The ruined house was reconnoitred, and we were told to lie down and take what rest we could till midnight, to be ready to turn out at a moment's notice. The horses were picketed to the broken fence of a grass-grown pleasure-garden, and the men lay down by companies in the farm-yard, with their arms piled in front of each rank. As fires were forbidden, we groped about in the dark among the fallen ruins, and made the best resting-places we could on the heaps of broken slates and brick-ends covering the floors of the blackened chambers, to which the starry sky served as roof. At midnight we were joined by Lieut.-Col. Sutton and a party of Cape Corps and mounted Levies from Fort Beaufort, making up our force to 550 infantry and 103 mounted men. At two in the morning we marched out of the melancholy desolate place across the open for about seven miles, toward the position supposed to be occupied by the enemy, and reached it just at daybreak, when we discovered that the Kaffirs had abandoned it, and that the large fires reported in this direction had only been burning grass. After a short halt, while this reconnaissance was being made, and during which we felt the cold most intensely, the whole column was counter-marched, and proceeded in an easterly direction along the foot of the mountain range for about three hours, when a halt was made for breakfast at Blakeways, a deserted farm, beautifully situated in a warm sheltered glen, finely wooded, through which the Wolf River wound its way. Numbers of boschbok, disturbed by our approach, were seen scudding across the open flat. While at breakfast an alarm was given that a large body of Kaffirs was descending the hill in our direction; but they proved to be a part of the Fort Beaufort Fingoe Levy taking a short cut to join us. The long dry grass among which we were halted caught fire, and burned so rapidly as to threaten to surround the column, roaring and crackling on every side; and we had to decamp in a hurry to avoid being blown up or shot by the fire reaching the men's ammunition or muskets. Here it was ascertained that the greater part of the enemy were in the Waterkloof, Blinkwater, and Fuller's Hoek, and therefore, as it was out of the question to attempt openly attacking those strongholds with our inadequate force, Lieut.-Col. Fordyce determined on gaining the top of the Kroome Heights at this boundary of the range, and, bivouacking there till dark, make a descent by night, on whichever point might prove advisable.