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Rh the Government had entertained such a design, and, when Sir Henry reasoned with him, stuck to his opinion, saying, 'I tell you what everybody says.' Such an idea would not seem grotesque to men whose notions of religion rested more on customary ceremonial than on sentiment or dogma, and with whom acceptance by the vanquished of the creed of the conqueror was a not unfamiliar incident of conquest. It now received a tremendous impetus from the discovery that the Government was about to furnish the soldier, as part of his equipment, with something which Hindu and Muhammadan alike regarded it as sacrilege to touch. Their rulers were contriving, had actually contrived, their religious and social ruin. Whenever, from Calcutta to Pesháwar, a group of Sepoys gathered round a camp fire to eat their meal, or chatted on the march, the tidings found ready belief; and, owing to the close ties between the Bengal army and the Oudh population, every pang which the Sepoy felt vibrated through a hundred villages, where the fate of father or husband or brother was keenly felt and eagerly discussed. Such anxieties soon mount into panic, and early in 1857 the Sepoy army of Bengal was panic-stricken.

At Barrackpur there was an outburst of incendiarism in the native quarters — -midnight meetings — excited talk — despatching of letters to other regiments — every symptom of alarm and agitation. A hundred miles to the north the cantonment of Berhampur kept guard over Murshidábád, a former capital of Bengal,