Leaving camp at daybreak,[139] the General “reached Major Dartnell about 6.30 A.M., and at once ordered him to send out his mounted men to gain intelligence of the enemy, whose whereabouts did not appear to be very certain.” (P. P. [C. 2252] p. 75.) The enemy shortly after showed in considerable strength at some distance, but retired without firing as the troops advanced. Lieut.-Colonel Crealock says: “Between 9.30 and 10 A.M. we were off-saddled some twelve miles from camp. During the three previous hours we had been advancing with Colonel Glyn’s column against a Zulu force that fell back from hill to hill as we advanced, giving up, without a shot, most commanding positions.” (P. P. [C. 2260] p. 99.) It was at this time (“about 9 A.M.,” the General says) that the message was received from Lieut.-Colonel Pulleine, that a Zulu force had appeared on the hills on his left front. The General says he at once sent his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Milne, R.N., to the top of a high hill, from which the camp could be seen. He had “a very powerful telescope, but could detect nothing unusual.”[140] Lieut.-Colonel Crealock says that all the news he gave “was that the cattle had been driven into camp,” and he acknowledges “our own attention was chiefly bent on the enemy’s force retiring from the hills in our front, and a party being pursued by Lieut.-Colonel Russell three miles off.” The kloof where the enemy had been was found deserted, but a large body of Zulus were seen beyond it, and a portion of the mounted force sent after them, Major Dartnell and the rest of his men moving off to the right in the direction of another body of Zulus. These turned out to be Matshana’s people, with the chief himself present: they were engaged, their retreat cut off, and then driven back on the Native Contingent. Of this party Matshana and one or two of his people alone escaped. “Having no cause, therefore, to feel any anxiety about the safety of the camp,” the General ordered the mounted infantry to sweep round “to the main waggon-track, whilst a portion of the infantry went over the hilltop to the same point, and the guns, with an escort, retraced their steps,” with instructions to join Colonel Glyn near the Mangane Valley, where the General proceeded with Colonel Glyn to fix upon a site for a new camp. Captain Gardner, 14th Hussars, was sent back to camp “with the order to Lieut.-Colonel Pulleine to send on the camp equipage and supplies of the troops camping out, and to remain at his present camp, and entrench it.”—(P. P. [C. 2260] p. 101). The 1st Battalion Native Contingent was ordered to march back to camp across country, and examine dongas, etc. _en route_.