IN SOUTH AFRICA. 257 
hostile troops, throw their assagais from behind thickets and 
rocks, and disperse and creep away under covert if attacked. 
Their desperate assault on Graham's Town, in 1819, was the 
most remarkable deviation from this system, and their disaster 
on that occasion has probably deterred them from repeating 
the experiment. Accordingly, in the last war, they inflicted 
but little loss on our troops, and as far as could be ascer- 
tained, did not suffer very much in return. Nor can they, 
with any reason, be blamed for avoiding open encounter with 
men whose superiority of weapons and of skill they have ex- 
perienced, or for carrying on the war in the manner most 
safe and advantageous to themselves. 
These people are, I am told, remarkably tenacious of life, 
so that hardly any wound which is not immediately fatal, 
Will prevent them from effecting their retreat; and often, 
when mortally hurt, they will run like deer for miles before 
they drop. Living in a peculiarly fine and healthy climate, 
subsisting chiefly on milk, and neither wasted by toil nor 
pampered with indulgence, they are subject to few diseases. 
But many of them, especially the chiefs, have suffered much 
from the introduction of spirituous liquors. The late Gaika, 
of whom there is an interesting account in Barrow’s Travels, 
is said to have perished mainly from this cause. 
May 5th.—I now return to my narrative. Leaving Block 
Drift very early in the morning, we travelled over a beau- 
tiful, verdant, hilly country, with much wood, to Fort Arm- 
Strong on the Kat River. It is surprising how superior the 
Country beyond the Great Fish River is, in point of beauty, 
to that on the colonial side of the stream ; and it is said to im- 
Prove still farther after you cross the Keiskamma. But this 
€ territory is not considered so valuable for grazing, as 
much of that within the colony, for the grass is in general 
What is called « sour;" that is, rank and unwholesome for 
cattle, Le 
Leaving behind us the rich and picturesque basin of the 
Chumie, and taking a direction about N.W., we passed under 
the brow of the Katberg, a fine mountain-range clothed with 
VOL, 111. U 
