[Forty-one years in India by Frederick Sleigh Roberts]@TWC D-Link bookForty-one years in India CHAPTER LXVIII 90/120
The ordinary Native shoe of India, as provided by the Commissariat Department, is utterly unfitted for a country such as Afghanistan. Major Badcock will send to Peshawar (where they can easily be made up) a pattern Kabali shoe, which I am convinced would be found admirably suited for Native troops and followers crossing the frontier.
We are now almost entirely dependent on the local market for our shoes. [Sidenote: Ammunition boots.] A large supply of English-made ammunition boots should always accompany a force in the field, in order to allow those Natives who use them, and who are often crippled by wearing other descriptions of shoe, to obtain them on payment at the moderate rate now fixed, viz., Rs.
4 per pair. [Sidenote: Waterproof sheets.] The country-made waterproof sheets, though slightly heavier, have proved themselves quite as serviceable, if not more so, than the English-made ones. At the close of the campaign, I would very strongly recommend that an intelligent committee should be required to go thoroughly into these questions of clothing for troops, British and Native, and for followers.
I would also suggest that when a decision is arrived at, sealed patterns of every article approved should be deposited at all manufacturing centres and in all the large jails, so that when certain articles are required they need only be called for, and precious time (often wasted in reference and correspondence) saved. [Sidenote: Doolie-bearers.] 31.
The number of doolie-bearers with the two divisions of the Kabul Field Force now at Kabul is 3,536, with the very moderate sick report of 35, or 1 per cent.
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