we started on our present hazardous expedition that we should
have some made to fit us. There was a little difficulty about
this, as armour-making is pretty well an extinct art, but they
can do most things in the way of steel work in Birmingham if
they are put to it and you will pay the price, and the end of
it was that they turned us out the loveliest steel shirts it
is possible to see. The workmanship was exceedingly fine, the
web being composed of thousands upon thousands of stout but tiny
rings of the best steel made. These shirts, or rather steel-sleeved
and high-necked jerseys, were lined with ventilated wash leather,
were not bright, but browned like the barrel of a gun; and mine
weighed exactly seven pounds and fitted me so well that I found
I could wear it for days next to my skin without being chafed.
Sir Henry had two, one of the ordinary make, viz. a jersey with
little dependent flaps meant to afford some protection to the
upper part of the thighs, and another of his own design fashioned
on the pattern of the garments advertised as 'combinations' and
weighing twelve pounds. This combination shirt, of which the
seat was made of wash-leather, protected the whole body down
to the knees, but was rather more cumbersome, inasmuch as it
had to be laced up at the back and, of course, involved some
extra weight. With these shirts were what looked like four brown
cloth travelling caps with ear pieces. Each of these caps was,
however, quilted with steel links so as to afford a most valuable
protection for the head.

It seems almost laughable to talk of steel shirts in these days
of bullets, against which they are of course quite useless; but
where one has to do with savages, armed with cutting weapons
such as assegais or battleaxes, they afford the most valuable
protection, being, if well made, quite invulnerable to them.
I have often thought that if only the English Government had
in our savage wars, and more especially in the Zulu war, thought
fit to serve out light steel shirts, there would be many a man
alive today who, as it is, is dead and forgotten.

To return: on the present occasion we blessed our foresight in
bringing these shirts, and also our good luck, in that they had
not been stolen by our rascally bearers when they ran away with
our goods. As Curtis had two, and after considerable deliberation,
had made up his mind to wear his combination one himself -- the
extra three or four pounds' weight