The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Third / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey to Ceylon and India; With Descriptions of Borneo, the Philippine Islands and Burmah

by Thomas Wallace Knox

Here ended Frank's history of India; the youth explained that he might have made it much longer, and had been puzzled to know when to stop. He only wanted to give a short account of the country which would not be tedious; and if any boy or girl wished to know more—and he hoped he had roused their curiosity to do so—there were plenty of books to be had on the subject.

Fred's account of the Sepoy Mutiny was now in order. He prefaced his story with an intimation that it would be very brief, as they had already listened to stories of the Mutiny during their visits to Lucknow, Cawnpore, and other places, and his time had been so much occupied that he had only sketched out the causes of the revolt, and the changes in the army since it occurred. Here is the story he prepared:

"The word sepoy is of Persian origin, and means a soldier; and its practical application to-day is to the native soldiers of India, who were first employed by the French about the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1748 the East India Company organized a battalion of sepoys at Madras, and ten years later this small body had grown to a strength of 14,000. Bengal and Bombay followed the example of Madras, and the native army grew steadily till it numbered 240,000 men of all arms in 1857. Each regiment was nominally 1000 strong, and had twenty-four English officers, besides a full complement of native officers for each company; the natives were not allowed to rise above the rank of captain, through fear that they might turn their knowledge against their masters. The failure of the Mutiny is partly due to this precaution, as the rebels could find no man with sufficient military knowledge to lead them properly.

"The regiments were differently composed in the three presidencies. Those of Bengal were mostly high-caste Hindoos; those of the North were Moslems; and those of Bombay and Madras included several classes. The prejudices of caste led to the assemblage of men of one caste only in each regiment, and in this way the revolt was made easy. It was entirely confined to Bengal. Only one regiment in Madras made any trouble; there was none in Bombay, and the troops in the north all remained faithful to England, and aided in suppressing the Mutiny.

"The Bramins had long predicted that the English would be overthrown in 1857, the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassey; they organized a conspiracy that extended all over Bengal, and told the soldiers that the cartridges they used, and were required to bite when loading their muskets, contained grease from the cow, an animal they hold to be sacred, the object being to deprive them of caste and convert them into Englishmen. Worse yet, the cow's grease was said to be mixed with that of the pig, the latter animal being detested and abhorred as much as the cow is revered. Other stories were told to excite them against their masters; the revolt was so well planned that there was hardly a suspicion of it till the moment of the outbreak; and so secretly was it arranged that even to this day the English have not been able to learn all the facts connected with it.

"The first outbreak was at Berhampoor, near Calcutta, on the 25th of February, 1857, where the 19th Regiment refused to use the cartridges or obey any orders. The regiment was disbanded a month later, and meantime there had been trouble in other regiments in various parts of Bengal; by the 1st of May the spirit of revolt had spread through the entire presidency, and within a fortnight from that date the horrible massacres of Allahabad, Delhi, Dumdum, and a dozen other points had taken place. The whole country was lighted up with the fires of rebellion, and the ground was red with the blood of the victims, which included every person of European or Eurasian origin on whom the rebels could lay their hands.

TRIAL OF A MUTINEER.

"Then came the revenge, as soon as the English could assemble the necessary troops. One stronghold after another fell, and before the end of the year the revolt was in a state of suppression; several battles occurred in the spring of 1858, and in some localities the rebels held out till autumn of that year. Anybody who wishes a full account of the scenes of that terrible time is referred to the many books that have been written concerning it, and particularly to 'The Sepoy War in India,' by J. W. Kaye.