* The dress and accoutrements of the light cavalry were also styled on the British Army, though their quilted tunics – short-waisted and extremely tight – were French grey rather than the dark blue or scarlet of the British light cavalry. They too wore the awkward shako (made even more top-heavy by its horse-hair plume), choking leather stock, clumpy jackboots and close-fitting leather or cloth breeches. But the most unsuitable pieces of their equipment were the heavy, slightly curved light dragoon sword and the tall, European-style saddle. The former was a clumsy weapon that could neither cut nor thrust to any real effect; the latter pushed the rider so high above the horse that he was forced to ride by balance alone. The irregular cavalry, by contrast, wore turbans, long loose alkalahs, and baggy pyjamas with either puttees or long boots. They were armed with the lightly curved and extremely sharp Indian sword known as the tulwar and seated on low, local pattern saddles.