where, lying four yards apart, in a sort of hollow square, they passed the night; alternate men being kept awake in spells of two hours. Had the enemy scented the broken waggon and tried to loot it, half a hundred of them must have been shot before they could have broached cargo. In the morning, no alarm having occurred, the broken waggon's freight was transferred to the others, and with a lessened train we pursued our course.

From this place to the fort is only sixteen miles, yet we had to travel all through the day and the whole of the next night to reach it, in consequence of the hilly and broken nature of the road past the three kopjies (little hills) before mentioned, and round the base of Mount Morone. On reaching, at sunrise, the slopes above our home, the guns saluted the new company. The journey was at length happily concluded, amidst the rejoicing of those we had come to relieve.

At 2 P.M. I was called to tiffin, where I met James Edward Ashton, acting surgeon to the force, and the other officers, the principal of whom was the lieutenant before alluded to as a failure. He had very martial moustaches, and was apparently clever and well bred. Of the surgeon I cannot speak too highly. He was the most amiable little fellow imaginable, from somewhere near Warrington in Lancashire. Everybody loved him, and deservedly so, for his attention to his sick, as well as his bearing in action, were alike admirable. He was, moreover, a combatant officer, and in the field did duty as an extra aide-de-camp, until some poor fellow with a bullet in his body wanted his services. After tiffin the captain ordered me to fall in the men in silence at 10 P.M.; cavalry to stand to their horses, all duly armed and equipped.

I then went on the rampart to view the country. Two columns of smoke-one from a point high on the Red Krantz of Dwarsberg to the north, and one west of the fort between Mount Morone and the river attracted my attention. I was told these came from the enemy's fires; and it was perfectly true. At the fire on the hill by the river, the forms of Kafirs could be perceived by the aid of the glass; the other lot were too far off for me to distinguish them, even in that splendid translucent atmosphere. The reason of their

A NIGHT EXPEDITION.

55

being allowed so near was simply because Captain Reidel was on leave, and the other artillerists were not up to much. With me, from Pretoria, was a Captain von Spandau, of the Royal Dutch Artillery, who came up for a commission with the highest possible testimonials from his honour the President. He was asked to try his hand with the Krupp, and, assisted by Bombardier Atkinson, an English midshipman who had served in the Euryalus, he soon got a gun out and pointed. They made the range 4800 yards, and at the first shot the shell was plumped on the fire, scattering it in all directions. We never again saw enemy's smoke within three miles of the fort.

At 10 P.M. the men were got under arms, were inspected, and turned in again; but Von Schlieckmann told me to turn out without lights, bugle, or noise of any kind, at 2 A.м. He had information that a large number of cattle were in a kloof seven miles down the valley; and he meant to surprise the village, and take all the beasts he could get. He did not expect serious resistance; the enemy would be surprised. He told me later on, to keep thirty-eight men for garrison, and give him all the cavalry that could be spared. The information on which he was acting he had received from Kameel, whom he had pardoned for some past offences, and meant to use as guide. Punctually to the hour appointed, the men for the expedition formed outside on the paradeground. No light was seen or sound heard. The roll was called in whispers, and all were ready, when, with a dreadful scream, a man fell forward on his face in an epileptic fit. This was afterwards looked on as an evil omen. Ashton came

into the fort with the sick man, and the troops vanished into the bushes. Although the night was still, and the river within a hundred yards, the sentries on post never heard the expedition crossing the river. This I mention as an example of the silence that must attend night movements in Kafirland. Not a chain must jingle, or a word be heard; and a man who would so far forget himself as to light a match or speak should be fearfully punished. When the expedition was well gone, and the fort drawbridges up, Ashton demanded to be let out. He had been in with the sick man, and must now rejoin Von Schlieckmann. No per

suasion would induce him to stay. He fairly leaped his horse over the sally-port ditch, and rode after his doomed. friend. The rest of the night passed off quietly. I remained for hours on the rampart; but morning broke, and the world waked up without sound or sight of conflict, or its African accompaniment-conflagration-being detected.

At half-past ten I was asleep, and was awoke to be informed that three horsemen were riding furiously towards the fort. The gate was ordered to be opened, and in a few minutes Otto von Steitencron, with Kuhneisen and another orderly, came in with the sad news that Von Schlieckmann and six men were shot, and the whole force scattered—part being mewed up with the wounded at some water near the mouth of Mahera's Kloof; that the captain had called for me, and they had ridden in for stretchers, food, and help. A relief-party was at once organised of twenty-eight men, carrying stretchers, brandy, and bandages. In advance of them, accompanied by the orderlies, I rode off to the scene of the disaster, which was at a great kloof in the Dwarsberg, down the valley on the right of the road leading to Secocoeni's.

Crossing the river by the same ford used by the expedition on the previous night, we had ridden not more than two miles when we met some cavalry returning with wounded men lying across their horses.

During the next mile we came across our Kafirs driving before them in triumph a few wretched goats, the capture of which had cost the lives and wrecked the hopes of so many. In another quarter of an hour we came out upon an immense cultivated flat, terminating to the right in a long, dark, and winding gorge, black with bush, and skirted by huge precipices of sandstone and granite. Into this we turned, following a Kafir path marked with tracks made during the night and morning by bodies of our own men. When we had got fairly within the kloof, we entered a bush of about ten acres, in the centre of which, a burnt village, with other sinister appearances, marked Von Schlieckmann's course. From this we emerged on another bare tract, from which again we passed into a similar but smaller bush, also shrouding burned huts. Here marks of recent fighting were plainly visible. By this time the precipices on both sides seemed

to close and frown most threateningly on our way, and the voices of Kafirs shouting and calling to each other, to be heard.

Riding out on the edge of a small stream, we now expected, being in sight of the last kraal-the only one unburnt- and within about a thousand feet of the end of the gorge, to come across some trace of the infantry and wounded. From the left, a Kafir called to us in Dutch, "Come a little farther till we kill you as we killed the other white men. Being but three together, the invitation was, of course, unheeded. We were within easy range, and did not require to get closer.

To attract the attention of our friends, wherever they might be hid away, we now fired our rifles in an order usually used for signalling. No response came, except the howling and challenging of Kafirs from the neighbouring rocks. The signalling by shots was repeated several times.

For an hour we wandered about from left to right, looking for the spoor, or some traces of the whereabouts of the main body. It was not until the arrival of the relief-party that we discovered a path to the extreme right—in fact, actually on the hillside—a short cut to the fort. The surface showing numerous boot-marks, proved it to have been used for the retreat. The dodging about of three white men right in the Kafir front had, however, not been without its effect. The Kafirs could neither make head nor tail of it, and were, by the mysterious movements, deterred from harassing the column retreating with the wounded which, we learned afterwards, had left the ground on the one hand, only a moment before we appeared on the other. Another accident contributed to our safety. The men with the stretchers had laid their rifles and canteens on them, for convenience in carrying, and the sun, blazing and glittering on the weapons thus borne, had misled the Kafirs, who believed the troops were carrying some new kind of cannon, or dreadful instruments of warfare, to a convenient spot for recommencing the action, of which the smoke still hung round the trees and bushes.

Our finally wheeling on to the right-hand path, where our movements were completely concealed by bush, confused

them still more. They could gain no clue to our intentions. This uncertainty of theirs undoubtedly prevented a renewal of the conflict, in which we must have suffered severely. After remaining in position long enough to ascertain that no attempt would be made to molest our return to the fort, we started, in Indian file, for home,-bearers and stretchers to the front, footmen next, officer and the two orderlies behind. In this order we again reached the Steelport River, to be met by the saddening intelligence that our brave commander was dead. The history of his disaster I shall briefly narrate. It is instructive, showing, as it does, that reckless courage and dauntless valour are useless amidst the rocks and stones of a Kafir nest.

A PRIVATE'S STORY.

"We left the fort at half-past two on the morning of Friday, 17th November 1876. At the sandy drift of the river the first mistake was made. The infantry lieutenant, who ought to have known better, hurried the men over the ford, without halting them to take off their shoes and stockings, which of course got wet and filled with sand. This made the subsequent march uncomfortable, and in some instances resulted in men being lamed for days. Kameel, who was acting as guide, led us round and round in the dark through all sorts of thick and thorny places, as it seemed to me, for endless hours; and we were halted five or six times to recover the road, which he pretended he had lost. The sun was very high before we came to a position in sight of the mouth of the kloof, which, had we been properly guided, we might have easily attained in two hours' smart walking. We must have marched at least twenty miles that night.

"The infantry were completely done up by this thirsty and toilsome march, succeeding so quickly as it did on the journey from the Diamond Fields, the effects of which they had not yet ceased to feel. The sun, shining with unclouded brilliancy on the unfortunate and weary men, added to their discomfort.