Little discomforts which would cause an ordinary American or European soldier to use volumes of profanity were passed by without notice or comment by these psalm-singing Boers, and inconveniences of greater moment, like the disarrangement of the commissariat along the route, caused only slight remonstrances from them.
An angry man was as rarely seen as one who cursed, and more rare than either was an intoxicated one.
Few of the men were given to boasting of the valour they would display in warfare or of their abilities in marksmanship.

They had no battle-cry of revenge like "Remember the _Maine!_" or "Avenge Majuba!" except it was the motto: "For God, Country, and Independence!" which many bore on the bands of their hats and on the stocks of their rifles.

Very occasionally one boasted of the superiority of the Boer, and still more rarely would one be heard to set three months as the limit required to conquer the British army.

The name of Jameson, the raider, was frequently heard, but always in a manner which might have led one unacquainted with recent Transvaal history to believe that he was a patron-saint of the Republic.

It was not a cry of "Remember Jameson" for the wrongs he committed but rather a plea to honour him for having placed the Republic on its guard against the dangers which they believed threatened it from beyond its borders.