w would choose for fun, not if he were the party to be tossed,
though it is a beanfeast for the onlookers. They manage it this way. A
hide, freshly stripped from a bullock, smoking, bloody, and limber as a
bowstring, is requisitioned; the hairy side is turned downwards, two strong
men get hold of each corner, cutting holes in the green hide for their
hands to have a good grip; they allow the hide to sag until it forms a sort
of cradle, into which the unlucky one is dumped neck and crop. Then the
signal is given, the hide sways to and fro for a few seconds, and then,
with a skilful jerk, it is drawn as taut as eight pairs of strong arms can
draw it. If the executioners are skilful at the business the victim shoots
upwards from the blood-smeared surface like a dude's hat in a gale of wind.
Sometimes he comes down on his feet, sometimes on his head, or he may
sprawl face downwards, clutching at the slimy surface as eagerly as a
politician clutches at a place in power. But his efforts are vain; a couple
more swings and another jerk, and up he goes, turning and twisting like a
soiled shirt on a wire fence. This time he comes down on his hands and
knees, and promptly commences to plead for pity, but before he can open his
heart a neat little jerk sends him out on his back, where he claws and
kicks like a jackal in a gin case, whilst the more ribald amongst the
onlookers sing songs appropriate to the occasion, but the more devout chant
some such hymn as this:

Lord, let me linger here,
For this is bliss.

A man is very seldom hurt at this game, though how he escapes without a
broken neck is one of the wonders of gravitation to me. One second you see
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 ma