the poor beggar in mid air, going like a circular saw through soft pine.
Just when you are beginning to wonder if he has converted himself into a
catherine-wheel or a corkscrew, he straightens himself out horizontally,
remains poised for the millionth part of a second like a he-angel that has
moulted his wings; then down he dives perpendicularly like a tornado in
trousers, skinning forehead, nose, and chin as he kisses the drum-like
surface of the hide. No, on the whole, I do not consider it healthy to try
to fool with a married woman in a Boer fighting laager, apart altogether
from the moral aspect of the affair. If some of the amorous dandies I wot
of, who claim kindred with us, got the same sort of treatment in Old
England, many a merry matron would be saved much annoyance.

For rank disobedience of orders, brutality of conduct, cowardice in the
face of the enemy, flagrant neglect of the wounded, or any other very
serious military crime, the punishment is sjamboking, which is simply
flogging, as it existed in our Army and Navy not so many years ago. On
board ship they used to use the "cat," a genteel instrument with a handle
attached. The Boer sjambok is a different article altogether; it has not
nine tails, but it gets there just the same. The sjambok dear to the Boer
soul is that made out of rhinoceros hide. It is a plain piece of hide, not
twisted in any way; just clean cut out and trimmed round all the way down.
It is about three feet long, and at the end which the flogger holds it is
about two and a half inches in circumference, tapering down gradually to a
rat-tail point. It is a terrible weapon when the person who wields it is
bent on business, and is not manufacturing poetry or mingling thoughts of
home and mother with the flogging. Truth to tell, I don't think they do
much flogging--not half as much as they are credited with--but when they do
flog, the party who gets it wants a soft shirt for a month after, and it's
quite a while before he will lie on his back for the mere pleasure of
seeing the moon rise.