In our progress each deserted farm was surrounded and carefully examined; but, though the spoor was plentiful, it was nowhere less than two days old, and no one was to be found. The crops had been carried off half-ripe, and every fruit tree stripped bare. We came in our route on the remains of the Tottie woman accidentally killed by the Dutchmen; her skull and a few rags were all that was to be seen. After a circuit of about thirty miles, we returned to the Post, where we found one of our men, M'Linden, at his last breath; he died very soon after, having been ill only a few hours. Two days previously he had helped in building a wall of loose stones round the graves of our departed comrades buried outside the fort, and now, before our work was half completed, he had found his last resting-place in the same enclosure. He was a brave soldier, and we followed his body to the grave with real sorrow. CHAPTER X. BUSHMAN PAINTINGS--LOCUSTS--RETURN Of TRANS-KEI EXPEDITION. Jan. 1st. 1852.--A small party of the Boers, who had gone out in the morning to reconnoitre the Zuurberg heights, on which the smoke of a Kaffir fire had been visible all the previous day, returned in the afternoon with the intelligence that they had been sharply engaged with a much larger body of rebels, strongly posted among the crags. They had killed three of the enemy, but were obliged to abandon the attempt to dislodge them with so small a party. It was determined to attack them at early dawn the following morning. For this purpose the Field-Cornet was ordered to warn all the Burghers in his district to attend the rendezvous.