and hogs’ blood.”[341] Viceregal proclamations were issued to contradict these rumours and reassure the people, but in vain. The North-West Provinces had now become smitten with the terror which hovered over India, and the Commander-in-Chief suggested that the _depôt_ at Umballa might be broken up before the rifle practice began at the annual training. Lord Canning, believing that his proclamations had lulled the rising storm, refused to sanction this step. Fires next broke out at Umballa, as at Barrackpore--the officers alleging that Sepoys, who were as yet “undefiled,” set fire to the huts of those who had accepted the defiling cartridges, and that the latter retaliated. Oudh soon became affected, and in May Sir Henry Lawrence had to disarm the 7th Irregular Native Infantry at Lucknow. [Illustration: CAWNPORE.] In the North-West Provinces the famous “chupatties” began to make their appearance. They consisted of small baked cakes, and they were passed on from hand to hand, from hamlet to hamlet, spreading a strange excitement wherever they went. The circulation of the “chupatties” was evidently a signal of some sort, and yet, though Native society was shaking with revolutionary tremors, nothing happened. At last an event occurred which precipitated a general catastrophe. At Meerut eighty-five men of the 3rd Native Cavalry had been tried and doomed to ten years’ hard labour on the roads for refusing to bite their cartridges. They were paraded and punished before the other Native regiments, who seem to have been irritated, rather than overawed. Next day (10th May), the 3rd Cavalry forced the gates of the gaol and released their comrades. The men of the 20th and 11th Regiments flew to arms, shot every European they met, set fire to their huts, and marched on to Delhi. Why, it will be asked, was this revolt not quelled, seeing that a strong English force was stationed at Meerut? The outbreak, it is true, occurred during church hours on a Sunday; but even this hardly explains why General Hewitt, who was in command, permitted the mutineers to pursue their march to the city of the Mogul Emperors. There they proceeded, as if by concert, to the King, who espoused their cause. The people of the city rose and massacred the Europeans. The Native regiments in Delhi--the 38th, 54th, and 74th--joined the mutineers one by one, and though the arsenal was held for a time by Lieutenant Willoughby, with Lieutenants Raynor and Forrest, and six other Englishmen, they blew it up when it was no longer tenable. The Mutiny was now a war of liberation. It had a King for a rallying-point, and an Imperial city for a capital.