Volumes might be filled were I to detail half the miseries to which the colonists had been subjected during the operations of the troops in Kaffirland. None but those who have experienced it, can have an idea of the nature of the foe to which they were exposed. The Kaffir, at the first onset, is perhaps less ferocious than cunning, and more intent on serving his own interests by theft than on taking life from the mere spirit of cruelty; but once roused, he is like the wild beast after the taste of blood, and loses all the best attributes of humanity. The movement of a body of these savages through the land may be likened to a "rushing and a mighty wind." On, on they sweep! like a blast; filling the air with a strange _whirr_--reminding me, on a grand scale, of a flight of locusts. An officer of rank, during the Kaffir war of 1835, was riding with a body of troops across the country, when suddenly his attention was arrested by a cloud of dust; then a dark silent mass appeared, and, lo! a multitude of beings, more resembling demons than men, rushed past. There were no noises, no sound of footsteps, nothing but the shiver of the assegais, which gleamed as they dashed onwards. The party of soldiery was too small to render an advance prudent, and though it is not improbable the Kaffirs observed the detachment of troops, from which they were distant scarcely half a mile, they did not stop on their way. They were bent on some purpose, and would not turn aside from it. The same officer described to me a scene which had struck him particularly when, on an expedition far up the country, many years ago. His regiment was bivouacked along the ridge of a chain of hills during the night. At dawn, he rose to reconnoitre, and, looking below, beheld, as he imagined, an immense herd of cattle. As the sun advanced, lighting up the valley, a solitary figure stepped out from the supposed herd, and springing on an ant-heap, waved an assegai, and probably spoke, though nothing could be heard. Each shield of bullock's hide then gave up its armed warrior, who had been sleeping beneath its shelter; the wild chant of the Fingoes filled the valley with strange harmony; and, in a few minutes a phalanx was formed, in readiness for the approach of the troops, to whom these Fingoes were attached as allies. They have well repaid the white man's good will.