OU have no doubt all heard of the Mutiny in India, which took place some eighteen years or more ago, before you were born; but lest some of you should have rather misty ideas on the subject, before I begin my story I will tell you in a few words what it was, and what caused it. A mutiny is a revolt, or rising of a body of men against those set over them, and whom it is their duty to obey. Most of the native or Indian regiments consist of coloured men called Sepoys, with English gentlemen for their officers. These natives are not of the same religion as ourselves,

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and imagine that anything that makes them lose caste defiles them, or in other words prevents their souls going to heaven. The cartridges used in the army are formed of a ball of lead and some gunpowder, rolled up together in paper; and these, with which the muskets are loaded, require to have a part bitten off by the teeth before being put into the barrel of the gun. Now the Fakirs, or priests of the Hindoos, made them believe that our Queen had ordered all the cartridges to be greased with pig's fat, so that in touching this with their mouths they thought they made themselves unclean and unfit for heaven. The result of this wicked teaching of the Fakirs was, that all the native soldiers rose up in arms against their officers, and shot many of them dead: not only English gentlemen, but their wives and children. They were determined to obey no white man or Christian, and 'slave of the white Begum,' as they called Queen Victoria, and to be either was quite enough to provoke any Sepoy to murder them in the most brutal way. These ignorant, vicious men suffered very much in the end for their conduct, and most of the murderers paid with their lives for their sin in killing their officers. They refused to obey those set over them, and were punished for it.

There is no easy spelling-book of Indian names, so that I must give them you as they are, and trust to your