My hero, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, was in his sixties when he referred to himself as a "young powdered military fop (pig tails and powder were then in the ascendant)" in 1807 and wrote of landing with Gen. Wellesley at Figueira on 1st Aug. 1808 as "the young ensign with his glazed cock'd hat square to the front, his long white gloves, his tight belts and well filled knapsack and haversack..." I am embarrassed to admit that my ignorance of the practice of powdering one's natural hair plus my temporally inaccurate familiarity with the use of powdering wigs resulted in a remembered yet imagined image of him wearing a powdered wig! Revisiting my copy of his journal revealed my false memory. Such a trick of memory is unsettling and certainly warns that I must triple check before I write. Perhaps my mental imaging has been influenced by too many Sharpe movies (?). Thanks to all for the lesson.

Art Murchison