§1. European soldiers and Asiatic sepoys. §2. Three British armies in India: Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. §3. Sepoy army of Bengal: Brahmans and Rajputs. §4. Enfield cartridges: general horror of pork: Hindu worship of the cow. §5. Agitation of the sepoys at Barrackpore. §6. First mutiny against the cartridges: Berhampore. §7. Second mutiny: Barrackpore. §8. Oudh: mutiny at Lucknow: suppressed. §9. Mutiny and massacre at Meerut. §10. Mohammedan revolt and massacre at Delhi: general excitement. §11. British advance from the Punjab to Delhi. §12. Siege of Delhi by Europeans, Sikhs, and Ghorkas. §13. Punjab and John Lawrence: antagonism between Sikhs and Mohammedans. §14. Sepoy plots at Lahore and Mian Mir: quashed. §15. Peshawar and frontier mountain tribes. §16. Execution of sepoy mutineers at Peshawar. §17. Brigadier John Nicholson: worshipped by a Sikh brotherhood. §18. Proposed withdrawal from Peshawar. §19. Mutiny at Sealkote: wholesale executions. §20. Siege and storm of Delhi, September 1857: peace in the North-West. [Sidenote: Military rule in India.] It is a common saying that "India is held by the sword;" but the phrase is misleading, and in one direction it is absolutely untrue. The British army is not maintained to rivet a foreign yoke on the subject populations. Its main duty has been to keep the peace between rival princes, to put down fighting between antagonistic religions, and to protect India against foreign aggression. [Sidenote: Paucity of European troops.] §1. The small number of European troops in 1857 proves that India was free. In the Bengal provinces, which cover a larger area than Great Britain and Ireland, and a denser population, there were scarcely any European troops. A single regiment sufficed to garrison Calcutta; and of this regiment one wing was quartered in Fort William within the city, whilst the other wing was quartered in Dumdum arsenal, seven miles off. With this exception, there were no European troops within 400 miles of Calcutta. One European regiment was quartered at Dinapore, to the westward of Patna, and another at Rangoon, in the newly-acquired province of Pegu. There was also a European regiment at Lucknow in Oudh, and two European regiments at Meerut in the North-West Provinces, about forty miles from Delhi, and a thousand miles from Calcutta. But the bulk of the European regiments in India were quartered in the Punjab, the frontier province on the north-west. This frontier is the only vulnerable side of India. It faces Afghanistan; but it also faces a possible combination of European and Asiatic powers, which may some day menace the British empire in India. [Sidenote: Sepoys or Asiatics.]