We were now fourteen miles from the Fort, and taking with us our two prisoners, returned at a foot's pace; one of them, a Totty, was the wife of Speelman Kievet, one of the most notorious of the Rebel leaders. The other was a Madagascar slave, hideously ugly. On our way we picked up the skin sacks that had been thrown away; they were full of half-ripe fruit and meelies. It was 9 o'clock when we reached the Post, where our long absence, for we had been out since noon, had caused much uneasiness, as mounted Kaffirs had been seen through the telescope, hovering about us on the higher ridges of the mountain we had ascended. When we made our appearance, two parties, one of mounted Boers, and the other of infantry, were on the point of setting off to search for us, or our remains; the latter being supposed the more probable issue, as it was fully thought that we must have been surrounded and massacred; judging, however, in case we should return alive, that we should be uncommonly hungry, our friends had judiciously reserved dinner, or, more correctly, supper for us, which we lost no time in sitting down to. The night following, at 12 o'clock, we marched out of the Fort with the gun and artillerymen, ninety rank and file, and a guide, for Engelbrecht's Kloof, a difficult wooded retreat, in which the enemy were said to be lurking. On the way we had some sport with a couple of porcupines, the dogs in front barking violently at some object which they evidently had at bay; I rode forward with the guide, but it was so dark that we had some difficulty in finding their whereabouts. One of them kept our dogs at a respectful distance, rattling his tail on the ground and shaking his quills; but he was soon despatched and hanging on the gun-limber. We preserved his tail, which was quite a curiosity, a bunch of short truncated hollow quills, stuck on a lump of flesh. No animal of its size is so easily killed; a tap on the head finishes him at once; they are very common throughout the country, as is proved by the quantities of quills one sees everywhere. The flesh is excellent; very white and tender, and not unlike young pig. The orthodox mode of cooking this delicacy is to roast it in hot wood ashes, with the skin on, minus the quills, of course. After an eighteen miles' march, we halted as day was breaking, at the top of the kloof. We shelled the ravine; and the Levies advancing from the other side of the valley received the Kaffirs thus dislodged; six of whom, after a slight skirmish, were killed. As we returned, the heat of the noontide sun on the open plain was intense.