secretary,* and through his indefatigable and able assistance our most intricate military financial affairs have been carried on in the most satisfactory manner; and I should be very ungrateful, as well as unjust, if I did not recommend him to your favourable notice.

Mr. Liddle, my private secretary, is very grateful for his appointment in the department, and continues to give me great satisfaction. I do not know whether he will draw pay, but I hope he may, as I hope very soon to obtain leave to return home; and in the meantime this is a very expensive place for him, he being a married man, and lodging and eatables very dear.

May I beg the favour of you to have the inclosed letter for Lady Georgiana posted, and

Extract from PRIVATE LETTER.

Graham's Town, August 13, 1853.

I will not waste paper in expatiating on what you do know, but tell you about what I know you most desire to hear of from me, viz. my own affairs. I am reposing from my labours after the accomplishment of an arduous task. Blue Books, and, possibly, my Minute to my Legislative Assembly, have told you all I can tell you as to South Africa. Everything is going on even more prosperously than I could expect ; and I believe, if my measures are fully carried out, there is no chance of another Kafir war. That riots or troubles may not occur is more than the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland can ensure in his Government; and I do not do so in mine; but a great

*Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Seymour.

and disastrous war will be impossible. My mission is, therefore, fully and satisfactorily accomplished.

The K.C.B. I care little about; but the Duke of Newcastle writes me, that "In one letter of the 1st June, the Queen expressed to me (Duke of N.) her high sense of the admirable manner in which General Cathcart has performed the arduous task entrusted to him." This is of far more value to me than the outward decoration.

I have repeatedly asked to be relieved; but I fear I may be detained some months longer than I could wish, as they think my immediate removal might have an unfavourable moral effect among the native tribes, who, I believe, really do respect and fear me; and the difficult business of the establishment of a new constitutional Government is also in progress. The Duke of Newcastle hopes I will not ask to go home before the end of the year. Winter weather and comparative repose have mended my health and energy, but I wish I could get home.

Extract from PRIVATE LETTER.

Graham's Town, September 13, 1853.

Everything goes on well here, and all is profound peace. The measures I have taken to secure the permanency of this happy state of things are already so far advanced, and so clearly defined and well understood, that I really wish they would let me go. No doubt I am of use here; but there are others who should take their turn of duty, and who would carry on all that remains to be done just as well as I can. I send you a copy of a letter I wrote to Darling from King William's Town, which I made Brodribb copy on purpose. You will see what a capital clerk's hand he writes.

The weather is fine to-day, but you will be surprised to hear that I have felt more uncomfort from cold than heat in this climate, take the whole year round.

BB

This place is particularly cold, owing to the hills which surround it, and form valleys, which act like blow-pipes for the sea gales. This is our spring; the peach-trees are in blossom, but the pears and apples show no signs as yet of vegetation. We have had two or three days' rain, which is very valuable at this season, but very rare; we do not get above three or four showers in a month; it is wonderful how anything can grow at all. We had frost in the mornings some weeks since. September here answers to about March at home. My establishment is so far changed, that I have lost my first A. D. C., Dick Curzon, who, now a major, has accepted, with my consent, the appointment of A. D. C. to General George Anson, in India. He said he should not have thought of it if I had intended to remain. He is an amiable fellow, and we miss him; but I have two excellent A. D. C.'s-Arthur Greville and Gilbert Elliot, who are both all that I could wish. I have taken provisionally, as an extra A. D. C., a son of Sir George Clerk's, who is now up in the Sovereignty, with his hands full of work, which I am too happy to have been able to transfer to him. Young Clerk is waiting here for an exchange into the Cape Corps, is quite a lad, but very gentlemanlike, and well brought up. I have made him over to Charles Seymour, my Military Secretary, as a sort of assistant in his very arduous office duties. The lad likes it, and his father will thank me for placing him in a position in which he may, and I have no doubt will, learn much of the interior management and economy of a large army, which may qualify him for being a Military Secretary some day himself.

*

I should be too glad of the excuse to join you abroad; for they will not let me alone when I get home for some time to come, if they can catch me, but will be constantly bothering me about Cape and other colonial affairs; and I aspire to nothing more than domestic comfort for the rest of my days.

Give my love to dear Jane, Alice, Emily, Louisa, and Anne.

Tell Alice* I have got on her waistcoat at this moment, and that I have worn it all through the winter. It is not a bit too warm, even for to-day, though the thermometer stands at 70°; but such is, I suppose, the effect of habit, that this, which would be hot in Europe, is only moderate heat here. My public business is so much lighter, I have had time for this long letter.

LETTER to Lieut.-Governor DARLING.

Graham's Town, September 4, 1853.

It is curious that the

MY DEAR DARLING,-I returned yesterday from a very satisfactory visit to British Kaffraria. Prophet Umlangani gave up the ghost, I believe, the very day I crossed the Keiskamma, and was buried last Sunday without any fuss or honour. The Kafirs speak of the occurrence with the utmost unconcern; but, as they are always reserved and cautious in their expressions, it is not easy to know what they think and feel.

The T'Slambie chiefs came of their own accord to see me at King William's Town. One day, I had Umhala and Pato to luncheon, and we had a long conversation. I told them I had no business to talk about; for that Maclean was my mouth, which is their mode of designating a plenipotentiary; but I told them all about Seyolo, and why I determined to detain him. In fact, that he had been sentenced to be shot; but that I had saved his life, and now kept him at Cape Town, because his return would put all the fat in the fire. Umhala said he was a young man, and had done foolish things; he ought to be punished; and that, for the reasons I gave, he thought I was quite right in keeping him out of the way. He repeated this twice as his opinion; once in answer, the second time spontaneously, in course of conversation, as his own opinion. Next

* Died June 14, 1855.

day, Siwani and his mother, Princess Nonebi, came, with Seyolo's brother by the same mother, and half-brother to Siwani, who was as well dressed as any English gentleman could be, with a cloth shooting-jacket, a quiet waistcoat, and some sort of light-coloured trousers, all new, and of the finest materials. His manners and conversation are quite like a gentleman; he is very good-looking, and of a lighter complexion than most Kafirs, Princess Nonebi, his mother, claiming English blood from the traditionary descent from one of the two ladies (Miss Campbells, I believe) wrecked on the coast, and about whom there is a romantic story. One, it seems, married the chief of the Amapondas of that day, who was Nonebi's ancestor. The chief Toise was also of that party; but he was overdressed, having an embroidered satin waistcoat.

My object was, to put them at their ease, and conciliate; for, having the power, and sufficiently convinced them that we have it, there is no use in making them hate us.

With the same view, I sent to Sandilli to come and see me on a particular hill in Umhala's country, where we last met, telling him, as I did the others, it was a friendly meeting I desired, and no business; that I would come without escort, and unarmed; for he had expressed to Brownlee that he feared treachery, and did not like to venture near a military post, for that he had been warned to be on his guard. Who the rascals are who strive to make the mischief I have not yet found out; but that there are such is quite certain. Accordingly, we met on 31st ultimo at noon. I had with me some of my staff, and no escort but an orderly to hold my horse. Some 300 Kafirs came from neighbouring villages to see the meeting, on foot and unarmed. I sent Dundas, Sandilli's brother, who had come over to King William's Town the night before, on purpose to ride out with me, to tell Sandilli I was on the ground. In a short time he made his appearance on the horizon at a gallop, with some fifty mounted followers, but when he came near walked up the hill. These late rebels wore their caross.