the Mahometans, while the fat of cows was still more
horrible in the eyes of the Hindus.

The excitement began at Barrackpur, sixteen miles from Calcutta. At this
station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the
regimental officers. One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar,
asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The
Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that
the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been
greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth.
Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in preparing the new cartridges,
and the man was possibly one of them. The taunt created a wild panic at
Barrackpur. Strange to say, however, none of the new cartridges had been
issued to the sepoys; and had this been promptly explained to the men,
and the sepoys left to grease their own cartridges, the alarm might have
died out. But the explanation was delayed until the whole of the Bengal
army was smitten with the groundless fear; and then, when it was too
late, the authorities protested too much, and the terror-stricken sepoys
refused to believe them.

The sepoys had proved themselves brave under fire, and loyal to their
salt in sharp extremities; but they are the most credulous and excitable
soldiery in the world. They regarded steam and electricity as so much
magic; and they fully believed that the British Government was binding
India with chains, when it was only laying down railway lines and
telegraph wires. The Enfield rifle was a new mystery; and the busy
brains of the sepoys were soon at work to divine the motive of the
English in greasing cartridges with cow's fat. They had always taken to
themselves the sole credit of having conquered India for the company;
and they now imagined that the English wanted them to conquer Persia and
China. Accordingly, they suspected that Lord Canning was going to make
them as strong as Europeans by destroying caste, forcing them to become
Christians, and making them eat beef and drink beer.

The story of the greased cartridges, with all its absurd embellishments,
ran up the Ganges and Jumna to Benares, Allahabad, Agra, Delhi, and the
great cantonment at Meerut; while another current of lies ran back again
from Meerut to Barrackpur. It was noised abroad that the bones of cows
and pigs had been ground into powder, and thrown into wells and mingled
with flour and butter, in or