The more thoughtful part of the population might well hesitate on which side to declare; some prudently did their best to stand well with both, in case of any event; but those who had much to lose must soon have regretted the firm rule of our Government. On the whole, it may be said that the princes and nobles, where not carried away by ambition or religious zeal, remained more or less loyal to our cause, having better means than the ignorant mob of judging that our power would yet right itself, though crippled by such a sudden storm and staggering like to founder in so troubled waters. But in Oudh and other recently-annexed districts, where the Zemindars and Talookdars, or chief landowners, had often been treated with real harshness in the settlement of revenue, this class naturally proved hostile, yet not more so than the poor peasants, to whom our rule had rather been a benefit. The latter, indeed, acted in great part less like determined rebels than like foolish school-boys, who, finding themselves all at once rid of a strict pedagogue, had seized the opportunity for a holiday-spell of disorder; as with the Sepoys themselves, defection sometimes seemed a matter of childish impulse, and there would come a moment of infectious excitement, in which the least breath of chance turned them into staunch friends or ruthless foes. Except in Oudh, it may be said, the movement was in general a military mutiny rather than a popular insurrection, while everywhere, of course, the bad characters of the locality took so favourable an occasion for violence. To gain some clear idea of what was going on over a region that would make a large country in Europe, it seems best to take one narrative as a good example of many. This means somewhat neglecting the rules of proportion required in a regular historical narrative. It will also lead to an overlapping of chapters in the order of time. In any case it must be difficult to arrange orderly the multifarious and entangled episodes of this story; and the plan of our book rather is to present its characteristic outlines in scenes which cannot always be shifted to mark the exact succession of events, but which will roughly exhibit the main stages of the struggle.