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 order to destroy the caste of the masses and convert them to Christianity.

For a brief interval it was hoped that the disaffection was suppressed.  Excitement manifested itself in various ways at different stations throughout the length of Hindustan and the Punjab—­at Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Ambala, and Sealkote.  In some stations there were incendiary fires; in others the sepoys were wanting in their usual respect to their European officers.  But it was believed that the storm was spending itself, and that the dark clouds were passing away.