Further down the valley a bosch-buck and a wild boar fell to my rifle; the latter was a splendid fellow, with an enormous head; he must have been at least five feet and a half in length, and two feet and a half high, and had besides his two immense tusks, a singular bony protuberance on each cheek. The Fingoes cut him up in a very few minutes, and resumed their march, each with a joint or lump of meat over his shoulder, spitted on his gun. This valley is said to be a favourite resort of the boar, on account of the immense quantities of the strelitzia regina, on the roots of which it feeds; we observed many newly grubbed up; the bush glowed with its handsome red flowers. On outspanning to feed the oxen, a body of Kaffirs showed themselves, and hovered round the cattle with a pretty evident intention of making a sweep of them; but perceiving we were on the alert, thought better of it, and took themselves off.
The waggon drivers, who are the most insolent and disagreeable men in the world to have anything to do with, having refused to obey the order "to inspan," the Fingoes were sent to bring in their oxen, and two of the most refractory drivers being dismissed on the spot, from the Government service, the rest inspanned at once, and by the afternoon we entered Graham's Town.
Here we were detained three days, when we set out on our return with a six pounder gun-carriage and limber, and a large train of waggons laden with biscuit, rice, coffee, salt, tobacco, and all sorts of supplies for the troops on the Frontier. Another of the English drivers proving refractory and grossly insolent, was hand-cuffed with a rheim, and marched a prisoner between a couple of Fingoes, passing the next three nights in the cells at the military posts on the road, a piece of martial law which had a most salutary effect on the rest of these independent gentlemen.
On our last day's march, just as evening was drawing in, we came upon the fresh spoor of a body of Kaffirs, not ten minutes old, the print of the bare feet being quite sharp in the fine dust. Its direction was across the track towards a patch of bush commanding the road. The waggons closed quickly up, the men examined their locks, flank patrols of Fingoes were thrown out in advance, and all were on the qui vive; but the enemy, who delight only in surprises, did not show, and the camp at Reit Fontein was reached without adventure. Once more patrols were our occupation by day, and forelaying parties, or ambuscades, by night; marauding rebels were constantly fallen in with, and killed, and cattle and horses recaptured.
General Somerset, with a detachment of the 74th and Cape Corps which had accompanied him into the distric of Albany, was at this time actively engaged in following up the enemy in the direction of Riebeck, Hell-Poort, and the Zuurberg hills, and on the 30th of August attacked a considerable body of them on New-year River, where they had taken up a strong position in a very difficult and rugged kloof, dislodging and dispersing them with great loss, besides recapturing 160 head of stolen cattle and some horses.
Two days after this affair the 2nd Queen's regiment, just arrived in the country, under Lieut.-Col. Burns, had a sharp brush with Botman's and Seyolo's people in the Fish River bush, with several casualties on both sides.
The Kaffirs in our neighbourhood having become, during the General's absence in Albany, unusually bold and troublesome, stealing cattle, murdering and destroying on every side, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce, 74th Highlanders, then commanding the field force in the General's absence, determined to check their daring conduct by attacking them at once with his whole available force in their expected position on the Western Kroome range. We marched from our camp a little before sunset on the evening of September 7th, so as to reach the top of the hill under which we were encamped, just at dark, and thereby prevent our movement being observed by the enemy's scouts. After marching about seven miles in the dark across a level plain, myriads of fire-flies flitting along the ground, we halted at the ruins of a farm, on the Klu-Klu River, belonging to a Mr. Gilbert, whose narrow and extraordinary escape a few months before from the hands of the Kaffirs deserves mention. He was riding with two others from Graham's Town to Fort Hare, when they were waylaid; his companions escaped, but his own horse being shot he crept into the bush, successfully evading the search of the Kaffirs, who passed and re-passed his place of concealment, and at last sat down to smoke within a few yards of his hiding-place, their dogs all the while snuffing about. When at length they moved away, he took off his boots to prevent the snapping of rotten sticks betraying him, and listening at every painful step, worked his way through the thorny bush, and with his feet dreadfully lacerated eventually reached Fort Hare, where he had been given up as dead.
The ruined house was reconnoitred, and we were told to lie down and take what rest we could till midnight, to be ready to turn out at a moment's notice. The horses were picketed to the broken fence of a grass-grown pleasure-garden, and the men lay down by companies in the farm-yard, with their arms piled in front of each rank. As fires were forbidden, we groped about in the dark among the fallen ruins, and made the best resting-places we could on the heaps of broken slates and brick-ends covering the floors of the blackened chambers, to which the starry sky served as roof. At midnight we were joined by Lieut.-Col. Sutton and a party of Cape Corps and mounted Levies from Fort Beaufort, making up our force to 550 infantry and 103 mounted men.
At two in the morning we marched out of the melancholy desolate place across the open for about seven miles, toward the position supposed to be occupied by the enemy, and reached it just at daybreak, when we discovered that the Kaffirs had abandoned it, and that the large fires reported in this direction had only been burning grass. After a short halt, while this reconnaissance was being made, and during which we felt the cold most intensely, the whole column was counter-marched, and proceeded in an easterly direction along the foot of the mountain range for about three hours, when a halt was made for breakfast at Blakeways, a deserted farm, beautifully situated in a warm sheltered glen, finely wooded, through which the Wolf River wound its way. Numbers of boschbok, disturbed by our approach, were seen scudding across the open flat. While at breakfast an alarm was given that a large body of Kaffirs was descending the hill in our direction; but they proved to be a part of the Fort Beaufort Fingoe Levy taking a short cut to join us. The long dry grass among which we were halted caught fire, and burned so rapidly as to threaten to surround the column, roaring and crackling on every side; and we had to decamp in a hurry to avoid being blown up or shot by the fire reaching the men's ammunition or muskets. Here it was ascertained that the greater part of the enemy were in the Waterkloof, Blinkwater, and Fuller's Hoek, and therefore, as it was out of the question to attempt openly attacking those strongholds with our inadequate force, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce determined on gaining the top of the Kroome Heights at this boundary of the range, and, bivouacking there till dark, make a descent by night, on whichever point might prove advisable.
At once, therefore, we began to ascend the steep face of the mountain, the heat of the sun most intense, not a breath of air stirring, and after two hours' stiff climbing, reached the edge of a forest spreading up the higher ranges. Its shade was most refreshing. From this point we were obliged to proceed in single file, as the steep and difficult path became so narrow; leading along a sharp crest like the ridge of a roof, on each side of which was a wooded precipice, the base of which was lost to sight in the deep ravines beneath. On reaching the summit of the mountain a fine view lay spread before us, the tops of the forest trees below looking like small bushes. Through an opening in the mountain tops we caught a peep of the distant sunny plain, with the white houses of Fort Beaufort and the winding Kat River. Our own position was a lofty table-land, clothed with grass and surrounded by bush, the edges of the forest running up from the valleys below. On one side was the Waterkloof, on the other the head of the Fuller's Hoek, from which we were separated by a broad belt of forest stretching right across the mountain-top. A single path led through it, difficult and narrow; and its entrance was guarded by a number of Kaffirs, who appeared to be waiting our advance. But this was not our intention, for at mid-day we were halted in a little hollow, through which ran a small stream; and here our march was to be suspended till dark.