Delhi, the ancient and magnificent capital of the Grand Moguls, or Mahomedan rulers of India, became the focus of the great and ever-memorable mutiny which made our Indian Empire run with blood during the year 1857. Of this mutiny among the native Indian troops, or sepoys, in British pay, some ugly signs had already been observed early in the year; but it was only on the 10th of May that military revolt openly raised its terrible head at Meerut--a place about forty miles north-east of Delhi. There were several causes of this rebellion, but perhaps the chief one was the fact that the native troops had been forced to use greased cartridges, which their religious principles or prejudices forbade them even to touch, as being encased with the fat of so unclean an animal as a pig. Out of respect for their scruples on this head, new rules had been made allowing the sepoys to tear, instead of bite, off the ends of the cartridges; but even this concession did not satisfy them, and, for positively refusing to touch the cartridges that were offered them, about a squadron of native cavalry at Meerut were sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. In presence of the whole garrison, they were stripped of their uniforms, fitted with fetters, and marched off to prison, yelling out curses at their colonel as they went. Next evening the storm of evil and long-pent-up passions broke loose. The sepoy regiments at Meerut rose in open revolt, rushed to the gaol and released their comrades, murdered some of their English officers and their wives, plundered and slew like demons, and, leaving the place running with blood and wrapt in flames, fled to Delhi, the great stronghold of the Mahomedan dynasty and faith. So sudden and sanguinary had been this outburst against the British rule and name that the English commanders--all but a few whose energetic counsel was rejected--lost their heads completely for the time being, as if paralysed with astonishment and unbelief; and by the time they had recovered their senses the fugitive mutineers were safe within the walls of Delhi.