Attention must now for a brief space be directed to the country of Sinde or Scinde; not so much for the purpose of narrating the progress of mutiny there, as to shew how it happened that there were few materials out of which mutiny could arise.

Sinde is the region which bounds the lower course of the river Indus, also called Sinde. The name is supposed to have had the same origin as Sindhi or Hindi, connected with the great Hindoo race. When the Indus has passed out of the Punjaub at its lower apex, it enters Sinde, through which it flows to the ocean, which bounds Sinde on the south; east is Rajpootana, and west Beloochistan. The area of Sinde is about equal to that of England without Wales. The coast is washed by the Indian Ocean for a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles; being, with very few exceptions, little other than a series of mud-banks deposited by the Indus, or low sand-hills blown in from the sea-beach. So low is most of the shore, that a wide expanse of country is overflowed at each high tide; it is a dreary swamp, scarcely observable from shipboard three or four miles out at sea. The mouths of the Indus are numerous, but so shallow that only one of them admits ships of any considerable burden; and even that one is subject to so many fluctuations in depth and in weather, that sea-going vessels scarcely enter it at all. Kurachee, the only port in Sinde, is a considerable distance west of all these mouths; and the mercantile world looks forward with much solicitude to the time when a railway will be formed from this port to Hydrabad, a city placed at the head of the delta of the Indus. This delta, in natural features, resembles that of the Nile rather than that of the Ganges, being nearly destitute of timber. On each side of the Indus, for a breadth varying from two to twelve miles, is a flat alluvial tract, in most places extremely fertile. Many parts of Sinde are little better than desert; such as the Pât, between Shikarpore and the Bolan Pass, and the Thur, nearer to the river. In general, it may be said that no part of Sinde is fertile except where the Indus irrigates it; for there is little either of rain or dew, and the climate is intensely hot. Camels are largely reared in Sinde; and the Sindians have abundant reason to value this animal. It is to him a beast of burden; its milk is a favourite article of diet; its hair is woven into coarse cloth; and it renders him service in many other ways.

The Sindians are an interesting race, both in themselves and in their political relations. They are a mixture of Jâts and Beloochees, among whom the distinction between Hindoo and Mussulman has a good deal broken down. The Beloochees are daring, warlike Mohammedans; the Jâts are Hindoos less rigorous in matters of faith and caste than those of Hindostan; while the Jâts who have become Mohammedans are a peaceful agricultural race, somewhat despised by both the others. The Sindians collectively are a dark, handsome, well-limbed race; and it was a favourite opinion of Sir William Jones, that they were the original of the gipsies. The languages spoken are a mixture of Hindi, Beloochee, and Persian.

The chain of events which brought Sinde under British rule may be traced in a few sentences. About thirteen centuries ago the country was invaded by the Persians, who ravaged it without making a permanent settlement. The califs at a later date conquered Sinde; from them it was taken by the Afghans of Ghiznee; and in the time of Baber it fell into the hands of the chief of Candahar. It was then, for a century and a half, a dependency of the Mogul Empire. For a few years Nadir Shah held it; next the Moguls retook it; and in 1756 Sinde fell under the rule of the Cabool khans, which was maintained nearly to the time when the British seized the sovereign power. Although subject to Cabool, Sinde was really governed by eight or ten native princes, called Ameers, who had among them three distinct territories marked by the cities of Hydrabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpoor. Under these ameers the government was a sort of military despotism, each ameer having a power of life and death; but in warlike affairs they were dependent on feudal chieftains, each of whom held an estate on condition of supplying a certain number of soldiers. The British had various trading treaties with the ameers; one of which, in 1832, opened the roads and rivers of Sinde to the commerce of the Company. When, in 1838, the eyes of the governor-general were directed anxiously towards Afghanistan, Sinde became involved in diplomatic conferences, in which the British, the Afghans, the Sindians, and Runjeet Singh were all concerned. These conferences led to quarrels, to treaties, to accusations of breach of faith, which we need not trace: suffice it to say that Sir Charles James Napier, with powers of the pen and of the sword intrusted to him, settled the Sinde difficulty once for all, in 1848, by fighting battles which led to the annexation of that country to the Company’s dominions. The former government was entirely put an end to; and the ameers were pensioned off with sums amounting in the aggregate to about fifty thousand pounds per annum. Some of these Ameers, like other princes of India, afterwards came to England in the hope of obtaining better terms from Queen Victoria than had been obtainable from the Company Bahadoor.

When Sinde became a British province, it was separated into three collectorates or districts—Shikarpore, Hydrabad, and Kurachee; a new system of revenue administration was introduced; annual fairs were established at Kurachee and Sukur; and peaceful commerce was everywhere so successfully established, that the country improved rapidly, greatly to the content of the mass of the people, who had formerly been ground down by the ameers’ government. For military purposes, Sinde was made a division, under the Bombay presidency.

Sinde, at the commencement of the mutiny, contained about seven thousand troops of all arms, native and European. The military arrangements had brought much distinction to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-general) John Jacob, whose ‘Sinde Irregular Horse’ formed a corps much talked of in India. It consisted of about sixteen hundred men, in two regiments of eight hundred each, carefully drilled, and armed and equipped in the European manner, yet having only five European officers; the squadron and troop commanders were native officers. The brigadier uniformly contended that it was the best cavalry corps in India; and that the efficiency of such a regiment did not depend so much on the number of European officers, as on the manner in which they fulfilled their duties, and the kind of discipline which they maintained among the men. On these points he was frequently at issue with the Bengal officers; for he never failed to point out the superiority of the system in the Bombay army, where men were enlisted irrespective of caste, and where there were better means of rewarding individual merit.[[33]] Nationally speaking, they were not Sindians at all; being drawn from other parts of India, in the ratio of three-fourths Mohammedans to one-fourth Hindoos.

When the mutiny began in the regions further east, ten or twelve permanent outposts on the Sinde frontier were held by detachments of the Sinde Irregular Horse, of forty to a hundred and twenty men each, wholly commanded by native officers. These men, and the head-quarters at Jacobabad (a camp named after the gallant brigadier), remained faithful, though sometimes tempted by sepoys and troopers of the Bengal army. A curious correspondence took place later in the year, through the medium of the newspapers, between Brigadier Jacob and Major Pelly on the one side, and Colonel Sykes on the other. The colonel had heard that Jacob ridiculed the greased cartridge affair, as a matter that would never be allowed to trouble his corps; and he sought to shew that it was no subject for laughter: ‘Brigadier John Jacob knows full well that if he were to order his Mohammedan soldiers (though they may venerate him) to bite a cartridge greased with pigs’ fat, or his high-caste troopers to bite a cartridge greased with cows’ fat, both the one and the other would promptly refuse obedience, and in case he endeavoured to enforce it, they would shoot him down.’ Jacob and Pelly at once disputed this; they both asserted that the Mohammedans and Hindoos in the Sinde Horse would never be mutinous on such a point, unless other sources of dissatisfaction existed, and unless they believed it was purposely done to insult their faith. ‘If it were really necessary,’ said the brigadier, ‘in the performance of our ordinary military duty, to use swine’s fat or cows’ fat, or anything else whatever, not a word or a thought would pass about the matter among any members of the Horse, and the nature of the substances made use of would not be thought of or discussed at all, except with reference to the fitness for the purpose to which they were to be applied.’ The controversialists did not succeed in convincing each other; they continued to hold diametrically opposite opinions on a question intimately connected with the early stages of the mutiny—thereby adding to the perplexities of those wishing to solve the important problem: ‘What was the cause of the mutiny?’

Owing partly to the great distance from the disturbed provinces of Hindostan, partly to the vicinity of the well-disposed Bombay army, and partly to the activity and good organisation of Jacob’s Irregular Horse, Sinde was affected with few insurgent proceedings during the year. At one time a body of fanatical Mohammedans would unfurl the green flag, and call upon each other to fight for the Prophet. At another time, gangs of robbers and hill-men, of which India has in all ages had an abundant supply, would take advantage of the troubled state of public feeling to rush forth on marauding expeditions, caring much for plunder and little for faith of any kind. At another, alarms would be given which induced European ladies and families to take refuge in the forts or other defensive positions at Kurachee, Hydrabad, Shikarpore, Jacobabad, &c., where English officers were stationed. At another, regiments of the Bengal army would try to tamper with the fidelity of other troops in Sinde. But of these varied incidents, few were so serious in results as to need record here. One, interesting in many particulars, arose out of the following circumstance: When some of the Sinde forces were sent to Persia, the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry arrived to supply their place. These troopers, when the mutiny was at least four months old, endeavoured to form a plan with some Beloochee Mohammedans for the murder of the British officers at the camp of Jacobabad. A particular hour on the 21st of August was named for this outrage, in which various bands of Beloochees were invited to assist. The plot was revealed to Captain Merewether, who immediately confided in the two senior native officers of the Sinde Irregular Horse. Orders were issued that the day’s proceedings should be as usual, but that the men should hold themselves in readiness. Many of the border chiefs afterwards sent notice to Merewether of what had been planned, announcing their own disapproval of the conspiracy. At a given hour, the leading conspirator was seized, and correspondence found upon him tending to shew that the Bengal regiment having failed in other attempts to seduce the Sinde troops from their allegiance, had determined to murder the European officers as the chief obstacles to their scheme. The authorities at Jacobabad wished Sir John Lawrence to take this Bengal regiment off their hands; but the experienced chief in the Punjaub would not have the dangerous present; he thought it less likely to mutiny where it was than in a region nearer to Delhi.

The troops in the province of Sinde about the middle of August were nearly as follows: At Kurachee—the 14th and 21st Bombay native infantry; the 2d European infantry; the depôt of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers; and the 3d troop of horse artillery. At Hydrabad—the 13th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. At Jacobabad—the 2d Sinde irregular horse; and the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry. At Shikarpore and Sukur, the 16th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. The whole comprised about five thousand native troops, and twelve hundred Europeans.

At a later period, when thanks were awarded by parliament to those who had rendered good service in India, the name of Mr Frere, commissioner for Sinde, was mentioned, as one who ‘has reconciled the people of that province to British rule, and by his prudence and wisdom confirmed the conquest which had been achieved by the gallant Napier. He was thereby enabled to furnish aid wherever it was needed, at the same time constantly maintaining the peace and order of the province.’