tatingly have gone back; but the account of the symptoms that the messenger had brought inclined me to suspect that the case was serious, and I felt that I ought to persevere if possible. The torrent seethed in front of me; the red turbid stream was certainly thirty feet wide, and its depth had increased to quite four feet. Not far below was a hollow, some ten feet in depth, and into this the waters plunged in an angry cataract. I relied, however, with all confidence upon my horse, and urged him into the stream. Very few steps had he taken before I felt him tremble, but at a word of encouragement from me he went forwards again. In order to avoid the cataract, I thought it best to guide him a little to the right, but unfortunately the stream proved to be violent beyond all expectation. Mosco stumbled, but happily his head and mine remained above water; by a vigorous effort he recovered himself, and after a fatiguing struggle was nearing the opposite side, when again he missed his footing, and came down upon his knees. I momentarily expected to be rolled into the torrent, but had the presence of mind to give my horse his head; one dash, and he fixed his forefeet into the soft clay of the shore; an instant’s pause, and with a desperate bound he carried me safe to terra firma.
It was during the time of my residence in Cradock that the Zulu war, the most important event that has occurred in South Africa for the last quarter of a century, was going on. For the advancement of civilization that war was a necessity, and it must not be supposed either that it was a mere arbitrary proceeding on the part of Sir Bartle Frere, or that the British Government had no valid reason for
