th said: "Already are
seven thousand persons dependent on Government for the necessaries of
life. The land is filled with the lamentations of the widow and the
fatherless. The indelible impressions already made upon myself by the
horrors of an irruption of savages upon a scattered population, almost
exclusively engaged in the peaceful occupations of husbandry, are such
as to make me look on those I have witnessed in a service of thirty
years, ten of which in the most eventful period of war, as trifles to
what I have now witnessed, and compel me to bring under consideration,
as forcibly as I am able, the heartrending position in which a very
large portion of the inhabitants of this frontier are at present placed,
as well as their intense anxiety respecting their future condition."

Sir Benjamin D'Urban, arriving soon afterwards, constituted a Board of
Relief to meet the necessities of the distressed; and relief committees
were established in Capetown, Stellenbosch, Graaff-Reinet, and other
principal towns, while subscriptions were collected in Mauritius, Saint
Helena, and India.

Soon after the arrival of Colonel Smith, burgher forces were collected;
troops arrived with the Governor on the scene of action, and the work of
expelling the invader was begun in earnest. Skirmishes by small bodies
of farmers and detachments of troops took place all over the land, in
which the Dutch-African colonists and English settlers with their
descendants vied with each other, and with the regulars, in heroic
daring. Justice requires it to be added that they had a bold enemy to
deal with, for the Kafirs were physically splendid men; full of courage
and daring, although armed only with light spears.

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Note 1. The author had the pleasure of spending a night last year
(1876) under the hospitable roof of Mr Pringle, shortly before his
death, and saw the identical assagai, which was bent by the force with
which it had been hurled against him on that occasion.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

SHOWS WHAT BEFELL A TRADER AND AN EMIGRANT BAND.

Stephen Orpin, with the goods of earth in his waggon and the treasures
of heaven in his hand, chanced to be passing over a branch of the
Amatola Mountains when the torch of war was kindled and sent its horrid
glare along the frontier. Vague news of the outbreak had reached him,
and he was hastening back to the village of Salem, i