_Intelligence and Maps._--In this connection again, nothing but the want of funds rendered it impossible to employ officers and other agents to collect necessary and readily-accessible information before the Rebellion began. Practically all the Magistrates, however, Police, farmers, planters, etc., were emissaries of the Government, though not placed directly or indirectly in touch with the Militia department as they might have been. Many of these employed Native servants, who, in their turn, were in intimate and constant touch with their own countrymen. "Immediately previous to the outbreak of the Rebellion," says the Commandant, "I received a great deal of information from people in outlying districts, but, as there was no intelligence department to classify, sift and deal with this, it was very difficult to place much reliance on the information thus obtained. Ultimately, the acting Chief Commissioner of Police (Lieut.-Col. W.J. Clarke) gave orders to the police in the rural districts to collect information from farmers and others and to send everything direct to him."[61] This Police officer, owing to his excellent knowledge of the country, and the various informants, was able to condense and appreciate all that came to hand and thereafter place classified summaries at the Commandant's disposal, and very valuable these proved to be. "Subsequently all this was stopped as, for some reason unknown to me, the Commissioner, _i.e._ the permanent officer, was either unwilling or unable to continue the system."[62] As regards maps, not the Commandant, but the state of the treasury was to blame. "The want of maps (on military lines, normal scale) has been greatly felt in Natal and has rendered combined action practically impossible. The failure of the Langalibalele expedition was due to the want of reliable maps."[63] Surveying was habitually confined to areas set apart for European occupation, that is, the most accessible portions, whilst the great Native locations, situate for the most part in broken, bushy and untraversable regions, remained unsurveyed. Thus, when, on hostilities occurring, the rebels selected as their _terrain_ the great Tugela valley (to a distance of 10 or 12 miles on either side and some 60-80 miles along the river), the Nkandhla-Qudeni district, and the Umvoti valley, their choice was, in each instance, ground the Staff and the Surveyor General's department knew either very little, or nothing at all, about. There were, indeed, the map by Altern--of the Zululand side--and that by Middleton--of Nkandhla district, but, insufficient as these excellent maps were, they did not become available for the troops until long after the Rebellion had started, and when most of the information therein had already been ascertained by commanding officers by personal observation, inquiry of local residents, or direct reconnaissance.[64]