CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 604, 17 May 1851, Page 3

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

[From the Sydney Morning Herald.]

In the Sydney Morning Herald of the 12th instant, we published an account of the rise and progress of the insurrection in Kafirland; and the serious slaughter and discomfiture of the British troops. That account brought the intelligence down to the 4th of January, when, it will be remembered, Sir Harry Smith was with great difficulty keeping the rebels in check, and was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the levies which he had earnestly called upon the colonists to make. We are now in possession of Cape journals to the 24th of February; and, although the few affairs which took place between that and the date of our last advices were in favour of the British, we are sorry to report that the termination of hostilities threatened to be of remote accomplishment. The following is as connected a summary of the proceedings as the conflicting and meagre accounts from the seat of war has enabled us Io compile : — The levy en masse which Sir Harry Smith relied upon had been but a partial one. A court martial had been established at Graham’s Town for the trial of those burghers who, having enrolled themselves, afterwards refused to serve. An attack made upon Fort Beaufort, on the 23rd of January, by the rebels, under Hermanns, was successfully resisted by General Somerset, Hermanns being killed. Upon the news of this defeat, the Kreli Kafirs, after a long discussion, declared for peace. In the mean time outrages by small parties of Kafirs, joined by a few disaffected Ilotieuiois, were committed in various parts of the country, in most cases with impunity. On the 30th of January, Colonel Mackinnon, with a large body of the British troops, Hottentot levies, and Fingoes, in all 2,200 men, succeeded in throwing supplies into Forts White and Cox. The force was attacked by numerous hordes of Kafirs, who hung upon their left and rear, but were repulsed with considerable loss. The accounts from the frontier from this time to the date of our latest papers are merely a series of small affairs, in which the Kafirs were for the most part unsuccessful. The Fingoes and the Hottentots (with the exception of a few of the latter) appear to have acted most bravely, and being fond of a predatory warfare, were valuable auxiliaries to the British. The Kafirs, it was said, were concentrating themselves in the Amatolas, but nevertheless showed every disinclination to fight large bodies of troops. It is to be feared that a long and harassing warfare is before the unfortunate colonists.