56 
SPORT AND WAR. 
CHAP. IX. 
Two columns of troops left Victoria, one under 
Colonel, subsequently General SirH. Somerset, and the 
other under Colonel Richardson, 7th Dragoon Guards. 
Very little except ordinary skirmishing took place for 
the first two or three days ; on the third day a com¬ 
bined camp was formed on the Debe Flats, just under 
the Taban Doda Mountain. This was the same 
locality where Sir B. D’Urban formed his camp in the 
war of 1835; and I remember going to look at the very 
spot where Sir Benjamin’s tent stood when he was very 
near being assassinated by a Kafir who had crept through 
the sentries into camp, had penetrated into the Com- 
mander-in-Chief’s tent, and was in the act of stabbing 
Sir Benjamin, when he was shot by the sentry over the 
tent. 
On the fourth day the camp broke up, and the two 
columns, forming one division, entered the Amatolas in 
the direction of Burns Hill, a missionary station, also 
the residence of the august paramount chief Sandilli. 
I was sent on with an advance-guard, or reconnoitring 
party, to take possession of the chief’s kraal. The 
mission station was in a most deplorable state; the 
missionaries had fled, the furniture was smashed to 
pieces, and the Bibles and books scattered to the winds, 
but up to this time the houses had not been burnt. 
Sandilli’s kraal was also deserted, but at the door of his 
hut I found his emblem of royalty, viz., two lions’ tails 
