Note to self: Four years before the “Indian Mutiny” (first all India war of Independence), Richard F Burton published “A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise”, writing:
“The Sepoy has not learned to trust to his musket as a European soldier does. The former, being inferior in physical strength, finds the firelock a cumbrous weapon, and perhaps he feels himself deficient in that dogged courage which must animate those who fight sturdily under a serious disadvantage. Consequently the Sepoy would often, if permitted, throw away his musket, & trust to the sword or dagger, the handling of which is more familiar to him. But Indians are not so adverse to innovations as they are popularly supposed to be.”
See here: A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise by Richard Francis Burton
See also here for Burton Archival stuff: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P4334.
and here for online books:
including the thousand nights and a night:
http://www.burtoniana.org/books/1885-Arabian%20Nights/index.htm#supp
