During these disasters in camp, which my foresight had anticipated, I pushed forward, detaching Captain Bailie with sixty excellent men of the Hottentot battalion down the Bashee to a distance, then to bring up his right shoulder and rejoin me on the banks of the Kakke[107] River, equidistant between the Bashee and Umtata, where I proposed to halt and cook, if circumstances permitted me. I had no guide, and my movements were conducted by reference to a very defective map. I marched from the mountainous bank of the Bashee through a most beautiful and fertile country, strongly undulating and rich in pasturage, over which was visible the track of vast numbers of cattle. I pushed on with vigour until the bed of the Umtata was perfectly visible, but not a head of cattle was discernible. The whole country had been driven on the alarm and capture of the previous night. The enemy had assembled in vast numbers all around me, but I never could get near him, so wary and so vigilant was he. I succeeded, however, in taking one prisoner, and two Fingoes came in to me. From them I learned what I indeed saw—the cattle of the whole country had been driven, previously and by Hintza’s orders, over the Umtata, those I had captured the night before being, as it were, the rear-guard.
From the distance marched, the fatigue of the troops, and the powerful concentration of the immense population all around me, I naturally began to turn my attention to the security of the bivouac I had left behind and the captured cattle. I had previously directed Captain Bailie not to join me, if he found the country I had detached him into excessively difficult to traverse. He was in that case to follow the bed of the Bashee a reasonable distance, and then return straight to the bivouac. My own observation of the country I had marched over confirmed me in thinking it would be impossible for him to join me. I therefore made no halt on account of any such expectation.
The enemy on my march back made some attempts on my rear. The officer, a Lieutenant Bailie, son of the man previously mentioned, a very sharp fellow, laid himself in ambush in the long grass and several times made the Kafirs pay dearly for their temerity.
On approaching my bivouac I saw all was secure, and did not anticipate the extent of the melancholy report I was to receive of the loss of my friend White, as before described. Captain Ross told me that he had been kept on the most vigilant alert all day; that every moment he expected a rush from the immense numbers of Kafirs all round him, and he was very glad to see me back.
Every moment the numbers increased around me, and their daring to approach me indicated great confidence. I was perfectly satisfied that an attempt would be made at night to retake the cattle, and I made my defensive dispositions accordingly, giving the command of the picquet to an active officer on whom I could depend—Captain Lacy of the 72nd Regiment.
Scarcely was it perfectly dark when on came, in the most stealthy manner, a swarm of Kafirs. Their design was anticipated, however, by our vigilance, and the assailants were driven back with great loss. Captain Bailie had not yet returned with his sixty men, and I was very anxious he should do so, although I felt no great apprehensions for his safety, as I heard no firing in his direction, and I was well aware he would not give in without a desperate struggle. However, between eleven and twelve at night I heard him approaching—joyfully, I admit; for he and his men had been marching from three o’clock in the morning, and taking into consideration the previous day’s march, I then considered, and I now maintain, that these sixty men marched a greater distance than was ever traversed in the same number of hours by any infantry in the world. I was aware that unless they fell in with cattle they would have nothing to eat, and I had their dinners prepared; the active fellows had eaten nothing from the previous night. Captain Bailie reported to me that he had had various rencontres with parties of the enemy; that after dark he was closely invested, and several bold attempts were made to assagai his men in the very ranks.
Seeing the number of the enemy, their increasing hostility and daring, the difficulty of the road I had to retire by, being obliged to recross the Bashee by a path admitting of only one bullock at a time, it became necessary to make my arrangements with every skill and attention, lest the enemy should retake my capture, the abandonment of which would be contrary to the feelings of most of my party. Accordingly I made the soldiers cook at daylight, and went in among my doubtful troops—the new levies; for in my soldiers of the 72nd Regiment I had every confidence, as they deserved. I found my Hottentots, who are very sharp fellows, perfectly aware of the delicacy of our position, which, indeed, I did not attempt to conceal, as I wished to impress upon them that our safety and the getting away of the cattle depended on their silence and obedience and their never firing a shot without orders. They always called me “father.” An old spokesman now said to me in Dutch, “We will do all our father desires, if he will stay near us, and not go galloping about to have his throat cut; for if we lose him we are all lost.”
I sent Captain Ross over the river to establish himself on the opposite bank, and I placed parties in the river above and below the ford to keep the Kafirs from driving off the cattle, as they are very expert at this, and a few men could have effected it if once an opening had occurred.