down trees, chopping up and carrying wood for the fires; those that could not borrow an axe or bill-hook, made fires round the standing trunks and burnt them down, when the branches were torn off and carried smoking to the camp, and piled on the fires, which at last burned up, high and cheerily, in spite of the descending deluge. As there appeared to be no chance of the weather improving, the General determined to move the following morning at all hazards. The troops mustered without bugle call, and silently took their places, the blazing fires casting a bright ruddy light on the dripping ranks, standing motionless in the heavy rain in which the men had lain all night without a murmur. At five we moved off, and after an hour's march through very long grass reached the edge of the heights above the Waterkloof valley, into which we at once descended, scrambling down a tremendously steep rocky path leading abruptly into the deep glen, the advanced sections of the 12th looking like Lilliputian soldiers far beneath, as the breaking daylight showed them already landed at the bottom. Having re-formed our ranks, we proceeded up the valley to attack the new position taken up by the enemy on the southern head of the Kromme range. The big guns and musketry on the heights above our left told that the other brigade was already engaged, and soon after, as we got further up the valley, we saw heavy clouds of smoke rising from the huts they had fired. On reaching the point where the valley branches into two, we took the road leading up the one on our right, and presently came on a village prettily situated, and indeed almost hidden in the bush; the Kaffirs had but barely escaped, and one or two lurking in the bush were caught by the Fingoes; a small body of them were also seen creeping on hands and knees through the long grass over the crest of an opposite hill, and a party of our horse dashed after in pursuit, and cut them off. We ascended the mountain by a steep winding road; the rain had at last ceased, and the sun was now overpoweringly hot, though a few hours before we had thought it impossible to be too warm. We worked our way through two belts of wood on the ridge without finding any recent spoor of the enemy; and after marching some distance across the grassy table top of the Kromme came to the little basin, on several previous occasions the scene of our bivouacs. The 91st regiment detached from Michell's Brigade, which now held the belt of forest on the top of the range, between Fullers Hoek and Waterkloof, came through the forest in our front and reinforced the column, when we advanced on the enemy's position, and entering the bush had a sharp skirmish, killing several Kaffirs and capturing some horses, after which there being no further opposition, or, indeed, any one to be seen, we returned in a heavy shower to the flat, and bivouacked for the night.