24 SOLDIERS IN THE BUSH. 



campaign ; particularly such campaigns as he is most 

 likely to be engaged in, against uncivilized barbarians, 

 under a burning sun, and amidst the abrading effects of 

 dense and thorny jungles. 



" No ; if the pipeclay martinets, the gold and tape- 

 lacing tailors of the army, cannot bring themselves to 

 study utility and comfort a little more, in the every-day 

 dress of the working part of the army, let them, at least, 

 when our brave fellows are called upon for such roughing 

 as that required in the last Kaffir campaign, let them, 

 I say, safely deposit all these gingerbread trappings in 

 store; rig out our soldiers in a fashion that will afford 

 some protection against climate; not impede the free use 

 of their limbs; and give them a chance of marching 

 under a broiling sun, without a coup de soleil ; or of coming 

 out of a thorny jungle, with some small remnants of 

 clothing on their backs. 



" What, with his ordinary dress and accoutrements, 

 was often the result, to the British soldier, of a Kaffir 

 skirmish in the bush ? Seeing his Hottentot compagnons 

 tfarmes dash into the dense thorny covert, and not wish- 

 ing to be outdone by these little ' black fellows/ he sets 

 its abrading properties at defiance, and boldly rushes in 

 on their wake. His progress is, however, soon arrested ; 

 an opposing branch knocks off the tall conical machine 

 curiously balanced, like a milkmaid's pail, on the top of 

 his head. He stoops down to recover his lost treasure; 

 in so doing his ' pouch-box' goes over his head, his 

 ' cross-belts ' become entangled. Hearing a brisk firing 

 all around, and wishing to have a part in the fun, he 



