On their arrival the whole party returned to the scene of disaster, and scoured through the bush on both sides the road, but the rebels had decamped with all they could carry off, including ammunition and Minié Rifles, which, however, had fortunately been rendered useless by the precaution of removing the nipples. Among the badly wounded was the wife of one of the soldiers who had been killed; she died during the night at the ruins, leaving three orphan children behind her, for whom a subscription was got up on the spot by the officers at the Fort. Many of the enemy, who were principally rebel Hottentots, had been killed in the skirmish.
After a long, hot, and dusty canter with the post-riders, through the Ecca valley, I off-saddled, by a train of waggons outspanned on the green flats of Botha's Hill, to give my horse a roll, as he had now carried me nearly ninety miles, with only a short time for baiting at three places. The moment a Cape horse is off-saddled he rolls himself on the ground,—mud, rock, sand, or grass all alike; kicks up his heels in the air, rubs his neck and face on the earth, more like a dog than a horse; and after a shake is ready for the road again, and as fresh as if he had had a feed of corn. Whilst my steed thus enjoyed himself and nibbled the short burnt up grass, I squatted under the friendly shade of a waggon, joining a hospitable old Boer at his meal of biltong and brown bread, and then jogged leisurely along for the next six miles over the open plain to Graham's Town.
After the quiet and solitude of Post Retief, the streets and stores of the town looked wonderfully gay and bustling. An amusing scene occurred at the hotel, where a large party of officers, whom various duties had called in from the field, were dining together. Among the party was a civilian, a Mr. C—r, just out from England as a volunteer, who, it appeared, had accompanied Captain Moody's ill-fated escort, with the intention of seeing service on the Frontier. In the attack at the Koonap Hill, he had escaped through the bush, and wisely secreted himself in the chimney of the deserted house, but notwithstanding this judicious precaution, narrowly escaped being shot as a Kaffir, when, begrimed with soot, he ventured down from his hiding-place, on the arrival of the detachment from Fort Brown.
This story, humorously related by Major H——, with sundry embellishments, in happy ignorance that the hero of the tale was one of the audience, in fact his vis-à-vis, convulsed the whole table with laughter, which he naturally attributed to his own facetiousness; when, on winding up with an announcement that "the gallant volunteer had returned to Graham's Town, having had enough of it," the identical individual announced himself, sending us into a perfect roar at the sudden change in the face of the Major, who, however, quietly requested that he might not be called out, as he should infallibly take to the flue.
While here, I rode out with a party of officers of the Garrison to visit my brother, who was with a small detachment of the regiment at Niemand's Kraal, a deserted farm, nine miles off. The house, which was little more than a shell, stood alone in a hot sandy little valley, surrounded by bush-covered hills, abounding in game of all kinds. Half a dozen tents were pitched round the walls, which had been loop-holed for musketry. The lower rooms, the windows barricaded with stones, were occupied by the men, and the two upper ones by the officers; the rough walls hung with arms and accoutrements. We luncheoned on wild boar steaks, and returned to Graham's Town.
Two days afterwards Graham's Town was enlivened by a novel reinforcement for the Frontier. Mr. Lakeman, a gentleman whose love of military enterprise had carried him through the Hungarian and Algerian wars; and who had just brought out from England, at his own expense, Minié Rifles, clothing and accoutrements for 250 men, arrived with such volunteers as he had been able to raise in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. They were a most extraordinary contingent; all equipped in leathern helmets, and with "crackers" and frock-coats of the same stuff; many of them dare-devil fellows ready for anything, and all admirably cut out for bush work.
A cavalry escort was leaving with two mule waggons, conveying specie to the Frontier for the payment of the troops, so I took advantage of the opportunity to return with them, as did several others—Major Somerset, Captain Dundas, Assistant-Commissary-General Sale, Lady A. Russell (on her way to join her husband at Beaufort), and Mrs. Sale. At the entrance of the Ecca valley we met a company of the 74th, sent to cover our passage. When we had got half-way through, and near the most dangerous part of the road, the axle tree of the ladies' waggon broke down, from the jolting and bumping over the rocks, so that we were obliged to abandon it. The contents were with difficulty packed in the remaining waggons, already well filled, and consequently the ladies were obliged to walk under a hot burning sun; the dust, which was several inches deep, rising in stifling clouds at every step; but they trudged on with the greatest spirit, and at night, outside the walls of Fort Brown, roughed it in a little wattle and daub cottage, mud-floored, and with holes in the thatch big enough to enable them to see how night rolled on in the heavens, and to hear more plainly the serenading of the jackals and hyænas.
As we approached the scene of the late attack on the Koonap hill, the mules became so alarmed and restive, that they could not be got past the place till the dead horses and oxen had been removed, and thrown down the ravine; and even then it was not without the greatest difficulty that both they and many of the horses, which trembled and snorted violently, were induced to go forward.
It may be as well to mention here that a great part of the lost Minié rifles and ammunition were recaptured by Maj.-Gen. Yorke a few days after the attack on the waggons, and others subsequently by Colonel Napier, and though the latter were fitted with nipples, made by a deserter from the Cape Corps, they had been of little or no service to the Rebels, for, not understanding conical bullets, they had put them into the barrel point downwards, as made up in the cartridge, the natural consequence of which was that they did not carry more than half the range of an old musket.
On the evening of the 25th, after a journey such as few of the gentler sex would attempt, the ladies arrived in safety at Fort Beaufort, and by the evening following, I was once more ensconced in our solitary little fort in the mountains.