As the fire of Napier's artillery became more continuous, and the troops appeared on the heights on the opposite side of the valley, the women of the village collected in a knot watching them. As we looked through our glasses, they sat down in a large ring, under the shade of a spreading tree, and we could distinctly see them smoking and gesticulating; some perfectly naked, their sleek ebony skins shining in the sun, but the most part in black karosses, giving to the group a very Satanic appearance. Several came down to a spring, so near that we could hear them talking. It was a novel and amusing sight to look in upon a village of savages, and watch their habits unobserved. Colonel Buller's column, easily recognised by the dark body of Rifles contrasting with the red coats, was seen moving along the southern heights of the Waterkloof and Kromme, and joining that of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, who had ascended the mountain from the other side, with Colonel Nesbitt's column. The two then proceeded to the neck of the forest separating the Waterkloof from Fullers Hoek, and after throwing rockets into it, the First and Third Columns bivouacked for the night at the head of the Pass, having been fourteen successive hours on the march. Hardly anything could be more picturesque than our party in the little wood, the sun streaming down through trees completely covered with long drooping bunches of lichen, horses picketted round their hoary trunks; bridles and accoutrements hanging on the lower branches, and groups of men lying in the open glade, or crouched among the outer thickets, peering at the savages, or eagerly watching for cattle, which, however, never came. In the evening Colonel Napier's Division passed close to our hiding place: the advance guard of mounted Fingoes, with their usual zeal, firing a volley into us, as we somewhat incautiously advanced to the edge of the thicket to look at our friends. We all fell flat on our faces, or jumped behind the trees; the fat Boers, in their short round jackets, lying screaming on the ground in an agony of apprehension. "_Yij musst niet skiet! Yij musst niet skiet! Allamachtig! Verdamte skellums, warrum skiet yij?_" Several had very narrow escapes, being spattered with mud by the balls; which struck the ground close to them. The Column halting not more than a quarter of a mile from us, and concealment being no longer necessary, B---- and I rode over to their camp, which was on the old ground of October, nine months before. The picketting pins and old kraals were still there, as also the blackened circles of the fires round which many a comrade had sat, now dead and gone. The graves of poor Norris and of our gallant fellows were undisturbed, and the grass waved luxuriantly over them.