The driver walks beside his team, armed with a long whip, which he wields in both hands. The thick cane handle is often about 10 feet, and the lash, of strips of undressed hide, from 15 to 20 feet long. The management of this whip is no easy matter, and it is curious to see a good driver, at the moment when an effort is required, giving each of his twenty or thirty bullocks the necessary stroke in an instant. The Burgher himself is mounted, shabby and ragged, dressed in a faded coat, a shapeless hat, and long trousers without straps. For some time on the march we had a neighbour whose ulster, formerly, no doubt, of some normal hue, had turned, under the rains of years (I had almost said of centuries), a pinkish colour, with green reflections, like a sunset at sea. And the happy owner of this prism seemed quite unconscious that, amidst much that was extraordinary, he was perhaps the most extraordinary sight of all. One warrior was mounted on a wretched old English saddle, to which were slung pell-mell a mackintosh, a many-coloured rug, a coffee-pot, a water-bottle, and a bag containing a medley of coffee, sugar, tobacco, biscuit and _biltong_ (dried meat). Two bandoliers, and sometimes his rifle, were slung across his body, the latter horizontally on his stomach, when he was not carrying it upright in his hand, like a taper. His braces hung down his back. He had a single spur, for the Burgher rarely uses two, thinking a second an unnecessary luxury. Indeed, he relies much more on his _shambock_ (a thong of hippopotamus hide) than on his single spur for the control of his horse. Thus equipped, he shambles along on his jade, which trots, canters and gallops at intervals, silent, his legs well forward, his feet stuck out, catching at his over-long stirrups. His military organization is on a par with his equipment. The ’commando’ is the only military division known among the Boers. A commando is a levy of the men of a district, under the leadership of a field-cornet or a commandant. These grades, which are ratified by the Government, are independent of any hierarchy, and merely imply a difference in the number of electors. I say electors advisedly, for the field-cornets are chosen by their men, and, in their turn, take part in the nomination of the generals. This arrangement works well enough when electors and elected are of one mind. But when the leader wants to carry out some plan which his electors disapprove, he runs the risk of being cashiered and replaced by one of the majority. I do not know what are the results of this system in politics; but, applied to an army, it is disastrous, for very often the leader, brave enough himself, dares not engage his men, lest he become unpopular; and this, I think, has been the main cause of the total absence of offensive action on the part of the Boers. Perhaps, indeed, it will prove one of the main causes of their final overthrow.