20 KAFFIR LIGHT INFANTRY. 



Kaffirs, being also particularly active and always in excel- 

 lent training, make splendid light infantry. I believe it 

 was Napoleon who remarked that legs won as many 

 battles as arms : should this be true, the Kaffirs certainly 

 have a great advantage over us, as they can go three 

 miles at least to our two. 



Although indifferent marksmen, they are not inferior 

 to the average of our private soldiers, and they are fast 

 improving. Their training from childhood consists in 

 a course of assagy-throwing and a cunning way of 

 approaching and surprising an enemy. As they are in 

 such cases destitute of clothes, they move through the 

 thorny bush with great ease, and are in such light 

 marching order that their impediments are nothing in 

 comparison with those of our soldiers, heavily burdened 

 and tightly strapped. A Kaffir is also seasoned by hard- 

 ship from childhood, and keeps fat and sleek on the roots 

 and berries which he picks up, occasionally eked out with 

 scraps of meat j while Englishmen rapidly lose their form 

 and flesh by living on the tough old ox that is killed and 

 immediately served out to them as rations. 



The individual courage of the frontier Kaffirs is unde- 

 niable, and they have given many proofs of it. One case 

 I may mention, which will show the great risk which they 

 will run for their favourite stake, cattle. It was related 

 to me by an eye-witness. 



During the time that there was encamped on the Debe 

 flats a force consisting of upwards of two hundred men, 

 the cattle were inclosed nightly in a kraal, formed of 

 bushes and trees cut down, and inclosing a space of some 



