Bengal,
chiefly recruited from Oude, which, within a year, produced the most
appalling results. Various symptoms of sedition, in different parts of
India remote from one another, were indicated, but were not taken notice
of by the authorities, either wisely or vigilantly. Among the most
remarkable signs of a movement of some kind being on foot, was the
transmission of little cakes, called _chupatees_, from hand to
hand, throughout all the cities and villages of India. Many officers
predicted, from this circumstance, that a conspiracy to a revolt was in
progress, but the government discountenanced all warnings, and treated
contemptuously all information communicated to it which was calculated
to call for its watchfulness. The authorities believed that the chupatee
movement was harmless. Even now, this is the opinion of many familiar
with India, although the majority I conversant with that country were of
a contrary opinion.

One intelligent writer * presents the subject in the following light:
"The transmission of such little cakes from one district to another is
supposed by the Hindoos to effect the removal of epidemic disease.

* Robert Henry Wallace Dunlop, B.C.S.

When cholera broke out in this division, the villagers frequently
attached the disease, as they fancied, by some ceremonies, to a buffalo,
and drove it across the Ganges, or into some other village. This latter
course frequently caused fighting between the villagers. It was also
found that a similar transmission of cakes had taken place on a former
occasion, when a murrain attacked the cattle of the districts bordering
Oude, and the disease was supposed to be stayed as soon as the said
cakes reached the holy fanes of Hurdwar. The agitation was fostered, and
false rumours founded thereon, prejudicial to government, were almost
invariably propagated by Mussulmans, while the transmission of a cake
is a purely Hindoo practice. The shape and size of the cakes was that
of the common Brahmin 'Pooree.' The excitement at the time among the
sepoys, and the occurrence afterwards of the mutiny, has led many to
connect this cake distribution with our disturbances, but without any
sufficient grounds for so doing. It is probable that if any connection
existed it was accidental, and the relationship acknowledged by either
designing or ignorant persons, was consequent upon the distribution,
and did not cause or precede it. Those, indeed, who have attempted to
explai