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CHAPTER XXII

Arhed Forc es

[From "Military Report on Natal." 1909

ARLY in 1855 the first locally-raised force was formed of volunteers from the scattered pioneers of the young Colony ; in the same year this force saw service in the pursuit of the Bushmen who had swooped down from the Drakensberg Mountains and looted cattle. The following year it was sent with a body of Kaffirs to the southern border of the Colony, against a refractory chief named Usidoi. The year 1858 witnessed the despatch, against the chief Matyan, of a punitive expedition, composed of the Natal Carbineers (the force raised In 1855), frontier guards, a small party of Boers, and 500 Kaffirs.

In 1861 the volunteers, in conjunction with Her Majesty's regular forces, guarded the border against a threatened invasion by a powerful Zulu army, and in 1865, during the wars between the Orange Free State and the Basutos, assisted the Imperial troops in effectually stopping the inroads

of the latter into Natal.

In 1863 and 1865 laws relating to the maintenance of a "Volunteer Mounted Burgher Force " were passed with the intention of organising the force by counties into divisions, liable to do duty within and 20 miles beyond the county boundary. Enlistment was to be voluntary, with daily pay at six to eight shillings when on active service. The scheme seems

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