rifles and bandoliers, and all wore the ordinary garb of a civilian, so
that there was nothing to indicate the man's military standing. The
officers associated with their men every hour of the day, and, in most
instances, were able to call the majority of them by their Christian
names. With one or two exceptions, all the generals were farmers before
the war started, and consequently they were unable to assume any great
degree of superiority over their farmer-burghers if they had wished to do
so. General Meyer pitched quoits with his men, General Botha swapped
tobacco with any one of his burghers, and General Smuts and one of his
officers held the whist championship of their laager. Rarely a burgher
touched his hat before speaking to an officer, but he invariably shook
hands with him at meeting and parting. It is a Boer custom to shake hands
with friends or strangers, and whenever a general visited a laager
adjoining his own, the hand-shaking reminded one of the President's public
reception days at Washington. When General Joubert went from camp to camp
he greeted all the burghers who came near him with a grasp of the hand,
and it was the same with all the other generals and officers. Whenever
Presidents Kruger and Steyn went to the commandos, they held out their
right hands to all the burghers who approached them, and one might have
imagined that every Boer was personally acquainted with every other one in
the republics. It was the same with strangers who visited the laagers, and
many a sore wrist testified to the Boer's republicanism. Some one called
it the "hand-shaking army," and it was a most descriptive title. Many of
the burghers could not restrain from exercising their habit, and shook
hands with British prisoners, much to the astonishment of the captured.

Another striking feature of life in the Boer laagers was the deep
religious feeling which manifested itself in a thousand different ways. It
is an easy matter for an irreligious person to scoff at men who pass
through a campaign with prayer and hymn-singing, and it is just as easy to