This stronghold was attacked by Captain Clarke’s orders on the 5th April, and, “after about two hours’ sharp work, the north of the hill was carried.”[157] The fighting force, not being sufficient to complete its work, was ordered to withdraw, after having swept all the cattle from that side of the hill (277 head of cattle and 211 sheep and goats). A considerable number of Legolwana’s people are supposed to have fallen in this assault, the loss on our side being 10 killed and 12 wounded, amongst the latter Captain Van Deventer slightly, and Lieutenant Lloyd severely. These two officers are reported as having led the attack with great gallantry. The partial success gained by the storming of Masellaroon (with the loss of life on our side—considerable under the circumstances) was not such as to encourage Captain Clarke in the tactics with which he had commenced his operations. He therefore abandoned all idea of seizing the native strongholds, and “established a cordon of forts, about twelve miles from each other ... with a view of harassing the Kafirs by preventing them from cultivating the Indian corn.” “Legolwana had sued for peace, but Captain Clarke would not listen to anything except unconditional surrender, with the guarantee that all life should be spared.”[158] Thus, with the usual notion that “no terms can be made with savages,” which has again and again produced such disastrous consequences for them and for us, a system of petty warfare was kept up, tedious, unnecessary, and by which no good could be done nor honour gained. To the volunteers, many of whom, says Captain Harvey, were “gentlemen by birth and education,” there may have been some amusement in what that officer speaks of as “actions of daring individual enterprise,” and which he describes as follows: “Volunteers went out and lay ambuscades at night, to surprise and cut off Kafirs proceeding from kraal to kraal, or to cultivate their fields, and ‘cattle-lifting’ expeditions were planned and boldly carried out;” but the life must have become monotonous in the extreme before July, when the native auxiliaries became so discontented with it that some of them were allowed to return to their homes, while a troop of mounted infantry was summoned from Pretoria to keep order amongst those who remained.