canght up smatterings of European tactics. 'Day by day," we quote Mr Barnard, "they get more expert in the use of fire-arms, and are observant of our least movements, that I have heard officers describe their throwing out skirmishers as quite equal to our own manoeuvres." They also attempt stratagems, often with success. It is a common trick with them to ensnare small parties of the enemy by leaving a few cattle grazing at the edge of a thicket, in which they conceal themselves, and when their opponents approach, issue forth and assail them. In this manner were entrapped Captain Gibson and Dr Howell, of the Rifles, and the Honourable Mr Chetwynd, who, as newcomers to the colony, were not up to the hackneyed decoy. The Kaffirs, on the other hand, are too cunning to be often taken unawares, although we read of a few successful surprises in Mrs Ward's chronicle of the campaign. Colonel Somerset, the gallant commander of the Cape mounted Rifles, is the hero of one of these, upon which Mrs Ward dwells with peculiar complacency. A small division of troops had halted to bivouac, when an officer's horse ran away, and carried him over a hill, past a "clump of Kaffirs" six hundred strong. Reining in with great difficulty, he dashed back and made his report. What ensued is described in appropriate style by our martial and dashing authoress. A very wholesome lesson for the Kaffirs, two hundred of whom were killed, and a good many more wounded, but rather an inglorious victory for regular cavalry-so, at least, it strikes us, when we contemplate, in one of Mrs Ward's illustrations, a parcel of naked monsters, more like Mexican apes than men, howling and capering, and hurling javelins at an advancing party of infantry. Any "phalanx" formed by these uncouth barbarians, would be, we should think, of a very loose description, and not likely to oppose much resistance to the charge of her Majesty's 7th Dragoon Guards, backed by the mounted Rifles, who in spite of black skin, diminutive stature, and cucumber shanks, are admitted on all hands to be very efficient light cavalry-the best, probably, for warfare against savages. It were well, perhaps, to increase their numbers; or at any rate, if cavalry must be sent out from England, it were surely advisable to select it of the lightest description. Dragoon guards are excellent in their place, first-rate fellows to oppose to helmeted Frenchmen or Germans; but the Cape is by no means their place, and Kaffirs are not cuirassiers. It is like hunting weasels with wolf-hounds; the very size and power of the dogs impede them in the pursuit of their noxious and contemptible prey. There is one point of difference, however, and by no means in favour of the dragoons; weasels do not carry loaded muskets, which Kaffirs habitually do, firing them off whenever occasion offers, from behind bushes, out of wolf-holes, or from any other sequestered and sheltered position, where it is impossible for the heavy six-foot-long dragoon guardsin each hand. There was great slaughter glittering accoutrements, and tall men to get at them. Red jackets, "Colonel Somerset lifted his cap from his head, gave three hearty cheers and shouted, Major Gibsone, (7th Dragoon Guards,) return carbines, draw swords, charge! Hurrah!' was echoed back; and on they dashed, dragoons, Cape corps, burghers, Hottentots, and Fingos. They found the enemy up and in position. Such a mêlée! The cavalry dashed through the phalanx of Kaffirs, and for want of more cavalry to support them, dashed back again! A Hottentot soldier, one of the sturdy Cape corps, having two horses given him to take care of, charged unarmed, save his sword, and with a horse Such amongst the enemy. figures make up a capital mark for the bullet of a lurking foe; and the unfortunate warriors go perspiring through the bush, with the thermometer at 120° in the shade, cursing the Kaffirs, but rarely catching them, their clattering scabbards betraying their approach, and their lofty helmets who find themselves encountered by "After the affair at Fort Peddie, Stock, a T'Slambie chief, sent messengers to complain of our attacks upon him, when he, too, was sitting still,' and only wished to be allowed to watch his father Eno's grave! Very pathetic indeed! This would sound most pastoral and poetical in Exeter Hall. Stock was, no doubt, sitting still' beside his father's grave, but his people were at work, plundering, burning, murdering, torturing, and mutilating the troops and colonists, whilst he * Fingos, Kaffirs, and Hottentots, make use of a band or handkerchief, drawn tightly round the body, to deaden the pain of hunger; as the gnawing agony of famine increases, the ligature is tightened accordingly.-Five Years in Kaffirland, vol. i., P. 102. 'sat still' and approved. He should have protected that sacred spot, and kept the neighbourhood of Fort Peddie clear of marauders."* Mrs Ward writes like a man. We mean this in no uncomplimentary sense; on the contrary. Her clear, natural, and lively style has a masculine vigour and concision; her opinions are bold and decided. To those she emits upon the subject of the colony and its prospects, we are inclined to attach considerable weight. Women are keen observers, and Mrs Ward is evidently no ordinary woman, but a person of great energy and penetration. We more willingly rely on the observations made during her marches and countermarches, in her equestrian rambles and at outquarters, than on the croaking experiences of our friend the sheep-farmer. A dier's daughter and wife-a life of change, hardship, and danger, has quickened her perceptions and ripened her judgment. "When I read the miserable account from Ireland of its past year's woe, and the wretched prospect for the next, I long to hear of ships making their way to Algoa Bay, with emigrants from that country. Some have arrived within the last few weeks, and employment and provision have been met with at once. Under another system, affording protection to the settler, this country will afford a refuge to the starving population of Ireland. Well might Sir Henry Pottinger be struck with the capabilities and resources of this fine colony, as he travelled through it. Here is a vast and fertile space, comparatively free, at this moment, from the murderous heathen. An industrious population, located in sections, would be the best protection for the country; and a well-organised militia, or police force, might be formed from those who are likely to die of cold and famine at home. Until such locations can be established, more troops will be required; the country we have added to our possessions must be held by might, and to do this, a living wall, bristling with arms, is necessary. "The village of Bathurst, in the district of Lower Albany, may be said to defend itself to its best ability. This pretty settlement has risen and flourished under the patient labour of emigrants, sent thither in 1820, chiefly through the instrumentality of the Duke of Newcastle. The labourer, the mechanic, the unthriving tradesman, the servant without work, may not only find employment, but are absolutely wanted here. The former may plant his three, and sometimes four crops of potatoes in the year, to say nothing of other produce, and manifold resources of gain and comfort. It is singular that, whilst our fellow creatures in Great Britain, in 1847, were suffering from the failure of their crops, the gardens of corn, pumpkin, &c. in Kaffirland, were more than usually productive. "The miserable mechanics from our crowded manufacturing districts may here earn six shillings a-day with ease; the ruined tradesman of England, with a jail .staring him in the face, will meet a welcome here, where opposition in trade is required, to promote industry, honesty, and civility; and the youths of Ireland, instead of arming themselves for rebellious purposes, may, in this colony, serve their Queen honourably, by protecting their fellow creatures from the aggressions of the savage." + Favourable and encouraging accounts, contrasting strongly with Mr Nicholson's melancholy reports! That gentleman's book, if read and credited, is of itself enough to stop emigration to the country whither Mrs Ward thus strongly advocates it. And we must bear in mind, moreover, that the colonial districts of the Cape include the least fertile and valuable portion of South Africa. The finest pastures and most healthy tracts are held by Hottentots, Kaffirs, and Fingos. Savages, experience teaches us, recede and dwindle on the advance of the white man. Increase the population of the Cape Colony, and in due time the colonists will push their way. But Mr Nicholson strongly objects to such increase, and holds it unwise and impracticable. We cannot repeat, even in a compressed form, all the gloomy statements of his eighth chapter, but will just glance at one or twa of its points. In the first place, in the country which, as Mrs Ward maintains, would receive "the starving population of Ireland," and be the better for their arrival, so long as they were willing to work, Mr Nicholson can only make room for one thousand of the humbler classes of emigrants. Five Years in Kaffirland, vol. i. p. 304. Ib., vol. ii. p. 191-2. try. But Mr Nicholson is evidently not one of those easily-pleased persons, who put up with present disagreeables in hopes of a more prosperous future. To be sure, he denies the possibility of any amount of energy, knowledge, and industry procuring the emigrant a settled and comfortable position. "When all this energy must be expended in an often vain effort to prevent loss, or to overcome difficulties, the control of which will only have a conservative, and not a progressive effect on the settler's circumstances, its constant exercise soon sickens, and the consequences will be despair and misery." We should put more faith in these deplorable accounts, were they supported by the evidence of other writers on the subject; but we know of none who partake Mr Nicholson's dismal views, at least to any thing like the same extent. And his whole book breathes a spirit of discontent and depreciation that makes us regard it with distrust, as the splenetic effusion of a man soured by ill success. With him, from Dan to Beersheba, all is barren; or, if exceptional fertility here and there prevails, it is neutralised by an accumulation of evils. This, he opines, "would be the greatest number who could obtain employment suited to the capacities and habits of decent labouring people." They are to be principally female house-servants, cooks, housemaids, and nurses; and with respect to the few out-door labourers he is disposed to admit, those, he tells us, "would succeed best who, without having previously followed any particular occupation so closely as to be almost unfitted for any other, can, as the term is, 'turn their hands to any thing."" Married men, in his opinion, should not go out at all. These are certainly singular doctrines, rather contrary to received notions concerning emigration, as well as to Mrs Ward's opinions. As to persons of a superior class going out to take farms, expecting to live upon their produce, Mr Nicholson treats the idea as utterly visionary and chimerical. Such persons must possess an independent income, in addition to what it may be necessary to invest in a farm. The question then is, how do the Dutch manage? since the "late resident" admits the superior success and contentedness found amongst the Boers, and which were far more evident before the wealthiest and most intelligent of them had left the colony, to seek at Port Natal refuge from foolish legislation, and from the slaveemancipating absurdities of the philanthropists. May not an answer be more wholesome kinds scanty in found in the following extract?"It quantity, and liable to be fatally dimimust be admitted that a British popunished by dry seasons. Crops of corn lation is of more intrinsic value than and all kinds of vegetables grow most abundantly, and are cultivated at but a colonial Dutch one; but then the little expense, in most parts of Albany; latter has, by long experience, been frequent and heavy losses in wheat crops, taught to moderate hopes and neceshowever, may be expected from the sities within a compass little in accord-rust,' and less frequent and more partial ance with the go-a-head notions of the present race of Englishmen of all classes of society." Of course if "fast men" go out to settle at the Cape, with Captain Harris's book of South African sports and a case of rifles and fowling-pieces for chief baggage, and with expectations of finding in the bush grand-pianos for their wives, and rocking-horses for their first-born, they are likely to be exceedingly discontented on discovering hard work and many privations to be the necessary conditions of life in a new coun "The farmer is, in this country, always checkmated, as it were, by the natural order of things: luxuriant-looking pasturage is of poisonous quality, and the destruction from the attacks of locusts. When a large general yield of grain occurs, it must be sold at a very low figure, as there is great difficulty in preserving it for better prices, for want of granaries and barns, which would be too expensive to erect, and would, after all, but ineffectually guarantee it from the attacks of the numerous animals and insects which swarm in this climate. If sold for a good price in such a season, to persons inhabiting other districts where the crops may have failed, the expenses of transport would form a serious item of deduction from the general profit." * The Cape and its Colonists, p. 114. * May we be a breakfast for hippopotami, if there is a possibility of pleasing George Nicholson, junior, Esq. Here is a catalogue of calamities! How he baffles the unfortunate settler at every turn with some fresh and inevitable disaster! When grass abounds, it is poisonous, and, when wholesome, there is none of it! The rust and the locust conspire to destroy the wheat when it escapes both, it must be sold for next to nothing, because it is not worth while building barns to store it. And if a Cape farmer were extravagant enough to build a granary, insects and animals would empty it for him! Insects, animals, and reptiles certainly are the curse of the country-certain descriptions of them, at least. Snakes are very abundant, and nearly all deadly in their bite. In the fertile district of Zwellendam they abound, and frequently occasion severe loss by biting the sheep. Amongst the beasts of prey, lions are getting thinned by the guns of Boers, settlers, and English officers; the jackals and hyenas are cowardly creatures, and fly from man, but play the mischief with the flocks. The rhinoceros is an ugly customer when provoked, but far less so than he would be were his sight better, and his difficulty in turning his stiff carcass less. The lumbering hippopotamus abounds in most of the rivers, and is shot from the banks by huntsmen hidden amongst the bushes; he is sometimes also taken in pitfalls, with a sharp stake at the bottom, which impales any unfortunate animal chancing to fall in. His teeth are more valuable than elephant ivory, and his flesh-especially the fat, which, when salted, eats like bacon is greatly esteemed by both colonists and natives. The plains are in some places infested by colonies of small animals, rather larger than the squirrel, and obnoxious to the horseman, who form a kind of warren in the softer and more sandy portions of the plain, which break in with the horse, and bury him up to his shoulders in the dust and rubbish, amongst which the rider is pretty sure of finding himself on his back." But if dangerous beasts and troublesome vermin are too plentiful in the colony, this annoyance is compensated by an extraordinary abundance of useful and profitable animals. Numerous varieties of the stag and antelope overrun the plains. Mr Nicholson, whom we suspect of a more decided predilection for the sportsman's double-barrel than for the crook and tar-barrel of the sheep-farmer, speaks in the highest terms of field-sports at the Cape, although, faithful to his system of flying off from a subject almost as soon as he touches upon it, he gives few details, hinting diffidence in approaching that subject after Harris's famous book. The little he does say impresses us with the idea of a glorious supply of venison and other choice meats. We read of twenty thousand antelopes in sight at one time; of a column of spring-bucks (a variety of the same family) fifteen miles in length, and so closely packed, that nine fell at one discharge from a large gun. The extensive forest of the Zitikama, which supplies the colony with timber, abounds in buffalo, boar, and antelope, in pheasants, partridges, and guinea-fowl. The keen sportsman, not wedded to the pleasures of a city, will find abundant pastime and recreation in so gamy a land as this; and, when wearied by the monotonous occupations of his farm, may, almost without losing sight of browsing herds and drowsy Hottentots, pleasantly beguile an hour by stalking a "blesbok" of circling a bustard— the latter process consisting in riding round the birds in large but decreasing circles, which evolution, if skilfully performed, causes them to lie close till the horse walks them up. is the manoeuvre advocated and practised by Mr Nicholson, who, having at last left off grumbling, and begun to be amusing, prematurely closes his very brief volume, as if afraid of writing himself into good humour on his favourite subject of sporting, and of retracting some portion of his previous depreciation of a colony which, with due deference for his opinion and verdict, we persist in considering a land of great promise to frugal, hardy, and industrious emigrants. Such |