248 BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS 
thousand feet above the sea level, and of course its climate is 
considerably colder as well as dryer than Cape Town, but 
there was no frost during the period of my stay. 
April 29.—After remaining about a fortnight at this place 
we set out for Cafferland on the 29th, and journeying east- 
ward, over a high and open country, reached Fraser's Camp, 
a small military post about twenty-five miles from Graham's 
Town and six from the Great Fish River. From the highest 
hill on our route, called the Governors Kop, we had an 
excellent view of the mountains of Cafferland and the Ceded 
Territory, some of which are supposed to exceed six thousand 
feet in height. 
Fraser's Camp, where we passed the night, had been a 
little before this the scene of a tragical event. Some soldiers 
of the Hottentot corps, or Cape Rifles, who were quartered 
here, mutinied, at the instigation, it is supposed, of the Caffers; 
and fired into a hut where a party of officers were sitting, 
killing one of them, a Mr. Crowe. The mutineers were how- 
ever disarmed by the other troops, and being tried by a court- 
martial fourteen of them were sentenced to death; the Go- 
vernor caused only two of these to be executed; some who 
were least guilty were pardoned, and the rest sent to work in 
chains on Robben Island. If credit could be given to the 
confession made by one of the criminals, this abortive out- 
break was connected with an extensive conspiracy, of which 
the Caffer chief Umkai, of the Tslambie tribe, was the prime 
mover. The Caffers, aided by the Hottentot mutineers, were 
to have seized on the military post of Fort Peddie, on the 
other side of the Fish River, marched upon Graham’s Town 
by night, surprised the 72nd regiment in the barracks, and 
fired the town; indeed, according to the same authority, they 
expected no less than to be able to drive the English back to 
Cape Town, and to partition the colony between them. There 
is little doubt that Umkai had been in correspondence with 
the mutineers, and had secretly instigated them to violence, 
probably hoping that such a degree of confusion might be — 
created, as would give him an opportunity of breaking into — 
