"In swine and kine, a subject fit they find,
To fire the Moslem, or the Hindoo mind.
"The fat of pigs, ground bones of cows, they are told,
With "ghee" and "attah" are in the market sold.
"Then as if to make assurance doubly sure,
They ask the Sepoy is your "Cartoos" as before?
"Suspicion roused, the Sepoys find 'tis true,
The cartridge issued, is not what they knew.
"Their sense of seeing sure they cannot doubt,
This is with "grease," the other was without!
"They fancy then the problem solved at last,
'Tis but a device, to take away their caste!
"When once convinced, they murmur, then refuse,
The obnoxious cartridge, now they will not use!"
2. The mutinous 19th and 34th Native Infantry had, for this reason, been disbanded at Barrackpore, a Military Cantonment about 16 miles from Calcutta; and, since many of the men of this Regiment belonged to Oudh, whence the largest proportion of soldiers for the native army was then drawn, it was apprehended that on their return to the Province, they would be the first to disseminate disaffection throughout the land.[1]
"An ill-judged policy at this juncture then,
Let loose on India twice ten hundred men.
"These lawless hordes, from martial discipline exempt,
Like fallen Lucifer, their faithful brethren tempt.
"Throughout the land, these troubled spirits went,
Spreading apace the seeds of discontent."
At this time the native troops occupied various positions in Lucknow, and were a source of great anxiety to the Officers of Government and all loyal British subjects, who regarded them with evident distrust.
3. We were aware that the feeling of the native troops Was far from good at Meerut, where a School of Musketry had been formed for the instruction of the sepoys in the use of the Enfield rifle.[2] We had heard of the disturbances which had broken out at various stations in Bengal immediately after those at Barrackpore and Berhampore had been suppressed. Rumours of incendiary fires at Agra, which signalled the coming troubles, had reached us and helped to agitate considerably the minds of the Europeans at Lucknow—the capital of a deposed King—where with its multitude of armed inhabitants and discharged soldiery of the native government, the disaffection, at this time—the beginning of May 1857—was very alarming!
- ↑ It is a significant fact that, of 200,000 sepoys in the British Army at the time of the outbreak, 40,000 were from Oudh alone.
- ↑ Three musketry schools were established in India. for teaching the sepoys the use of the new rifle; one school was established at Dum-Dum, another at Meerut, and the third at Sialkot.
