158 
SPORT AND WAR. 
CHAP. XVII. 
possession of by the rebel Hottentots of the Kat river 
settlement and by the Kafirs. 
During this time the military villages in the 
Chumie Hoek were also attacked, and nearly all the 
men killed, with many of the women and children. 
About ten days after the affair of the Boomah Pass, 
Sir Harry Smith, with a strong party of Cape Mounted 
Bifles, cut his way through from Fort Cox to Fort 
White, where, after a short halt, he proceeded on to 
King William’s Town, the established head-quarters of 
British Kaffraria. On arrival at Fort White my friend 
and old companion-in-arms Johnny Armstrong was de¬ 
sirous of carrying me on in a litter to King William’s 
Town, and proposed to construct such a thing as could 
be carried by four horsemen; but on mentioning it to 
Sir Harry Smith he very wisely forbade it, and it is 
fortunate for me that he did so. The whole force was 
hotly attacked at the Debe Neck, and had to diverge 
from the road and pass over this wonderful Kometje 
Flat at a great pace, so that any litter must have been 
dropped, or I must have been jolted out of it, for no two 
horsemen could by any chance have been on the same 
level at the same time. 
The troops had to contrive all sorts of means to 
exist. The regular ration consisted of a quarter of a 
pound of salt meat, with four ozs. of biscuit. Luckily 
there was a fair supply of barley and oats, and what 
