Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/147

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IN INDIA.
127

are ordered thither from distant stations throughout India. Time enough is in general allowed to provide extra camp equipage, and the medical officer takes care that his own department is complete. He makes indents on the engineer or the barrack department for doolies; on the commissariat department for bearers and carriage; and on the nearest medical depot for instruments and medicines, special directions for which will be found in the Medical Code.

3. BAGGAGE.—For his own personal use, an assistant-surgeon,entering upon his first campaign, will find a single pole tent,nine feet square inside, with a verandah of three feet, and double kanats or walls, the best description. This gives perfect protection against heat and cold, wind and rain;is easily pitched and loaded, and is easily carried by a couple of camels. I think the regulation tent of twelve or fourteen feet square inside,with a four-feet verandah and outer walls,unnecessarily large, and so much more unwieldy, as not to be worth the great extra trouble attending it. When camels are procurable, a couple of camel trunks, a low legged charpay or bed to fit over the trunks, a good tarpaulin, a folding table and a chair, form the usual load for another camel, while the crockery, pots and pans, &c., &c., form a load for a Cooly, who carries them in a couple of baskets, called petarahs, suspended from the ends of a