The opening of the mouth of the Buffalo river, for the transmission of stores seaward to Kaffirland, will, I trust, prove the usefulness of this key to the seat of war and turmoil. With what breathless eagerness will the first boat be watched careering through the foam, which at times separates, as a veil, the stream from the ocean! Intent as we, poor exiles, are upon every movement that affects the progress of operations, languishing for home, as well as interested in the welfare of the colony, we gaze earnestly on each convoy of waggons wending its slow, uncertain way up the hill "hard by," on its way to the front. On the 22nd of March, we paused in our evening walk to observe the train of twenty-six waggons, _en route_ for the Buffalo mouth. What an example of African locomotion it presented! Some of these contained ammunition, and it struck me that the nature of their contents might have been concealed rather than manifested by their funereal coverings of black canvas. The foremost in the train suddenly stopped. Had a steam-engine led the van, it would have panted, and puffed, and tugged in vain, along such a pathway. The transport for soldiers' necessaries in this country is so small, that this waggon had been loaded beyond the capabilities of so cumbrous a machine, and it stuck fast; none of the others, therefore, could move along the narrow road. In vain, the driver slashed his long whip,--the echoes only mocked it. In vain, he shouted "Bosjeman!" "Abeveldt!" "England!" to his oxen; in vain, the Hottentot _forelouper_ screamed, and leaped, and scolded "Ireland" and "Scotland." He might as well have attempted to move those two ancient kingdoms from their foundations, as the oxen named after them: they only tossed their heads at him and their tails at the driver as if in pure scorn. They were weary, and chose to rest! The despairing escort, foreseeing delay, used frantic exertions to push the huge vehicle from behind, and the drivers in the rear took advantage of the blockade to light their pipes and smoke them with their usual imperturbability. The shrill voices of the vrouws, who accompany their husbands on all occasions, to make their coffee, light their fires, and broil their carbonatje, formed a chorus, in very high treble and very low Dutch, to the unmusical medley. At length, there was at attempt at an advance; but, as the leaders would only move up the face of the hill on one side, or down the slope on the other, very little ground was got over; and, soon after sunset, the opening between the hills was illuminated by the fires of the encampment formed there.