Next day I was sent with a strong party to escort a waggon load of Minié rifles and ammunition to Fort Hare, twelve miles off. While there, a patrol of the 2nd Queen's, which had been sent to the Chumie Mountain, to cover the descent of the returning Kei expedition, unexpectedly came in, having been surrounded by the enemy and compelled to retreat. A stronger force was immediately ordered out, and my party pressed into the service. We sat down at midnight in high spirits to a hasty supper, having a march of fifteen miles to accomplish before daylight. The night was fine and starlight, and we trudged cheerily along the hard road, through a thick bush, the air scented with mimosa and jessamine. At daybreak we were on an open green plain at the foot of the beautiful Chumie Mountain, whose grey timber-sprinkled crags and extensive forests excited the most lively expressions of admiration, as the rising sun beamed out upon them. We encamped at nine o'clock on the smooth green flats at the head of the Chumie Hoek, a lovely valley, surrounded on three sides by mountains clothed with verdure to the tops, and partially wooded. Close to our bivouac were the burnt ruins of Auckland, one of the military villages destroyed by the enemy at the outbreak of the war. The silent, deserted street, down which a jackal skulked at our approach, was strewed with the bones of the massacred inhabitants. We had scarcely formed our bivouac, when parties of Kaffirs and Rebels began to show themselves on all sides of our position; some crowning the heights above us, and others emerging from the lower edge of the bush at the foot of the mountains. A sharp skirmish took place with a few of the latter, who were driven back to their holds.