Historic, too, is the _Chupatee_, for by its means the message was sent round throughout the length and breadth of British India for the rising against the English rule—known as the Indian Mutiny. Its true meaning was not at first understood, as we may read in the Indian correspondence of the _Times_, dated Bombay, March 3, 1857: ‘From Cawnpore to Allahabad, and onwards towards the great cities of the North-West, the _chokedars_, or policemen, have been of late spreading from village to village—at whose command, or for what object, they themselves, it is said, are ignorant—little plain cakes of wheaten flour. The number of cakes, and the mode of their transmission, is uniform. _Chokedar_ of village A enters village B, and, addressing its _chokedar_, commits to his charge two cakes, with directions to have other two similar to them prepared; and, leaving the old in his own village, to hie with the new to village C, and so on. English authorities of the districts through which these edibles passed looked at, handled, and probably tasted them; and finding them, upon the evidence of all their senses, harmless, reported accordingly to the Government. And it appears, I think, with tolerable clearness, that the mysterious mission is not of political but of superstitious origin; and is directed simply to the warding off of diseases, such as the choleraic visitation of twelve months ago, in which point of view it is noteworthy and characteristic, and not unworthy to be remembered together with last year’s grim and picturesque legend of the horseman, who rode down to the river at dead of night and was ferried across, announcing that the pestilence was in his train.’ _Apropos_ of Indian flour, Col. Meadows Taylor, in _The Story of My Life_, tells a story anent the adulteration of flour in India. ‘During that day my tent was beset by hundreds of pilgrims and travellers, crying loudly for justice against the flour-sellers, who not only gave short weight in flour, but adulterated it so distressingly with sand that the cakes made with it were uneatable, and had to be thrown away. That evening I told some reliable men of my escort to go quietly into the bazaars and each buy flour at a separate shop, being careful to note whose shop it was. ‘The flour was brought to me. I tested every sample, and found it full of sand as I passed it under my teeth. I then desired that all the persons named in my list should be sent to me with their baskets of flour, their weights and scales. Shortly afterwards they arrived, evidently suspecting nothing, and were placed in a row seated on the grass before my tent. ‘“Now,” said I gravely, “each of you is to weigh out a ser (two pounds) of your flour,” which was done. “Is it for the pilgrims?” asked one. ‘“No,” said I quietly, though I had much difficulty to keep my countenance. “You must eat it yourselves.” ‘They saw that I was in earnest, and offered to pay any fine that I imposed.