General Cathcart having determined to proceed with a force to the North-Eastern Frontier, to demand satisfaction from, or to punish, Moshesh, chief of the Basuto tribe, for his incursions and depredations on the settlers near the Orange river, had intended to take with him four companies of Riflemen; but the Kaffirs and Hottentots having shown themselves in force near Fort Beaufort, General Cathcart resolved to take one company only as a camp body-guard. Rooper’s company was the first for duty; and as he had lately been appointed to an official situation in the colony, the command of it devolved on Lieutenant the Hon. Leicester Curzon.[214] They were ordered rather unexpectedly late in the evening of November 17, to march at daylight on the following morning. The rest of the troops had started about a week before under Colonel Eyre, and General Cathcart was to overtake them at Burghersdorp, about 160 miles from Fort Beaufort. The Riflemen therefore made forced marches, their orders being that they must camp at night with the General. The men’s packs were however carried for them in mule-waggons. Passing the Blinkwater, Fort Armstrong, Eland’s post, Whittlesea, and Shiloh, they crossed the Brak river, and going through the rocky defile called Klaas Smidts Poort, and over an extensive plain, ascended the Stormberg mountains. After descending this lofty ridge and crossing the Stormberg Spruit,[215] a tributary of the Orange river, they arrived at Burghersdorp, where the rest of the troops were assembled, on the 27th.