked at the ruins of Nieland's farm, at the foot of the Pass where the severe engagement, under Colonel Fordyce, had taken place a year before.

The remaining three columns of attack, under Lieut.-Col. Napier, Lieut.-Col. Nesbitt, and Major Horsford, the two former under general command of Colonel Buller, on the north side of the Waterkloof, the latter at the extremity of the valley, were to move simultaneously at dawn next day in co-operation.

It was pitch dark, when, at four in the morning, we groped our way out of camp, the waggons and tents being left with a small guard under charge of an officer, and ascended a steep Pass which we had not visited since the severe struggle on the 9th September. As it became light, a few skulls and scattered bones were to be seen at the top of the path, though we must have passed many more lower down, where the fight had been hottest. After a stiff climb, halting frequently to breathe the men, who coughed violently, an oft remarked symptom of the telling effects of the hardships and exposures of the campaign, we reached the mountain summit, which was enveloped in a thick cold fog. We moved along the table-land towards the south scarps of the Waterkloof, the point of our operations, but the mist was so thick that we halted till the sun had fully risen, when it partially cleared off, and we observed an extended column of at least 400 Kaffirs moving along the narrow ridge connecting the Kromme heights, on which we were, with the peninsular and otherwise totally inaccessible Iron Mountain, to take possession of its towering krantz. Colonel Eyre immediately countermarching his column, moved us rapidly forward to the attack of the Iron Mountain, and we entered a little forest path leading along the connecting ridge, and so narrow that it barely afforded room for two abreast, continually obstructing the whole column for some minutes. After an hour's gradual ascent without opposition, we crowned the height, when the enemy, firing half a dozen shots, the balls whistling harmlessly over our heads, fled to the bush below, by paths so precipitous and narrow as to be impracticable for anything but Kaffirs and baboons, leaving behind them some two or three women and several horses, which we took. By this false move on their part, the enemy was placed in our hands; the Rifle Brigade being in the valley at the foot of the mountain in front, two parties were instantly despatched by the Colonel right and left to cut off escape by either flank. We made our way down by a path so smooth and steep that only the greatest precaution prevented a headlong career after the loose stones that bounded down before us into the deep valley; the ammunition and pack-horses sliding down on their hind quarters, and the rocket troop proving very troublesome from the difficulty of keeping the heavy apparatus off the horses' necks. The kloofs and forests thus enclosed, were completely scoured, and though the enemy by dispersing, and hiding in the thickest parts of the extensive thorny bushes, succeeded in a great measure in making their escape, many were killed, seventy-one women and children captured, secreted among the cavities of the rocks at the base of the krantz, and quantities of assegais, guns, and native ornaments taken. Half a dozen Rebels, Cape Corps deserters, killed in the attack of their stronghold, were hung on the nearest trees, as examples to any of their comrades who might chance to come that way.

At the ruins of Brown's farm, in the valley of the Waterkloof, Major Horsford's column, which had marched up the valley, joined ours. They had killed a good many Kaffirs, captured some horses, burnt and destroyed many huts, and stormed and destroyed a gunsmith's shop in the rocks, fortified and loop-holed, and well-stocked with tools and materials for the repair of fire-arms.

The whole valley was smoking from end to end with burning huts, as were the heights above us, crowned with the 60th and 91st, scarcely visible from their distance.

After a two hours' rest the main column moved up the valley to the head of the Waterkloof, two parties being detached to our right, one to attack a small body of Kaffirs collected above us, and commanding our intended ascent; the other up the south scarps to intercept the flight of any dislodged parties in that direction.

After a stiff pull up the Pass, we found the 60th Rifles posted in the bush along the path covering our ascent, and on the open ground above, several more companies of that regiment and the 91st, with many old friends. Crossing the Horseshoe Flat, we entered the belt of forest dividing it from the Kromme range beyond, and found the well-remembered path lined by the 60th Rifles, who, as we passed, presented us with cigars and brandy-and-water, on the very spot where, on former occasions, we had been treated by the Kaffir Rifles to volleys of bullets. A short, but at that advanced hour, most weary march across the open ground, brought us, after dark, to our bivouac on a bleak bare ridge, where, from the rocky nature of the ground, we broke nearly all the pegs of our patrol-tents without eventually succeeding in pitching them. The following morning, by daylight, we were on the move, and separating into four bodies, again scoured the kloofs on the south side and head of the Waterkloof, and crowned the Iron Mountain, throwing rockets into the inaccessible retreats, killing several Kaffirs and burning numerous huts. The Fingoes skirmished with unusual activity, being in great awe of the Inkosi Ameshlomani (the Four Eyed Chief), as both they and the Kaffirs called Colonel Eyre, from the circumstance of his wearing spectacles, to which they attributed his great vigilance and sharpness; whenever they exhibited the slightest hesitation to obey the order to enter the bush, he rode right at them, laying his jambok about their shoulders, and drove them before him into the cover. They did not, however, entertain the same respect for everybody, for, on another occasion, when a young Levy officer tried the same discipline, he was unceremoniously tumbled off his horse and pitched into a thorn-bush!

At the gorge of the Waterkloof, Colonel Eyre with his Staff and escort rode on, leaving the Column with me, with orders to rejoin the main body, four miles up the Waterkloof valley. We proceeded to the entrenched field-works just thrown up at Nels, where we halted at ten, A.M., for breakfast. The officers' pack-horses having been sent with one of the other columns, by a more practicable road, we had nothing to eat, but Captain Jesse, R.E., commanding the camp there, kindly brought us a loaf, a cold leg of mutton, and a bottle of Cape wine, absolute luxuries to fasting men. Thence we marched up the valley, which at this season, spring, was as fragrant as beautiful with flowering plants and bushes, the Boer-boon, covered with thick clusters of crimson blossom, conspicuous above every other. The larger trees along the rocky stream were alive with monkeys leaping from bough to bough. We rejoined the column at Brown's farm, and a party of Fingoes arrived at the same time with a despatch from the Governor-General, who, on the heights above, was personally directing the whole of the movements. We ascended the valley—a long line of red-coats, Riflemen, Highlanders, Artillery, Mounted Irregulars, and Fingoes; the Kaffir prisoners, with the pack-horses and mules bringing up the rear. At a point where the valley branches off into two, we took the south branch, and the Fingoes were sent up the mountain on our right to scour the bush. They continued ascending the green slopes, till scarcely visible, and then entering the forest at the foot of the perpendicular basaltic rocks, sharp firing at once began; tracing their progress by the wreaths of smoke that curled up above the dark trees, we regulated our movements below by their advance. Heavy firing was heard in the mean time from the north side of the valley. After gradually working our way to the top of the kloof, the Fingoes emerged from the forest, which ended abruptly at that point, driving before them a score or two of Kaffir women and children, and a few sore-backed horses. The women, like those before taken, had their woolly hair entwined with the claws and teeth of wild beasts, and wore karosses of hide, finely dressed, and dyed black with mimosa bark, of which all the larger trees here had been stripped. The unexpected meeting of these fresh prisoners with those previously taken was an affecting sight to witness. All were in a most wretched state of emaciation and weakness, having been nearly starved for want of food, and subsisting entirely on leaves, roots, and berries; their arms and legs were more like black sticks than human limbs. Cruel as their capture may appear, it was in reality a respite from misery and starvation, and moreover was rendered absolutely necessary, for, in their way, they were no less enemies to the tranquillity of the country than the men, acting as sentinels, commissaries, and spies, bringing food (which they might not touch), ammunition and information from our very towns and camps, most materially thwarting our efforts to bring the war to an end. The Tottie women did not appear to consider it at all a misfortune to be taken, for being unaccustomed to a bush life and its precarious means of subsistence in such times, they preferred a dry bed in a jail, with prison diet, to liberty and starvation. Our Fingo allies wished to put the prisoners to death; and were sulky at not being allowed to carry out their notions of warfare. A female prisoner, unable to keep up with the rest, was shot dead by one of these fellows before we had the least idea of his intention; so instantaneous was the act that my horse nearly stumbled over her body as it fell in the path. It required all the exertions of the officers to prevent further cruelties, nor was a stop put to them, till several of these half-tamed savages were knocked down and made prisoners of. One of the Kaffir women, with a child of a few weeks old on her back, becoming too exhausted to carry it, deliberately threw it away; it was, however, picked up by an officer, and given to a Fingo, with orders to carry it to the camp; the fellow obeying with a ludicrous mixture of disgust and nonchalance to the intense amusement of his comrades. But next morning the infant was missing, when "Johnny" being questioned as to what he had done with it, replied with the greatest coolness imaginable, that it had escaped during the night.

On another occasion, one of them, when sentry over a Kaffir, was observed giving a knife to his charge, and making signs to him to cut the rheim which secured his feet to a gun-wheel; the Kaffir was in doubt for a little, but reassured by the friendly nods and signs of his keeper, severed the bands and jumped up, but only to be shot dead by the sentry, who reported the attempted escape of the prisoner.

These, and a few other like instances of barbarity which occurred, hardly any degree of watchfulness could have entirely prevented. It was also next to impossible, amongst a set of men always ready to screen a culprit, to bring home conviction to the real offender; and doubtless, many more cases of barbarity would have taken place but for the presence and exertions of the troops. Yet the Fingoes acted in accordance with the practice of savage warfare rather than from cruel or vindictive feelings; and had they and the Kaffirs alone been opposed one to the other, it is more than probable that every woman and child taken by either side would have been put to death.

After climbing the steep rocky hill at the head of the kloof, the men resting every few yards from exhaustion, we proceeded some miles further along the range, and again prepared to bivouac on the top of the mountains, but had scarcely taken up our ground, when torrents of rain descended, running into our patrol-tents before a drain could be dug round them. The men having only a single blanket, and that of course soaked through, sat all night by the fires in the storm; a keen searching wind sweeping over the mountain top, rendered the night so intensely chilling, that sleep was out of the question, and at four o'clock when the reveillÉ sounded, every one was glad to be moving. The wind and sleet at this hour were even colder than before, and though we scorched our clothes on one side at the fires, the other clung to us like so much ice. At the head of the Wolfsback Pass we came up to the 60th Rifles lining the bush. They were half frozen, and envied us being on the march. The mountain tops all round were again white with snow, and on the opposite heights we could see the other Division shelling the deep intervening kloof, an unbroken forest of great extent; the effect, as the shells exploded far below our feet, was very fine. We descended the steep pass in single file, winding through the narrow forest, and halted at Blakeway's farm, where we found the sun quite hot. The almond and peach trees in the deserted garden were covered with sheets of pink blossom. A party of Cape Corps had arrived a few minutes before, under Captain Carey, with 200 sheep which they had captured in the kloof.

In an hour we were again climbing the Kromme range by another path more to the eastward, and gaining the ridge, looked down on the other side into Harrys Kloof, in the bottom of which a small body of the 91st and Cape Corps were halted; the long narrow ridge separating it from Fullers Hoek beyond was smoking from end to end with burning huts. We continued ascending the ridge up to the heights, two companies below scouring the forest kloof as we advanced by a wood path so close, that though we marched single file, the whole column had to halt every twenty yards till the front could move on, the bugles sounding the halt and advance from front to rear by companies. We came to an immense collection of burnt-out Kaffir fires, and places for sentinels on points commanding most extensive prospects of the beautiful country below. All round where we stood was thickly covered with pellets of chewed root. In front there was some firing, and a few Kaffirs were killed, who lay in the thickets as we came up. In one part of the shady path, we came suddenly on the corpse of a rebel deserter hanging from a tree; the blood trickling from a bullet hole in his forehead ran down his face and dropped on his toes.

No sooner had we toiled to the heights, where a detachment of the 60th Rifles was covering our movements, than we again descended by another more difficult and more precipitous path, down which men and horses slid twenty or thirty yards at once into Harrys Kloof, which was penetrated, and crossed in five different directions.

At the bottom of the descent we set fire to a very large village of Kaffir huts, and captured some horses. Part of the column being sent up the kloof by a path on the right, the rest of us, under Colonel Eyre, passed through the smouldering village, its heat almost overpowering, and penetrated to the head of the kloof, which was one dense, dark, and tangled forest up to the heights on which the tiny figures of the 60th were barely visible against the bright sky. The whole column worked through it in every direction, guided by constant bugling; the company and regimental calls of the different corps, with "advance," "retire," "right and left incline," &c.,—being all issued by Colonel Eyre, who, with a bugler of each regiment at his side, thus conducted in the most splendid style the movement of upwards of a thousand men in different bodies, unseen, through an extensive mountain forest. A few head of cattle and some horses were taken, and some of the enemy killed.

Having re-assembled at the gorge of the kloof, we marched out about a mile further where the bush was more open, and at sunset bivouacked for the night, very glad to rest our weary limbs after the severe mountain work of the last thirteen hours. From the returns sent in at night to the Colonel, it appeared that our column had killed 36 Kaffirs, taken 168 prisoners, and captured 41 horses, besides cattle.

At six o'clock next morning, we marched in a heavy rain for our respective camps, the Rifle Brigade proceeding to Nels, and we making our way round the spur of the mountain to our little camp at Nieland's, which we reached wet through about mid-day, delighted once more to enjoy the luxury of a tent.

19th, Sunday.—Prayers were read by the senior officer to the column, drawn up in the centre of the camp.

For the two following days we waited orders from the Governor-General, riding round the neighbourhood, or shooting quail and partridge. At the edge of the forest by which we were encamped, we put up a couple of the wildest old pigs imaginable, which rushed through the thicket before we had recovered from the start they gave us. In the wood we came upon a covey or two of wild cocks and hens that took to wing like pheasants; but as heavy metalled rifles carrying balls of eight to the pound were not adapted for snap-shots in thick cover, we turned our attention to pig-stalking; the game however led us further than was quite prudent to follow without a larger party, and we were obliged to abandon the pursuit. These novel varieties of game, which may in time stock the Kromme forests for future sportsmen, were, it is almost unnecessary to say, the remains of the live stock of the deserted farm where we were encamped, and which, having been left behind in the flight of the owners, had taken to the bush for subsistence.

Soon after returning to the camp, one of the sentries reported a number of Kaffirs collecting on a piece of open grass above the wood, clothing the lower part of the mountain. On bringing our glasses to bear on them, they proved to be large baboons, trooping out of the forest in a continuous string, till we counted from 150 to 200; all seemed busily engaged in searching for and grubbing up roots, at which they continued till sunset, when they returned to the cover, following an immense grey-headed old fellow that walked most pompously at their head.

On the morning of the 26th, in accordance with his Excellency's instructions to Colonel Eyre, to make a final reconnaissance of the whole of the ground of the last three days' operations, in order to ascertain its complete clearance, we again climbed the Kromme Pass, though this time by daylight. As we ascended, the evidences of the fight became more frequent; rolling skulls, dislodged by those in front, came bounding down between our legs; the bones lay thick among the loose stones in the sluits and gulleys, and the bush on either side showed many a bleaching skeleton. A fine specimen of a Kaffir head, I took the liberty of putting into my saddle-bag, and afterwards brought home with me to Scotland, where it has been much admired by phrenologists for its fine development. The trees along the path were scored by bullet marks in every direction. At the point where our unfortunate Band-master had been dragged into the bush to a fate so horrible, we involuntarily stopped for a few moments. The ridges were again traversed as before; and Colonel Eyre, separating his column into three bodies, to search the kloof and forests in and about the Iron Mountain, sent me in command of the Light Companies of the 73rd and 74th, and a few Irregulars, to search and clear the rocky krantzes opposite, and rejoin him in the Waterkloof valley. We worked through the extensive bush both along the top and at the base of the krantzes, searching all the caverns and crevices with which they abounded, and rolling down into the wood, stretching from our feet to the base of the mountain, huge blocks of stone that cleared all before them. We forced our difficult way, clambering up and down rocks thickly covered with enormous aloes in full flower, and tearing through the thorny cover, guided only by constant bugling; catching peeps now and then, from a higher crag, or through an opening in the forest, of the main column in the deep valley, slowly moving through the bush, their bugles scarcely heard, as they sounded the halt, or advance, according to our movements.

High up on the opposite mountain, the 3rd Column worked its way like ourselves among the forest-clothed crags, scaling the steepest cliffs, swarming and scrambling among huge masses of detached rock, notwithstanding the heat of the weather, and climbing higher and higher, till so diminished, as to be visible only when the sun shone on their red coats. On the other side, we looked down on Colonel Buller's column, in the Waterkloof valley, throwing rockets into the inaccessible krantzes, and skirmishing through the bush. We found the bodies of two dead Kaffirs; numerous heaps of chewed root round the old fires on every part of the lofty ledge where we were; and in the crevices of the rocks all sorts of Kaffir ornaments and utensils; and came on a village of empty huts, to which we set fire; but no Kaffirs were to be seen, high or low, so we descended the steep side of the mountain into the Waterkloof, and rejoined the column already bivouacking in the bush. With the exception of a few dead bodies they had met with no signs of the enemy. The whole district was cleared.

Towards nightfall the tops of the heights that towered round us were hidden in the clouds, and a drizzling rain came on, which drove us under the shelter of the scattered bushes among which we had made our bivouac. The moaning wind, that bent the tops of the higher trees, soon increased to a gale, howling along the valley, while the cold driving rain swept over us in the most pitiless manner, and with a steady determination that augured a night of it. It was in vain the shivering horses turned their tails to the storm, or the drenched and shapeless heaps of humanity, stretched on the ground, pulled their wet blankets more closely round them; for the pelting storm and searching wind were not to be avoided, and a day of excessive fatigue to the men was succeeded by a night of sleepless discomfort. We were but a degree better under our patrol tents; for though they kept the rain off above, in a great measure, the ground was so flooded, that we lay in pools of water, while myriads of fleas, (we were on the site of an old kraal, of which, however, they were the only remaining sign,) driven from the wet ground, took refuge in unusual force on such portions of our bodies as were above water mark. Our only consolation (for we had one) was that it was too cold and wet for any snakes to be about, though the valley was said to abound with them. It did not require the "rouse" to awaken us, even at the early hour of three next morning; we were too glad to be moving, and busied ourselves in feeding and saddling our shivering horses, collecting firewood, and helping our benumbed servants to pack up the patrol-tents and saddle-bags; the rain still coming steadily down, and the darkness such, that we had the greatest difficulty in finding anything once laid down on the ground. We marched up the valley, toiling up a clayey path, or rather stream of mud, leading up to the heights, which were so completely covered by clouds, as to render it difficult to find our way; the cold intense. Crossing the "Horseshoe," we descended the steep ridge leading down into Fullers Hoek, not a living Kaffir to be seen anywhere. In the Hoek we found the 91st, under Major Forbes, bivouacked on the long grass, their drenched clothes clinging so closely to them, that they looked as if they had passed the night in the river. Half a mile further on we halted. Fancy men dripping from every thread, kneeling in the mud, with eyes watering from the thick smoke, and puffing away at a heap of wet branches, surmounted by a kettle of cold water, or with benumbed fingers trying to strike a light, and you see us halted for breakfast. In another hour we were again on foot, and after a march of twelve miles, passing on the way through the Blinkwater Camp, reached Fort Beaufort, the 73rd encamping on their former ground, while we waded the river waist-deep, and marched to the barracks.

Two days afterwards, returning from Ely, where I had been sent with an ammunition escort, we met Colonel Eyre's column en route for the Amatolas, whence they shortly afterwards expelled Uithaalder, killing about thirty of his people, and taking several stand of arms and 150 head of cattle; burning his Laager, and erecting a permanent defensible Post in its place.

Having a day to spare, I rode out to Lieuwe Fontein, of which Post my brother had, some time previously, been appointed Commandant, with a garrison of 74th and Mounted Levies. We had excellent buck shooting in the open bush around the station, and killed a singular diver on the vley, with curious palmated feet, the three toes being quite detached, and in form and appearance like beautiful leaves. The situation, like most of the frontier Posts, was one that would have afforded a man of contemplative mind ample opportunity for undisturbed reflection, being twelve miles from the nearest dwelling, and not a living soul approaching the place the day long, excepting twice a week, when the post-riders met there, and the weekly train of waggons outspanned under the walls. At night, after the gates were locked and the keys brought in to the Commandant, he might sit till daylight without hearing a single sound to break the oppressive silence, except the measured tread of the sentinel and the occasional howl of a hyÆna or jackal. Next evening the solitude was relieved by the arrival of the up and down mails; two small clouds of red dust rising above the scattered clumps of bush, grew nearer and nearer, till at last the two parties of mounted men were seen descending the opposite hills at the same time, and rapidly approaching the Post, their arms glittering in the setting sun. As they remained within the Post till daylight, I rode back to Beaufort with an escort; the cool refreshing morning air fragrant with the perfume of flowering shrubs. On the way I had some good sport, getting shots at a beautiful pair of blue cranes, a flock of wild duck on a vley, some wild Guinea fowl running along the road, and at some monkeys. The mail was, unfortunately, rather late getting in that morning.

About a week after this I accompanied an escort going to the fortified camps in the Waterkloof. The Rifle Brigade were quartered there, and with the 60th and 91st, which occupied the forts on the heights, effectually held what we had taken with so much labour; not a Kaffir was left in the whole neighbourhood; officers daily went out from the camps shooting alone in places where, a month before, a column would have been attacked. The valley, in many parts, smelt most pestilentially from the number of dead Kaffirs in the bush. A puppy dog, belonging to H——, brought the arm of one into his tent unobserved, and began to play with it under the bed, a fact of which his master was soon made disagreeably conscious.

October 17th.—Lieut.-Col. MacDuff, lately appointed to the 74th Highlanders, which had lost two commanding officers in so short a time, arrived at head-quarters, and assumed the command of the regiment and the garrison. We were glad once more to have a Colonel at our head, and, not less so, one who had seen good service and hard fighting on other fields.

A few days subsequently, as we were sitting under the wide verandah in front of the mess-room, the sleepy noontide stillness of the town was suddenly broken by the "alarm" and "assembly" sounding from our barracks; the "boot and saddle" from the Cavalry stables; and the cow-horn rally from the Fingo kraals. The Kaffirs had swept off a herd of cattle out-grazing, wounded one of the native police, and shot the horse of another. In a very short time I was trudging away as of old, with a party of Infantry and Levies to Post Victoria, which we reached before sunset. Here the mounted men came up with the pursuit, dispersed the enemy in all directions, and retook the whole of the cattle, our only casualty one man wounded.

I sent the cattle back to Fort Beaufort, and bivouacked for the night with the Infantry at the ruins; but it was not to be a night of undisturbed repose. We had hardly lain down when we were most savagely attacked by musquitoes; and a slapping of faces and lighting of pipes began on all sides. Having at last successfully dodged them by laying a branch over my face, and thrusting my hands into my pockets, I flattered myself with hopes of sleep, but a suspicious rustling among the plucked broom under my head, made my blood run cold at the idea of its being a cobra capello, and I rolled away on the other side; having got a lighted brand from the fire, one or two of the men getting up to assist me, everything was turned over with our ramrods, but no snake was found. The same noise, however, began again soon after I lay down, but persuading myself that it was some lizard or insect, I at last went to sleep. In the morning, under the warm stuffing of the saddle that had been my pillow, a fine puff adder lay coiled up.

On our way back, at sunrise, we blazed away right and left at bush buck, and pheasants which we put up in scores. The bush was very beautiful, glowing with the fragrant golden mimosa and the snowy jessamine, mingled with the blue plumbago, the cluytea, and geranium; the ground too covered with mesembryanthemum, was one sheet of glowing pink. Along the deserted grass-grown road, doves, everywhere abundant, were unusually numerous, running along the ground before us and flying on from tree to tree like flocks of tame pigeons. On gaining the more open country we found ourselves again among the young locusts, now considerably grown, and turned to a reddish brown. The scattered bushes, stripped of every leaf, were loaded with them, hanging like swarms of bees from every branch and twig; for acres together the ground was literally alive, and the "veldt" behind them bare to the very earth. The evil became worse as we approached Beaufort, where the cattle, from their numbers, were almost starving, for it was hazardous driving them to any great distance, and already they went so far from the town that a considerable part of the day was lost in taking them to and from pasture.

November 3rd.—The town to-day was thrown into excitement by a serious fray between two rival clans of Fingoes; the "casus belli" was not easy to discover, but a young lady appeared to be at the bottom of it. The extensive green flat between their kraals and the burial ground was covered by two long extended lines of men armed with "keeries," opposed to each other, and advancing or retiring as one or the other gained a temporary advantage; each Fingo carried a kaross, or blanket, over the left arm, as a shield, and a second keerie, held like the old quarter-staff, exhibiting great skill and adroitness in parrying and delivering the tremendous and resounding blows; running, stooping, and wheeling rapidly about with their whirling staves and waving blankets, yelling in savage defiance; while hosts of young women on both sides, armed with large stones, filled the air with well-directed missiles. The scene was most novel and exciting, and every one entered heartily into it.

The stronger party having driven their adversaries back on their kraal, began an attack on the huts, when the prettiest light infantry practice imaginable followed; the attacking force taking advantage of every rock, bush, and bank, their keeries in their left hand ready for a charge, assailed the defenders with showers of stones, thrown with astonishing force and precision, while they in turn kept up so hot a fire from the shelter of their huts, assisted by the women and children, that for some time neither gained much advantage, till, encouraged by a tall active young fellow, whose face and naked body were covered with blood and wounds, the assailants rushed into the kraal, laying about them right and left, knocking down and clearing all before them. The Commandant of the garrison arriving at this juncture, ordered the two principal Chiefs to put a stop to the affray instantly. One of them, a grey-headed old man, with a short grizzly beard, ran from one to another, issuing his orders to his 'captains,' and soon the tumult ended, though the belligerents were in a very excited state. Several of the champions had been stretched senseless on the ground, one or two of whom afterwards died, and most were covered with blood. There could not have been fewer than 300 men, besides women, engaged in the affray.

KAFFIR WOMEN.