CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 19, 17 May 1851, Page 3

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

KAFFIR WAR.-FURTHER NEWS. {From the Sydney Morning Herald.) On the 2nd of January the Governor, still at William's Town, issued a general order, conferring- upon Colonel Somerset the local rank of Major-General, and directing that officer to collect at Fort Hare, as a point of general rendezvous, all the burghers and levies of every description, so that, as soon as a sufficient force could be collected, the insurgents throughout British Kafraria might be assailed by a concentrated force of regulars and burghers. In the mean time from all parts of the Eastern frontier the most alarming accounts were poured in, hordes of Kaffirs were overrunning the colony, burning the farms and villages, massacreing the colonists, and driving off the cattle. As the news of war approached the settlers deserted their farms, and assembled at points of concentration, as is graphically described in the following extract from a private letter:— Oliphant's Hock, Dec. 31, 1850. We have all abandoned our farms, and what is infinitely worse, our crops. On Friday night intelligence reached us by private hands s of the dreadful massacre at the Military villages, and on Saturday we commenced packing up and trekking. The whole of this part of the Hock was on the " trek" in a few hours to the village. Those who lived near were enabled to remove most of their furniture; but ploughs, farming implements of every description, geese, pigs, poultry, &c. &c, amounting in value to many hundred pounds, were abandoned. Very few persons had finished reaping and made stacks. The oat hay already cut and bound up, to the extent of three or four million pounds weight, has been left, packed up in small heaps, on the several farms. The principal portion of our wheat crops were left standing, ripe and overripe, and will, of course, be lost. Our reapers, principally Fingoes, have all left —and the loss will amount to some thousands of pounds sterling. Many persons who up to last Saturday lived in comfort and affluence, will be utterly ruined, and what the result will be God only knows. My own opinion is, that the Hock is full of Kaffirs, living at their ease upon the spoil of our farms, and only waiting the signal to commence the deadly struggle, for a deadly struggle it will be when it comes. Added to this we have upwards of one hundred Kaffirs in our camp —servants, but, to say the very least, suspicious persons.

At this time, it was ascertained by the Governor, that all the Gaikas, including Botman, Tola, and the Chiefs of Eho's tribe were in the field; that Seyola, Mapassa, and Nyila, Tambookies, had also joined ; and the prospect for the colonists was truly discouraging-.

To the date of ouv latest advices, all tliat Sir Harry Smith and Colonel Somerset could do was to keep the insurgents in check; but of their even succeeding in doing-this, very conflicting opinions were given. Sir Harry had declared his determination to expel, for ever, the Gaikas from the Amatola fastnesses; and the sanguine among the colonists predicted his success, seeing that the hastening to tbe frontier of volunteers from all parts of'the colony, promised to place him in command of from lour to live thousand burghers and Hottentot levies, as auxiliaries to the three thousand regular troops under his orders. It was thought that if this force could be concentrated in that time, Sir Harry would assume the offensive at once, and take* the most decisive measures for the suppression of this most treacherous insurrection.