been abandoned, for in most of the huts we found fires smouldering on the centre of the mud floors; in some, half-ground coffee lay on the flat grinding stones (proving the fact of their obtaining town supplies); calabashes and sheep-skin rugs were in all, while the large quantities of freshly chewed root showed that a considerable number of Kaffirs must have been there very recently. The whole of these dwellings, built on the property of the ruined farmers, whose sacked and gutted houses we had passed, were set fire to, and in a few minutes, roaring and crackling, sent up their flames high above the shrivelling trees; the whole glen behind, as we entered the narrow pass at its head, was smoking as far as the eye could reach. The ascent from the valley was by a very steep, rocky path, cut through a cool shady forest, leading straight up the face of the mountain, and only wide enough in many places to admit the men in single file; the underwood was choked up with an endless variety of luxuriant shrubs, entwined with the sweet scented wild vine, baboon-ropes of extraordinary length hanging from the topmost branches of the lofty, bare poled trees, which in some places met overhead, and in others showed a narrow strip of the bright blue sky above. In the thicket, full of wood anemones and bright flowers, lay the dead bodies of one or two more Kaffirs, exhibiting frightful wounds from the splinters of a shell. Felled trees lay across the path to obstruct our passage, but the General's column at the head of the pass, and the simultaneous advance of the Fingoes as flank-skirmishers, one party sweeping round the head of the valley on our right, and another clearing the bush on the left, secured our ascent without opposition, till just at the summit, when the head of the brigade having gained the open field or "Horseshoe" (so called from its shape, enclosed by forest), the rear-guard, consisting of the 12th reserve, a company of the 74th, and the mounted men, was sharply attacked from the bush on their left, the Kaffirs after firing a volley rushing out with their assegais. One man of the 74th was killed and one wounded; Gordon, bravely rushing back to his rescue as he was left struggling on the ground with four or five of the savages, shot one of them dead with his pistol, and wounded another, when a few of the men running up, drove off or killed the rest, and carried away the wounded man, whose appearance gave but little hope of recovery, his face being frightfully cut with assegais, and his skull battered by the blows from the butt end of a gun. At the edge of the forest we set fire to a cluster of huts, larger and differently shaped from any we had seen before, and faced with smooth shining reeds; they were believed to belong to Macomo.