“In the second expedition, on the 24th and 25th November, the Rifle Brigade proved a most efficient force.
“On the 17th December, we learn that Sandilla has at last surrendered himself at Fort Hare, bringing in about forty head of cattle, and several muskets and carbines taken from the waggons at Burn’s Hill, on the 17th of April, and giving up the two prisoners demanded by Colonel Hare in February and then refused. One was the axe-stealer; the other the murderer of the Hottentot. They were lodged in gaol. Another prisoner, who accompanied them, died the night he entered his prison; and, some time afterwards, the Kaffirs, affecting to suspect poison, requested permission to examine the body, which was accordingly exhumed; but was too much decomposed to allow of the forming any opinion on the subject.”
Note 1. Another soldier of the 91st met with a cruel death at the hands of the savages. Being too much exhausted to ascend the Amatolas, he sat down by the way side. At night, when the roll was called, poor Ewell was missing. The Kaffirs admit, too, that they took him through the bush to a spot where some of their Chiefs were assembled with many warriors. Here they tied their victim to a stake, and literally flayed him alive; the little children being permitted to assist in tormenting him. Oh, “pastoral and peaceful people!” The Kaffirs said that they imagined the grenadiers of the 91st could not be killed, as the balls appeared to glance harmlessly past them. Mr Cochrane, however, was wounded three times on the last day in the Amatolas.
Part 2, Chapter XI.
Appointment of Sir Henry Pottinger.
The expedition across the Kei was still the theme of expectation during the month of December, 1846. Sir Andries Stockenstrom’s command of the Burgher Forces had been deputed to Captain Sutton, Cape Mounted Rifles, who was to proceed across the Kei in the intended foray.
At this time I wrote in my journal, “This is certainly an extraordinary warfare. The enemy are coming into our camps eighty at a time, enrolling themselves as British subjects, and obtaining cattle, which they assert to be their own, and even horses; while we are marching troops into Kaffirland, seizing plunder and meeting with little open resistance, but running the chance of being murdered, as the Cape Corps soldiers, were, in the hut. It is certainly very difficult to understand.