In March the second campaign fairly commenced; Pato was yet unconquered. Three companies of the 73rd marched from King William's Town for the Buffalo Mouth, and were relieved by the same number of the 45th, from Fort Hare. Colonel Buller, Rifle Brigade, commanded the field-force at King William's Town; Colonel Van der Meulen, the 73rd, at the mouth of the Buffalo, where Lieutenant Jervois, R.E., selected the site, and made preparations for building a military post for 300 men. Colonel Johnstone, 27th Regiment, was appointed Commandant at Fort Hare. The great Chief, Macomo, went wandering about the town at Fort Beaufort in a state of frenzy, from intoxication, having made the canteen his head-quarters. The only wife, out of ten, who clung to him in his fallen fortunes, complained, at last, of the injuries he had inflicted upon her, by blows, as well as with a sharp instrument; and his child, whom he had in some whim named "Magistrate," narrowly escaped the fate of the poor little creature at Fort Hare, which, if not murdered at once by him, died from the effects of his savage treatment. The intelligence received from the Buffalo Mouth on the 4th of April, was, that Major Smith, 73rd, had been wounded by the enemy in ambush near the camp, when visiting the sentries; and two Burghers and a Fingo shot. There was the usual detail of cattle stolen and recaptured, with casualties on both sides pretty equal, waggons fired at, and a successful chase by Captain Armstrong, Cape Mounted Rifles, after a Kaffir lad, whom he rode down, but who would give no satisfactory information, although he was endeavouring to communicate with some mounted Kaffirs, swimming their horses across the Keiskama. Colonel Somerset, in his dispatch, suggested "the expediency of establishing a cavalry post on the cast bank of the Keiskama, to intercept marauding parties, who are constantly passing out of the Colony with cattle." Sir Henry Pottinger decided on shooting all such captured cattle as could not be removed without encumbering the troops, or delaying them in their operations.