We remained here for the next twenty-four hours, awaiting the cover of night to make our advance upon the enemy's position, from which we were about twelve miles distant. During the day, which was exceedingly warm, we refreshed ourselves by bathing in a small stream, and eating oranges in a grove close to the camp; the trees of unusual size, covered with ripe golden fruit, from their topmost branches, down to the lowest boughs, which swept the ground from their weight. Fine bananas grew among the trees, and a profuse undergrowth of waving grass everywhere; the place having been abandoned since the commencement of the war. Late in the day the General arrived in camp with an escort of Cape Mounted Rifles, making our force about six hundred and forty men, with eight artillerymen and a field-piece. The troops were ordered to lie down to rest at an early hour, as we were to move off to the scene of attack soon after midnight; when all were to fall in quickly and quietly, and without giving any unnecessary indication of our movement. About half-past one o'clock we were turned out; and, with a strange feeling of excitement, heightened by the novelty of our silent movements, the subdued voices of officers and orderly sergeants, indistinctly seen through the gloom gliding along the motionless ranks, I took my place. In a few minutes we moved off; the cavalry remaining behind for a couple of hours. The road we had to traverse was most difficult, abounding for the first few miles in deep holes and innumerable ant-hills; after which, it became, if possible, worse; entering a narrow rugged descending defile, a succession of deep steps or ledges cut through a thick bush, and intersected by sluits or dry watercourses (large and deep enough, as we very soon found, to contain three or four men at once), and thickly strewn with large stones and loose rocks, over which we stumbled and fell at almost every step, five or six being frequently down at once, and often sustaining severe cuts and bruises.