The only circumstance on which, at this period, the mind could rest with satisfaction, was the success attending the landing of stores and supplies at the Fish River mouth. It is to be hoped that Mr Cock, at the Kowie, will reap the reward of many years’ perseverance. Still the want of rain continued to destroy our hopes of vegetation, and sickness prevailed in many districts.
Some extracts from my Journal will serve to give an idea of our defenceless position in Graham’s Town; and though the perils, privations, and terrors of women have little to do in the working of the great machine of warfare, they can hardly fail to excite some interest among those who in happy England cannot fully appreciate the blessings of peace, from the circumstance of their never having endured the horrors of war. I shall relate, as concisely as possible, our own privations, alarms, and anxieties.
“August 1st.—Kaffir fires seen in the distance: in the evening, received intelligence from head-quarters relative to Colonel Somerset’s engagements on the other side of the Kei, and capture of the cattle.
“Colonel Somerset could have captured more than he did, but he had not force to retain them. Every night his bivouacs were surrounded by Kaffirs, who fired continually into them; sometimes in derision, at others in anger. Some called out to the troops, ‘Take care of the calves you have got, we will have them in two years!’ Others exclaimed, ‘Let us rush upon them!’ ‘No, no,’ said another party, ‘who ever heard of attacking a kraal of guns?’ Some crept nearer the bivouac, and entreated their favourite pack-oxen to come out to them: ‘What business,’ said they, ‘have you among white men? Come out to us—we will treat you kindly. Leave the Umlunghi, who will ill-use you and make you work.’
“Thus they harassed the troops during the whole march; hanging on their rear in the day-time, and, at night, obliging them to keep up a constant peppering. At the drifts there was always troublesome work.
“August 2nd, Sunday.—I am always more impressed with the strange appearance of the town on Sunday than on any other day; every one who can, making his way to church, and business suspended; shots, too, above the town along the hills, and the rattle of arms and accoutrements in the streets, are more audible on Sunday than in the bustling week-days, Another thing I have frequently remarked; the news of whatever occurs in the field generally reaches us on the Sabbath, and we often say, ‘To-day is Sunday: I wonder what intelligence we shall have.’
“August 3rd.—A beautiful day. It is quite grievous—yes, melancholy, to see the sun scorching the earth, and know that the cattle must die for want of food, and that there will be no vegetation this year. We have had no rain for months, except slight showers for a day or two. To-day, some young girls have assembled in my cottage-garden to celebrate a birthday. What a relief it is to have left the confinement of the dreadful barrack for this small cottage on the hill! We are scarcely considered in a safe position, but we grew weary of the gaol-like Drostdy, and succeeded in getting shelter at Fort England—misnamed a fort—where a few of the 91st are in quarters.
“But the birthday. None of our little female community had been merry since April; but this bright day I resolved to be cheerful, and to put aside my child’s books and my own employments; and, since the sun would shine, and not oppressively, to enjoy it. First, there were flowers to gather and arrange. I wanted some arums, the beautiful lilies of the yam plant, so the girls went down below the parched, uncultivated garden, to a stream now almost dry and desecrated by Hottentot washerwomen: they there witnessed melancholy ‘signs of the times,’—nine dead animals lay beside the dull and shallow stream. The poor starved creatures had crawled into the hollow to die. These things make but slight impressions on the young; they do not trace results, however sad, to their primary causes; so when they had replenished my flower-vase, away they went to their garden amusements. I mention these trivial things by way of contrast. She whose birthday we celebrated came down the path, with a gay wreath of flowers and foliage wound round her fair hair—happy, healthy, blooming, joyous sixteen! Thus I mused, as she stood laughing under a fine oak, just coming into leaf—like her, in its spring. Suddenly, in the distance we heard the boom of cannon echoing sullenly along the mountain-ridges, and through the kloofs and passes far away. The day was so still that we heard distinctly the rapid discharges of shot and shell! The servants told us they had heard these sounds of death and doom all the morning. We only knew they came from that part of the country where the regular troops were co-operating with Sir Andries Stockenstrom and his Burgher force. Gazing in that direction, my eye fell on a signal-tower on a hill-top. That tower, with many others, is now deserted, for three reasons. The first, and most cogent one is that, like the rest of its fellows, it is useless. The atmosphere of this climate scarcely ever permits communication by telegraph. Secondly, the men cannot be provisioned there in war-time. Of meat and biscuit they might lay in a stock, as if for sea; but water cannot be procured without risking life. Thirdly, in war-time, when the telegraphs would be of the utmost use, and would save time, labour, life, and horses, by making swift communications of the stealthy movements of the Kaffirs, the force on the frontier is so small that no men can be spared to work the signals.
“All the morning of that birthday we heard the cannon booming as we sat in the garden, and we afterwards learned that Macomo had been hemmed in and attacked in the Tyumie fastnesses, but with little success and some loss on our side. The enemy, as usual, harassed the troops, and then gave them the slip.
“5th. Kaffirs known to be in the immediate neighbourhood of Graham’s Town, an attack fully anticipated by some; fortunately, we never entered into these ‘alarms.’ The soldiers’ wives on the hill in extreme terror. Shots firing all day rapidly. I wonder more accidents do not occur among those who have lately learned the use of fire-arms. I stood at the gate in the evening and watched a fire very near the town: it blazed up for about ten minutes, and was extinguished as suddenly as it had been lit. Fires seen in other directions, supposed to be signals for a general assembly of the warriors in the mountains. More cattle stolen within three miles of us to-day. Walked down in the evening to the end of the green, to look at our defences. Sorry things! A square of thatched barracks, more like huts than houses, contains sometimes no more than fifteen soldiers, some of them left here as ineffective. Our space near the guardhouse is defended by a wooden stockade, breast-high, and two other passages are banked up about three feet high. No picquets at this end of the town, for want of men. We have a kloof just above the mess-house, and it was a few miles from there that Mr Norden, of the Yeomanry, was shot.