Washington Myrtle Point No-Name Ridge off-trail navigation Panthertown Piet Cronje Pisgah National Forest Plott Balsams Porters Creek Raven Fork red spruce Robert Baden-Powell Sarek National Park Siege of Mafeking Smoky Mountains Smoky Mountains Hiking Club Sol Plaatje South Africa Styx Branch Tacitus trail maintenance trillium Trout Branch Tuckasegee River Ulysses S. Bennett Enloe Creek trail Eugene Marais First World War Fisher Creek Germania Gideon Pillow hiking Horseshoe Mountain Jan Smuts Jumpoff Kruger National Park Lady Sarah Wilson Lapland Lester Prong Lincoln Highway Little Duck Hawk Lord Roberts Louis Botha Mexican-American War Mt. "Afrikander Cattle" " Rocky Crag 4000 Footers Alum Cave Creek Alum Cave Trail AMC Anakeesta Ridge Appalachian Trail Big Duck Hawk Boer War bushwhacking Cataloochee Cato NY Charlies Bunion Chimney Tops Christiaan De Wet Civil War Deneys Reitz Dry Sluice manway Eagle Rocks Prong Edward W.Go to to read the latest installment, titled WORDS OF ENDURANCE: MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER. Possibly, in the heat of battle, the beat of the drum, detached and ethereal, took on a spiritual quality, helping the combatants to distance themselves from the horror and suffering all around.”įor a rousing contemporary video of a corps of military drums-no historical relevance here, just something to give a nice feel for what this instrument can do-watch this video. “At the onset of battle, the roar of the assembled drummers would surely instill courage in the hearts of the men (and fear in the hearts of the enemy). Military drummers were also employed on the parade field, when trooops passed in review, and in various ceremonies including ominous drum rolls accompanying disciplinary punishments.”įrom Hugh Barty-King, The Drum: A Royal Tournament Tribute to the Military Drum, London, 1988: “Most people are unaware of the vital role played by the military drummer in communicating strategy and keeping the machinery of battle oiled…. In some armies drums also assisted in combat by keeping cadence for firing and loading drills with muzzle loading weapons. The drum cadences provided set a steady marching pace, better than often accompanying wind instruments such as flutes…, and kept up the troops’ morale on the battlefield. This illustration is captioned simply "Boer War skirmish." It depicts the British side.įrom Wikipedia: “Before motorized transport became widespread, drummers played a key role in military conflicts. Yet they wanted me, this oddball American woman, to feel that I was part of the group. It seemed that the whole subculture had only about fifty last names between them. These people had a shared past, most of them descended from the Dutch and the French Huguenots who’d come to South Africa several hundreds of years ago. (They all spoke excellent English.) A mysterious and powerful feeling of fellowship pervaded the group: a sense of strong commonality. My bus-mates kept slipping across or up or down the aisle to sit next to me and confide to me various things that they wanted me to know about. (I will discuss the language aspect of my experience in a future post.) Yet I felt very much included in the group. I do realize that I missed out on considerable amounts of information and humor throughout the duration of the tour, given that much of it was communicated in Afrikaans. You might think, given that every single one of the jokes being cracked was in Afrikaans rather than English, that I might feel a bit left out. My fellow bus-mates-these very serious people, so very dedicated to the history of the Anglo-Boer War-were laughing up a storm! In the seat in front of me, Danie de Villiers and Ferdi Preller were having a regular hee-haw! All down the aisle, as our bus trundled onward toward the Platrand Lodge near Ladysmith, could be heard the sounds of miscellaneous laughter and guffaws. It was toward the end of the first day that I really started to notice it. Photo by Sonja Myburgh.įor an introduction about my recent trip to South Africa, go here. Our faithful bus, seen here at Elandslaagte.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |