ABSTRACT
They were a lean and hardy race of soldiers who had lived in their clothes by day and night for six months, never undressing except to wash or put on a clean shirt, and sleeping in their equipment. Baird's force from India, coming down the Nile to Rosetta, found Hutchinson's troops 'very dirty, starved and shabby'; without wine, comforts, and even clothing. In contrast the 'Indian' force had brought cooks for the sepoys, while their officers lived in tents like miniature palaces and had brought port and madeira across the desert. British soldiers in the hospital at Rosetta were astonished to see the sepoys removing their uniforms when off duty and walking about in very short white 'drawers'. The King's army jeered at the Company's troops and called them the Army of Darius; 'and not without reason', confessed Surgeon McGrigor, whose own establishment included a dozen Indian servants and their wives, two horses, three camels, and flocks of sheep, goats, and poultry. Hutchinson kept the two forces apart, to avoid exciting jealousy among his unpaid British at the high pay and allowances which the Europeans from India were receiving regularly every month.2
