The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in KaffirlandWard, Mrs.
History
The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland
Ward, Mrs.
South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878
A most magnificent view of the adjacent country, from a peninsula
stretching out upon the Kei, had tempted some of the officers of the
General's camp to form a plan for visiting it. The day before they
started on this expedition, Captain Baker, of the 73rd, dined with Sir
George Berkeley, who told me that had he known the intention of these
ill-fated men to visit a locality so far from the camp, so thickly
wooded and precipitous, he would not have permitted their departure.
Captain Faunee, and Lieutenant Nash, 73rd, were to have accompanied the
party, but happily their duties prevented them from doing so, Lieutenant
Littlehales started with them, but, rain coming on, and having a severe
cold, which he was unwilling to increase in the field, he turned back.
In the evening of Saturday, the 13th of November, "he became alarmed at
the absence of his brother officers; and, half-an-hour afterwards,
Captains Somerset, Berkeley Seymour, (the General's Staff) and Captain
Bisset, C.M.R., started in search of them, and descended into the bed of
the river. It was dark, and they returned at two o'clock on Sunday
morning, their search having been unsuccessful. Two hours afterwards,
the same officers, with a company of the 73rd, took up the spoor of the
missing officers again, and succeeded in finding the unfortunate men in
a deep chasm near the river. They were all lying near each other. It
is conjectured that they had all been to the top of the mountain, from
which elevation they had been seen by the Kaffirs, who had posted a
large body to intercept them on their return." Since the event, this
has been ascertained to have been the case. "At this time, a large
quantity of cattle was perceived going down to the Kei, with a number of
the enemy; a dispatch was immediately sent back to the camp, and the
party was reinforced by detachments from the head-quarter division, and
Colonel Somerset's." The latter headed the people from his own camp.
After a night march of great fatigue, the troops were all anxiety for
the attack: the 73rd were furious, and the sight of the dead bodies,
stripped of everything, and with every proof about them of having fought
desperately against the savages, enraged their brother soldiers more and
more at every step they took.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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