Campaign 
against 
Secocceni. 
6-pr. B.L.R. 
Armstrong 
drawn by 
mules. 
Feigned 
attack to 
assist the 
passage of a 
column over 
mountain 
pass. 
2S4 
SOUTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN, 1878-9. 
mules, placed one in front of the other—tandem fashion. The harness 
was of the ordinary mule pattern, as used in the colonies, and a 
Hottentot driver ran alongside the wheel mule holding the reins, while 
another coloured man led and guided the leading mule. The first man 
carried a long whip. The detachments, consisting of six Eoyal 
Artillerymen, and 13 men of the 2/24th Regiment, marched in the 
order of march. 
This mode of moving the guns has the great advantage of being 
able to take them through narrow bush paths, where carriages with a 
wider track could not possibly travel. On the other hand, these low 
carriages are liable to turn over very easily on rough ground, and in 
wheeling. In going along bush paths, where the stumps of the felled 
trees still remain standing, this fault was particularly noticeable, and 
on one occasion the leading gun of the division fell on its side no less 
than seven times in marching through a belt of bush not one mile 
broad. To obviate this as much as possible, two men held on to the 
handles of the limber boxes, one on each side, so as to keep the small 
limber on its wheels when it was inclined to turn over. 
The spare ammunition to this division was carried in one ox wagon 
and one Scotch cart, also drawn by bullocks. 
Amount of ammunition so carried :— 
No. 
Common shell . 100 
Shrapnel „ 138 
Case shot . 10 
Cartridges (12-oz.) . 199 
Friction tubes . 245 
C 9 secs. 228 
Fuzes <5 „ 113 
(.K.L. percussion. 100 
In going down steep inclines the detachments had invariably to take 
the weight in rear by means of drag ropes. 
This division was broken up, and the guns, &c., returned into the 
ordnance store at King William's town, at the conclusion of the Graika 
war. 
On the 22nd September, 1878, at Fort Weeber, Secocoeniland, 
having marched from Pretoria as staff officer to Major Russell's column, 
I took over a 6-pr. B.L.R. Armstrong gun, and continued to march 
with the column. It was drawn by eight mules with pole-draught, and 
driven by a native who sat on the limber. The detachment, which 
consisted entirely of men of the l/13th L.I., marched in the order of 
march. 
I took up another gun of a similar nature, and mounted in the same 
manner, a few days later on. 
On the morning of the 24th September, a small force, consisting of 
one 6-pr. B.L.R. gun, one company 1/13th L.I., and 80 natives—the 
whole under Major England, 1 /13th L.I.—marched from Fort Faugh- 
a-ballagh to make a feigned attack on Magnet Heights, with a view of 
drawing the enemy away from the end of the mountains overlooking 
the pass through which the column had to march. 
