The British Army In India: Its Preservation by an Appropriate Clothing, Housing, Locating, Recreative Employment, and Hopeful, Encouragement of the Troops

There are few questions which at the present moment have a greater claim upon the attention of the public, and especially of statesmen, than that of affording British Troops in India all possible pro- tection from that hostile climate. Since the exposure of British Troops to the weather will be much greater than hitherto, when nearly all military duty was in peace performed by a native army, and especially greater during the next two years, during which they may be frequently in the field, it is the dress of the soldier which claims primary attention. This difference in solar endurance is traceable to various causes. In the first place the scarf-skin of the native of the Tropics (and just in proportion as he has a hereditary habituation to the sun) has a thickness greatly surpassing that of the European, and especially of the enjoyers of our cloudy skies. Even amongst the natives themselves I had occasion to remark, when superintendent of vaccination at Futtehgurh, a surprising difference in the thickness of the skin in infants as well as in adults.