MC Hammers? Isn't he the fellow who moderates the Workbench forum?
Johnston's Jat Sikh contingent in the Nyasaland Protectorate, 1890s?
Check out the big brain on Chris! We have a winner! Chris wins a thick slice of virtual Victoria Sponge (the official cake of
Colonial Adventures):
(I lied about there not being a prize.)
Yes, dress uniform of the Nyasaland Indian Contingent. He's supposed to be an NCO, I suppose (not sure if they had any Indian comissioned officers), but I forgot to give him any stripes. The uniform is supposed to represent the three races of the force. Black for the native askaris, yellow for the Indian contingent, and white for the European officers.
He's actually for my Central Africa Rifles force. But the nucleus of this force was the Indian contingent from the slaver war, and I'm indulging the idea that some of them may have kept their dress uniforms (no reason to believe they would just throw them away). It's a little preposterous to imagine this chap actually going into battle against the Angoni dressed like this, but the force is a very khaki-and-black affair, and I fancied a splash of colour. I'm imagining him as some kind of eccentric Havildar-Major who insists on dressing his best to face these bargain-basement Zulus, and the officers are all so in awe of him that nobody tells him to change.
