Meanwhile General Wood had been no less busy in and around his camp at Kambula. On April 17th he made a reconnaissance, at Lord Chelmsford's suggestion, to the Blood river, where a site had been chosen for a permanently entrenched camp, to serve as a large depôt for the main body of the army. The ride was about fifteen miles, and the General and his party passed through some beautiful valleys, and through a path cut in the precipitous face of a pass whose sides were clothed with "spekboem" (elephant bush) and various other flowering shrubs. After four miles' cantering, they came to a part of the road which looked down a declivity of some 200 feet. The scene was, however, most picturesque. Convolvuli, the star-shaped jessamine, and the magnificent Strelitzia Reginae flourished around, while scarlet geraniums attained to a height unthought of in England. Two excellent sites for outposts were selected, by which communication could be kept up with the large depôt and Kambula. These had commanding positions, and subsequently stone buildings were solidly constructed, square in form, but loopholed and flanked by ditch _caponnières_, while each fort contained accommodation for mounted men and a detachment of infantry. The Blood river, like most South African streams, is subject to great fluctuations. At that period, owing to recent rains, it was in flood, and in many places twenty and thirty feet deep, running with a powerful current that rendered it most dangerous to cross. The banks in most places are dangerously high, and the sides are steeply scarped by the force of the stream. Fording-places only occur at long intervals, so that when crossing in a flood, it is not at all easy to hit them off, while if once carried down by the force of the current the traveller has very little chance of escaping an accident. The best way of crossing a flooded river, and that which was adopted by regulation in Wood's column, is the Kaffir plan of taking off some way up the stream, and so making a good allowance for driftage. Old settlers and Boers often undress themselves completely before mounting their horses, and carry their clothes and arms in a bundle on top of their heads, in case of a capsize. The stirrups should, of course, be crossed over the pommel of the saddle, and the horse allowed to have his head, the rider guiding him by the snaffle, while in difficult cases it is better for him to relieve his animal of weight altogether by floating alongside and guiding his head in the proper direction. The Blood river flows through some fine scenery, bordered, however, at times by impenetrable bush and tangled vegetation of all descriptions, again winding under lofty mountains of basaltic rock, beautifully variegated with foliage, the thickets affording shelter to swarms of animal and insect life, giving rise on a still evening to a perfect babel of sound, amidst which the plaintive coo of the ringdove, the incessant chirp of