In spite of terrible associations, my ride in the Winterberg Mountains was a peaceful one, and full of interest. The monkeys swung from bough to bough, the canaries sang their untiring melodies, the bell-bird chimed its solemn-sounding note, and there was little to break the calm of the scene save the advance of the Christian Chief, Kama, with a dozen dusky followers, all armed and mounted, on his way to Graham's Town. The Winterberg is a district taking its name from the mountains so called--_berg_ meaning mountain, in Dutch. The tops of these mountains are often covered with snow. The close of the first day's journey from Graham's Town brought us to the Koonap River, which we found almost impassable for horses. The troopers of the dragoon orderlies were towed over in the wake of the boat, trembling, snorting, kicking, some turning heels uppermost, and others at last submitting to their fate, and falling exhausted on the bank on reaching it. The river roared and tumbled, and the passage across, in the old boat, with its uncertain rope, would have frightened fine ladies. But people must cease to be fine ladies in Africa. Some of our horses were left picqueted with a guard of soldiers, and I confess to some uneasiness during the night, as I lay listening to the noisy torrent below our little inn, half expecting to hear shots exchanged between the guard and the enemy. The inn itself was a "sign of the times." The host, Mr Tomlinson, an old Life Guardsman, had made the place defensible, and stood his ground during the heat of the war. My bed-room window, hung with white curtains of primitive English dimity, was still bricked up half way, and travellers passing by rested their arms against the loop-holed walls, and told of cattle lost and Kaffirs killed, with an air of as little concern as they would have worn in relating the prices of a country fair. I was not sorry to hear, the next morning, that our steeds had neither been stolen by the enemy nor swept down the river. After a night's rest at Fort Beaufort, we left it, on the 12th of November, for Fort Hare, a strange-looking garrison, consisting of innumerable formal houses of a single room each, reminding one of the account of some barracks in England, in which an officer can lie in his bed, stir the fire, open the window, and shut the door, without much alteration in his position. The scenery around Fort Hare is very grand, and not at all in accordance with the prim little edifices of "wattle and daub" which form precise squares and most unpicturesque alleys of a pale gingerbread hue. In approaching Fort Hare, we were obliged to plunge our horses into the Tyumie stream, amidst a crowd of Kaffir girls, who were swimming, laughing, and shouting to each other, like a bevy of sable Naiads, from the bashes and the boughs overhanging the long-disputed waters.