After an eight miles march the sun became exceedingly hot as we descended slightly towards the Stormberg Spruit, a tributary of the Orange River; by the time we got to our halt, in a wild bare spot, called Sanna Spruits, close to a chaotic assemblage of singularly fantastic rocks, we were very glad to get under the friendly shade of their overhanging masses. They were completely overrun with the 'dossies,' supposed, by the way, to be the 'coney' of Scripture, and on the highest point were a number of beautiful blue ibis. We shot several at first, but afterwards they kept far out of range, circling round and round in the air, at a great height. The Boers call them "wild turkeys," from the curious red head, which is quite bare and hard, and looks just like sealing wax. The bird is about the size of a large game-cock, with a long curved red beak and legs of the same colour, the general plumage of an iridescent green and purplish blue, with brown wing coverts. Having got into camp much earlier than usual, we were enabled to make soup and wash our shirts. About the middle of the day following, we fell in with horns of hartebeest and springbok here and there by the wayside, and a few hours later, saw a small herd of each scudding across the plain a couple of miles off. The heat became intense, we were choked and blinded by clouds of fine sand, and after a long and weary march, came to a halt in a barren scorching karroo at the foot of a rugged hill. The silence and absence of life were most oppressive.
On the 22nd, after eleven days march we reached Burghersdorp, where we could see, long before we came up, the tents of Lieut.-Colonel Eyre's column, which was encamped about half a mile from the town. After pitching the tents, our men were soon scattered far and wide over the plain, gathering dung. The cavalry marched in next morning.
Though within ten minutes' walk of the town, no one would have guessed its proximity, as it was built in a gorge between two hills, the bare plain immediately around presenting no more signs of life than the deserts we had just passed through. Built within the last three years, the little town boasts of several large and capital stores, two inns, and a large thatched Dutch church, with pea-green doors and window frames. The stores, in which everything one could think of was to be bought, saddlery, groceries, ironmongery; Gunter's preserves, Dutch cheeses, Crosse and Blackwell's pickles; clocks, roers, ploughs, rifles, crockery, stationery, wines, spirits, Bass's pale ale; fiddles, mirrors, pots, pans, and kettles; ostrich feathers, cases of gin, tobacco, and ten thousand things besides, were filled all day long with a crowd of officers of all arms and corps with leather-patched uniform, mahogany-coloured faces, and long beards, trying on boots, buying preserved meats, and stuffing their pockets with bundles of cheroots, boxes of lucifer matches, and pots of cold cream to anoint their sun-blistered noses. Then there were Dutchmen, in purple trowsers, saluting each other in the politest manner possible, lifting the craped hat with the left hand and shaking the proffered fist with the other, discussing politics and cattle, their vrouws and daughters busy purchasing dresses or household supplies; while Bushmen and Griquas elbowed their way in and out for bottles of Hollands.
As the only chance of getting fresh vegetables was to eat them at the inns, they were filled with officers, devouring green food like so many herbivora, making up for the past and laying in for the future.
The camp was besieged all day long by visitors; rough Boers, with strings of colts for sale; townspeople on foot; and respectably dressed, well-mounted Dutchmen, with very pretty girls in pink or sky-blue riding habits, who rode up and down the lines, stared unceremoniously into the tents, and when the 'warning,' 'dinner pipes' or 'assembly' were played, flocked round the unfortunate "Piper of the day" with as much astonishment as if he had just dropped from the moon, drawling out the constant exclamation "Allamachtig! Allamachtig!" We were all struck with the great respect shown by the young Dutchmen and boys to their seniors, lifting off their hats whenever addressed by them.
A party of officers went out shooting a few miles from the camp, and fell in with some herds of game, my brother and Captain Knox, 73rd, each bowling over a springbok; and Gawler, 73rd, bringing back a fine blesbok behind his saddle. We were now in the height of summer; the sun was most overpowering. The sandy plain danced in the hot air like the top of a kiln; inside our tents, though covered with blankets, the heat was insupportable; and without there was not a tree or a rock to be seen that could shelter us from the scorching rays. To add to our discomfort, the place was overrun with tarantulas, or, as the men insisted on calling them, "triantelopes," and scorpions, which we constantly found in the tents, and occasionally in our bedding or boots. Two puff adders were killed, which the men had found under their blankets in the morning.
On the 27th, his Excellency, the Governor-General, arrived with his Staff and escort, all the Dutch in the place going out to meet him a mile from the town, and firing a feu-de-joie. As nothing gives a Boer greater pleasure than firing off his roer with as heavy a charge as it will carry, it was kept up a long time, in a very independent manner, and in all parts of the town at once. His Excellency afterwards rode down our ranks.
The camp being pitched in line, was more than a mile long, and it was quite a walk from our tents on the extreme left to those of the Artillery on the right flank. In the close and sultry evenings, when sauntering up and down the long street of illuminated canvas, it was amusing to see the attitudes and employments of the different inmates of the wide open tents; here a solitary individual, in shirt sleeves, his candle stuck in an empty bottle, writing on the top of a box; there a quiet party playing a rubber; in the next a couple of Subalterns, joint occupants, stretched on their rough beds, reading the last Grahams Town Journal, or the soiled and crumpled fragment of an old English newspaper; in some, orderly-officers, cap and sword on the table, snatching a few moments' broken slumber; dinner parties in others, and loungers everywhere, from whose tents issued wreaths of smoke and sounds of merry voices. Turning into another street, one saw knots of Sergeants squatted cross-legged, writing "orders," from the dictation of the Sergeant-Major, and Adjutants scribbling away among busy clerks; while sentries paced in front of quiet, solemn looking marquees, the abodes of Colonels, Quarter-Masters-General and other "big wigs." Further on were tents full of tailors and shoemakers, repairing the wear and tear of former marches and preparing against others to come; commissariat contractors weighing and issuing forage and rations; and farriers shoeing horses by candlelight. Outside the lines, round a hundred smouldering fires, where the men collected, not for warmth, but to light their pipes, were endless parties of soldiers of all corps and uniforms; then long lines of horses, and neatly ranged saddles; and beyond all, the guard tents and sentries, with a perfect village of waggons.
At "tattoo" a sudden stir runs through the camp; picquets are inspected and reports collected by orderly-officers, who have mysterious interviews in the marquees; the trumpets and bugles ring out the "last post;" and the Pipers play "Farewell to Lochaber," recalling many a distant and very different scene; the fires are deserted; the different parties break up and disperse; in ten minutes more the bugles sound "lights out," and the men's tents shine white and cold in the pale moonlight.
All the time we were at Burghersdorp we had constant sand-storms, filling the air with a red cloud, and colouring everything inside our carefully closed tents with the same rusty hue as outside. With the westerly wind came a wonderful flight of locusts, passing over for hours and literally darkening the air.