At night we again waylaid "the paths" without success, and next day marched through a bushy country to a ruined farm, ten miles off, commanding another favourite Kaffir path. Nothing could be more beautiful than this spot. In the centre of an open grassy glade, surrounded by wooded hills, lay a fine clear lake, formed by ledges of rock running across the Kat River, which poured over in a hundred cooling cascades, where the men revelled in the luxury of a bath after their hot march. The overhanging trees, and tall reedy fringe of the graceful papyrus, were filled with _suiker vogels_, or "sugar birds,"[23] of gorgeous colouring, crimson, green, yellow, and blue, glancing brilliantly in the sun, and throwing the plumage of the numerous lories quite into the shade. It was useless to fire at them with two ounce conical balls; but so anxious was B----n to possess a specimen, that he left the water, and, without dressing, followed a pair of them with a handful of stones, from tree to tree with a perseverance which, in his state of nudity, was most ludicrous. The fine krantzes of perpendicular basaltic rock along the river were inhabited by a colony of large blue-faced baboons, with pink behinds, which added considerably to the effect of their comical gestures. Numbers of empty tortoise-shells, of immense size, lay about among the scattered bush, which was in great part cactus, euphorbia, geranium, and thorn. Returning from a stroll after our bathe, we found our three patrol-tents pitched; pewter platters, sixpenny knives and forks, and tin-tots laid out on a tarpaulin on the greensward; and a large frying-pan full of ration beef frizzling over a fire inclosed by a semicircular kraal of thick bushes. The Kaffir path, far enough out of sight of our bivouac, was again _forelaid_ for the night; and at 12 o'clock we went, under the guidance of a Fingo, with a handful of men to reconnoitre, and if possible surprise a favourite hiding-place of the Kaffirs among the cliffs; but, after stealthily climbing step by step up the rocks, with fingers on the trigger, found the retreat tenantless! The forelaying-party was relieved at daylight, without "anything extra," as the sergeants said, having occurred. We afterwards learned that the Kaffirs had left the colony by a different track, but only to fall in with another ambuscade, which retook the spoil, and shot one or two of the plunderers. A long and hot march, passing through Barooka, a deserted Fingo village, brought us at mid-day to Birt's station, a deserted missionary settlement, where, from the excessive heat of the sun, we halted for a couple of hours, spreading plaids and blankets over the orange trees and large American aloes, for shelter from its rays. From thence our way lay through a solitary bushy country to Fort Beaufort, which we reached late in the afternoon.