"Of these [sepoys], the temper was extremely doubtful. By far the greater number of them were Hindoos, and perhaps one half brahmins any one of them, if he had been his own master, would have rejoiced in an opportunity of shedding his life's blood in a quarrel with the Mussulmans, and of the mob who attacked them, the brahmins, yoguees, gossains, and other religious mendicants, formed the front rank, their bodies and faces covered with chalk and ashes, their long hair untied as devoted to death, showing their strings, and yelling out to them all the bitterest curses of their religion, if they persisted in urging an unnatural war against their brethren and their gods. 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."