As the enemy began to succumb, and to mingle with the people in our camps, we heard various details connected with the war for which we were not prepared. It was learnt that the Gaikas, under Sandilla, seriously meditated an onslaught on our handful of troops, under Colonel Hare, at Block Drift, on the 26th of January, 1846. These are the particulars, as related by the Kaffirs. Besides the three thousand warriors drawn up in front of Colonel Hare's force of scarcely three hundred men, there were immense numbers collected on the hill-sides, and in the ravines. Women were there, too, watching for the signal, which was to be the waving of a kaross by a chief. It was stated, also, that, as soon as this signal was given, the scout on the point of a hill attempted to obey it, as he had been desired,--namely, by firing off his piece; but three times it missed fire, and he gave it up. No response followed the raising the tiger-skin banner, and the result was the breaking-up of the conference, and the safe return of the troops to quarters. It is most probable the armed scout was deterred by superstitious motives from trying a fourth time to give the signal of destruction. Had the Gaikas risen _en masse_, as was intended, what a fearful slaughter there would have been at the moment, and how terrible would have been the effect on this devoted Colony! The day that meeting took place, my little girl and I were travelling with a small party, on horseback, through the bush not far from Block Drift. Captain Bambrick had accompanied us part of the way on the first day's journey: it was the last time I ever saw him. As we wound along a splendid road, lately made between Post Victoria and Botha's Post, a distance of nine miles, I looked up the mountain-sides, clothed with euphorbia, mimosa, and innumerable shrubs, and observed that probably those silent thickets were tenanted by human beings, who could watch our progress unobserved. We had no fear. "The word had not been given to kill;" and, though they were not aware of this expression on the part of the Kaffirs, we had every reason to believe they would never fire the first shot. I am doubtful as to the truth of the premeditated onslaught at Block Drift; for they did not fire the first shot in the Amatola Mountains.