After the proferred "bidgte sopie," or wee dram of "Cape Smoke," which it would have been bad manners, if not bad taste, to have refused, we crossed the stream at the garden foot, and made our way to a second Laager, a mile further, where firing had also been heard; one of the Boers accompanying us as guide, and hailing the sentries in Dutch and Kaffir on our approach. Here they were more strongly fortified, a flanking block house and "covered way" rendering the defences complete. As at the last farm, we found all the people sitting up in a state of fear and excitement, the Boers and roers as before. Several Kaffirs had shortly before been seen hovering about; the dogs giving tongue in a manner not to be mistaken; but after making a circuit of the whole place, we found no one, and having shown ourselves sufficiently in case any of the enemy should be lurking about, we returned to the house. The people were delighted to have the troops with them in such an isolated position, and were very anxious that a part at any rate should remain all night; the "sopie" had again to be taken and no heeltaps; waiting till the setting moon dipped behind the hills, and all was once more in darkness, we silently moved off by a bridle path, and without a sound or a word regained the fort, so that any spies lurking about the Laagers could not possibly tell we were not still there.
For some days we made patrols in different directions round the country, constantly meeting with a magnificent pair of secretary birds, which appeared to move in a circle of about a mile radius from the post, and became like familiar friends. We visited the remaining two of the inhabited houses, the inmates of which we found in a state of barricade and constant alarm, guns loaded and capped standing in the corners of the rooms, and the labourers working close to the house with their roers by their sides; and one day made an excursion with a waggon to a ruined school-house, in a lonely position at the foot of a lofty mountain, from which we took the liberty of borrowing the forms and tables for our unfurnished lodgings in the Fort. Nothing could be more desolate and melancholy than the deserted building; the doors creaked in the wind, swallows and grey spreuwe had built their nests in every corner of the schoolroom, forlorn spelling books and catechisms lay strewed about the ground, imprinted with the footsteps of wolves and jackals, and the broken windows were darkened by a rank growth of jungle and weeds.
One day soon after this, as we were returning from covering the descent of a mounted patrol into the Kat River valley, getting occasional shots as we wound along a Kaffir path, round a higher ridge of the Didama, at Oribee and Rheebok, two Kaffirs were detected peeping over the tops of some detached rocks, which lay on the smooth green slope of the mountain side; we galloped in a few seconds across the short intervening space, but quick as we were they had disappeared in the most mysterious manner, and nothing was to be seen of them beyond a few foot-prints, which could not be traced, and three horses, of which we made prizes. While wondering whether they had sunk into the earth or vanished in air, several distant shots fired in quick succession, attracted our attention to a hill about a mile off, behind the fort, and on bringing our glasses to bear on the distant puffs of white smoke, we were astonished to perceive a large body of Kaffirs, mounted and on foot, engaged with our outlying picquet, and a few Burghers. Away we went full "tripple" down the mountain side, at the risk of rolling head over heels to the bottom, dashed across the small stream at a flying leap, and spurred up the steep banks to the post, where we found the "alarm" signal flag flying, the gates locked, and the troops under arms. While Bruce brought on the infantry at the double, Hedley and I galloped up the hill and joined the Burghers, who, vastly outnumbered, were getting the worst of it, and retiring slowly before the enemy, who could not have been less than 300 at the very lowest computation, a third of them mounted. About 200 of their force pressed on the right of our little line of some two and twenty, while the remainder hovered round the left, and our only wonder at the moment was that they did not close upon us and annihilate the whole, which they might soon have done; but the Kaffir has a particular dislike to open plains and hand to hand fighting; this, and the bold determined bearing of the burghers, alone preserved us. Still it was impossible to hold our ground against such odds; we were being gradually driven back by their heavy fire, and our right flank was on the point of being turned by a fresh body of the enemy, who suddenly made their appearance from the krantz below, and rushed yelling onwards, till the party of infantry appeared over the rise, when they were seized with a panic, and took to flight, the whole of the force following their example, while we on horseback pursued them at full gallop, firing into them at close quarters, and driving them over the edge of the krantz down into the Koonap valley, killing and wounding many. As they scampered down the steep rocks at our feet, crossed the little basin, and clambered up the opposite rise, dodging among the mimosas, to get a parting shot, we brought down many of them, counting above a dozen as they were carried off, dead or severely wounded, thrown across the backs of their horses or their comrades' shoulders. The chief, Macomo, who was distinctly visible on his white horse, high up on the mountain side, with a sort of staff round him, shouted constantly to his people, sending mounted Kaffirs to communicate his orders to those fighting; but when he saw his men flying he moved higher up, his white charger grew smaller and his voice more indistinct, until he was lost to sight. Our only casualties were a dog killed, and a horse wounded.
It afterwards turned out that while we were thus engaged, a smaller party of Kaffirs had taken advantage of the opportunity and driven off a span of trek oxen, grazing at some little distance down the valley. By the time we had returned and discovered the fact it was too late to think of following them.
We found occupation and amusement for some time in surveying and making maps of the country; improving our defences, removing detached rocks, filling up the small quarries, of which the enemy had taken such advantage during the siege, and building a flanking bastion, enfilading the two unprotected faces of the fort.
For some weeks we had constant thunder and lightning every evening, at times most terrific, at others distant, when the sheet lightning was magnificent, continuing till eclipsed by daybreak; and we sat every night on the stoep or raised verandah, in front of our quarters, watching the dazzling coruscations, which flashed and flickered each moment over the whole face of the dark sky, showing for an instant the lofty rugged grey peak of the Didama, the sentries on the wall, and every loop-hole—leaving all in utter darkness next. On one such night a brighter flash discovered to one of the sentries the creeping black forms of two or three Kaffirs, making for the cattle kraal, a few yards only from the walls. Without firing, as at the best he could only have hit one, the sentinel quietly left the banquette, and reported it to the Sergeant of the guard. We were on the stoep, enjoying the deliciously cool midnight air after a blazing midsummer day, and instantly snatching our rifles from the pegs in the passage, joined the guard, and having quickly got about a score of fellows out of bed, posted two or three at each loop-hole, with their muskets, which had a most absurd effect as the lightning showed them standing round the walls in their shirts, with bare legs, in solemn silence. These arrangements having been made in less time than it takes to describe them, by a bright flash we fired a volley at three Kaffirs whom we saw at the kraal, when half a dozen more jumped up from different spots, and by the flickering blue light we saw them move across, and a volley blazed the whole length of the wall, doubtless to their great astonishment, as all had been still as death till that instant. From the quantity of blood spoor found next morning, many must have been severely wounded, if not killed.
Immediately below the fort was a glorious orchard, full of peach, nectarine, apricot, fig, plum, and pomegranate trees, the branches literally weighed down with the glowing load of ripe fruit, which almost as thickly strewed the grass beneath. In our constant patrols, at every Dutch Laager and ruined farm that we came upon for miles round, we found the same; and as the Boers at the former were most pressing, and the owners of the latter had abandoned them, we everywhere got as much fruit as we could conveniently eat, and the men were, many of them, expiating their over indulgence by diarrhœa. The ripe fields of corn, sown in hopes of a peaceful harvest, waved uncut in many of the more distant valleys, but nearer to the post, the English Burghers and Dutch Boers mutually assisted in the harvest, working with their ammunition pouches on, and guns and arms within reach. To aid these half-ruined farmers, Bruce allowed about twenty of the soldiers to assist in reaping until all was secured, and our men worked most willingly all day in the heat of the sun, afterwards volunteering to help a poor old fellow who, unable to give his labour in return, was not helped by his neighbours; reaping and getting in his corn for him, as well as the produce of his little garden. Poor old Hayes had seen better and brighter times, had come out to the country with considerable means, and commenced farming with great energy on a large scale, but he had met with a series of reverses, and the total destruction of his property by the Kaffirs, at the commencement of the present war, which completed his ruin, had affected his mind. He lived at the foot of the walls in a small Kaffir hut; but in spite of his rags and poverty, he carefully treasured up a memento of bygone prosperous days,—in a small box he still preserved his old scarlet hunting-coat. Too proud to the last to accept charity, the only way in which we could relieve him was by purchasing our vegetables from him at a liberal price. Shortly after this, his hut one night caught fire and was burned to the ground before any water could be got; he looked on in utter helplessness, as if overwhelmed by this crowning disaster. When the roaring blaze was over, and nothing remained but a heap of smouldering ashes, he was gone, and we all supposed had been taken by some of his neighbours to their dwellings for the night. In the morning he was found in his little garden, lying on his face, cold and dead.
To a Peace Congress, or an Aborigines Protection Society, such a history would suggest itself as a special retributive Providence on the unjust aggressor; for to such philanthropists the real object of sympathy would of course be the gentle Kaffir and the oppressed Hottentot. Still, it is unhappily but one out of many a colonist's history, not the less sad because unknown.
Many of the Burghers, who from the scarcity of forage could not any longer feed their extra horses, brought them to us, offering the use of them for their keep; and Bruce happily conceived the idea of mounting as many of his men as he could thus procure horses for, and in a very short time had at his disposal a party of most serviceable mounted men, an invaluable assistance in our position in this open country.
The scenery from and around the post was of a character totally different from anything we had before seen in the country. In place of the endless bush and wooded kloofs and hills were smooth grassy plains, and mountains verdant to their broken summits. The Didama, in front of the fort, rose abruptly to a vast height, crowned by a sharp-pointed peak of most rugged and fantastic form; on the left stretched the flat-topped range of the Winterberg, on which, from our verandah, ostriches and hartebeest were occasionally seen with the glass; and bounding its western extremity rose the lofty and remarkable "Great Winterberg" (seen from all points, and equally visible at Botha's Hill, near Graham's Town), white with snow, which glistened in changing hues of rose in the setting sun.