With drooping bells of clearest blue Thou didst attract my childish view, Almost resembling The azure butterflies that flew Where on the heath thy bl… - Reginald Heber

When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.

The sepoys, however, were immoveable. Regarding the military oath as the most sacred of all obligations, they fired at a brahmin as readily as any one else, and kept guard at the gate of a mosque as faithfully and fearlessly as if it had been the gate of one of their own temples. Their courage and steadiness preserved Benares from ruin.

One half of the population was literally armed against the other, and the fury which actuated both was more like that of demoniacs than rational enemies. It began by the Mussulmans breaking down a famous pillar, named Siva's walking staff, held in high veneration by the Hindoos. These last in revenge broke and burnt down a mosque, and the retort of the first aggressors was to kill a cow, and pour her blood into the sacred well. In consequence every Hindoo able to bear arms, and many who had no other fitness for the employment than rage supplied, procured weapons,and attacked their enemies with frantic fury wherever they met them. Being the most numerous party, they put the Mussulmans in danger of actual extermination, and would certainly have at least burned every mosque in the place before twenty-four hours were over, if the sepoys had not been called in.