It must be owned that the Duke of Wellington was in large measure responsible, inasmuch as he set the example of preferring easy clothes to uneasy ones. A plain blue frock opening at the throat to a white cravat was his invariable dress throughout his campaigns. He had for his own wear a cocked hat one third the size of the huge one prescribed for general officers. There was a famous occasion in 1814, after the restoration of Louis XVIII., when the King and the Royal Princes, with a brilliant suite, attended a state performance in the Odéon Theatre. The house was ablaze with uniforms of many nations and the gay dresses of ladies of the Court. In a box immediately opposite the royal one sat the Duke--in plain clothes! ‘The pride that apes humility’? Not a bit. _Le vainqueur des vainqueurs_ could scarcely be suspected of that. Simply, as he had to sit through a long performance, he chose to do so in clothes that enabled him to sit in comfort. Much praiseworthy attention is now given to the equipment and clothing of British troops serving in hot climates, but it was otherwise throughout most of the nineteenth century, and it is incalculable how much suffering, disease, and death was caused by neglect of any such provision. When Colonel Luard was preparing his book in 1850-52 he received letters from many officers calling his attention to this matter. One of these writes: ‘I shall be very glad if you dedicate a portion of your work to the dress of our soldiers in the colonies.... I have myself seen the Spanish, French, and Danish troops in the West Indies much more healthy than our own, from great attention to their comfort in their dress.... The whole body of civilians in the tropics appear in loose white jackets and trousers and a skull-cap ... the shakoes and red coats of our troops were not altered in our West India colonies.’ * * * * * A cavalry officer remarks: ‘I hope you will dwell on the madness of our soldiers wearing leather caps under a tropical sun’; while another observes that ‘a brass helmet was not found serviceable in Africa by the 7th Dragoon Guards when that regiment was at the Cape.’ Our troops suffered horribly during the first Kaffir war, 1846-48, from being clothed exactly as they had been at home--leather stocks, tight coatees, heavy shakoes, and all the rest of it. Some consideration was shown for the soldier in the second Kaffir war, 1851-52. Captain King, of the 74th Highlanders, describes how his regiment landed at Cape Town (after a voyage from England of two months!) wearing their ordinary clothing, and it was not until they had marched far into the interior that ‘our bonnets and plaids were replaced by a costume more suitable for the bush--viz., a short dark canvas blouse; in addition to which feldt-schoen and lighter pouches, made of untanned leather, were issued to the men, and broad leather peaks affixed to their forage-caps.’[9]