A mounted party was sent off to Post Retief, to order commissariat supplies to meet us at our halting place the following evening. The women and children taken prisoners were examined by the Interpreter, but no reliable information could be obtained, and they were set at liberty at dusk. The Fingoes, washing down at a little stream beyond the camp, slily watching their opportunity, ran after them hooting and hissing and pelting them as they ran. Having fed our own horses, and picketted them for the night, we rolled ourselves in our plaids, and with the saddles under our heads, were soon sound asleep.
At five o'clock next morning, in a thick fog, we buried the poor fellows killed the day before, digging their graves at the edge of the little clump of trees, a few yards from that of poor Norris; the service was read by the officer-of-the-day, and large wood fires were made over all the graves for the purpose of scaring away the wolves and jackals after we had gone, and of hiding the position from the Kaffirs. At seven o'clock we marched, the clouds still resting on the heights, cold and raw, and preventing our seeing more than the ground we walked on; after five miles they gradually dispersed, and we halted at the edge of a small detached belt of forest, and encamped under it, close to the ruins of a farm house, of which but a very small portion of the outer walls remained standing, having been destroyed by the Kaffirs nine months before, since which it had never been visited. We found the skeleton of its former owner, Mr. Eastland, who was barbarously murdered by Hermanus' Kaffirs, and some others residing with him on his own farm. They had surprised him in his house, and after some parleying through the closed door, got him outside and killed him on the spot; after stealing all they cared for, they set fire to the premises. We collected the remains of the unfortunate man, and carefully buried them in his own garden.
Some of the soldiers, who, as usual, after divesting themselves of their accoutrements, had gone into the bush for firewood, to our surprise came running out, saying it was full of Kaffirs. A party of us seized our arms, spread ourselves across it at one end (it was not more than 500 yards by 900), and having placed parties at each angle, advanced through the underwood. Three Kaffirs were killed, which proved to be the whole party, evidently spies, who had been cut off by our unexpectedly halting here,—the level open nature of the ground, extending for miles on every side of the isolated wood, preventing their making a retreat.
After having been several days without a possibility of changing or removing our clothes, we greatly enjoyed a wash in some muddy pools, in spite of the tepid waters and the quantities of immense bull frogs which we surprised basking on the slimy reedy banks.
On the morning of the 18th, after our customary simple toilet and breakfast, that is to say, after pulling on a dirty pair of boots, and swallowing a tin of thick coffee, the 2nd brigade marched for Beaufort, to bring commissariat supplies, descending the Blinkwater Pass.
At the commencement of the war a party of Winterberg settlers, returning to their mountain farms from Fort Beaufort, were attacked here by the Kaffirs; two of them were killed, and their heads cut off and sent to the witch-doctor, Umlangeni; and two were dangerously wounded, one in seven places, who escaped only by remaining till dusk immersed up to his chin in the river among the reeds. The Pass is a rough and almost impracticable waggon road, winding down the mountain side through thick forest.
A magnificent perpendicular krantz or precipice, on our right, of immense height, completely commanding the road below, was crowned by the 2nd and 6th and artillery, while two guns, guarded by a detachment of Cape Corps, cleared the way before us, throwing shell from the heights on our left down into the forest, in a nook of which, snugly embosomed, lay a Kaffir kraal, which, together with several scattered huts, the Fingoes set on fire as they scoured through the bush. This fertile valley, now totally deserted, was formerly the location of the Gaika chief, Hermanus, or Hermanus Matross, who, it will be recollected, was killed in his attack on Fort Beaufort.
The Kaffirs, who had on our approach fled from the kraal, stood watching us from a rock, from which they were quickly driven by a shell, thrown over our heads right amongst them. After our warm march we luxuriated in a bathe in the river, on the banks of which, and close to the ruins of an old military post, we had made our bivouac; and having washed our own shirts, and dried them on the hot rocks, felt more comfortable than we had done for many days.
Kaffir fires on the heights above Hermanus' Kloof and Fuller's Hoek smoked till dusk, when their ruddy light became visible, and blazed brightly all night.