tempt, and, accordingly, at daybreak on the 24th of December, Colonel Mackinnon left Fort Cox, with a force of nearly 600 men, of whom 321 belonged to the 6th and 73rd Regiments, 174 to the Cape Mounted Rifles, and 92 to the Caffre Police. With this strong column, Colonel Mackinnon took his way up the valley of the Kei

skamma.

The Keiskamma River forms in the lower part of its course, where it flows to the south-east, the present boundary between the colony proper and British Caffraria. But in the upper part of its course, the river, flowing to the south-west, passes through the centre of British Caffraria. For about 30 miles above Fort Cox, the rapid torrent winds through the rugged defiles of the Amatola Mountains, the stronghold of the Gaika Caffres. Along the bank of this stream Colonel Mackinnon pursued his march until he reached a narrow rocky gorge, where his men could only proceed in single file. It does not appear that he sent forward any reconnoitring party, but he seems to have had implicit confidence in the Caffre Police, who led the column.

When the Caffre Police and the Cape Mounted Rifles had passed through the gorge a deadly fire was opened by the Caffres upon the column of infantry, and it was with great difficulty that Colonel Mackinnon succeeded at last in extricating his troops from the defile, and in dislodging the Caffres. Before this was accomplished the force had suffered the serious loss of three officers and sixteen men killed and wounded. One corporal and nine privates of the 6th Regiment, and one corporal of the 73rd Regiment, were killed, and five

men of the 6th and two of the 73rd were wounded.

Colonel Mackinnon then pressed his march onwards for three miles to a missionary station, whence he dispatched a message to Sir Harry Smith, and next day he commenced his return to Fort Cox by a circuitous route.

The attack made by the Caffres in the Keiskamma defile was the signal for a general rising amongst the natives, and the wild and fierce Gaikas made an indiscriminate assault upon the settlers, whose houses they burnt, and they destroyed a great number of lives.

The situation of Sir Harry Smith was now most perilous. The hostile Caffres swarmed in thousands round Fort Cox, where he was hemmed in, and Colonel Somerset, who attempted to reach him from Fort Hare with a body of troops, was driven back on the 29th of December, after a severe contest with the savages. In his official report of the action Colonel Somerset said :

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"The troops continued retiring in admirable order, contesting every foot of ground with the enemy, whose numbers increased out of every valley, as we passed the successive heads of the various kloofs. The day was most oppressive. I was able to open the gun upon the enemy several times with good effect. After retiring about three miles, while holding a small vley on a hill, in firing a shot from the small gun, the trail unfortunately broke short off, which rendered the gun completely unserviceable. I had it brought on until, when passing a valley with rugged banks, the gun fell over, and could be no longer got forward. At this time we were attacked by a very superior force in a thorny

valley, the troops having a handto-hand encounter with the enemy. Here, I am sorry to say, several of our brave soldiers fell, including Lieutenant Melvin and Lieutenant and Adjutant Gordon, 91st Regiment. Ensign Bothwick, 91st, was wounded; also several men 91st and Cape Mounted Riflemen were wounded, and several troop horses; also Major Somerset's charger was wounded. Having forced themselves from this difficulty, the troops continued to retire in perfect order, when they were met by 100 men, most judiciously sent out in support by Major Forbes, 91st, whom I had left in command at Fort Hare.

"The heat of the weather was most oppressive; nothing could exceed the steadiness and gallantry of the troops throughout this most fatiguing and trying service through a most difficult country."

The war was now general throughout the Caffre district, and the Gaikas and other tribes abandoned their camps in Caffraria, and leaving the British forts in the rear, crossed the Keiskamma and Great Fish rivers, so as to establish themselves in the heart of our own colony, where they plundered the flocks and herds, and repelled with severe loss several detachments of troops which were sent against them.

It would be of little interest to give anything like a minute detail of the events in this miserable war, which was carried on by skirmishes and unconnected indecisive conflicts with bodies of Caffres, and in which the nature of the country rendered the savage fully a match for the disciplined soldier, so long as the former availed himself of the natural defences afforded by

rocks and bushes and difficult passes and defiles. It will be sufficient to notice some of the most prominent incidents.

Sir Harry Smith succeeded in escaping from Fort Cox at the head of a flying escort, and he reached King William's Town in safety, where he established his head quarters during the war, which lasted throughout the whole of this year.

On the 21st of January, a severe action was fought between 6000 Caffres who besieged Fort Hare, with its adjacent Fingo village of Alice, and the garrison of that outpost under Major Somerset. The Caffres came on in regular divisions of columns, and steadily braved a fire from two 24-pounders in the embrazures of the fort. The fire of these pieces of ordnance, however, broke and disorganized the attack. Profiting by the havoc and confusion they caused, the garrison sallied out, and, after a stubborn hand-to-hand conflict, compelled the Caffres to draw off. Upwards of 100 Caffres were left dead on the ground. The Fingoes, a native race, formerly held in bondage by the Caffres, from which they were delivered in the war of 1836 and brought within the colony, and who have ever since been friendly to the British against the aggressive Caffres, behaved with remarkable courage, and greatly contributed to the success.

The nature and extent of the ravages committed by the Caffres during this deplorable war will be best judged of by a perusal of the following extract from a letter written on the 24th of June from Graham's Town. The writer says

"During the month which has elapsed since the departure of the

last packet for England, the Tambookies have been committing fearful ravages in the Albert district. Sheep have been driven off by thousands, and valuable droves of cattle, and several hundred horses, have fallen into their hands. Twelve farm-houses, some of them extensive substantial premises, have been burnt by these incendiaries, and many valuable lives lost in the oft-repeated contests that have taken place between these savage despoilers and the distressed colonists. Accounts from the Class Smit's River say that the country in that fieldcountry is nightly lit up by the flaming homesteads of the refugee farmers. In this district no military posts are maintained, nor any organized force stationed, save a few native auxiliaries in flying camps. The defence of the district has therefore devolved upon the Boors themselves; who, assembled in laagers, or camps, see their position becoming hourly less tenable, and are making the most pathetic appeals for assistance; but with little hope of relief, as the Commander-in-Chief has not sufficient force at his disposal to detach any portion from the army in Caffreland. Consequently, many of the Dutch farmers are flying from the border to seek refuge in the more settled parts of the inner provinces, whence they had expected their countrymen would have gone to meet the enemy in the front. But this not being done, no alternative remained to those in exposed situations but to seek to save their lives by flight.

"These remarks apply alike to the Winterberg, Mancazana, Kaga, and other localities which border upon the districts of Cradock and Somerset; also to the Fort Beau

fort and Stockenstrom districts generally, and to Victoria; in all of which, combined bands of Caffres and rebel Hottentots, both mounted and on foot, in strong parties, roam the country as they list, and commit most appalling ravages, and have already perpetrated more murders upon Europeans than the total of those who fell in the war of 1846."

At the end of May an insurrection broke out amongst the Hottentots of the Theopolis Mission station in Lower Albany, near the sea-coast, and about 30 miles south-east of Graham's Town.

These Hottentots had been previously joined by some deserters of the Cape Corps, through whose counsel and assistance the insurrection was concerted and carried into effect. At daybreak on the morning of the 31st of May, the Hottentots suddenly fell upon several Fingoes, who resided at their station, and murdered them. They then loaded their waggons with their families and goods, and moved off towards the Bushman's River, sending, at the same time, to one of the Caffre chiefs to ask for assistance.

The news of this Hottentot insurrection caused the utmost excitement in Graham's Town, and throughout the neighbouring country. Major-General Somerset happened to be at the time in Graham's Town. The 74th Regiment, which had recently arrived in the colony, had reached Graham's Town on its way to Fort Hare only three days before. The Major-General at once ordered about 300 men of that regiment to proceed towards Lower Albany, in order to intercept the insurgents; he himself preparing to take the command of the force which was to surround

and crush them. The Graham's Town Mounted Rangers, however, pushed on before the infantry, and, being joined by some mounted Burghers from Lower Albany and Uitenhage, made an attack upon a party of the rebels, about 100 strong. A desperate conflict ensued; but the rebels were at length driven from the field into a neighbouring ravine, leaving their waggons and oxen, and seven of their number killed.

This action took place on the 3rd of June. On the 5th, early in the morning, Major-General Somerset, having assembled a force of about 600 men, proceeded to surround the stronghold in which the rebels had taken refuge. This was a covert inclosed by dense bush in a bend of the Kareiga River. The rebels were partially surrounded, but through some mistake or mismanagement they were allowed to escape at an unguarded outlet. They fled, leaving some waggons and about 600 cattle in the hands of the troops.

On the 19th of July, a number of the inhabitants of Graham's Town, who had formed themselves into a board of defence, presented a memorial to Sir Harry Smith, in which they said

"Within the last six weeks, the enemy has swept off from the district of Somerset alone upwards of 20,000 sheep, 3000 head of cattle, and 300 horses: since the commencement of the war 200 farm-houses on the north-eastern border have been reduced to ashes, and a large amount of bread corn and other property has been wantonly destroyed. While the frontier colonists have become prostrated by the harassing events of seven months' hostilities, the enemy has received within the present

week large accessions to his numbers by the desertion of Hottentot servants, who, up to this time, had remained faithful to their employers; and, being at the present moment in possession of more cattle than before the war, is not likely to be subdued by famine." From these causes, "the frontier is receding westwards; so that Burgher camps and laagers, which but a few weeks ago were regarded as occupying secure positions, are now mere outposts; and these too are, one by one, being abandoned, as too weak to resist the tide of invasion.

"The Burghers of the frontier have been quite unable to protect their own property, which has been already carried off to the extent of several thousand pounds; and, therefore, could not afford your Excellency that personal co-operation in the field which seemed so desirable, and which was so urgently prayed for. Even the population of Graham's Town, so reduced by contingents supplied for the field, for Government escorts of stores to outposts, and by the patrol duties of the Albany Rangers, the Farmer's Club, and Fingoes, is, in the absence of any garrison force, regarded by all as unequal to its own defence. The spontaneous and universal desertion of the Caffre servants was a serious misfortune to the border farmers; and being followed by the defection of the Hottentots, the property of their employers could not with safety be left to their sole care.”

Under these circumstances they earnestly entreated his Excellency to take the present helpless condition of the colony into his immediate consideration.

To this Sir Harry Smith made the following reply :

"King William's Town, July 22. Gentlemen,-Your memoir' of the 19th instant reached me yesterday.

"2. I have always thought that any regular force at my disposal, which could be given for the interior defence of the frontier would be inadequate for the purpose, although I ordered there every available reinforcement. My proclamations of the 25th of December and 3rd of February last, the general disregard of which has led to the misfortunes therein predicted, were issued such being my impression. Had the levy en masse which I called forth been readily afforded, affairs at this moment within the colony would not wear their present disastrous aspect from marauders. I am aware that there is now much difficulty in the farmers on the immediate frontier turning out, owing to the desertion of their servants; but this is not the case on what may be termed the second line; and I expect much from a 'commando' now in the field under Mr. Cole, the Civil Commissioner of Albert.

"3. It is indeed melancholy to observe the awful state of the country, on which you so truly comment. Major-General Somerset is now detached into the colony from the immediate frontier; and his Frontier Orders' of the 13th instant show that he is ably exerting himself to meet the evil.

"4. However much I admire the conduct of the Albany Rangers -and I have every reason to do so I cannot admit that the inhabitants of Graham's Town have done as much as might have been expected to contribute towards the general defence; and I ground

such an assertion upon their noble conduct in 1835.

"5. Your comments upon the defection of the Hottentots are most just. Lamentable is that defection, and equally unexpected by me as by yourselves. It has cramped my movements and protracted the duration of the war, which would otherwise ere this have been brought to a conclusion.

"6. I am but too well aware, gentlemen, of the helpless condition of very many of the inhabitants of the colony. No one can more regret it than myself; and I feel additional pain because I know that the greater part of the evils which have assailed them might have been averted. Had the Burghers at once turned out at the commencement of hostilities, we should not have now to deplore all that you so truly and lamentably describe. In 1849 I proposed to the colony an improvement and modification of the system called the 'commando system,' which it most unthinkingly opposed. Had the force contemplated by that improved system been at my disposal, the state of affairs would have been indeed far different from what it now is within the colonial border.

"7. The course I have pursued in British Caffraria is the correct one. Had I swerved from a perseverance in it, however awfully the marauding parties have recently carried on their depredations, there would then have been a general rush into the colony of the whole of the Caffre tribes. In war that must be attempted which carries with it a prospect of the greatest general benefit to the whole.

"S. I posted the division of the troops under Major-General So