78 Account of the Fish River Bush, South Africa. 



of property, and the habitations of men ; all these, if they 

 exist at all, are shrouded from view by the same impene- 

 trable winding-sheet, which conceals the action of the savage 

 passions of men and brutes, as well as any signs of the 

 former's industrial activity. Unseen by the glaring sun has 

 the savage butchered the unwary farmer, or tortured his 

 captive comrade to death ; unseen have his waggons been 

 captured and plundered ; and daylight in vain essayed to 

 discern the perhaps drunken orgies of the horrid crew revel- 

 ling in wanton destruction and cruelty. The spectator from 

 a height hears the reports of fire-arms, at first sharp, and 

 sees the eddies of blue vaporous smoke rising out of the 

 Bush ; both are now gradually dying away, and savage yells 

 and the growling bark of dogs are taking their place ; not a 

 leaf moves, nor a living creature to be seen, and soon these 

 signs of animate existence fail to be appreciated ; and yet 

 this is all that a spectator could record of the surprise and 

 slaughter of a company of British soldiers by the Caffres in 

 the Committee's Kloofs in the first September of the war. 

 Underneath these impassive leaves, and entangled amidst 

 impenetrable thickets, the dismayed soldiers fell rapid victims 

 to the savage barbarity of the Caffres, and the brutal ferocity 

 of the bloodhound (not strictly so, but a large kind of Caffre 

 dog). There, no friendly aid, if near, could have discerned 

 the deadly struggle or the torturing death, and have carried 

 assistance or sought revenge. The darkness of night can- 

 not afford a deeper screen for deeds of blood than the tangled 

 thickets and dense foliage of the Fish River Bush. As the 

 soldier or frontier colonist can tell you of the vicissitudes of 

 human life that have transpired in its obscurities, so the 

 hunter can relate his incidents of sport carried on in its re- 

 cesses. He can call up to mind the herds of elephants that 

 once quietly browsed amidst the thickets in yonder valley ; 

 can shew you the paths they had formed by their ponderous 

 power, which led from the heights to the cool vley or pool of 

 water in the still bed of the stream ; can recal to you the 

 huge bulk of the rhinoceros or sea-cow, reposing in listless- 

 ness in the heat of the day on the shady side of the kloof, 

 and point out to you the path he took, and his heavy foot- 



