I have spoken of this division as a little army; in truth, it might so be called, for on either side, parted from the encampment by a little wilderness of mimosas, were the lagers and bivouacs of the native levies, in all amounting with the regular troops to 3,000 men, who were waiting the decision of Sir Adrian Fairfax to be disbanded. Daveney walked through the encampment, neither looking to the right nor the left, but not unobserved by the officers, who, heartily tired of the inactivity without the excitement of the field, were longing to return to quarters, and anxiously looked for news of all descriptions. The General, Sir John Manvers, was not popular with those he commanded. Cold, abstracted, haughty, self-opinionated, he was a striking evidence of that mischievous system of _interest_, which, like a destructive insect in a noble structure, injures and often destroys the whole. Sir John had been appointed commander of the forces in Southern Africa and temporary governor, not because he had served his country, not because his judgment, his experience, his temper, or his principles fitted him for the deep responsibility he assumed, but because he was the brother-in-law of a man who had long held sway in the House of Commons, and whose silence or vote could determine a question of vital importance to certain landed proprietors of rank and power. Sir John was provided for, and the bill was passed. But a very short essay in the management of affairs served to prove that the General was not the diplomatist for the Cape colony, with its extraordinary mixture of tribes, its extended and complicated interests, its untried population, its vague lines of demarcation between the varied races occupying the pasture-grounds; and on the first substantial information of the prospect of a war, one member of the Ministry fortunately recollected that a former one had proved expensive, and that Sir Adrian Fairfax had been the man who succeeded in bringing it to a close. But Sir John Manvers could not be dismissed without a saving clause in the document that gave him his _conge_; by this clause he was offered a more agreeable and more lucrative government in a less troublesome country. With this arrangement he was perfectly satisfied. Thus it was desirable for all parties to bring the warfare to a close; but Sir Adrian was a conscientious man, who did the duty he was paid to do, and would not hurry over proceedings involving great results. Sir John Manvers was chafed at the delay, and angry because Sir Adrian would not take himself the office of Governor, and thus relieve the former from his duties. With a delicacy as graceful as it was politic, Sir Adrian delayed his installation as Governor till peace should be proclaimed, contenting himself with the command of the principal division of the army.