One morning not long after arriving at Beaufort, the Colonel commanding the Division sent to desire me to see him immediately. A body of Kaffirs had entered the colony at a point about fifteen miles off; and in half an hour, I was marching out of the town with about 200 men, a company of the Rifle Brigade, another of the 74th, and some Fingo Levies, to cut off the enemy's return. A march of seventeen miles, brought us an hour after dark to the ruins of Post Victoria, an isolated fort, abandoned in 1845, and afterwards burnt by the Kaffirs. We had but just lighted our bivouac fires within the square formed by the broken walls, when, to our great surprise, for we were in an uninhabited district, miles from house or camp, we heard a bugle at a short distance sound the "cease firing." We could only imagine it a ruse of the Rebels, who in skirmishing had latterly adopted our bugle sounds, retiring, advancing, firing, and changing direction, by the bugle-calls used in our service. But it turned out to be a patrol of the 2nd Queen's, from Fort Hare, on the same spoor as ourselves. We were now a party of five officers, and 350 men. As the two main "Kaffir-paths" entered the colony about half a mile distant on each side the Post, I placed "forelaying parties" on them for the night, but they came in at daylight, without having seen anything, and the detachment of the Queen's marched for Fort Willshire, another deserted post. Having despatched all the mounted Fingoes to Foonah's Kloof to reconnoitre, I went with a party of infantry in an opposite direction, to see if we could strike on any spoor to guide us in our movements. For miles the country stretched away in bush-sprinkled wavy downs, dancing in the heat, and still as death. The only living thing we saw, though the country was said to abound in game, was a solitary honey-bird,[22] that flew before us from bush to bush, returning at intervals, and calling us on in the most unmistakable manner, till it stopped at an old tree, where the Fingoes found a bee's nest in a hollow branch. Leaving the bird as much as he could manage, they brought away the rest, which they ate, comb and all. In a little belt of wood, clothing a deep dell, the dry course of the Shishago, we came on the spoor of koodoo, boschbok, and guinea-fowl, and presently on that of a few Kaffirs and cattle, quite recent, which had a most refreshing effect on us; everybody brightened up, and the Fingoes were like new men, intently following up the faintest marks with their wonderful instinctive quickness. A few head of cattle were captured, but nothing was seen of the Kaffirs.