Strict officers of the old school judged that the beginning of the mischief lay in making too much of our native soldiery. They had come to understand how far England's power in India depended upon them, while they were unable to form an adequate idea of its resources at the other side of the world. Changes in organization are accused of lessening the Sepoys' respect for their regimental officers, the best of whom, also, were commonly taken away from their military duties to fill coveted posts in the civil service. Flattery and indulgence had slackened their discipline at the same time that it came to be tried by unfamiliar causes of irritation. The main difficulty in managing these troops lay in the superstitious customs and prejudices which make so large part of a Hindoo's life. Our rule has been to respect their ideas of religion; but this was not possible in all the claims of military service. Sepoys believed their caste in danger, when called upon to cross the sea to make war in Burma or Persia. Marched into the cold heights of Afghanistan, they had to be forbidden the ceremonial daily bathings in which they would have devoutly persisted at the risk of their lives; and they fancied themselves defiled by the sheepskin-jackets given them there as protection against the climate. Through such novel experiences, suspicion began to spring up among them that the English designed to change their religion by force. This suspicion grew to a height when, after the Crimean War, a wave of unrest and expectation passed over our Eastern possessions. In every bazaar, the discontented spoke ignorantly of the power of Russia as a match for their conqueror. Our disasters in Afghanistan had already shown us to be not invincible. An old story spread that the British rule was fated to come to an end one hundred years after the battle of Plassey, A.D. 1757. Now, the century having elapsed, secret messengers were found going from village to village bearing mysterious tokens in the shape of _chupatties_, flat cakes of unleavened bread, which everywhere stirred the people as a sacrament of disaffection. For once, Moslem and Hindoo seemed united in a vague hope that the time was at hand when they should be able to shake off the yoke of a race so repellent to both in faith, habits, and manners.