General Somerset, with a detachment of the 74th and Cape Corps which had accompanied him into the district of Albany, was at this time actively engaged in following up the enemy in the direction of Riebeck, Hell-Poort, and the Zuurberg hills, and on the 30th of August attacked a considerable body of them on New-year River, where they had taken up a strong position in a very difficult and rugged kloof, dislodging and dispersing them with great loss, besides recapturing 160 head of stolen cattle and some horses. Two days after this affair the 2nd Queen's regiment, just arrived in the country, under Lieut.-Col. Burns, had a sharp brush with Botman's and Seyolo's people in the Fish River bush, with several casualties on both sides. The Kaffirs in our neighbourhood having become, during the General's absence in Albany, unusually bold and troublesome, stealing cattle, murdering and destroying on every side, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce, 74th Highlanders, then commanding the field force in the General's absence, determined to check their daring conduct by attacking them at once with his whole available force in their expected position on the Western Kroome range. We marched from our camp a little before sunset on the evening of September 7th, so as to reach the top of the hill under which we were encamped, just at dark, and thereby prevent our movement being observed by the enemy's scouts. After marching about seven miles in the dark across a level plain, myriads of fire-flies flitting along the ground, we halted at the ruins of a farm, on the Klu-Klu River, belonging to a Mr. Gilbert, whose narrow and extraordinary escape a few months before from the hands of the Kaffirs deserves mention. He was riding with two others from Graham's Town to Fort Hare, when they were waylaid; his companions escaped, but his own horse being shot he crept into the bush, successfully evading the search of the Kaffirs, who passed and re-passed his place of concealment, and at last sat down to smoke within a few yards of his hiding-place, their dogs all the while snuffing about. When at length they moved away, he took off his boots to prevent the snapping of rotten sticks betraying him, and listening at every painful step, worked his way through the thorny bush, and with his feet dreadfully lacerated eventually reached Fort Hare, where he had been given up as dead.