Soon after the camp was pitched, a party of our cavalry, whose firing we had seen on the hills, came in with three hundred sheep and a few oxen and horses, (belonging to the owner of one of the ruined farms,) which they had retaken from the enemy, seven of whom they had killed, losing one man.
8th.—Parade at six, A.M.; bitterly cold, the ground white with hoar frost, and the water in our tents incrusted with ice; by nine o'clock it was warm to inconvenience, and, in the sun, scorching hot. We wandered, gun in hand, along the wooded banks of the river, where we put up several large monkeys and green and crimson parrots. An iguana was shot by Gordon, about three feet and a half long, just as it was wriggling down the bank to reach the water. Our patrols again returned from a successful pursuit after marauders, recapturing one hundred sheep and seventy head of cattle, with a loss of three on the side of the enemy.
In two or three days the scanty pasturage, what with the scorching sun and the hungry cattle, had become so miserable as to compel us to change our camp. Accordingly, on the 11th, we struck tents and moved further up the river, halting near a deserted station, or Post. Four empty roofless houses, and a chapel without doors, were all that remained of it. The former still contained some common broken furniture, which the men borrowed; and benches, tables, and arm chairs, were placed round the camp fires, forming the oddest scene imaginable. The Fingoes, in their ignorance, made a like use of the fittings of the chapel; the pulpit was found at one of their fires, converted, with the aid of a blanket or two, into a snug sort of kennel; it was, of course, immediately ordered back by the Commanding-officer, in double-quick time, together with the font, in which they were grinding coffee with a round stone.
For two or three days we remained in camp, and our time was occupied in parade and drills, the "extension motions" greatly amusing the Fingoes, who seemed to imagine that the squads of men, swinging their arms, and balancing themselves on one foot, were performing a solemn war dance.
Macomo was at this time reported to be in the neighbourhood with a large hostile force, and a party was sent out against him, before daylight on the 14th, consisting of five companies of the 74th Highlanders, a six-pounder howitzer, two hundred Cape Corps, and the Levies. The patrol was absent two days, and went through some hard work, having to drag the gun, by hand, up the steep and narrow Water-Kloof-Pass, and lift it bodily over large felled trees, placed across the path by the enemy. A number of Kaffirs were seen, and the artillery was brought to bear upon them; owing to the nature of the cover in which they took refuge, the effect could not be ascertained, though from the precision with which the shells were dropped, their loss must have been considerable. On our side the casualties were two men killed and one wounded, a couple of horses also being killed.
On the morning of their return I was sent with an escort of one hundred men to convey to Fort Beaufort a train of waggons, containing a quantity of spare arms and accoutrements to go into the ordnance store, with some slaughter oxen for the use of that garrison, and to bring back commissariat supplies for the camp. We were joined on the way, for the sake of protection, by a burgher fleeing from his farm, with his wife and family, and three thousand sheep. We soon neared the spot where, about a week ago, the wounded Kaffir had been left; two or three asvogels, or vultures, skimmed heavily along the ground from a black object, which proved to be his body, already half devoured.
On the approach of evening we halted on the open, drawing up the waggons in a circle, with their dissel-booms outwards. The fires were lighted in the inner space, and the sentries posted about fifty yards outside, with an outlying picquet of Fingoes, for the night was pitch dark, and the neighbourhood infested with Kaffirs, to whom our flocks and herds were a great temptation. Wrapped in a plaid, I sat by the fire contemplating the scene within our little encampment; on one side the soldiers chatted merrily and carelessly over their supper; on the other were the Fingoes, jabbering in their strange dialect; some cutting up lumps of meat with their sharp assegais, and others lying round the fires in wild groups; while the Hottentot drivers, and fore-loupers, sat under their own waggons smoking apart; the whole brightly illuminated by the blazing fires reflected from the circular wall of white covered waggons. One by one, the men dropped off to sleep, and I was soon left to my own thoughts, surrounded by motionless forms rolled in blankets.
On going the rounds at ten o'clock, I found the Fingoe Levies had very coolly left their posts, and were sleeping comfortably by the picquet fire among their comrades. Calling their sergeant, an immensely big fellow, he rushed to the fire, and kicked up the slumbering figures one after another, overhauling them without ceremony by arms and legs, sorting and turning them over like a creel of fish, shouting all the time at the top of his voice. Having found the delinquents, and awarded them "extra guards" as a punishment, with a threat of the jambok, or still more dreaded stoppage of rations, in case of further offence, we marched them back to their posts giving them to understand, that as they would be visited every half hour, it would be advisable to keep a good look out.
What with the angry and incessant barking of the dogs, the uninterrupted bleating of sheep, and the loud snoring of the oxen, all attempts to sleep were in vain. So I sat up, and squatting by the fire, amused myself with piling on fresh wood, wishing by the way, as the picture of old Horace occurred to me—
"Ligna super foco large reponens," &c.,