On receiving this dispatch, the Commander-in-chief caused the kloofs in question to be scoured, and it was found that the enemy had abandoned their strongholds in that quarter. This was only for a time. A troop of dragoons was ordered out six weeks after to clear the "Clay Pits," near Trumpeter's. The name is derived from the red clay which is found in the neighbourhood by the Kaffirs, who paint their bodies with it. It is, however, an unseemly name for the spot, which I know well. It is quite a fairy place, with a tiny valley of emerald green, and a crystal spring, flanked on three sides by steep rocks clothed with thick bush, and the stately euphorbia tree. There the conies have their dwelling-places; there the large starry jessamine of the Cape scents the air, and contrasts its graceful wreaths with the deep green foliage of the shrubs; there the wild convolvulus forms its own bright bowers, intermingled with the ivy geranium; and there the chandelier plant waves its bells near the clear spring where the lions come down to drink in the deep twilight so peculiar to South Africa. There the baboons shout to each other from rock to rock; and there, through the gay plants that enamel the turf, winds the glittering and fatal snake. There the pretty lizards--"the friend of man," as they are called by those who assert that they warn the sleeping traveller of the serpent's approach,--creep about in the sunshine; and there--ah! there we made one day a pleasant resting-place on a journey. We were very merry, _then_, and the valley rang with laughter and with song, as we tried the echoes. And _now_ the savage lurked there, like the lion lurking for his prey. I remember that the day we did rest there, when I expressed myself enchanted with the spot, some one said, in an indifferent voice, "This is where poor-- was killed in the last war; and where the waggon was stopped, and the poor creatures with it were murdered!" It was now found necessary, in consequence of the dense bush near Trumpeter's being full of Kaffirs, to open a communication between Graham's Town and Fort Peddie, by a route near the sea. The marines, sailors, and a party of sappers were therefore sent thither to form a raft for the conveyance of some expected supplies for the troops across the Great Fish River, near the mouth. Sir Peregrine Maitland, with a very moderate escort, made his way through the bush, and established his head-quarters at Peddie for a few days; but on the 23rd of June, he took the field, and encamped with a large body of troops, part of the 7th, 90th, 91st, Cape Mounted Rifles, Burghers, Hottentots, and Fingoes, at the mouth of the Fish River; and, in compliment to the Admiral of the Cape Station, the locality was named Fort Dacres.