CHAPTER IV.
THE SPREAD OF THE EPIDEMIC.
The conduct of the men of the 19th N. I. at Barhámpur was known to the authorities in Calcutta on the 4th of March. To them, I have said, it appeared to be rather the consequence of the blundering of the commanding officer than of a widespread feeling of discontent among the sipáhís. But, whatever might be the cause, it was a fact which they had to deal with, and to deal with promptly and with effect.
The Commander-in-Chief of the army, General Anson, was in the Upper Provinces; the Adjutant-General was at Mírath; but the Governor-General, Lord Canning, and all the Secretaries to Government, were in Calcutta. These had, then, all the administrative means at their disposal for dealing promptly and effectively with revolt.
Of the terror which the notion of the greased cartridge had spread throughout the minds of the sipáhís they had had evidence since the 22d of January, the day on which the conversation of the lascar at the Dam-Dam factory with the Brahman sipáhí had been reported to them. The general commanding at Barrackpur, General Hearsey, an officer who had passed his career in the native army, and who understood the character of the sipáhís, their language, and their idiosyncracies, had, when reporting the circumstance, recommended that the difficulty might be met by allowing the sipáhís at the depôt to grease their
