Henry evolved the startling heresy that to get the best work out of
troops, and to enable them to undertake great exertions, it was
necessary that the soldier should be loosely, comfortably, and suitably
clad, that something more substantial than a pill-box with a
pocket-handkerchief wrapped round it was required as a protection from a
tropical sun, and that footgear must be made for marching, and not for
parading round a band-stand.

Martinets of the old school gravely shook their heads, and trembled for
the discipline of men without stocks and overalls. Men of the Irregular
Cavalry, almost as much trussed and padded as their Regular comrades
(who were often so tightly clad as to be unable to mount without
assistance), looked with good-natured tolerance on a foredoomed failure.
But Sir Henry Lawrence had the courage of his opinions, and determined
to put his theories to practice, though at first on a small scale.

Not only were the Guides to be sensibly clothed, but professionally also
they were to mark a new departure. In 1846 the Punjab was still a Sikh
province, and the administration was only thinly strengthened by a
sprinkling of British officers. Men, half soldiers, half civilians, and
known in India under the curious misnomer of Political Officers,--a
class to whom the British Empire owes an overwhelming debt--were
scattered here and there, hundreds of miles apart, and in the name of
the Sikh Durbar practically ruled and administered provinces as large as
Ireland or Scotland. The only British troops in the country were a few
of the Company's regiments, quartered at Lahore to support the authority
of the Resident,--a mere coral island in the wide expanse. What Sir
Henry Lawrence felt was the want of a thoroughly mobile body of troops,
both horse and foot, untrammelled by tradition, ready to move at a
moment's notice, and composed of men of undoubted loyalty and devotion,