A couple of hours' rest for the horses, and we rode on to Fort Beaufort, passing on our way the newly-made grave of an Englishman, killed there a few days before. It was the same spot where I had been attacked by the rebels a few months previously. Next day a party of officers from the garrison rode out to meet the Rifle Brigade, just out from England, said to be halted about six miles off, at Dans Hooght Hill. They were inspanning their baggage train as we came up, and about to march. To my surprise and delight I encountered among the accompanying draft of officers my brother, a young Ensign in the 74th, come out to take his share in the toil and hazards of the campaign. As we approached Beaufort our band and Pipers met the new-comers, and preceded them through the town. The day following, the head-quarters of the 74th Highlanders marched in from the field, under Major Douglas Patton, who, since the death of our lamented Colonel, had been in command of the regiment. The Rifles encamped on the green plain outside the Fingo quarter of the town; and Beaufort, which had been almost deserted, again swarmed with troops. Leaving my brother in quarters, B---- and I turned our faces once more towards our distant mountain fort, riding by a short cut through the bush, off-saddling for an hour at the Blinkwater camp to give our nags a roll (as good as a feed of corn to a Cape horse), and then striking off to the right, took our route by the eastern valley, riding for about twelve miles along the wooded banks of the Kat River, especially picturesque at this point, with its alternate pools and rapids, and fringe of weeping willows. Shortly after sundown, the distant fires of Colonel Napier's camp were seen ahead, and an hour's stumbling along by broken paths and dangerous drifts, in the most intense darkness, brought us nearly within musket shot of the sentries. The 'cease firing' and 'regimental call' of our bugle were answered, almost before the echo had died away, by the 'advance,' and we clambered up the rising ground on which the camp was pitched, and soon found ourselves among old comrades, whose familiar voice had not greeted us for months. They had just returned from the Kei expedition, and many were the hunting adventures they had to tell, ample evidences of which were seen in the half-cured skins, grass-stuffed heads, and quantities of horns strewed about every tent. On the following morning, after the luxury of a cold bath under a fine fall of the Kat River, we set off for Post Retief, making the ascent of the verdant Katberg mountain by a path of extraordinary steepness; the heat of the sun was overpowering. Three hours of uninterrupted and most toilsome climbing, brought us to the table-land above the beautifully-wooded ravine, Bothas bush; off-saddling our panting horses at a clear spring that bubbled out of the ground, we lay down to recover our breath, feasting our eyes on the extensive view below us.