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thinly, indeed, that the average distance from farm to farm throughout the whole Transvaal is nine English miles. Each family requiring a protector and bread-winner, it was clearly necessary that some force must be hired to keep the field whilst the farmers went back to their proper avocations.

A very great difficulty now started up. If the forts were built far from Secocoeni, he would enlarge his boundaries, and be all the harder to watch; if, on the other hand, they were built close to Secocoeni's town, the loss of human and animal life during the coming sickly season must prove enormous. A sort of compromise was effected. It was

settled that one fort, for which Africanders were to be recruited, was to be established on the comparatively healthy and open plateau west of the Lulu Mountains. A second was projected for the spot then occupied by the retreating army-viz., the confluence of the Speckboom and Steelport rivers, in the bushveld and fever country.

Von Schlieckmann volunteered, if properly supplied with "salted horses" and arms, to hold this most dangerous position. Rules were drawn up by which volunteers were bound to оссиру the forts, and do their utmost to prevent the enemy from picking, ploughing, or sowing. Government, on its side, was to find for them 100 horses: rifles, ammunition, saddles, food, and £5 per month per man, and give each of them a farm of 4000 acres on the close of the war. These farms the volunteers should occupy and defend, by themselves or by approved substitutes, for a period of five years.

A few men were got together on the spot, and the Steelport fort, afterwards called Fort Burgers, was commenced,a six-angled enclosure about thirty yards wide, having a ditch, drawbridge, parapet, and platform. This did not take long to build. From its easterly angles were run out two long curtain-walls, enclosing what is known as a "kraal" for cattle and horses. These curtain-walls were protected by the fire of the angles from whence they sprang. The kraal or cattle-enclosure had its own gateway and drawbridge. At the end of the kraal furthest from the angular fort was a sort of irregular redoubt, with a deep ditch and mud walls, defended by the thorns of the country laid along the para

SCENE IN KAFIRLAND.

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pet. The whole constituted the fort, which was situated on the edge of a flat overhanging a sharp bend of the Steelport, where this river, after flowing for miles between high mountains, turned and ran straight across the front of the position before bending again eastwards to its junction with the Speckboom.

For beauty the site could hardly be surpassed. West from the gate the view was splendid. In front over the river was a plain, dotted with mimosa and camel-thorn, here and there forming even a close bush. This plain was hemmed in by mountains--on the right by the spurs of the Lulu, and on the left by the towering height of Mount Morone, along the base of which the Steelport ran. The plain narrowed backwards between the ranges into a valley or poort, which, as it receded from the fort, presented a gloomy and sometimes even terrific aspect. This was the Steel Poort, or pass. Through it,-winding in and out amongst rocks, under fearful precipices, past wild and gorgeous hollows rank with semi-tropical vegetation, through heavy clumps of thorny bush, and over naked rocky ridges, —ran a small footpath that led slowly upwards into a fertile valley, over which frowned the stronghold1 of Umsoet, the most notorious and daring of the robber chiefs that fought for Secocoeni. To the north, and trending northwards twelve miles from the fort, spread the Lulu Mountains, a large portion of whose lower sides being clothed with bush presented a sombre aspect; but the upper portions of which, formed of crags and scarped walls of granite and porphyry, glittered grandly in the sun, affording in daylight a glorious and ever-changing spectacle, stretching out for miles to where the range ended abruptly near the Oliphants River.

Separated from this range by a sandy and thorny valley, down which ran the main road to the king's place, was Dwarsberg-a lofty mountain, presenting a vast buttress of red rock towards Fort Burgers. High on its rocky terraces eternally smoked the fires of the enemy's scouts, who, from their sheer elevation of 1700 feet, watched the fields and the fort below. To the east, vast piles of mountains cut the sky-line, ending far off in their parent mass, the 1 Magnet Heights.

Drakensberg. South and south-east the view was more limited, being closed by some rising grounds, bushy, thorny, and barren, over which lay the road to Kruger's Post and home. On every side the fort was cut off from supplies, save those that might find their way through the devious defiles and dangerous passes of Oliphant's Poort and Krum Kloof (crooked glen). Wherever one looked-on the flats or down the valleys-nothing but dark thorns, large and small, met the view; wherever one turned his eyes higher, frowning mountains, wooded kloofs, stony gorges, or brilliant-red precipitous rocks were to be seen in endless variety. And on these rocky points, and deep in those wooded glens, fires and smokes constantly told of the presence of a wandering and watchful foe.

The fort being commenced, the great Commando continued its march, and as it has no more concern with us, I shall follow it no farther. Von Schlieckmann started for the Gold Fields to recruit. There he found a certain hostile element, which, encouraged by the mistaken action of the English Government in giving belligerent rights to Secocoeni, and in recognising him as an independent sovereign, had now determined to prevent volunteers from the Fields joining the Republic. This was simply madness. The Gold Fields were in the Transvaal, and subject to Transvaal laws. A more stupid piece of impolicy can hardly be conceived than that which, for political spite or personal antipathy, would refuse assistance to order against barbarism. Newspaper articles were written, meetings held, and resolutions passed, deciding that any man daring to volunteer for the fort should never be permitted to return to the Gold Fields, much the same thing as if the French Huguenots, when first in England, resolved to cut off and expel from their society any refugee who might enter the British service; or as if the Germans resident in America during the civil war had resisted recruiting amongst them for Federal purposes.

In defiance of all this nonsense thirty-seven volunteers were mustered, and marched off to Fort Burgers, the road to which, as I have previously said, ran through desperate defiles and gloomy passes. At one of these places Mapethle,

HOW NEWS TRAVEL AMONG THE KAFIRS.

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one of Secocoeni's principal warriors, lay in wait for them. The path, after leading for a few miles over a bushy flat, skirting the vast mass of Mount Morone, was here suddenly obstructed by, and forced to wheel round, three lofty, rocky hills, also clothed in bush-spurs of the great mountain. The way narrowed to a width of a few feet, and passed so close under the rocks that stones could be thrown from them far over it. On the other side of the road spread an almost impenetrable jungle, as far as the Speckboom, about four miles off. At this nasty place an ambush was laid, but the volunteers, although they had never before been under fire, rapidly dispersed the enemy, driving them up the rocks and out of effective range in a few moments. The men reached the fort some hours afterwards-weary, but safe.

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In the meanwhile, Von Schlieckmann, remembering that he had friends on the Diamond Fields, wrote to the author to recruit a hundred men for him, and he at the same time sent an agent to pick up any Germans that might be found there. The Foreign Enlistment Act presented a few difficulties, but these were overcome by a little ingenuity, and a body of ninety men-very decent fellows-were soon got together at Christiana, the nearest town in the Transvaal to the British Territory of Griqualand West.

There a most extraordinary incident occurred, showing the wonderful speed and accuracy with which news 18 circulated amongst the Kafir races. On the 2d of October, Mr Best, the resident magistrate, was informed by Kafirs coming from the Harts River that, on the previous Friday, an attack had been made on Fort Burgers; that two great white chiefs had been killed, many cattle taken, and that the place was not only surrounded but in danger. This news was treated as an exaggerated rumour; but on the Saturday night following, the down mail from Pretoria brought tidings of its almost literal accuracy. An express had reached Pretoria-300 miles nearer to Steelport than we were-telling of an assault on Friday, September 29th, on Fort Burgers, in which Lieutenants Knapp and George Robus had been slain, and no less than forty-three head of cattle captured by a Kafir Commando under Umsoet. This express was ridden by Mr Thomas Crane, of the firm of

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Paul Henwood & Co., in the sharpest time on record. He rode with the despatches, on one horse, from Lydenberg to Pretoria-a distance of 180 miles' measurement-in twentyfour hours; but, through Kafir sources, the information had headed him and the mail by hundreds of miles. The story of the attack of the 29th and its repulse-for it was bravely repulsed by the little garrison—may be very properly given here in the order of dates.

From the fort to the foot of Morone stretches a sandy plain, dotted with trees, containing about 2500 acres. This, as it gets narrowed into the gorge between the river and the mountains, becomes broken, being intruded upon in every direction by foot-hills and water-courses. The fort cattle were grazing on this plain, just out of rifle-range, on the morning of the 29th, in charge of some Dutch volunteers. Suddenly sprang out from gully and kloof hundreds of swarthy warriors, who set to work, shouting and firing, whilst others drove the cattle up over the steep hills between the river and the mountain. The guard, surprised and outnumbered, fled at once. Reidel, a German artillery officer, who had been left in temporary charge of the garrison, at once ordered men in pursuit. He, however, it must be remarked, had a force of but thirty-seven in all. Of these a few misbehaved; but Knapp, Robus, Kuhneisen, and a so-called infantry officer, whose name in mercy I will not mention, with sixteen men, sallied out on foot. Their object was to intercept the cattle now being run off at a prodigious rate, and to secure the horses which had broken away from the Kafirs, and were stampeding about in all directions. After a run of a mile, Knapp, Robus, and Kuhneisen-Europeans found themselves amongst the enemy near the cattle, and involved in the broken water-worn foot-hills of the beginning of the pass; but on looking back, Knapp saw that he was no longer followed by the cautious infantry lieutenant, who had taken himself to safer ground instead of following the brave men who rushed so fiercely into danger. Undauntedly Knapp pushed on, fired at from all sides, his gaze fixed on the cattle-his whole demeanour, as the Kafirs afterwards described it, like that of a man possessed-his eyes glaring with fury and excitement. He was still closely

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