288 TlMEHRI. 



these at regular intervals reversing the direction in 

 which his head is held. Then takes place for the first 

 of many times what I may call a complimentary whip- 

 ping. Each man raises his whip high over his head and 

 brings it down with a great show of force and violence, 

 as though bent on cutting open the calf of the opposite 

 player's leg ; as a matter of fa6t, however, the stroke 

 ends in the merest, gentlest, flick of the leg. After that 

 the whistlers rush back, as they came, to their original 

 positions at the other end of the line. These proceed- 

 ings are repeated several times, till at last the lines break 

 up, and the women at once bring round to each player 

 calabashes of paiwarie. But it is also now that the 

 serious business of the thing begins, any pair, or any 

 pairs of the players, challenging each other to a real use 

 of the whip. 



The two challengers stand apart. One puts forward 

 his leg, planting it firmly; generally he turns his back 

 and consequently his calf towards his opponent, but 

 sometimes faces him exposing his shin. The opposite 

 man stoops and stretches out his whip so as carefully to 

 measure the distance to which the lash will reach ; then, 

 rising, he carefully poises it over his head — and flogs, one 

 single stroke, but with all his might and main. The crack 

 is like a loud pistol shot. The first time I saw and 

 heard the blow given, seeing not the slightest flinching 

 of the recipient's body, not a twitching of his lips, I 

 was fully persuaded that there was some trick in the 

 thing, that the blow was little or nothing else than mere 

 sound and fury. Expressing something of this, the 

 flogged man turned toward me his calf, and right across 

 it, extending nearly round on to the shin, was a bleeding 



