carky

The infantry regiments, for the most part, are dressed in linen frocks, dyed carky or gray slate colour — slate-blue trowsers, and shakoes protected by puggeries, or linen covers, from the sun. The peculiarity of carky is, that the dyer seems to be unable to match it in any two pieces, and that it exhibits endless varieties of shade, varying with every washing; so that the effect is rather various than pleasing on the march or on the parade-ground. But the officers, as I have said, do not confine themselves to carky or anything else. […] The coat may be of any cut or material; but shooting-jackets hold their own in the highest posts, and a carky-coloured jerkin, with a few inches of iron curb chain sewed on the shoulders to resist sabre-cuts, is a general favourite.

1858, Charles Ball, The History of the Indian Mutiny, volume 6, page 325