At the close of the year 1850 the racial antagonism again appeared, and this second Kaffir war lasted until 1853, requiring the services of the 2nd, 6th, 43rd, 45th, 60th, 73rd, 74th, and 91st Regiments of the Line, besides the Rifle Brigade, the Cape Mounted Rifles and Colonial Irregulars. The British frontier, when war broke out, was supposed to be represented by the Kei River, between which and the Great Fish River the country had been informally considered more or less neutral. But all buffer states are dangers as a rule, and neutral belts are no better. So thought Sandilli, a powerful Kaffir chieftain; jealous of his own waning power as that of the white man increased, and also at being deposed by the governor of the colony, he broke into open revolt. The country was dense forest, roads rare, and the conduct of the war desultory. To destroy the rude kraals of the enemy, carry off his cattle, cut down his crops to starve him out, and finally assault some central stronghold such as are to be found in hill districts like the Amatolas, or some isolated hill honeycombed with caves, was the method of procedure then as it is now. Nothing has changed less in the army’s history than the tactics of savage war, especially in Africa. Sir Harry Smith, who commanded, was not particularly successful either in his conduct of the campaign or in his judgment of the military situation. There were several small disasters, such as befell detachments of the 6th and 73rd under Mackinnon at the Keiskamma defile, and which partook then, and often after, of the nature of ambuscades. A detachment of the 45th escorting a convoy was cut off. The garrison of Fort Cox was for a time surrounded and completely isolated by the Kaffirs. Meanwhile, numerous European villages were destroyed by the enemy, and in many cases the inhabitants massacred with extreme barbarity and with horrible mutilations. In the spring of 1852 a determined advance was made against the Amatola Mountains, in which was Sandilli’s stronghold, and the Highland “tortoises,” as the enemy called the 74th, from a fancied resemblance of their tartans to the markings of the land tortoise of South Africa, after much heavy fighting and hard work, succeeded in clearing the district, but it took until September, when there was a sharp skirmish at Kromme. Early in October the Kaffirs assembled on the Waterkloof heights, where the fortress of Chief Macomo was attacked seven times before the enemy were subdued. It cost the lives of many officers and men, including that of Colonel Fordyce of the 74th. Thus hostilities practically ended, as the expedition across the Orange River against the Basuto chief Moshesh, with the 2nd, 43rd, 73rd, 74th, Rifle Brigade, and 12th Lancers, with some artillery and irregulars, was not opposed.