It is not my intention to enter into the details of what are required, in the shape of equipment in India, to place the young officer in a position to proceed to his ultimate destination, as these are points on which he will soon be fully informed on his arrival in India, but I would wish particularly to warn him against burdening himself with a single superfluity, and recommend his limiting his baggage to what may be called “light marching order;” he will find advantage in this hereafter; above all, let him avoid, as he would his worst enemy, any extravagance which, exceeding his means, shall involve him in debt, even to the smallest amount; debt, in any shape, is one of the rocks on which many a man has been shipwrecked at the very outset of his Indian career….
— “Hints to Cadets” by Lt. T. Postans of the Bombay Army (1842, Wm. H. Allen and Co.)
