CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. [From the Adelaide Times, Aug. 13.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 855, 12 October 1853, Page 3

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. [From the Adelaide Times, Aug. 13.]

By the steamer Antelope, which entered our harbour on Thursday evening, and which was reported in our shipping column yesterday, we have advices from the Cape of Good Hope to the 6th ultimo. On the Friday preceding her departure the New Constitution was proclaimed, and all was bustle and activity in reference to the impending elections. The Legislative Council was to be chosen first, and the members of this body were to remain ten years in office. This done, the elective assembly would then be chosen for a period of five years. With regard to the Kaffir war, there was a lull, but the prevailing opinion among officers recently from the frontier, and others capable of forming a just estimate of the casual position of affairs, was, that the vexato questio was as far as ever from satisfactory adjustment. On the eve, indeed, of the Antelope's departure, tidings had reached Cape Town of predatory incursions by combined bands of Kaffirs and Hottentots, bent upon theft and the reprisal of cattle. Seyolo, the celebrated Kaffir chief, was still in captivity at Wynberg, suffering all the horrors of "inglorious repose." One of the passengers of the Antelope, alluding to this now noted individual, says, "He is a fine athletic fellow, standing some six feet two or three, and proportionately powerful. When I saw him, he was squatted by the side of one of his wives, who was permitted by the Govern* ment to be with him in his captivity. Not being conversant with the ' lingo' he occa* sionally jabbered, we were unable to hold ' colloquy sublime' with the valiant nigger, and so he sat in moody silence by the side of his plump little ugly rib, surrounded by a heap of gaudy rubbish and bundles of cheroots, the souvenirs of his flitting visitors. Looking at the low wall that surrounded his cell, I could not help thinking that if he was a dashing Turpin or Jack Sheppard, instead of a supine son of ' Afric's burning shore,' how easily he might; contrive, some fine summer morning, when the keeper was asleep, to join his wily comrades in arms, instead of lingering there listlessly in * durance vile,' making submissive Salaams, and smoking ' the calumet of peace/'*