that
could be relied on, the upshot must be, that at least 40,000 troops of
the best quality are scattered between the Hoogly and the Sutlege (or,
in other words, between Calcutta and Loodiana[59]). Beyond a few
casual outrages on some small scale, we hope that no more of bloody
tragedies can be _now_ (August 25) apprehended. But we, that have dear
friends in Bengal, must, for weeks to come, feel restless and anxious.
Still, this is a great mitigation of the horror that besieged our
anticipations six weeks ago.

[Footnote 59: '_Loodiana_:'--The very last station in Bengal, on going
westwards to the Indus. In Runjeet Singh's time this was for many
years the station at which we lodged our Affghan pensioner, the Shah
Soojah--too happy, had he never left his Loodiana lodgings.]

But, having thrown a glance at the shifting aspects of the danger, now
let us alight for a moment on the cause of this dreadful outbreak. We
have no separate information upon this part of the subject, but we
have the results of our own vigilant observations upon laying this
and that together; and so much we will communicate. From the first, we
have rejected incredulously the immoderate effects ascribed to the
greased cartridges; and not one rational syllable is there in the
pretended rumours about Christianising the army. Not only is it
impossible that folly so gross should maintain itself against the
unremitting evidence of facts, all tending in the opposite direction;
but, moreover, under any such idle solution as this, there would still
remain another point unaccounted for, and _that_ is the frantic hatred
borne towards ourselves by many of the rebellious troops. Some of our
hollow friends in France, Belgium, &c., profess to read in this hatred
an undeniable inference that we must have treated the sepoys harshly,
else how explain an animosity so deadly. To that argument we have a
very brief answer, such as seems decisive. The Bengalese sepoy,[60]
when most of all pressed for some rational explanation of his fury,
never once thought of _this_ complaint; besides which, it is too
notorious that our fault has always lain the other way. Heavily
criminal, in fact, we had been by our lax discipline; and in
particular, the following most scandalous breach of discipline must
have been silently connived at for years by British authorities.
Amongst the outward forms of respect between man and man, there is
none that has so indifferently belonged to all n