460 
DEFENCE OF EKOWE. 
“Look out for 1000 meia on 13th; be prepared to sally out when 
you are aware of my pm'sence.” This message was repeated for the 
next two or three days, as \we were unable to convey to them that we 
understood. However, by |5th March we had fixed our glass sufficiently 
well to inform them we ha/fi taken in the message, and they commenced 
to forward further information. 
I .Cannot tell you how delighted we were on the receipt of this news. 
The spirits of the whole of the troops seemed to improve, even the 
poor sick men in hospital—some on the point of death—seemed to be 
cheered up with the happy intelligence. For some days the weather 
was cloudy, so signalling was impossible. Nothing worthy of mention 
occurred in the meantime except that a runner made his appearance in 
camp, bearing a despatch a fortnight old; this aroused our suspicions, 
more especially when we noticed that he wore an overcoat with the 
badge of 24th Regt. on it. Our Kaffirs, moreover, informed us 
that he could not have come from the Tugela by any possibility, as 
he was “ oiled ” and his legs bore no marks of having been in the 
bush. In fact, he was no other than a Zulu spy. He was at once 
put in irons, and remained so till we were relieved. What became 
of the wretched man, I know not. When with us he was continually 
informed that his ultimate fate would be the gallows. 
Just at this time one of our vedettes was killed and another wounded 
by Zulus, who surprised them by creeping up through the long grass 
which surrounded their posts. The latter vedette escaped miraculously ; 
while sitting on his horse, evidently half asleep, with his carbine slung 
across his shoulder (contrary to orders), he was suddenly surprised by 
about a dozen Zulus. By his own account they rushed in on him, one 
of them actually laying hold of his horse’s bridle. By dint of spur 
he cleared himself. The Zulus then fired a volley at him, but to his 
delight his horse went on, although he felt himself wounded. This 
man arrived safely in camp, although he had been shot through both 
thighs, two fingers shot off: (or had to be cut off from effects of the 
wound), and his horse assegaied. We found, in addition, a bullet hole 
in the pommel of his saddle, and the splash where a bullet had hit the 
lock of his carbine. Curiously enough, this very man was afterwards 
brought before my brother, a resident magistrate in Ireland, for having 
assaulted an old man and stolen his hat, for which joke the Ekowe 
hero, I am sorry to say, payed the penalty. 
We had now thoroughly established communication with the Tugela 
by means of our primitive heliograph, which in reality was nothing 
more than an eighteen-penny bedroom looking glass, which can be seen 
at any time in the United Service Institution. By degrees we became 
acquainted with the events of the past two months, of which we had 
hitherto been in total ignorance. As each message was flashed, the 
excitement was intense; the men crowding round and straining their 
ears to hear each letter as the signallers pronounced it. As each word 
was spelt it was communicated to the crowd, whose pleasure it was 
to anticipate the meaning of the whole message. I recollect, on one 
