This was really the first time that Tom had seen the interior of an inhabited kraal (for it was dark when he was brought in after his capture), and in spite of his unpleasant position he cast curious glances round as he passed through. The kraal--which was but a small one--consisted of a number of beehive-shaped huts constructed of canes, wattled and filled in with clay, and thatched with reeds and long grass; the space upon which these huts were erected was inclosed by a wall or lofty hedge, formed of the branches of the "mimosa" strongly and tightly interlaced. The hut in which our friends had been kept in durance vile stood in the very centre of the inclosure, and was not above a quarter the size of the others. "About half as big, and twice as dirty as an English pig-sty, and as full of fleas as a gypsy's van," was Tom Flinders' after description of his uncomfortable prison. The party told off to escort the white prisoners to Umbodhla's stronghold beyond the Bashee River consisted of five invalided warriors, who had received wounds during the attack on Campbell's column on the 17th April; but although their injuries were of such a nature as to prevent their taking part in a "pitched battle" or a hard day's bush warfare, these warriors were by no means in a weakly condition, and were perfectly capable of marching twenty or thirty miles between daylight and dark, and of resisting any attempt on the part of the prisoners to escape from their custody. The leader of the party--a most ferocious-looking savage, with a sinister and forbidding cast of countenance--was armed with an old-fashioned flint-lock "roer" of Dutch make; but his comrades carried only the usual bundle of assegais and their formidable knobkerries. The leader's name was Waishlahla, and he, too, was a chief, but of much lower rank than Untsikana. Quitting the kraal by a narrow opening in the inclosure wall, barely wide enough to allow of three persons passing abreast, the Caffres conducted their prisoners across some cultivated ground by which the kraal was surrounded, and ascended to the summit of the Amatolas. Traversing the range in a northeasterly direction, they presently hit upon a path that, passing down a rocky ravine, led over an extensive plain stretching far away from the base of the Amatolas to the banks of the Kei River. Down this precipitous and dangerous path the escort proceeded at a rapid pace, forcing their prisoners to keep up with them by repeated blows, and even prods of their assegais, until they reached the mouth of the ravine; they then left the path and struck straight across country in the direction of the Kei River.