Though our patrols were out each day as usual, they now seldom fell in with any of the enemy, whose withdrawal from their former outposts, and reported gathering in the Waterkloof, led us to suspect some intended movement in that quarter. Some Kaffir women captured by the Fingo Levies one morning, on being examined by the General's interpreter, admitted their loss on the day of the Kroome action, September 8th, to have been upwards of 150 killed, besides many wounded. The weather how became daily warmer; we paraded every morning at six o'clock; and after a couple of hours' light-drill on the plain were right glad to remove the sand and perspiration by a bathe in the shady river. On Sundays divine service was performed at nine o'clock in camp, the men drawn up in hollow square facing inwards, the "Meenister" in the centre, with the big drum as a pulpit. Even at that early hour the heat was often so great that several men fainted during the service. The surface of the plain danced in a wavy indistinct outline, and the distorted bushes quivered in the hot air; yet the Fingoes, bare-headed and without covering, basked in the broiling sun, smoking their large wooden pipes in evident enjoyment. Though capital bush-rangers, and fair fighting men when well backed up by regular troops, these fellows gave us endless trouble from the difficulty of impressing on them the necessity of some sort of order and discipline. It was impossible to keep them in camp anywhere within six or seven miles of a town, and of Beaufort more especially; they were always in the Fingo quarters of the town, and out of the way when required, so that in case of a sudden call for their services, the Sergeants had to gallop off to the different kraals to hunt them up, turning them out with great shouting, and blowing of cow-horns. The Fingo Levies were universally fine athletic well made men, and those of the Algoa Bay Levy especially so; more perfect models it is impossible to imagine. This superiority arises doubtless from their simple diet, and free and hardy life in the open air, though it is said that they, as well as the Kaffirs, always destroy blind, deaf and dumb, sickly, or deformed children at their birth, or as soon as their imperfection becomes manifest. Whether this be true or not, certain it is that no such are ever seen among them.