United States or Democratic Republic of the Congo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The alarm spread fast enough, but not quick enough to save life; for, with a howl, half-a-dozen sepoys, with their scarlet and white coatees open, dashed in with fixed bayonets, and two women were borne to the ground in an instant, while a couple of wretches made a dash at those two children Little Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, as we called them standing there, wondering like, by Harry Lant's bed on the floor, whilst the golden light of the setting sun filled the room, and lit up their little angels' faces.
Here and there, by carved doors or iron-studded gates half off their hinges, lounged purposeless sentries, barefooted, clad in old and dirty red coatees, white cross-belts and ragged blue trousers.
And who are these three boys in dark blue coatees and trousers, one of whom carries, hanging at one end of a long bamboo, a couple of sweet potatoes; at the other, possibly, a pebble to balance them? As they approach, their doleful visage betrays them.
Left of them was the infantry, two hundred sepoys in shakoes, red coatees, white trousers, and bare feet, leaning on long percussion-capped muskets with triangular bayonets. Shortly after the Europeans had arrived and their elephants taken up their position on one side of the ground, cheering announced the coming of the Rajah.
"The only thing is, major, I should be glad if your soldiers would take off their coatees, too, so that there would be nothing to distinguish our men from yours. What do you think?" "I think that it will be much the best plan," Captain Travers said.
The apparently inexhaustible supply of old-fashioned English coatees with their worsted epaulettes is just coming to an end, and being succeeded by ragged red tunics, franc-tireurs' brownish-green jackets and much-worn Prussian gray coats.
In the upper story of the grand gallery at Versailles, hang several pictures representing these court ballets; Cupids in coatees of pink lustring, with silver lace and tinsel wings, wearing full-bottomed wigs and the riband of the St Esprit; or Venuses in hoops and powder, whose minauderies might afford a lesson to the divinities of our own day for the benefit of the omnibus box.
But the thrill soon passed off, and as he tramped on he could not help thinking, in a low-spirited way, that the men looked dusty and fagged. The chalky white powder clung to their blue trousers and scarlet coatees; their shakoes, too, were whitened, and their hot faces were grimed and coated with perspiration and dust.
Oh! the very look of it refreshed one unspeakably. Presently a group of half a dozen country Buccras overseers, or coffee planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either hove in sight, all in their blue white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots pulled up over them, and new blue square cut, bright buttoned coatees, and thread bare silk broad brimmed hats.
Word Of The Day