"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 everyday 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 d'armes_ dash into the dense thorny covert, and not wishing 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 makes an effort to get on to the front, but finds himself most unaccountably held in the obstinate grasp of an unexpected native foe. The thick-spreading and verdant bush, under which the `chako' has rolled, is the `_wacht-een-beetje_' and, to his cost, he feels in his woollen garments the tenacious hold of its hooked claws; for the more he struggles to get free, the more he becomes entangled in the thorny web. He now hears `retire' echoing through the adjoining rocks; and his friends, the `totties,' as they briskly run past, warn him, in their retreat, that the enemy--who knows right well our bugle-calls--is at their heels. Exhausted by his protracted struggle, whilst maddened at the thought of falling into the power of his cruel foe, the poor fellow makes a desperate effort at escape. In so doing, the ill-omened `chako' is left to its fate; the _wacht-een-beetje_ retains in triumph part of his dress. As he `breaks covert,' the Kaffirs, with insulting yells, blaze away at him from the Bush; and, scudding across the plain, towards his party, with the ill-adjusted pouch banging against his hinder parts, the poor devil,--in addition to the balls whistling around him,--is also exposed, as he approaches, to the jeers and laughter of his more fortunate comrades!