a man to believe any assertion, however improbable in itself.
Conspirators to work upon so promising a soil were not wanting to the occasion. There was a large amount of seething discontent in many portions of India, In Oudh, recently annexed; in the territories under the rule of the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-west Provinces, revolutionised by the introduction of the land-tenure system of Mr Thomason; in the Southern Maráthá territory, the chiefs of which had been exasperated to the very verge of revolt by an inquiry, instituted under the auspices of a commission, called the Inám Commission, into the titles of estates which they and their forefathers had held without question since the beginning of the century, men's minds were excited and anxious. Suddenly, shortly after the annexation of Oudh, this seething discontent found expression. Who all the active conspirators were may probably never be known. One of them, there can be no question, was he who, during the progress of the Mutiny, was known as the Maulaví.[1] The Maulaví was a very remarkable man. His name was Ahmad-ullah, and his native place was Faizábád in Oudh. In person he was tall, lean, and muscular, with large deep-set eyes, beetle brows, a high aquiline nose, and lantern jaws. Sir Thomas Seaton, who enjoyed, during the suppression of the revolt, the best means of judging him, described him 'as a man of great abilities, of undaunted courage, of stern determination, and by far the best soldier among the rebels.' Such was the man selected by the discontented in Oudh to sow throughout India the seeds which, on a given signal, should spring to active growth. Of the ascertained facts respecting his action this at least has been proved, that very soon after the annexation of Oudh
- ↑ The word 'Maulaví' signifies 'a learned man,' also 'a doctor of law.'
