The Express.
London, England, 1852-08-11 00:00:00

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE,
THE KAFFIR WAR.

[A summary of the following appeared in yester-
day's Express.]

ARRIVAL OF THE PROPONTIS.

The General Screw Steam Shipping Company's
vessel the Propontie, Capt. Glover, arrived at the
Mi'duty Pier, Plymouth, at 0.30 p.m. on Monday,
with mails from tho Cape of Good Hope, Sierra
Leone, &e.
. . - . . .

ThiPropontis left Plymouth on her outward voy-
age May. 15th, St. Vincent's May 28th, Sierra Leone
June 3rd, and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope
June 20th. She left the Cape of Good Hope on her
return voyage July 2nd, arrived at Sierra Leone the
18th, and sailed the 19th ; arrived at St. Vincent's on
the 24th, and sailed on the 26th, and arrived at Ply-
mouth August the 9th.
The Propontis brings a general cargo, including as
usual some ivory, palm oil, and gold dust, and the
following passengers :—Capt. Vial, Capt. *Kenzie,
Capt. Fitzgerald, Capt. Harrison, Lieut. Halo and
servant, Cornet Elwes and servant, Mr. Morris, Mr.
Slater, Mr. Seligman, Rev. Dr. Judge, Mrs. Hogge,
four servants, and child, Mr. Darnell, Mr. Hender-
son, Capt. Brown, of the merchant service.
She also brought a large mail in charge of Com-
mander Thurburn. The mail was landed on the
vessel coming alongside the pier, and received by
Mr. Mark, as the postmaster of Plymouth, where
the letters, &c., were sorted and distributed to their
destinations the following morning. Had the vessel
been half an hour earlier, or had the mail train been
kept back for that period, the mails might have been
forwarded to London on Monday night. This, how-
ever, would not have expedited the delivery in the
north of England, and would have considerably de-
layed it in the western counties.
The Osprey schooner, Captain Way, left the Cape
for London on June 24th, with a valuable general
cargo. The ship Mary Cannon, Captain Renney,
was at the Cape, from Calcutta, taking in addi-
tional cargo for Liverpool, when the Propontis left.
Her Majesty's steam-vessel Styx was in Table Bay
June 29th, and her Majesty's steam-ships Hydra,
lthadamanthus, and Senngapatam, were in Simon's
Bay at the same date. The Ellen Rawson bark,
Captain Sadler, arrived at Cape Town June
24th, with a valuable general cargo from Lon-
don. The Marchioness, schooner, Fowler, from
Liverpool, arrived Juno 24th, with a cargo
of sundries. On the 10th of April, three days
after leaving Liverpool, James Rottman, an appren-
tice, fell overboard and was lost. The ship Resolute,
It. Lewis, from Madras for London, put into Simon's
Bay, to land passengers, June 18. The Warrior brig,
Capt. F. *Lean, arrived June 9, with cargo of sun-
dries. July 6, in lat. 26.20 S. don., 10.50 E., the
Propontis exchanged signals and spoke the British
ship Barhamporo from Singapore for Liverpool. 40
miles S.W. of Sierra Leone she spoke H.M. brig
Crane, and on the same day spoke the Ellen
Munro, coming out from Sierra Leone. July 24 left
at anchor at Porto Grande H.M. ships Herald,,
Torch, Pluto, and the merchant schooner Nautilus.
The Harbinger, with the outward Cape mail, arrived
at St. Vincent's as the Propontis left. July 27, she
exchanged signals with the barque Glasgow, bound
for Panama, in lat. 18.27 N. don., 24.62 W. Aug. 8,
lat. 47 N., lon. 91 W., saw the Oriental, of Stockton.
The Peninsular and Oriental Company's screw
steamer Chusan arrived in Table Bay June 2* at
seven o'clock, having left Southampton on the 16th
of May, and St. Vincent on the 30th. She brings
27 passengers for Port Phillip and Sydney, and has
200,00 W. in specie, and a mail.
The Propontis left St. Vincent two days before
the Chusan, and arrived at the Cape the day after
her, but it should be borne in mind that the Pro-
pontia went round and stopped at Sierra Leone,
which the larger vessel did not. The Chusan left
Table Bay June 29 for Sydney with her original
cargo, a mail, and three additional passengers—
Messrs. Ravenshaw and Sampson, and Capt. Lewis.
The news from the frontier by this arrival is of a
very unsatisfactory character, although not of a very
sanguinary complexion. The Kaffir war appears as
far from its termination as it did on the arrival of
the first mail steamer from the Cape some eight or
ten months since. We are still informed of robbeiiell
and some cases of murder, of cattle lifting and steal-
tche mail bags, of skirmishes in which some few
ere have been killed and others wounded, of •
few Minie rifles captured and diaahled. and of the
capture of a rebel or two, but of nothing that induces
the hope of the end of the war being near.
According to the South African Commercial Ad-
rertiser of July 3, " the details of assaults, robberies,
murders, pursuits, skirmishes, and personal exploits
is which the colonists have been distinguished actors
ge sufferers would fill many columns. Disorder and
dosser, as well as actual war, have become familiar
6r 60 miles or more on both sides of the border line,
some 100 or 160 miles in length. The latest reports
give reason to fear that strong parties of active
marauders have already established themselves
among the mountains and forests not far from the
towns of liitenhage and Port Elizabeth."
One melancholy item of intelligence by this
arrival is the news of the death of Major W. 8.
Rogge, who, it will be recollected, went oat
during the last year as one of the government assist-
ant commissioners. The major died at Blows-

fontein on June Bth, after a few days' illness,
brought on by exposure to bad weather.
The monthly summary of the aim Town Mail d
July 2nd contains all the gist of the news brought
by the Propontis :
No decided change has taken plies either in the prognosis
or character of the Kaffir war since the date of our het
summary. Up to the time when the latest intelligence teen
received from Kaffirland hostilities were still being carried
on with undiminished activity on both sides. Routed from
one fastness, the enemy plunges into another, and oar bran
troops, in following him up, are exposed to a constant enel.
cession of hardship, labour, and privation, in
with which the perils of more molar warfare might
girded es trifling.
It is again our painful task to report that, during dm
month, several of our fellow-colorists have met with Yin
lent deaths from marauding parties of the enemy within
the colony. A young man sassed Humphries' driving a
waggon near the entrance of De Rauin's Poort, was ebM
down, and the oxen carried off. A sergeant of the Cape
Corps, parsing between King William's Town and Monad
Coke, in company with two Englishmen, was shot, and the
body was subsequently found with five Magai wounds in
it, his companions having apparently escaped. An oil
man named Baud, once in opulent dreliesebesees, was
working in a garden in Olifant Hoek, when several of
the prowling enemy rushed upon him, and hest his hulks
out with his hoe, then stripped him naked, sad made sir
with everything within their reach. A few days after-
wards, in the same neighbourhood, an Englishman named
Thomas Williams, who had ventured into the huh after
a strayed hone, was waylaid and killed, and his body
barbarously mangled. In numerous instances, waggons
passing from plies to place bees been fired at and plun-
dered, far within the colonial boundary. On one of
these occasions, near Somerset, a respectable colonist, Mr.
Bouvier, was shot through the arm and thigh, and disabled
for life.

Ho Excellency has made a tour of inspection among the
various forts and outposts along the frontier line, paying
a brief visit to Graham's Town ,:where he received ad, resets
from the inhabitants, and assured them of his determination
to afford every possible protection to the expeeed district..
With this view four companies of the 73rd Regiment have
been moved into Albany, in addition to the 12th Regiment,
previously stationed there under Colonel Perceval.
A singular oceurrence took place in Kallirland about the end
of May, information of which did not reach Cape Town until
I after the monthly steamer had sailed. The Kaffir chief Tone,
who has fr.un the commencement of hostilities remained
I apparently neutral, residing in the neighbourhood of King
William's Town, was suddenly seised by a party of about40 rebel Hottentots, who bound him and carried him off to
the enemy's camp, as they stated, by Sandilli's orders.
What passed afterwards has been variously reported. Tone
himself states that before meeting with Sandilli he was set at
liberty by the Hottentots, on their learning that he was to
be put to death without trial. He consequently returned to
his former station, and was made, by the way, the bearer of
a curious communication to Omen] Cathcart from the chief
of the rebel Hottentots, Cithaalder. It consisted of the fol-
lowing letter, written upon fine cream-laid note paper, by a
Hottentot named Laverlot, who, it 'poem, acts as Uitheal-
der's secretary and chaplain. The letter has already ap-
peared in this paper, but as it is the only thing yet done in
the way of negotiation, it is not oat of place hero
[Translation.] May 26, 1802,
My esteemed Sir,—General,—l esabreee this opportunity
to write you this letter. We inform you, that we are es-
eeedingly grieved in consequence of what we see with our
eyes—that your liscellency fights with women and children,
that i. to say, wars with them, for where all were fighting
it was against men. Women we always excepted, that is
according to the proclamation. We hope not that your
Excellency will do the same as Sir 11. Smith and Colonel
Somerset. We were in the neighbourhood of Bathurst.
There we fought men that had guns, those we shot down—
and those who had no guns we excepted. This is according
to proclamation. And, furthermore, if your Eseelhlicy
wishes to speak to us, it is practicable for you to speak with
us because our hostilities arc distinct from those of the
Kaffirs.-1, your servant, Wtt. ULTUAALDSL.