FINAL ATTACK, AND CLEARANCE OF THE WATERKLOOF.
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.
[Illustration: KAFFIR WOMEN.]