A 
 
 POPULAR ACCOUNT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 THUGS AND DACOITS, 
 
 THE 
 
 HEREDITARY GAROTTERS 
 
 AND 
 
 GANG-ROBBERS 
 
 OF 
 
 INDIA, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BUTTON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 WM. H. ALLEN AND CO., 7, LEADENHALL STKEET. 
 
 1857.
 
 LONDON : 
 W. LEWIS AND BON, FK1NTERS, 21, F1KCU LANE, COKMM1.L.
 
 CIroga rair 
 
 >v 
 
 THEY who reverence ancient descent, and a long 
 line of ancestors, are bound to regard the Thugs 
 with peculiar veneration. Perhaps, neither in 
 Asia nor in Europe are there any other families 
 that can date their origin from such remote anti- 
 quity. They are said to be sprung from the 
 Sagartii, who contributed 8,000 horse to the 
 army of Xerxes, and are thus described by Hero- 
 dotus, in the Seventh Book of his History : 
 
 " These people lead a pastoral life, were origi- 
 nally of Persian descent, and use the Persian 
 language ; their dress is something betwixt the 
 Persian and the Pactyan ; they have no offensive 
 weapons, either of iron or brass, except their 
 daggers ; their principal dependence in action is 
 on cords, made of twisted leather, which they use 
 in this manner : when they engage an enemy, 
 they throw out these cords, having a noose at 
 the extremity : if they entangle in these either 
 
 1545528
 
 6 ANTIQUITY OF THE THUGS. 
 
 horse or man, they without difficulty put them to 
 death." 
 
 There is some reason to believe, that in later 
 times the descendants of these Sagartii accompa- 
 nied one of the Mahommedan invaders of India, 
 and settled in the neighbourhood of Delhi. In 
 the latter part of the seventeenth century, Theve- 
 not makes mention of a strange denomination 
 of robbers, who infested the road between that 
 city and Agra, and used " a certain rope, with a 
 running noose, which they can cast with so much 
 sleight about a man's neck, when they are within 
 reach of him, that they never fail, so that they 
 strangle him in a trice." These vagrant plun- 
 derers were divided into seven clans or families, 
 called Bahleem, Bhyns, Bhursote, Kachunee, Hut- 
 tar, Ganoo, and Tundil, the parent stock of all 
 the subsequent ramifications. According to tra- 
 dition, they were expelled from Delhi by one of 
 the emperors of the house of Gouree, on account 
 of the murder of a favourite slave. Their victim 
 had long been aware of their practices, and had 
 connived at them, for the sake of the handsome 
 gratuities presented as the price of his silence. 
 But, abusing his power, and making exorbitant 
 demands, he quickly experienced the fate of those 
 in whose plunder he had so freely participated.
 
 THUGS OF ARCOT. 7 
 
 The murderers were therefore driven from the 
 neighbourhood, after being branded on their 
 posteriors with the current copper coin of the 
 empire. Five of the clans removed to Agra, 
 whence their descendants were afterwards called 
 Agureea. A large body of them appear to have 
 travelled to Arcot, and there founded the proudest 
 and most punctilious branch of the fraternity. 
 These Arcottee Thugs used to wear checkered 
 loongees, and short jackets, like the Company's 
 Sepoys ; they also carried a knapsack on their 
 back, a light cane in their hand, and generally a 
 small bag of beetel nut and paun. Their leaders, 
 or jemadars, frequently assumed the garb and 
 bearing of wealthy merchants, and had four or 
 five attendants to cook for them, hand the hookah, 
 clean their pony, and do other menial offices, 
 while the rest of the gang followed in small par- 
 ties, not to excite suspicion, but closed up rapidly 
 when the signal was passed along. The true 
 Hindostanee Thugs, however, professed to look 
 down upon those of Arcot, and refused to inter- 
 marry with them. The latter retorted, that the 
 others could have no pretensions to high birth, 
 for at their marriages the matrons, as they threw 
 down the toolsee, were wont to exclaim, " Here's 
 to the spirits of those (Qulunders), who once led
 
 8 MOOLTANEE THUGS. 
 
 bears and monkeys ; to those who drove bullocks, 
 and marked with the godnee (kunjurs, or gipsies); 
 and to those who made baskets for the head." 
 But this was explained by the necessity of as- 
 suming disguises, in the first place, to escape 
 from Delhi, and afterwards for carrying on their 
 terrible vocation. There was certainly one very 
 low Hindoo class, the Sooseeas, but calling them- 
 selves Naeks and T/tories, with whom the others 
 associated with reluctance. These chiefly con- 
 fined themselves to Malwa and Rajpootana, tra- 
 velling as merchants, with their leader indulging 
 in a hackery or palanquin. Sometimes they 
 disguised themselves as Sepoys, or as treasure- 
 bearers. The most exclusive clan were the Chin- 
 gurees, or Mooltanee Thugs, who practised female 
 infanticide to a frightful extent. They preserved 
 alive only a sufficient number to provide wives 
 for the members of their own clan. They were 
 allowed to be an ancient tribe, and were much 
 respected by the inferior associations with whom 
 they had nothing in common, except the dialect 
 peculiar to all Thugs. They usually travelled 
 with their families as Brinjarees, with bullocks 
 and cows laden with goods, and strangled their 
 victims with a bullock's rope. A colony of about 
 one hundred families was settled at Hingolee.
 
 BRINJAREE THUGS. 9 
 
 A very clever and staunch tribe, known as the 
 Jumaldehee Thugs, settled in Oude, who pru- 
 dently kept their wives in ignorance of the true 
 nature of their pursuits, nor did they initiate 
 their sons till they had reached the age of 
 puberty. When they sallied forth on their 
 expeditions, they left a certain number of their 
 men at home, to take care of the women and 
 children, and to these they allotted a full share 
 of then* spoils. The Brinjaree Thugs were espe- 
 cially fortunate in escaping detection, or even 
 suspicion, by reason of their nomade habits, 
 which rendered it extremely difficult to trace 
 any particular crime to them. They were con- 
 sequently enabled to amass considerable riches, 
 though thev seldom renounced their wander- 
 
 / 
 
 ing life. A Thug approver told the late Major- 
 General Sleeman, that on one occasion he 
 and his party fell in with a company of mer- 
 chants from the westward, who were encamped 
 near Jyepore, and wore exceedingly high turbans. 
 " What enormous turbans these men wear ! " 
 he remarked to a comrade, using their slang 
 term, ayhasee. The chief man among the stran- 
 gers thereupon stepped forward, and requested 
 the travellers to sit down with them, adding, at 
 the same time, " My good friends, we are of.your 
 
 A 2
 
 10 INOCULATION OF HINDOOISM. 
 
 fraternity, though our agliasees are not the same." 
 It turned out that these supposed merchants 
 were a gang of Brinjaree Thugs, who, having 
 become wealthy, had given up strangulation, but 
 were not the less glad to welcome those who 
 still laboured at the pious crime. 
 
 In the beginning, as already stated, the Thugs 
 were invariably followers of the Prophet, but 
 after a time Hindoos were initiated, who inocu- 
 lated their Mussulmaun teachers with their own 
 superstitions. Thuggee now became a divine in- 
 stitution, ordained by the goddess Kalee. It is 
 curious to observe how the amalgamation of the 
 two religions took place. Captain Sleeman 
 asked a Thug approver, named Sahib, if he 
 thought the English would ever succeed in sup- 
 pressing Thuggee ? The answer was, " How 
 can the hand of man do away with the works of 
 God ?" 
 
 SLEEMAN. You are a Mussulmaun 1 
 
 SAHIB.- Yes; and the greater part of the 
 Thugs of the south are Mussulmauns. 
 
 SLEEMAN. And you still marry, inherit, pray, 
 eat, and drink, according to the Koran ? and 
 your Paradise is to be the Paradise promised by 
 Mahommed 1 
 
 SAHIB. Yes. All, all.
 
 FATIMA HINDOOIZED. 11 
 
 SLEEMAN. Has Bhowanee been anywhere 
 named in the Koran ? 
 
 SAHIB. Nowhere. 
 
 It was then explained that Bhowanee was sup- 
 posed to be another name for Fatima, daughter 
 of the Prophet, and wife of Ali. Sahib acknow- 
 ledged that Bhowanee had no power to admit 
 her votaries into Paradise, nor any influence over 
 the future state, but maintained that she directed 
 the destinies of Thugs in this world, and that 
 God would never punish any one for obedience 
 to her commands. Sleeman's Mahoimnedan 
 officers indignantly protested against the idea 
 that Fatima and the Hindoo goddess were iden- 
 tical, and professed an entire disbelief in the 
 divinity of Kalee. But they were somewhat 
 disconcerted when the Thugs asked how they 
 reconciled this want of faith with their presence 
 at Kalee's festivals : they could not say that 
 they were merely spectators, led thither by an 
 idle curiosity. The Thugs then adduced, as a 
 proof of the divine origin of their calling, the 
 fact that they had pursued it with impunity for 
 nearly two centuries. Captain Sleeman having 
 declared that neither he nor his native officers 
 cared one jot for their goddess, and that they 
 were determined to put down her worship in
 
 12 THE GODDESS KALEE. 
 
 this form, one of them replied, " They may say 
 so, but they all know that no man's family can 
 survive a murder committed in any other way ; 
 and yet Thugs have thrived through a long 
 series of generations. We have all children like 
 other men, and we are never visited with any 
 extraordinary affliction." 
 
 It may be here parenthetically stated, that of 
 the Oude Thugs nine-tenths were Mahommedans; 
 in the Doab, one-fifth ; south of the Nerbudda, 
 three-fourths ; in Rajpootana, one fourth ; and 
 in Bengal, Behar, Orissa, Bundlecund and Saugor, 
 about one-half. 
 
 Kalee, the goddess who presided over Thuggee, 
 was worshipped also under the names of Bhow- 
 anee, Devey, and Davey. She was the wife of 
 Mahadeo, or Siva, and first appeared on earth on 
 the banks of the Hooghly, at a spot afterwards 
 called, in memory of the event, Kalee Ghaut, now 
 Calcutta. Here stands her most honoured tem- 
 ple, and here is still celebrated with the most 
 solemn rites her chief festival, the Doorga Pooja. 
 They who address her with the greatest rever- 
 ence style her Kunkalee, or the " man-eater," 
 and represent her as quaffing huge draughts of 
 blood from men and demons. When alone, she 
 is depicted as black and hideous of aspect ; but
 
 DIVINE ORIGIN OF THUGGEE. 13 
 
 in company with her husband, she is ever fair 
 and beautiful. Once on a time the world was 
 infested with a monstrous demon named Rukut 
 Beej-dana, who devoured mankind as fast as 
 they were created. So gigantic was his stature, 
 that the deepest pools of the ocean reached no 
 higher than his waist. This horrid prodigy 
 Kalee cut in twain with her resistless sword, but 
 from every drop of blood that fell to the ground 
 there sprung up a new demon. For some time 
 she went on destroying them, till the hellish 
 brood multiplied so fast that she waxed hot and 
 weary with her endless task. So she paused for 
 a while, and from the sweat, brushed off one 
 of her arms, she created two men, to whom she 
 gave a roomdl, or handkerchief, and commanded 
 them to strangle the demons. When they had 
 slain them all, they offered to return the roomal, 
 but the goddess bade them keep it and transmit 
 it to their posterity, with the injunction to de- 
 stroy all men who were not of their kindred. 
 There were many exemptions, however, from this 
 rule. The murder of women, for instance, was 
 positively prohibited, and this prohibition was 
 seldom or never violated in Bengal, Behar, or 
 Orissa. To the south of the Nerbudda old 
 women did not always escape, or even young
 
 14 THUGS DIVINELY PROTECTED. 
 
 women, when it was found impossible to separate 
 them from a tempting prize. Between the Ner- 
 budda, the Indus, and the Jumna, the Thugs 
 had few scruples of any kind. It was likewise 
 unlawful to murder a Brahman or a Kaet (mem- 
 ber of the writer caste), or a religious mendicant 
 of any kind, or oilman, potter, carpenter, black- 
 smith, goldsmith, elephant-driver, musician, dan- 
 cing-master, or any one having a domestic animal 
 with him, or carrying a parent's bones to the 
 sacred river. But, in later times, these restric- 
 tions were either totally evaded or confined to 
 the first day of the expedition. To the neglect 
 of these and such-like regulations, the approvers 
 ascribed the decay of the "time-honoured craft." 
 Davey used to protect them, they said with a 
 sigh, when they " had some regard for religion." 
 She never forsook them till they neglected her. 
 They were merely instruments in the hands of 
 God. " No man is ever killed by man's killing," 
 but through the will of the Deity. Many " in- 
 cursions" had been made at different times 
 against Thuggee, but never on such a scale as 
 that instituted by the company's officers. " The 
 Company's Ikbal (genius, or good fortune) is 
 such, that before the sound of your drums, sor- 
 cerers, witches, and demons take flight, and how
 
 PROFANE CURIOSITY PUNISHED. 15 
 
 can Thuggee stand?" In the early ages of the 
 " institution," Bhowanee used to dispose of the 
 dead bodies and efface all signs of the murder, 
 but she distinctly warned her votaries against 
 looking back after they had again taken to the 
 road. Curiosity, however, at length proved too 
 strong for the sons of Eve, and one day it came 
 to pass that a Thug looked over his shoulder and 
 beheld the goddess playing at ball with the 
 corpses, throwing them up into the air and 
 catching them as they fell; or, according to 
 another account, she had a dead body in her 
 mouth, the extremities projecting on either side. 
 After this discovery of her favourite pastimes, 
 Kalee refused to have anything more to do with 
 their victims, and left it to themselves to conceal 
 the tokens of their "piety." But she did not 
 altogether abandon them. Even in her wrath 
 she was gracious to those who held her name in 
 honour. She accordingly bestowed upon them 
 one of her teeth for a pick-axe, a rib for a knife, 
 and the hem of her garment for a noose : yellow 
 and white being the colours she most affected, 
 such were frequently the hues of the roomal. 
 To the last she " everywhere protected the Thugs, 
 so long as they attended religiously to their 
 duties." Even when through inattention to the
 
 16 DIVINE PROTECTION. 
 
 omens she sent for their guidance, any of them 
 were apprehended and punished, her vengeance 
 was sure to overtake their oppressors. " Was 
 not Nanha," said an approver, "the Raja of 
 Jhalone, made leprous by Davey for putting to 
 death Bodhoo and his brother Khumoolee two 
 of the most noted Thugs of their day ? He had 
 them trampled under the feet of elephants, but 
 the leprosy broke out upon his body the very 
 next day." Nanha was so sensible of his guilti- 
 ness, that he did all in his power to appease 
 Davey. " Bodhoo had begun a well in Jhalone ; 
 the Raja built it up in a magnificent style ; he 
 had a Chubootra (tomb) raised to their name, 
 fed Brahmans, consecrated it, had worship insti- 
 tuted upon it, but ah 1 in vain ; the disease was 
 incurable, and the Raja died in a few months a 
 
 miserable death When Madhajee 
 
 Scindiah caused seventy Thugs to be executed 
 at Mathura, was he not warned in a dream by 
 Davey that he should release them ? And did 
 he not, the very day after their execution, begin 
 to spit blood? And did he not die within 
 three months ? . . . . When Dureear, the 
 Rathore, and Komere and Patore, the Kuchwaha 
 Rajpoots, Zemindars, arrested eighty of the 
 Thugs who had settled at Nodha, after the
 
 KALEE PROTECTRIX. 17 
 
 murder of Lieutenant Monsell, they had many 
 warnings to let them go, but they persisted and 
 kept them till some thirty died. They collected 
 10,000 rupees, at the rate of 125 rupees from 
 every Thug. What became of their families? 
 Have they not all perished ? They have not a 
 child left. Rao Sing Havildar, the Gwalior 
 Soobah of Nodha, took the money, but that very 
 day his only son and the best horse in his stable 
 died, and he was himself taken ill and died soon 
 
 after a miserable death The Raja 
 
 of Kundul, some ninety coss (180 miles) east 
 from Hyderabad, arrested all the Thugs in his 
 Raj for some murders they had committed. For 
 three successive nights the voice of Davey was 
 heard from the top of every temple in the 
 capital, warning the Raja to release them. The 
 whole town heard her, and urged the Raja to 
 comply. He was obstinate, and the third night 
 the bed on which he and his Ranee were sleeping 
 was taken up by Davey, and dashed violently 
 against the ground." They were dreadfully 
 bruised and frightened, and lost no time in 
 releasing their heaven-protected prisoners. 
 
 Kalee not only protected the Thugs, but sent 
 them numerous omens as encouragement or 
 warning. An omen was, in fact, a positive com-
 
 18 
 
 mand to slay the travellers in their power, or to 
 allow them to go unharmed. If they did not 
 attend to these omens, they became guilty of 
 disobedience, and had no longer any claim upon 
 the goddess for protection. On Captain Sleeman 
 inquiring if any evil would befall them if they 
 used the roomal without reference to the divine 
 signals, Sahib at once answered in the affirma- 
 tive, adding, " No man's family ever survives a 
 murder: it becomes extinct. A Thug who 
 murders in this way loses the children he has, 
 and is never blessed with more. He cannot 
 escape punishment." " But how," said Captain 
 Sleeman, " how can you murder old men and 
 young children without some emotions of pity 
 calmly and deliberately as they sit with you and 
 converse with you, and tell you of their private 
 affairs of their hopes and fears and of the 
 wives and children they are going to meet after 
 years of absence, toil, and suffering?" The 
 answer was such as might almost have been 
 made by an ancient Hebrew, had any one asked 
 him if he felt no pity for the wretched Canaariites 
 he- so ruthlessly murdered. "From the time 
 that the omens have been favourable, we consider 
 them as victims thrown into our hands by the 
 Deity to be killed; and that we are the mere
 
 RESPECTABILITY OF THE THUGS. 19 
 
 instrument in her hands to destroy them : that 
 if we do not kill them, she will never be again 
 propitious to us, and we and our families will be 
 involved in misery and want." In precisely 
 such a spirit did Samuel hew in pieces before 
 the Lord, Agag, king of the Amalekites. The 
 Thugs were by no means insensible to domestic 
 feelings, or even to the charms of social and 
 friendly intercourse. At home their conduct 
 was irreproachable. Their villages were usually 
 models of cleanliness and neatness ; their lands 
 were industriously cultivated, their wives and 
 children treated with all kindness and affection. 
 When Lack, an approver, heard of his brother's 
 arrest, he repeated with much feeling an Hin- 
 dustani verse, which has been thus rendered into 
 English : " I was a pearl, once residing in com- 
 fort in the ocean. I surrendered myself, believ- 
 ing I should repose in peace on the bosom of 
 some fair damsel but, alas ! they have pierced 
 me and passed a string through my body, and 
 have left me to dangle in constant pain as an 
 ornament to her nose." Their wives frequently 
 were quite unconscious that their husbands were 
 murderers, though they may perchance have 
 suspected them of being thieves and robbers. 
 The sons also were kept in ignorance of the
 
 20 JUVENILE EDUCATION. 
 
 entire truth until they had completed their four- 
 teenth or fifteenth year. In fact, they were 
 gradually trained to the business. At first they 
 were taken out as if for a pleasant excursion, and 
 had generally a poney to ride. Presents, too, 
 were given them after each murder, though they 
 were not made acquainted with the source whence 
 those gifts were derived. However, before they 
 returned home they had usually a shrewd sus- 
 picion that their treasured prize had not been 
 honestly come by. Next year they were plainly 
 told that their parents and relations were high- 
 way robbers but by this time they had become 
 too fond of the careless roving life and of their 
 share of the easily-acquired plunder, to listen to 
 the still small voice of conscience. And thus in 
 the third year they were not horrified to learn 
 that they were accomplices in murder. By 
 such gentle transitions the best regulated mind 
 may eventually be attuned to the most atrocious 
 guilt. A comical reason was given to Captain 
 Sleeman to account for the omission on the part 
 of a Thug father to initiate his son. " His 
 father," said the witness, " used to drink very 
 hard, and in his fits of intoxication he used to 
 neglect his prayers and his days of fast. All 
 days were the same with him. This lad, Shum-
 
 DEATH FROM HORROR. 21 
 
 shera, was always sober and religiously disposed, 
 and separated from his father, living always with 
 his uncle Dondee, who was a very worthy, good 
 man." He, too, was a Thug, but likewise 
 refrained from removing the veil from the eyes 
 of the lad. Another relative, however, proved 
 less considerate, and nattered the young man's 
 vanity by telling him that he belonged to a very 
 high family of the Jumaldehee Thugs. A sad 
 tale concerning another youngster was related 
 by Feringeea, a noted leader, who turned king's 
 evidence. One Aman Soobahdar went out upon 
 an expedition, accompanied by his cousin Kurhora, 
 aged scarcely fourteen, whom he gave in charge 
 to Hursooka, his adopted son. After a time the 
 gang fell in with a party of five Sikhs,, where- 
 upon Aman desired Hursooka to keep the boy 
 well in the rear, so that he might not witness 
 the contemplated murder. Kurhora, however, 
 becoming frightened, broke away from his com- 
 panion and galloped to the front to overtake the 
 others. Just as he came in sight, the signal 
 was given. In an instant the fatal noose was 
 applied, a few shrill cries rent the air, and five 
 writhing human bodies lay convulsively distorted 
 on the ground. At the horrid spectacle Kurhora 
 " was seized with a trembling, and fell from his
 
 22 FERINGEEA. 
 
 pony ; he became immediately delirious, was 
 dreadfully alarmed at the sight of the turbans of 
 the murdered men, and when any one touched 
 or spoke to him, talked about the murders and 
 screamed exactly like a boy talks in his sleep, 
 and trembled violently if any one spoke to him 
 or touched him." Three or four of the party 
 remained with the poor lad, for he was a great 
 favourite with them all, but he never recovered 
 his senses, and died before the evening. Hur- 
 sooka took his death so much to heart that he 
 retired from the world, turned Byragee (an 
 ascetic), and passed the remainder of his days 
 in serving at a temple on the Nerbudda. 
 
 Feringeea, the narrator of the preceding 
 mournful incident, was a fine handsome fellow, 
 greatly admired by the women, and much re- 
 spected by his associates. His name was given 
 to him in memory of an attack made by a party 
 of Feringees (Europeans) under the French 
 General Perron, on his uncle's village in distraint 
 of certain customs' dues. As his mother fled 
 from the scene of violence and brutality, she was 
 seized with labour pains and brought a man 
 child into the world, whom, in remembrance of 
 the terror and anguish she had endured, she 
 named Feringeea. On one occasion Ferin-
 
 FERINGEEA AND THE MOGHULANEE. 23 
 
 geea, when he had grown to man's estate and 
 had become a famous leader, was travelling with 
 his cousin Arnan Soobahdar and a gang of 150 
 Thugs through Rajpootana, when he fell in with 
 a handmaid of the Peishwah Bajee Rao, on her 
 way from Poonah to Cawnpore. " We intended 
 to kill her and her followers," he quietly re- 
 marked to Captain Sleeman, " but we found her 
 very beautiful, and after having her and her 
 party three days within our grasp, and knowing 
 that they had 15,000 worth of property in 
 jewels and other things with them, we let her 
 and all her party go ; we had talked to her and 
 felt love towards her, for she was very beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 But beauty was not always equally powerful 
 to save. At another time, he came up with a 
 beautiful young Moghulanee, travelling with an 
 old female servant, mounted on a pony, an 
 armed attendant, and six palanquin-bearers. The 
 ill-fated damsel, unhappily for herself and her 
 companions, became enamoured of the dashing, 
 handsome young Thug. In vain he tried to 
 shake her off, for he feared a scandal might 
 arise if he, a Brahmin, had any improper inter- 
 course with a Mussulmaunee. And the exchange 
 of other than Platonic love would have saved her
 
 24 FASCINATION OF THUGGEE. 
 
 life. So at last he insisted that they should 
 " take " her, and she was accordingly put to 
 death. " It was her fate," he said, not excusing 
 himself, but putting the matter in the right light, 
 " It was her fate to die by our hands." Captain 
 Sleeman, then asked Madar Buksh, who actually 
 strangled the poor Moghulanee, if he had no 
 pity for the beautiful young woman. " I had," 
 he answered, " but I had undertaken the duty, 
 and we must all have food." As if hurt by the 
 enunciation of such a base practical motive, 
 Feringeea here struck in, saying, "We all feel 
 pity sometimes, but the goor (consecrated coarse 
 sugar) of the Tapoonee, (feast after a murder), 
 changes our nature. It would change the nature 
 of a horse. Let any man once taste of that goor, 
 and he will be a Thug, though he knew all the 
 trades and have all the wealth in the world. I 
 never wanted food; my mother's family was 
 opulent, her relations high in office : I have been 
 high in office myself, and become so great a 
 favourite wherever I went, that I was sure of 
 promotion ; yet I was always miserable while 
 absent from my gang, and obliged to return to 
 Thuggee. My father made me taste of that 
 fatal goor when I was yet a mere boy ; and, if I 
 were to live a thousand years, I should never be
 
 APPREHENSION OF FERINGEEA. 25 
 
 able to follow any other trade." The fascination 
 of the abominable " trade " is almost incredible. 
 There were many instances of Thugs enlisting 
 into the Company's service, and making excellent 
 soldiers ; and yet, whenever an opportunity pre- 
 sented itself, they would get two parades' leave, 
 join some of their old associates, commit as many 
 murders as possible, and then, with satisfied 
 feelings, return to their duty. 
 
 Feringeea, after the apprehension of his gang, 
 could have escaped to other clans in Rajpootana 
 and Telingana, " but," said he, " you had secured 
 my mother, wife, and child : I could not forsake 
 them was always inquiring after them, and 
 affording my pursuers the means of tracing me. 
 I knew not what indignities ray wife and mother 
 might suffer. Could I have felt secure that they 
 would suffer none, I should not have been taken." 
 He was finally captured by two striplings, whom 
 he could easily have overpowered, had he not 
 imagined that they were supported by a party of 
 police outside the hut, and that all resistance was 
 therefore idle. At one period of his life, he was 
 in General Ochterlony's service, and a great 
 favourite with Sir David. His wife was not 
 aware that he was a Thug. " Her family," he 
 proudly remarked to Captain Sleeman, "are of
 
 26 HEROIC FEMALE THUGS. 
 
 the aristocracy of Jhansee and Sumtur, as you 
 may know." His foster-brother, being informed 
 the day before his execution, that his foster- 
 mother had been arrested, earnestly begged, as a 
 last favour, that he might have an interview with 
 her as she was led to the scaffold. His request 
 being granted, " he fell at the old woman's feet, 
 and begged she would release him from the obli- 
 gations of the milk with which she had nourished 
 him, and the care with which she had cherished 
 him from infancy, as he was about to die before 
 he could fulfil any of them. She placed her hands 
 on his head, and he knelt, and she said she forgave 
 him all, and bid him die like a man." The sons 
 were worthy of such mothers, heroic in their firm 
 resolve. There is likewise on record one example 
 of a woman, named Baroonee, who used to assist 
 her husband to strangle his victims. Once she 
 saved his life when nearly overpowered, by tightly 
 pulling the roomal round the neck of the strug- 
 gling wretch, till he fell dead at her feet. 
 Mothers frequently compelled their sons to go on 
 Thuggee, and wives their husbands ; and there 
 was one woman in the Deccan, who kept a 
 gang, though it does not appear that she ever 
 accompanied them. Among the ancient male 
 leaders none was more venerated than Dada
 
 SAINTS AND JEMADARS. 27 
 
 Dheera, of the Bhursote clan, whose name was oft- 
 times invoked over spiritual potations, at certain 
 religious ceremonies. Next to him, was the Mool- 
 tanee leader, Jhora Naek, who, assisted only by his 
 servant, Koduk Bunwaree, once strangled a man 
 possessed of property to the value of 16,200. 
 Instead of appropriating this valuable prize, he 
 drove the mule home, assembled his neighbours, 
 and distributed to each the share to which he 
 would have been entitled had he been actually 
 present at the murder. For this remarkable dis- 
 play of honour and self-denial, both he and his 
 wife were canonized. The leadership was usually 
 the reward of merit. "A man," said one of 
 them, " who has always at command the means 
 of advancing a month or two's subsistence 
 to a gang, will be called a Jemadar ; a strong? 
 resolute man, whose ancestors have been for 
 many generations Thugs, will soon get the title ; 
 or a very wise man, whose advice in difficult 
 cases has weight with the gang; one who has 
 influence over local authorities, or the native 
 officers of courts of justice ; a man of handsome 
 appearance and high bearing, who can feign the 
 man of rank weU all these things enable a man 
 to get around him a few who will consent to give 
 him the fees and title of Jemadar ; but it requires
 
 28 GOOD OMENS. 
 
 very high and numerous qualifications to gain a 
 man the title of Soobahdar." 
 
 It is now time to consider what omens were 
 good, what bad, in the eyes of this strange fra- 
 ternity. There does not seem to have been any 
 particular reason for deciding on the hidden 
 meaning of the incidents that were supposed to 
 be sent to regulate their conduct. The division 
 of tokens and prodigies into auspicious and ad- 
 verse was, indeed, most arbitrary and capricious, 
 and can scarcely in any one instance be accounted 
 for. The good were not so numerous as the bad, 
 for even these habitual murderers gladly clutched 
 at any excuse for evading the necessity of taking 
 human life. Very promising was it, on first 
 setting out, to meet a woman, carrying on her 
 head a pitcher full of water : they then felt 
 assured of a happy return to their homes, espe- 
 cially if she happened to be with child. Still 
 better was it to hear an ass bray on the left hand, 
 and then on the right ; the expedition might last 
 for years, it would always be attended with suc- 
 cess ; it passed into a proverb Sou puk, heroo 
 ek dunteroo, " One ass is worth a hundred 
 birds." Another proverb, Baean geedee sona 
 leedee, intimated, that " a jackal, crossing from 
 right to left, brings gold." To rhymed sayings
 
 GOOD OMENS. 29 
 
 of this kind they were partial, as an assistant 
 to memory. Here is a more elaborate instance : 
 
 Batee bolee teetura, 
 Din ko bolee seear, 
 Tuj chulee \va deysra, 
 Nuheen puree achanuk dhar. 
 
 That is, being interpreted, " If the partridge call 
 at night, or the jackal during the day, quit that 
 country, or you will be seized." Immediate and 
 valuable booty might be expected, if the large 
 hill-crow were heard croaking on a tree, with a 
 river or tank in sight ; but the reverse was the 
 case, if the bird were seated on a live buffalo or 
 pig, or on the skeleton of any dead animal. 
 Pleasant, too, was the prospect, if a cat came 
 prowling to their encampment by night; and 
 equally cheering to see a wolf, or a shrike, cross- 
 ing the road from the right to the left ; or a large 
 male antelope, or a herd of small deer, or the 
 blue jay, crossing from left to right. It was good 
 to hear the hare calling at night, upon the left, 
 or the loud, continued hooting of the small owl, 
 when sitting; or the call of the partridge, on 
 the left, while travelling, and on the right, while 
 halting. If a herd of deer came in sight, they 
 looked, ere long, to fall in with another gang of 
 Thugs. The call of the sarus was the most
 
 30 PILHAOO AND THIBAOO. 
 
 variable of all. It was very encouraging if heard 
 first on the left, and then on the right, on open- 
 ing an expedition, and also on reaching a stage, 
 if heard on the right ; if repeated on the left, a 
 rich prize was at hand, but ill luck was betokened 
 if it first sounded on the left ; equally inaus- 
 picious was the cry heard on the right, on leaving 
 a stage, unless preceded on the left. The most 
 frequent reference was to Pilhaoo and Thibaoo ; 
 by the former was meant the voice or appearance 
 of omen-endowed animals on the left hand, by 
 the latter, that on the right. If the Pilhaoo were 
 good, it was improved by being followed by the 
 Thibaoo ; if evil, the danger was in like manner 
 diminished. Unless both were obtained before 
 setting out, the expedition was deferred to a 
 later season. On leaving a stage, the Pilhaoo 
 was full of promise, the Thibaoo of warning ; 
 a rule that was reversed on reaching a halting 
 ground. 
 
 On the other hand, if a turban fell off, or 
 caught fire, the gang returned home, if at no 
 great distance, and remained quiet for seven 
 days ; otherwise, they offered up goor (coarse 
 sugar), and the owner of the turban alone retraced 
 his steps. An expedition had also to be re-com- 
 menced, if on the first day or night it encoun-
 
 EVIL OMENS. 31 
 
 tered the Ansootare, literally, " tear drops ;" that 
 is, a shower of rain falling in the dry season, or 
 in any month save June, July, August, and Sep- 
 tember ; nor could any success be anticipated if 
 it thundered, with little or no rain, when a gang 
 was ready to set out. A very dreadful omen was 
 the cry of the kite, heard during the interval 
 between the first watch and day-break. All 
 would then start to their feet, and betake them- 
 selves to hurried flight ; though no alarm was 
 entertained if the cry were heard between sunset 
 and the end of the first watch, because then " the 
 omen was suffocated under their sides as they 
 turned in their sleep." Hardly less disastrous 
 was a lizard falling upon a Thug ; any garment 
 that it touched must be given away in charity. 
 Nothing but ill luck followed the meeting a 
 maimed person, or an oil-vender, or a woman 
 bearing an empty water -jar, or a leper, or any 
 one emaciated by sickness; to meet a donkey 
 face to face, was called Mataphore, or " the head- 
 breaker." It was of evil import to see a jackal, 
 or a wolf, cross the road from left to right, or a 
 large male antelope, or small deer, from right to 
 left. If a snake crossed either behind or in front 
 of the gang, they must kill it or return home ; 
 in either cases sacrifices were required. The
 
 32 EVIL OMENS. 
 
 sight of two jackals crossing the road together, 
 in front, foretold prison and chains. The call of 
 one jackal was bad; the general clamour, or 
 " lamentation " of a pack, still worse ; but the 
 short, broken cry of that animal, or the noise of 
 several righting, rendered it necessary to take to 
 precipitate flight. It was ill-omened to hear the 
 call of the kite while flying, or that mournful 
 sound known as the " weeping " of the wolf, or 
 the low hooting of the small owl, repeated two or 
 three times ; or the loud responsive cry of two 
 large owls, or the low clicking sound of that bird, 
 or the slight chirp of the small owl, either sitting 
 or flying. If any member of the gang sneezed, 
 either on first setting out, or on leaving a halting- 
 ground, expiatory sacrifices were offered, and all 
 travellers then in their power were allowed to 
 escape. Were a dog seen to shake its head, no 
 Thug would dream of executing any design he 
 might previously have formed. 
 
 It was also unlucky to hear cats fighting in the 
 day-time, or after the first watch at night; or the 
 low gurgling of the large owl, which somewhat 
 resembles the bubbling of a hookah. If this 
 sound were observed on first setting out, the 
 expedition was postponed for several days ; if, 
 afterwards, on the left, the gang hurried on, for
 
 OMEN OF THE HARE. 33 
 
 there was danger behind ; if on the right, they 
 halted, for there was danger before them. But 
 probably, no omen was more dreaded than the 
 sight, or the cry, of a hare. Unless a sacrifice 
 was immediately offered, they were certain to 
 perish miserably in the jungles, and the wild 
 animals of the forest would drink water out of 
 their skulls : should they impiously plunder any 
 traveller then with them, they would obtain no 
 booty. One of the most intelligent approvers 
 ascribed his apprehension on one occasion to his 
 neglect of this omen. " A hare crossed the road," 
 he said, " we disregarded the omen though the 
 hare actually screamed in crossing and went 
 on." On the following day he and seventeen of 
 his associates were arrested, and only obtained 
 their release after a long detention. 
 
 It has been already stated that the Thugs 
 attributed their recent misfortunes to their want 
 of "religion" in neglecting omens, and disre- 
 garding the restrictions assigned to their homi- 
 cidal duties. Their evasions of the latter were 
 sometimes humorous. They were forbidden to 
 destroy any one accompanied by a woman or a 
 cow. But a party of fourteen, possessing both 
 these safeguards, once fell into the hands of a 
 gang at Kotree, in Huttah, and were persuaded 
 
 B 2
 
 34 WOMAN-SLAUGHTER. 
 
 by the Thugs to sell the cow to them, as they 
 had made a vow to present one to the Brahmans 
 at Shahpore. They did actually fulfil their pre- 
 tended vow, but not until they had strangled, 
 without any remaining compunction, every one 
 of their unsuspecting victims, not even excepting 
 the female. According to the approvers, the 
 practice of killing women had prevailed only 
 five years, and became one great cause of their 
 ruin. The principal reluctance to woman- 
 slaughter was entertained by the Hindoos the 
 Mussulmauns, perhaps, from their larger experi- 
 ence of the sex, showing little inclination to spare 
 them. On a certain occasion a Hindoo lady, 
 called the Kalee Beebee, was met by a gang as 
 she travelled in a dooly (a sort of litter), accom- 
 panied by twelve dependents. The Thugs having 
 discovered that she had 400 worth of property 
 with her, her death was insisted upon by the 
 Mussulmauns, and as strenuously objected to by 
 the Hindoos. Thereupon a violent quarrel arose 
 between them, which was only appeased by the 
 former perpetrating the deed by themselves. 
 The Hindoos, however, did not refuse to share 
 in the plunder, save only the lady's personal 
 ornaments and clothes. One of them, a Brah- 
 man, named Purusram, was shunned by his own
 
 MURDER OF A MOONSHEE. 35 
 
 brother until he expiated his guilt by feasting 
 several hundred Brahmans at a great expense. 
 Another member of the gang, also a Brahman, 
 " got worms in his body, and died barking like 
 a dog." A third died miserably, and the fami- 
 lies of all became extinct. 
 
 A more horrible instance of woman-slaughter 
 appears to have escaped unpunished, at least for 
 a time. The Moonshee, Bunda Alee, in company 
 with his wife, an infant daughter, and six ser- 
 vants, was taking to her bridegroom another 
 daughter who had attained to a connubial age. 
 On the journey he feU in with a numerous gang 
 of Thugs, the leaders of whom contrived to 
 ingratiate themselves with the Moonshee's party, 
 and all travelled on together. One evening 
 towards dusk some of the Thugs seated them- 
 selves, as usual, with the Moonshee at his tent 
 door, and began to sing and play on the sitar. 
 One of them presently took up the Moonshee's 
 sword, which was lying on the ground at his 
 feet, as if to examine it. The signal was then 
 suddenly given, but the Moonshee sprung to his 
 feet, screamed aloud, and tried to rush into the 
 tent, but was instantly seized and strangled. 
 His wife, hearing his shrieks, came running out 
 with the infant in her arms, and shared his fate.
 
 36 INFANT BURIED ALIVE. 
 
 The bride was put to death within the tent. 
 The servants were at that moment engaged in 
 grooming the horses, and one of them crept 
 under a horse's belly and lustily bawled out 
 "murder!" but they were all quickly silenced 
 by the fatal noose. Ghubboo Khan, who had 
 murdered the mother, intended to adopt the 
 infant, but was dissuaded by one of his comrades 
 who pointed out that it might lead to their 
 discovery. He therefore threw the child alive 
 into the hole in which the dead bodies were 
 already deposited, and the earth was hastily 
 shovelled in upon the living and the dead. 
 While this dreadful scene was enacting, a num- 
 ber of Khulasies were, within sight, occupied in 
 pitching the tents of the European officers com- 
 manding a detachment of troops marching along 
 the road. The Thugs, however, had taken care 
 to play and sing, at the top of their voice, as 
 soon as the butchery commenced, while others 
 let loose two vicious horses and chased them 
 with vociferous shouting, so as effectually to 
 drown the cries of their victims. 
 
 The five years assigned as the duration of 
 feminicide was simply a euphuism; it prevailed 
 through a very much longer period. In 1816 a 
 party of eighteen men and seven women were
 
 BARBAROUS MURDER OP A CHILD. 37 
 
 strangled near Shikarpore, but the Thugs spared 
 two boys, one of whom, however, cried so bit- 
 terly and made so much moaning, that a ruffian 
 seized him by the legs, swung him round, and 
 dashed out his brains against a stone. The 
 dead body was carelessly left lying on the ground, 
 till a fisherman, passing that way, happened to 
 see it, and went and reported the circumstance 
 to the Thakoor Burjore Sing, of Powae. Guided 
 by this clue, the Thakoor discovered the bodies 
 of all the victims, and, collecting as many men 
 as possible, gave chase to the murderers. Fol- 
 lowing their fresh traces he came up with them 
 while washing themselves in a stream near the 
 village of Tigura. Forming into a compact body, 
 the Thugs retired upon the village, being re- 
 peatedly charged by the Thakoor's party, who 
 ran one of them through the chest with a spear 
 and sabred another. The villagers, however, 
 expecting a share of the booty, turned out to 
 the rescue of the Thugs and repulsed their assail- 
 ants. Next morning they escorted them to the 
 neighbouring village of Simareea, where they 
 received the like sympathy and protection. This 
 was no extraordinary occurrence, for the natives 
 generally regarded the Thugs as a fraternity 
 especially favoured by heaven. They would as
 
 38 THUGS PROTECTED BY ZEMINDARS. 
 
 soon have thought of destroying a snake or a 
 wolf, or of opposing in any other way the 
 decrees of Providence. The police, to save 
 themselves trouble, and partly also from a secret 
 dread of these mysterious and ruthless beings, 
 used to declare that the dead bodies occasionally 
 found in ravines, wells, and dry watercourses had 
 been killed by tigers, and would burn them in 
 ah 1 haste lest the marks of strangulation should 
 be detected by their superiors. In the Deccan 
 the task of suppression was rendered doubly 
 difficult by the sullen opposition of the native 
 chiefs, who sometimes even ventured to maltreat 
 the police officers of the British Government. 
 The Zemindars, or landowners, were always ready 
 to give any amount of security for Thugs, against 
 whom there was no sufficient evidence to justify 
 their punishment. " They knew us very well," 
 said an approver, " but they had then confidence 
 in us; they thought we should keep our own 
 secrets, and, if we did so, no one else would be 
 able to convict us, and get them into trouble. 
 Yes, there was then something like religion and 
 good faith among us, and we found friends every- 
 where. Where could we find them now ?" The 
 Zemindars eagerly afforded them protection, be- 
 cause of the enormous rent they were wont to
 
 STAUNCH PATRONS. 39 
 
 pay for their lands and villages. Valuable pre- 
 sents, also, were frequently made to them, at the 
 same time that the Thugs engaged not to com- 
 promise their patrons by committing murder too 
 near home. The Khyrooa chief once stood a 
 siege from his lord, the Rajah of Jhansee, before 
 he would surrender some eight or ten villains 
 who had thrown themselves on his protection. 
 And the Maharajah of Gwalior was obliged to 
 send two guns and a small army against the 
 Zemindar, or " laird," of Bahmanpora, to make 
 him give up some Thugs whom he patronised ; 
 the firing lasted for some hours, and several lives 
 were lost on both sides. Even those who affected 
 to punish the miscreants, seldom touched their 
 persons except to extort from them their ill-got 
 treasures. They would seize one or two of the 
 youngest, tie them up, and flog them till they 
 confessed, or until the gang, in pity for their 
 sufferings, pledged themselves to make up a 
 certain sum, leaving two or three of their num- 
 ber as hostages. They were then released, and 
 allowed to pursue their profession as before. 
 
 In the year 1812, soon after the murder of 
 Lieutenant Monsell, a number of Thugs were 
 arrested by certain Zemindars and grievously 
 beaten, in the hope of making them bid high
 
 40 THE DEMON OF RHEUMATISM. 
 
 for their release. Their excessive cupidity, how- 
 ever, defeated its own ends. During their thir- 
 teen months imprisonment, forty of the Thugs 
 perished from the dampness of their dungeon, 
 combined with the ill-treatment they endured. 
 The survivors insisted that their comrades were 
 tortured to death by a demon, who entered the 
 prison every night during the wet season. " I 
 saw him," said one of them, " only once myself. 
 I was awake while all the rest were asleep; he 
 came in at the door, and seemed to swell as he 
 came in till his head touched the roof, and the 
 roof was very high, and his bulk became enor- 
 mous. I prostrated myself, and told him that 
 ' he was our Purmesur (great God), and we poor 
 helpless mortals depending entirely upon his 
 will.' This pleased him, and he passed by me ; 
 but took such a grasp at the man Mungulee, 
 who slept by my side, that he was seized with 
 spasms all over, from the nape of the neck to the 
 sole of his foot." Of the Zemindars, who 
 caused this atrocious suffering, he added, " not 
 a soul of their families is now left to pour the 
 libation at their funeral obsequies." How like 
 is this to the glorious old Grecian idea of the 
 avenging Nemesis 1 In truth, this was the only 
 sort of justice administered in India during the
 
 SALUTATION. 41 
 
 supremacy of its native rulers the golden age, 
 according to the gentlemen of the Manchester 
 school. 
 
 The Thugs made use of a peculiar dialect, 
 called Ramasee, which was understood by the 
 members of the fraternity throughout Hindostan, 
 at Mooltan as at Arcot. The signification of 
 the word Thug itself is "a deceiver ; " they 
 were likewise called Phanseegars, from the Hin- 
 dostanee word Phansee, " a handkerchief." One 
 Thug could always recognise another by his 
 salutation Aulae Ktian, Saldm, if addressed to a 
 Mussulmaun; or Aulae Bhae, Earn, Earn, if 
 addressed to a Hindoo, equivalent to " Peace be 
 with thee, friend!" A few specimens of their 
 phraseology, selected from Captain Sleeman's 
 Thug vocabulary, may be not altogether devoid 
 of interest. 
 
 Aulae, or Bora, signified a Thug ; Beetoo, or 
 Kuj, everybody not a Thug ; Bagh, Phool, a 
 rendezvous ; Boj' ha, the Thug who carried the 
 bodies to the grave ; Bhukote, or Bhurtote, the 
 strangler ; Beyl, site for murder ; Bykureea, the 
 scout of river Thugs; Beyl' ha, one who chose 
 the place of murder; Bunij, literally merchan- 
 dize technically a traveller ; Bunij Ladhna, " to 
 load goods," i.e., to murder ; Bhara and Ghurt'
 
 42 THUGS' SLANG. 
 
 ha, dead bodies of victims ; Bisul purna, to be 
 awkwardly handled to have the roomal caught 
 on the face or head, instead of being slipped 
 round the neck the contrary of soosul purna : a 
 Thug who was frequently guilty of bungling in 
 this manner, was deposed from the honourable 
 post of strangler; Chookadena, or Thibaedena, 
 to get travellers to sit down and look up, by 
 pointing out some star or object in the air, so 
 that, the chin being raised, the handkerchief 
 might be more easily passed round the throat ; 
 CAumoseea, or Shumsheea, the Thug whose duty 
 it was to sieze the victim's hands ; Chumeea, the 
 Thug who held down the struggling victim ; 
 Chandoo, an expert Thug ; C/ieesa, a blessing 
 from heaven, a rich traveller ; D/tonkee, or Ron- 
 kee, a policeman or guard ; Dul, weight ; Duller, 
 the head ; Doonr, the shrieks of a victim ; 
 Jywaloo, left for dead, but afterwards recovering, 
 which occasionally happened when there was not 
 time to bury the bodies, or when it was judged 
 imprudent to stab and slash them after being 
 strangled ; Kuboola, a tyro the opposite of 
 Borka an adept. The latter could always 
 gather together a band, for he was acquainted 
 with the rites of initiation and the signification 
 of omens, of which a Kuboola was generally
 
 THE SHEIKH AHMED. 43 
 
 quite ignorant. It was, consequently, found un- 
 necessary to sentence the latter to perpetual im- 
 prisonment, as they could do little harm without 
 the guidance of a Borka. A Kuboola, of the 
 old Sindouse stock, once attempted to form a 
 gang, into which he admitted all sorts of vaga- 
 bonds, weavers, braziers, bracelet-makers, &c., 
 who killed men and women indiscriminately, and 
 neglected the most ordinary precautions. The 
 natural consequence was, that they were soon 
 detected, seized, and punished. On the other 
 hand, one of the most noted Thugs on record 
 was Sheikh Ahmed, of Arcot, whose gang con- 
 sisted of sixty Borkas, disguised as recruits. 
 This able leader had picked up the English words 
 of command, with some knowledge of the Com- 
 pany's drill, and could even express himself in- 
 telligibly in English. He never displayed his 
 wealth, which was considerable, or travelled in 
 an ostentatious manner. On the contrary, when 
 sixty years old and able to command the services 
 of a hundred men, he would wander about for 
 months with his wife, cooking his own food, 
 going on foot, and living like a very poor man. 
 His riches were concealed in various caches, 
 regardless of the Horatian maxim, that silver 
 shines only with reflected light from a temperate
 
 44 THUGS' SLANG. 
 
 and judicious use. However, he escaped appre- 
 hension, and added, every year, with impunity, 
 to his long catalogue of crime. But to return to 
 the vocabulary Koojaoo, an informer, or one 
 who extorted hush-money from Thugs ; Khullee, 
 a Thug who, from ignoble care-giving impecu- 
 niosity, concealed himself on his return home to 
 avoid his creditors for the natives of Hindostan 
 enjoy many of the blessings of an ancient and 
 refined civilization; KJiomusna,io rush in upon tra- 
 vellers when there was not sufficient time for the 
 ordinary preparations ; Kanthuna, or Kanth dalna, 
 to stab when no opportunity was afforded for 
 strangling a very exceptional case or to slash 
 the suffocated victim, either to prevent revival, or 
 the swelling of the body when buried, owing to 
 the evolved gases finding no vent for escape. 
 This gaseous inflation of the corpse was apt to 
 cause the imposed earth to crack and open, when 
 the horrid effluvia attracted jackals to the spot, 
 who, by digging up the bodies, might discover 
 the fact of a murder having been committed, and 
 so lead to the detection of the murderers ; Kathee 
 kurna, to inveigle travellers, or to consult secretly 
 as to the mode of doing away with them ; Kharoo, 
 a gang of Thugs ; Kkuruk, the sound of the 
 consecrated pick-axe in making a grave, supposed
 
 THUGS' SLANG. 45 
 
 to be audible only to the initiated; Kurwa, a 
 square, or oblong grave, for one corpse or for 
 many ; Gobba, a circular grave, with a small 
 pillar of earth left in the middle it was believed 
 to crack less than the ordinary grave, and was 
 therefore preferred when the dead bodies were 
 very numerous ; Kuthowa, the Thug whose office 
 it was to cut and stab the dead bodies ; LugJta, 
 the grave-digger ; Lutfameea, a very small purse, 
 used exclusively by Thugs and professional 
 thieves ; Maulee, or PJioola, the Thug entrusted 
 with the duty of taking to Jthe village the money 
 sent by the absent gang for the maintenance of 
 their wives and families ; Nawureea, a novice on 
 his first expedition sometimes they were com- 
 pelled to kick the first murdered man five times 
 on the back; Nissar, safe, as applied to any 
 suitable place for lodging at, murdering, or 
 dividing spoil opposed to tikkur, unsafe ; Paoo, 
 an accomplice of Thugs ; PeMoo, or Sikka, or 
 Roomed, the handkerchief. This was, rather, a 
 turban unfolded, or the long narrow cloth, or 
 sash, worn round the waist. It was doubled to 
 the length of about thirty inches, with a knot 
 formed at the doubled extremity, and about 
 eighteen inches from that a slip knot. The dis- 
 tance between these two knots was regulated by
 
 46 THUGS' SLANG. 
 
 preparing the fatal instrument on the knee, 
 which was made to do temporary duty for a 
 neck. The use of the two knots was to give a 
 firm hold. When the victim was fairly pros- 
 trated, the strangler adroitly loosened the slip 
 knot, and made another fold of the cloth round 
 his throat. Then placing his foot upon the back 
 of his victim's neck, he drew the cloth tightly, 
 as if to use the informant's own words he 
 were " packing a bundle of straw." Pehloo 
 dena, to instal as a strangler, of which more 
 hereafter ; Phank, a. useless thing, a traveller 
 without property ; Pungoo, or JBungoo, a river 
 Thug of Bengal, who murdered on board his 
 kuntee or boat ; P/tur, same as Beyl, also a spot 
 for dividing the plunder ; Phurjhana, to clean 
 the murder-spot after a nocturnal murder, some 
 of the gang were generally left behind to remove 
 any signs of the crime that might be visible by 
 daylight ; Phuruck dena, to wave a cloth as signal 
 of danger ; Pusur, the direction of an expedition ; 
 Euhna, a temporary grave ; Soon, a Thug by 
 birth, but not yet initiated ; Saur, one who 
 escaped from Thugs ; Sotha, the inveigler ; Tome, 
 an article of extraordinary value; Tilha, a spy; 
 Thap, a night encampment ; Tuppul, a bye-path 
 into which they often inveigled their unsuspecting
 
 PICTURESQUE PHRASEOLOGY. 47 
 
 travelling companions, as more convenient for 
 their purposes. A rich traveller was called " a 
 delicacy;" a poor one "a stick;" an old man 
 " a barber's drum." Some of their signals, too, 
 were quaint. The necessity of caution was in- 
 culcated by drawing the back of the hand along 
 the chin, from the throat outwards; the open 
 hand placed over the mouth and drawn gently 
 downwards, implied the absence of danger. 
 " Sweep the place, " signified to look out ; 
 " bring firewood," take your places that is, the 
 place assigned to each Thug preparatory to 
 action ; " take out the handkerchief with the 
 beetel," get the roomal ready, as already described; 
 " eat beetel," or " hand the beetel," despatch 
 him this was called the J7tirnee, or signal to 
 fall en ; " look after the straw," get the body 
 ready for burial ; " the straw is come out," 
 jackals have dug up the body. Another form of 
 the Jhirnee was Ae ho to gliyree ckulo, " if you 
 are come, pray descend." "When the scouts 
 wished to report that all was safe, they called 
 out as if to a comrade, "Bajeed Khan," or 
 " Deo," or " Deoseyn." If the scouts saw any 
 danger at hand, or a traveller coming along, they 
 would call out " Sheikh Jee," or " Sheikh Ma- 
 hommed," if they were Mussulmauns ; and
 
 48 SIGNALS. 
 
 " Luchmun Sing," or " Lucbee Ram," or " Gunga 
 Ram," if they were Hindoos. Sometimes the 
 advanced guard of a gang, with victims in their 
 power, would meet with a party of travellers, of 
 whom they considered their friends in the rear 
 
 w 
 
 were capable of disposing. In which case they 
 sent some one back to tell Bajeed Khan, or 
 Deoseyn, to make haste and overtake them. The 
 others receiving this message understood that 
 the coast was clear in front, and on meeting the 
 travellers, lost no time in putting them to death. 
 If a gang happened from any cause to get 
 separated, they rallied with the cry, Bukh, Bukh, 
 Bukh, " come, come, come." When the leader 
 judged that the time was at hand for selecting a 
 beyl, or site for murder, he would say to the 
 Thug on whom that duty devolved, Jao, kutoree 
 manj Jao, " go and clean the brass cup." When 
 he desired every one to repair to his post, he 
 gave the kkokee, that is, he made a great noise 
 of hawking up phlegm from his throat ; if any- 
 thing then occurred to cause the suspension of 
 operations, he gave the thokee, or spit out the 
 phlegm. Otherwise, he exclaimed aloud " Sur- 
 bulund Khan," or " Dulur Khan," or " Surmnst 
 Khan," whereupon the stranglers made ready 
 and only awaited the jhirnee. Then the fatal
 
 SIGNALS. 49 
 
 words were pronounced, Tombako Jcha lo, or pee 
 lo, "eat," or "drink (i.e., smoke) your tobacco" 
 or one of the other formulae was used and 
 the next instant the roomal was round the throat 
 of the ill-fated wretch. 
 
 In order to avoid the suspicions likely to be 
 engendered by very large bands of men travel- 
 ling together, the Thugs used to break up into 
 small parties of from three or four to a dozen or 
 so, communicating with one another by a series 
 of telegraphic signs, which enabled them to con- 
 centrate at any given point with amazing celerity. 
 Thus, on coming to cross-roads, the leading files 
 drew their feet along the dust in the direction 
 they had taken. If they wished their comrades 
 to follow quickly, they piled up some dust along 
 the toe-line of their footmarks, on which they 
 sometimes impressed their heel. Where there 
 was no dust easily procurable, they left two 
 stones, one upon the other, or strewed a few 
 leaves to indicate the right path : if haste was need- 
 ful, they would dispose the leaves in a long line. 
 
 Great as was the veneration entertained for 
 the roomal, still greater was that accorded to the 
 kussee, or pick-axe. It was consecrated with 
 peculiar rites. On a day pronounced by the 
 Pundit to be propitious, the leader betook him 
 
 c
 
 50 CONSECRATION OF THE PICK-AXE. 
 
 to a blacksmith of course a member of his own 
 fraternity and closing the door, constrained him 
 to relinquish all other work until the axe had 
 been duly fabricated. One of the four auspicious 
 days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday, 
 was then selected for the d/ioop, or offering of 
 incense, which took place within a house or tent, 
 the shadow of no living thing being allowed to 
 fall upon the axe. A Thug, renowned for his 
 ceremonial lore, being appointed to officiate, the 
 consecration was attempted attempted, for it 
 did not always succeed at the first trial. The 
 officiating minister having taken his seat facing 
 the west, received from the leader the pick-axe 
 on a lordly brazen dish. A pit was then dug, 
 over which the axe was held, and washed with 
 water, and afterwards in succession with a mixture 
 of sugar and water, sour milk, and ardent spirits, 
 care being taken that the various liquids should 
 flow into the pit. The next proceeding was to 
 mark the axe from head to point with seven spots 
 of red lead, and again place it on the brazen 
 dish, together with a cocoa-nut, some cloves, 
 paun leaves, gogul gum, inderjon, sessamum 
 seeds, white sandal wood, and sugar. Ghee, or 
 clarified butter, was also put into a small brass 
 cup, standing by the side of the dish. A fire
 
 CONSECRATION OF THE PICK- AXE. 51 
 
 being now kindled with dried cow-dung and 
 mango, or byr-wood, all these articles were thrown 
 into it, excepting the cocoa-nut. So soon as the 
 flames blazed high and bright, the priest, holding 
 the axe in both hands, passed it through them 
 seven times. Then, stripping off the rough outer 
 coat of the cocoa-nut, he placed the fruit on the 
 ground, and taking up the axe by the point, 
 asked of the assembled Thugs, " Shall I strike ?" 
 All having replied in the affirmative, he struck 
 the nut with the butt-end of the axe, and usu- 
 ally shivered it into fragments. The whole of the 
 shell and some of the kernel being thrown into 
 the fire, the axe was wrapt in a clean white cloth 
 and laid on the ground, pointing to the west, 
 the Thugs facing the same quarter of the heavens 
 and worshipping. This act of adoration done, 
 they all partook of the cocoa-nut, and collecting 
 the fragments, threw them into the pit. Should 
 the Thibaoo now be heard, all was duly performed, 
 and the axe was a holy thing no longer a kodalee, 
 but a kussee. But if the Pilhaoo first smote upon 
 their ears, or the priest failed to crack the nut at 
 a blow, the ceremonies must be repeated all had 
 been done in vain. 
 
 On the march, the sacred kussee was always 
 intrusted to a Thug of approved sobriety and
 
 52 THE SACRED AXE. 
 
 steadiness, who carried it in his waist-belt. While 
 encamped it was buried in a secure place, with the 
 point turned towards the direction intended to 
 be pursued. If a better road could be taken, 
 the axe would be found pointing that way. No 
 human foot was allowed to tread the ground be- 
 neath which it reposed ; nor should the touch of 
 any unclean man or thing ever pollute its purity. 
 If a well happened to be near, it was thrown into 
 it, instead of being buried ; and when the gang 
 was ready to set out, being duly summoned, it 
 came of its own accord to its bearer. Nay, more, 
 if a dozen kussees were thrown into the same 
 well, each would fly unerringly to its proper 
 guardian. When this startling assertion was 
 made, Captain Sleeman suggested it was a clever 
 piece of jugglery ; whereupon an approver indig- 
 nantly exclaimed : " What ! shall not a hundred 
 generations of Thugs be able to distinguish the 
 tricks of man from the miracles of God? Is 
 there not the difference of heaven and earth be- 
 tween them ! Is not one a mere trick, and the 
 other a miracle, witnessed by hundreds assembled 
 at the same time ? " Another approver capped 
 his rhetorical friend, by declaring that he had 
 seen with his own eyes this miracle performed 
 in favour of the Arcottee Thugs, as the reward
 
 VIRTUES OF THE KTJSSEE. 53 
 
 of their superior piety and strict observance of 
 omens. 
 
 The burnt-offerings were repeated on all holy 
 days, and after any unusual interval between 
 murders. After being used, it was washed with 
 solemn rites. There was no more binding oath 
 than to swear by the kussee. If the axe itself 
 were not procurable, it sufficed to make an effigy 
 of it in cloth or clay. The person attested, held 
 it in his hand as he swore, and then drank the 
 water in which it had been previously bathed, 
 A perjurer died an awful death within six days 
 after his guilt, his head gradually turning round 
 till his face stood over his back. After all, this 
 is not more strange than the old Hebrew trial 
 of jealousy, as described in the fifth chapter 
 of the Book of Numbers ; nor more ridiculous 
 than any ordeal in which supernatural effects 
 were expected from simple and natural causes. 
 If the kussee fell from the hand of -its bearer, his 
 death was certain to ensue within twelve months, 
 or else some dire calamity befel the gang. The 
 immediate results of the untoward accident were 
 his deposition from his high office, a change of 
 route, and a fresh consecration of the axe. It 
 has been before remarked, that no one but a 
 Thug could hear the sound of the kussee, when
 
 54 SECURITY AGAINST GHOSTS. 
 
 used in digging graves. It had likewise another 
 virtue, in common with the roomal. " Are you 
 never* afraid," asked Captain Sleeman, one day, 
 of some of the approvers, " of the spirits of the 
 persons you murder ? " 
 
 " Never," they replied, " they cannot trouble 
 us." 
 
 "Why? Do they not trouble other men when 
 they commit murder ? " 
 
 " Of course they do. The man who commits 
 a murder is always haunted by spirits. He has 
 sometimes fifty at a time upon him, and they 
 drive him mad." 
 
 " And how do they not trouble you ? " 
 
 " Are not the people we kill, killed by the 
 orders of Davey 1 Do not all whom we kill, go 
 to Paradise, and why should their spirits stay to 
 trouble us ? A good deal of our secu- 
 rity from spirits is to be attributed to the roomal, 
 with which we strangle." 
 
 " I did not know that there was any virtue in 
 the roomal" 
 
 " Is it not our sikka (ensign), as the pick-axe 
 is our nishan (standard) ? . . . . More is attri- 
 butable to the pick-axe. Do we not worship it 
 every seventh day ? Is it not our standard ? Is 
 its sound ever heard when digging the grave of
 
 INITIATION. 55 
 
 any but a Thug? And can any man ever swear 
 to a falsehood upon it ? " 
 
 Next to the leader of the gang, the most 
 important personages were the stranglers. Before 
 a Thug could hope to attain this honourable 
 distinction, he must have served on several expe- 
 ditions, and given proof of courage and impassi- 
 bility. The usual gradations were, employment 
 as a scout, then as a grave-digger, afterwards as 
 a holder of hands, and finally he might become a 
 strangler. So soon as his mind was inflamed 
 with this ambition, he had recourse to one of the 
 oldest and most famous of the brotherhood, and 
 besought him to act as gooroo, or spiritual pre- 
 ceptor, and to accept him as his cheyla, or dis- 
 ciple. If his request were granted, the gooroo 
 led him into a field, with three or four expe- 
 rienced Thugs, and all placed themselves facing 
 the direction in which the gang was about to 
 move. Then the gooroo lifted up his voice, and 
 prayed aloud: "O Kalee, Kunkalee, Bhud- 
 kalee ! Kalee, Mahakalee, Calcutta Walee ! if 
 it seemeth to thee fit that the traveller now at 
 our lodging should die by the hands of this thy 
 slave, vouchsafe us the Thibaoo." Should the 
 auspicious omen be refused, the candidate must 
 wait until another opportunity. But if the god-
 
 56 THE FIRST MURDER. 
 
 dess smiled upon his vows, the party returned to 
 their quarters, and the gooroo, taking a handker- 
 chief, and looking towards the west, tied a knot 
 in one end of it, inserting therein a rupee or 
 other silver coin. This knot was called goo r ghaut, 
 or the classic knot, and was a very artistic per- 
 formance, the end of the roomal being skilfully 
 folded inwards. The disciple thereupon respect- 
 fully took the handkerchief in his right hand, and 
 went and stood over his sleeping victim for a 
 feeble person, and one asleep, was generally 
 chosen for the maiden trial of skill. When all 
 was ready, the Shumsheea, or hand-holder, sud- 
 denly awakened the sleeper with the cry that 
 a snake or a scorpion was under or beside him. 
 As he started up, bewildered with sleep and 
 terror, the roomal was slipped over his neck, and 
 in a few seconds he had ceased to fear either 
 reptiles or baser men. The deed being satisfac- 
 torily accomplished, the cheyla bowed lowly before 
 his preceptor, and touched his feet with both 
 hands, a compliment he also paid to all theyoo- 
 roo's relatives and friends there present. After the 
 Thibaoo had again been heard, he untied the 
 knot, and presented the coin, with whatever 
 silver he possessed, to his teacher, who added to 
 it whatever money he happened to have upon his
 
 THE TAPOONEE. 57 
 
 own person. Of this amount half a crown was 
 expended in the purchase of goor, or coarse 
 sugar, and the rest in sweetmeats. The Tapoonee 
 feast was then held under a neem, mango, or 
 byr-tree, the clieyla sitting with the Bhurtotes, or 
 stranglers, and receiving a like share of the con- 
 secrated ffoor. At the conclusion of the expe- 
 dition, the tyro entertained his preceptor's family, 
 and gave to him and his wife a present of new 
 clothes. The entertainment was returned by the 
 gooroo, between whom and his pupil an indissolu- 
 ble connection existed ever afterwards unto death. 
 The Tapoonee, to which allusion has just been 
 made, was a sacrifice offered to Bhowanee after 
 every murder. A half-crown's worth of coarse 
 sugar having been procured through the instru- 
 mentality of one of their most plausible members 
 for the purchase of so large a quantity at a 
 time might have excited strange surmises it 
 was placed on a blanket, or sheet, spread upon 
 a clear spot of ground. The Jcussee, or sacred 
 pickaxe, and a silver coin by way of roop dursim, 
 or silver offering were also laid upon the sheet, 
 beside the pile of sugar. The most experienced 
 of the leaders there present then seated himself 
 on the edge of the sheet, facing to the west, and 
 on either side of him were ranged as many 
 
 c2
 
 58 THE TAPOONEE. 
 
 Bhurtotes as could be accommodated on the 
 carpet, but taking care that they should make an 
 even number. The others sat behind these. The 
 leader next made a hole in the ground, and 
 dropping into it a pinch of the goor, raised his 
 eyes to the sky, and, with clasped hands, devoutly 
 prayed aloud : " Great goddess ! as thou didst 
 vouchsafe one lakh and 62,000 rupees (16,200) 
 to Jora Naick and Koduk Bunwaree in their need, 
 so, we pray thee, fulfil our desires !" These 
 words were repeated by the entire assembly; 
 after which the leader sprinkled a little water 
 over the pit and the Jcussee, and placed some 
 goor on the hand of every Thug seated on the 
 blanket. Some one then uttered the jhirnee, 
 or signal for strangulation, and the goor was 
 eaten in solemn silence. Not a word was spoken 
 until the whole of the consecrated pile had dis- 
 appeared, and been washed down with a draught 
 of pure water. If any crumbs fell on the ground 
 they were carefully picked up and thrown 
 into the hole ; for should any beast of the 
 field, or bird of the air, partake of the holy 
 offering, the wrath of the goddess would burn for 
 years. The silver coin being restored to its 
 owner, the unconsumed sugar was distributed 
 among the lower and junior grades of the asso-
 
 TAKING THE OMENS. 59 
 
 elation. But if any one of the uninitiated, by 
 chance or design, tasted of that to which the 
 stranglers only were entitled, he was straightway 
 irresistibly impelled to Thuggee, and never could 
 the charm that bound him be broken or counter- 
 acted. 
 
 When necessity, or the weariness of inactivity, or 
 the fascination of their terrible calling, urged them 
 to leave their tranquil homes, their wives and 
 families; the leader of the gang, accompanied by 
 four of his ablest followers, would seat themselves 
 on a blanket around a long- experienced and 
 venerable sage ; while the vulgar herd sat down 
 surrounding this group at a little distance. In 
 front of the pundit was placed a brass plate con- 
 taining a few grains of wheat and rice, and two 
 copper coins. The leader having respectfully in- 
 quired on what day they should set out, and in 
 what direction, the pundit went through various 
 ceremonies, too trivial to be particularized, and 
 then indicated the day, the hour, and the route. 
 When the appointed period had arrived it could 
 not be a Wednesday, or a Thursday, or in the 
 months of July, September, or December the 
 leader filled a lotah, or brass vessel, with water, 
 and carried it with his right hand over its mouth 
 and holding it by his side. Some turmeric, two
 
 60 TAKING THE OMENS. 
 
 copper coins and one of silver, together with the 
 head of the pickaxe, were next tied up separately 
 in a clean white handkerchief, which the leader 
 pressed against his breast in his left hand. Then 
 turning to the heaven-selected direction he slowly 
 moved with all the gang to a field outside the vil- 
 lage, where finding a suitable spot, and still pre- 
 serving the same attitude, he paused, and in seem- 
 ing abstraction, prayed : " Great goddess ! Uni- 
 versal Mother ! If this our meditated expedition 
 be good in thy sight, vouchsafe unto us help, and 
 the signs of thy approbation !" The other Thugs 
 repeated his words, and praised their patron, 
 Bhowanee. Within half an hour afterwards the 
 Pilliaoo ought to be heard on the left and the 
 Thibaoo on the right hand. Then, and not till 
 then, the leader relaxed from his statue-like 
 attitude, and putting the lotah on the ground, 
 himself sat down, still looking in the same direc- 
 tion. Thus he remained seven hours communing 
 with himself, his abstraction being finally inter- 
 rupted by his followers bringing him food and 
 informing him that all things were ready. The 
 silver and copper coins and the turmeric he care- 
 fully preserved throughout the expedition, arid on 
 his return presented them to some poor Brahman, 
 unless great good fortune had attended his party,
 
 LEAVING HOME. 61 
 
 in which case they were kept for the opening of 
 the next expedition. If the lotah had fallen from 
 his hand before the omens were given, he would 
 assuredly have died within twelve, or at the latest, 
 within twenty-four months. The preparations 
 being completed, the gang struck off in the di- 
 rection indicated by the pundit ; but after taking 
 a few steps they could turn aside as circumstances 
 might seem to recommend. 
 
 During the first seven days after their depar- 
 ture the females of their respective families held 
 no intercourse with those belonging to another 
 gang, lest the victims intended for their own 
 friends should fall into the power of the others. 
 The Thugs, themselves, for the like period ab- 
 stained from animal food, and even from their 
 favourite yhee, and partook of no other food 
 than fish, goor, and dot (a kind of pulse). Nor 
 did they shave or allow their clothes to be washed, 
 or indulge in alms'-giving which, with personal 
 abstinence, constitutes the Hindoo notion of prac- 
 tical religion. On the seventh day they had a 
 grand feast, in which green vegetables of some 
 kind made a prominent figure. If a victim, how- 
 ever, were obtained within these seven days of 
 probation, all restraints were at once cancelled 
 and abandoned. Should the expedition last no
 
 62 GOOD AND BAD OMENS. 
 
 longer than one year, they frequently denied 
 themselves the taste of milk throughout, and 
 likewise refrained from brushing their teeth. 
 Any bad omens encountered prior to the second 
 halt sufficed to break off the expedition ; after 
 that point they could be averted by expiatory 
 rites. It was considered unfortunate to hear 
 any one lamenting the dead as they started, or 
 to meet an inhabitant of their own village, or 
 an oil-vender, carpenter, potter, dancing-master, 
 a maimed or lame person, a fakir (Mussulmaun 
 religious mendicant) with a brown waist-band, 
 or a jogee (Hindoo religious mendicant) with 
 long interwoven hair. But it promised well to 
 fah 1 in with a fair in any other village than their 
 own, or a corpse, or to see a party of female 
 friends weeping round a bride as she left her 
 parents' house to go to her husband's. 
 
 As a general rule, the different divisions of a 
 gang used to encamp near each other at the 
 various halting grounds, and were always in 
 frequent communication with one another. No 
 sooner had one of them fallen in with a party 
 of travellers than the intelligence was conveyed 
 to all the others, and every one was on the alert. 
 Their leaders, travelling as merchants, gentlemen, 
 soldiers, or peasants, usually succeeded by their
 
 PERSEVERANCE OF THE THUGS. 63 
 
 plausible manners in ingratiating themselves with 
 the strangers. And there was nothing formid- 
 able or repulsive in their outward appearance. 
 On the contrary, they are described as being 
 mild and benevolent of aspect, and peculiarly 
 courteous, gentle, and obliging. Unlike most of 
 the natives of India, they travelled unarmed, 
 with the exception of two or three who carried 
 daggers. It was therefore an apparently rea- 
 sonable request on their part to be allowed to 
 proceed under the protection of those who made 
 a grand display of their swords and spears and 
 fire-arms. 
 
 This request being usually accorded, the united 
 parties journeyed on together, chatting and prat- 
 tling with the volubility and easy familiarity of 
 orientals. Sometimes days would elapse before a 
 favourable opportunity occurred. There is an in- 
 stance mentioned of a gang having accompanied a 
 family of eleven persons for twenty days, during 
 which they had traversed upwards of 200 miles, 
 and then murdered the whole of them, though the 
 head of the family had only one arm, and ought 
 therefore to have been spared. Another gang 
 accomplished 160 miles in twelve days, -in com- 
 pany with a party of sixty men, women and 
 a child before they found an eligible occasion.
 
 64 MODE OF OPERATION. 
 
 They preferred committing murder in the even- 
 ing, when the travellers would be seated on the 
 ground, mingled with themselves, talking, smok- 
 ing, singing, and playing the sitar. Where it 
 could be done without suspicion, three Thugs 
 were allotted to every victim. So soon as the 
 fatal signal was given, one seized hold of his 
 hands, the second grasped his legs and held him 
 down, while the strangler tightened the roomed 
 round his neck, and only relaxed the strain when 
 life was extinct. Then the bearers of the daggers 
 slashed the dead bodies, the grave-diggers quickly 
 excavated a deep trench, the corpses were stripped 
 and thrown in, the earth was hastily shovelled in 
 and trampled down, and in an incredibly short 
 space of time all traces were completely effaced 
 of the terrible tragedy. When the ground was 
 too hard to admit of a grave being dug, or any 
 other cause intervened to prevent the burial, the 
 bodies were flung into a ravine, or well, or water 
 course, or concealed in the jungle. Not unfre- 
 quently it happened that no convenient oppor- 
 tunity was presented for murdering the travellers 
 while seated. In this case, an experienced Thug 
 would be sent forward to select a beyl, or suitable 
 spot, on arriving at which, if the scouts reported 
 a clear coast, the gang would close upon their
 
 GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS. 65 
 
 unsuspecting companions and speedily put them 
 to death. It was more difficult when the travel- 
 lers were mounted, though the fleetest charger 
 could not avail to save his rider. A horseman 
 was always attacked by three men ; one walked 
 at his horse's head, a second a little way in the 
 rear, and a third by his side, pleasantly con- 
 versing with him until the signal was given, 
 when he suddenly dragged him out of the saddle 
 and, with the assistance of his comrade, strangled 
 him before he could recover his self-possession. 
 It was thought a subject for just pride when 
 a Thug pulled a traveller from his horse and 
 murdered him without aid. Such an exploit 
 was a patent of 'nobility, and conferred credit 
 upon the third and fourth generation. The 
 Thugs, even as approvers, used to glory in the 
 recollection of their past achievements, and spoke 
 of them with as much animation as a sports- 
 man exhibits in describing a good day's shooting 
 or a capital run with the hounds. To avoid con- 
 fusion, they would distinguish the grand murders 
 by the number of victims they had killed. Thus, 
 in the chaleesrooh, or forty-soul affair, thirty-one 
 men, seven women and two girls were murdered 
 by a collective force of 360 Thugs, who divided 
 among themselves 1,700 worth of plunder. A
 
 66 THE SIXTY-SOUL AFFAIR. 
 
 few days previously 160 of this gang had disposed 
 of a party consisting of a widow, a slave-girl and 
 twelve armed followers. The Sartrooh, or sixty- 
 soul affair, is an excellent illustration of their or- 
 dinary mode of operations. The Thugs travelled 
 with this numerous party, consisting of fifty-two 
 men, seven women, and a Brahman boy, about 
 four years old, for twenty days before they con- 
 summated their purpose. At Sehora they per- 
 suaded their companions to quit the high road 
 and take one that led through the jungles. How- 
 ever, they patiently went on with them, gaining 
 more and more upon their confidence, till they 
 had come to Chittakote. " There," said one of 
 them to Captain Sleernan, " we sent on people as 
 usual to select a place for the murder, and they 
 found one about five miles distant, in a very ex- 
 tensive jungle, without a human habitation for 
 many miles on either side. We persuaded the 
 party to set out soon after midnight ; and as they 
 went along, we managed to take our appointed 
 places, two Thugs by every traveller, and the 
 rest in parties of reserve at different intervals 
 along the line, every two managing to keep the 
 person they were appointed to kill, in conversa- 
 tion. On reaching the place chosen, the signal 
 was given at several different places, beginning
 
 BHOWANEE AS SEXTON. 67 
 
 with the rear party, and passing on to that in 
 front ; and all were seized and strangled except 
 the boy. It was now near morning, and too late 
 to admit of the bodies being securely buried ; we 
 made a temporary grave for them in the bed of 
 the river, covered them over with sand, and 
 went on with the boy and the booty to Chitta- 
 kote, intending to send back a large party the 
 next night and have the bodies securely buried. 
 The rains had begun to set in, and after the mur- 
 ders it rained very heavily all the day. The 
 party, however, went back, but found that the 
 river had risen and washed away all the bodies, 
 except two or three, which they found exposed, 
 and pushed into the stream to follow the rest." 
 
 So recently as 1830 Bhowaneewas believed to 
 have saved her votaries the trouble of burying 
 their victims. A gang after wandering about 
 Loodhiana, Sirhind, and Umballah, came to 
 Goolchutter, where they performed their ablu- 
 tions in the sacred tank and rested three days. 
 " Having then proceeded two miles towards Kur- 
 nal, they overtook two travellers from Mooltan 
 on their way to Muttra, mounted on ponies. 
 They were in appearance very poor." So poor, 
 indeed, that it was judged they would not pay for 
 the trouble of killing them, and they had nearly
 
 68 BHOWANEE AS SEXTON. 
 
 escaped until a speculative Thug offered to give 
 10 for whatever might be found upon them. 
 "Their death was accordingly determined on, 
 and they were conducted by the Thugs to Turow- 
 lee where they rested in the Serai ('accommoda- 
 tion for man and beast'), and Cheyne Jemadar 
 invited the poor wretches to partake of a repast." 
 The travellers, being religious mendicants, had 
 many anecdotes to tell of their adventures and 
 travels, and pleasantly beguiled the early hours 
 of darkness. Next morning they all set out to- 
 gether and had not gone very far before the^V- 
 nee was given, and the mendicants ceased to beg 
 and to breathe. But while their grave was being 
 dug, the neighing of horses was heard coming 
 along the road, which caused the Thugs to flee to 
 a place of concealment, leaving the corpses on the 
 ground. The horsemen passed on, and saw or 
 suspected nothing. Then the Thugs came out 
 from their hiding places, but lo ! the bodies had 
 disappeared but not so their property which 
 amounted to .the value of several hundred pounds. 
 It is true religious mendicants were exempted 
 from strangulation, but this was clearly an ex- 
 ceptional case, for Bhowanee had positively com- 
 manded their death by sending favourable omens; 
 she had, besides, rewarded her worshippers with
 
 UNPROFITABLE VICTIMS. 69 
 
 a rich booty, and even disposed of the dead bodies, 
 whose souls had gone straight to Paradise. 
 
 They were not, however, always equally fortu- 
 nate. A gang once learnt from the spies that 
 four travellers with property, were trudging along 
 the road towards Baroda. Instantly, twenty fine 
 stout fellows set out after them, and after a long 
 chase came up with the travellers and murdered 
 them. " To the great disappointment and cha- 
 grin of us all," bewailed one of the gang, "no 
 property was found upon them, for they turned 
 out to be common stone-cutters, and their tools 
 tied in bundles, which they carried over their 
 shoulders, deceived the spies into the supposition 
 that they were carrrying treasure." At another 
 time a gang fell in with two Ganges-water car- 
 riers, two tailors, and a woman, and next day 
 they were joined by two very poor travellers, of 
 whom they tried in vain to disembarrass them- 
 selves. They would start at night without awaken- 
 ing them, but somehow the others would hear 
 their preparations and insist upon accompanying 
 them. The Thugs then appointed four of their 
 brethren to detach these unconscious suicides 
 from the rest of the party and keep them on the 
 high road while the others struck off down a 
 byepath. This device also failed, for they became
 
 70 MURDER CHEAP. 
 
 frightened and could be satisfied with nothing 
 less than a junction with the main body. Their 
 obstinacy sealed their fate. Half a dozen of the 
 Thugs went on with them in advance, and strang- 
 ling them, found upon them only one rupee 
 worth about two shillings. The others soon shared 
 the fate of the two poor travellers, but turned out 
 a more profitable prize, as they yielded among 
 them twenty pounds. A smaller sum, however, 
 than one shilling will often times tempt a Hin- 
 doo to commit murder, even though he have 
 nothing to do with Thuggee. What value the 
 latter attached to life may be inferred from the 
 testimony of one of themselves. " I have never 
 strangled any one," said he, " but have aided in 
 throwing bodies into wells. Eight annas (one 
 shilling) is a very good remuneration for murder- 
 ing a man, We often strangle a victim who is 
 suspected of having two pice (one farthing)." But 
 it seldom happened that a murder produced less 
 than two pounds; the average being probably 
 about fifteen pounds. It is almost comical to 
 read that these dread beings were sometimes 
 robbed at night by vulgar pilferers, though they 
 usually set a watch. The same sort of retribution 
 is observable in the fate of twenty-seven Dacoits, 
 or gang-robbers, who had in their possession at
 
 MUTUAL COURTESY. 71 
 
 the time above 1,300 worth of money, gold 
 ornaments, gems, and shawls. A gang of one 
 hundred and twenty-five Thugs having met with 
 them, begged to be allowed to travel under their 
 protection. The Dacoits carelessly assented, and 
 were shortly afterwards all put to death. 
 
 Eager as they were for booty the Thugs appear 
 to have been courteous and forbearing towards 
 one another, and equitable in the division of their 
 spoils. Feringeea and twenty-six of his gang 
 were one day cooking their dinners under some 
 trees by the road-side when five travellers came 
 bye, but could not be persuaded to stop and 
 partake of their meal, saying they intended to 
 sleep at Hirora that night, and they had yet 
 eight miles to go. The Thugs followed after 
 them, and also reached Hirora, but could discover 
 no traces of the travellers. Feringeea, therefore, 
 inferred that they must have fallen into the hands 
 of another gang, and suddenly recollected having 
 passed an encampment of Brinjarees (bullock- 
 drivers) not far from the town. On the follow- 
 ing morning he accordingly went back with a few 
 of his comrades, and at once recognised a horse 
 and a pony which he had observed in the pos- 
 session of the travellers. " What have you done 
 with the five travellers, my good friends?" he
 
 72 DIVISION OF SPOILS. 
 
 said. " You have taken from us our merchandize." 
 They apologised for what they had done, pleading 
 ignorance, and offered to share the booty ; but 
 this Feringeea declined, saying that he had no 
 claim to a share, as none of his party was present 
 at the loading. 
 
 The division of the spoils was regulated with 
 great nicety. The leaders were usually entitled 
 to every tenth article, and to one anna in the 
 rupee (one sixteenth) of actual money, besides 
 their share as individuals. If the gang consisted 
 of twenty, including the Jemadar, the booty was 
 divided into twenty-one equal parts, of which the 
 Jemadar received two. Five per cent, was then 
 set aside for the stranglers, and the rest divided 
 into three equal heaps, corresponding to as many 
 equal sections of the gang. Each section marked 
 a cowree (a shell), and the three were put into 
 a man's hand without his knowing to which 
 either belonged, who then placed one on each 
 pile. The sections afterwards divided among 
 themselves each its own lot. 
 
 A feast was sometimes held in honour of 
 Davee, in the course of an expedition. If the 
 expenses were defrayed by subscription, as was 
 most customary, it was called a Punchaetee 
 Kotee, and was usually celebrated during the
 
 THE PUNCHAETEE KOTEE. 73 
 
 Hooley or Dusserah festivals. Occasionally a single 
 member provided the feast ; but, to be entitled to 
 do so, he must have been a strangler, or at least a 
 Thug in the third generation. The feast was in 
 this wise. Having procured some goats, of whom 
 two must be perfectly black, without speck or 
 blemish, and a sufficient quantity of rice, ghee, 
 spices, and spirits, they assembled in a room 
 the doors and windows of which could be closed, 
 so as to prevent any prying, eyes from seeing 
 what was passing within. The floor being care- 
 fully swept and plastered with cow-dung, a 
 square space, measuring a cubit each way, was 
 drawn in the middle of the apartment, with a 
 mixture of turmeric and lime. On this square 
 was spread a clean white sheet, whereon was 
 placed some boiled rice, and on the top of that 
 the half of a cocoa-nut shell filled with ghee, 
 in which floated two cotton wicks lying across 
 each other, so as to give four lights. If a 
 cocoa-nut was not procurable, a vessel of the 
 same form was shapened in dough. Upon the 
 sheet were then laid the sacred pickaxe, the 
 dagger of the gang (the misericorde), and the 
 spirits. The two black goats were next washed 
 and thoroughly wetted, and placed with their 
 faces to the westward If one, or both of them
 
 74 RIVER THUGS. 
 
 shook off the wet with lusty vigour, it was a 
 sign that the sacrifice was acceptable ; other- 
 wise, the rice and spirits alone were consumed, 
 and without any further ceremony. But in the 
 former case, if Mahommedans, they chaunted 
 a sort of grace as they cut the throats of the 
 whole of the animals ; if Hindoos, they struck 
 off their heads at a blow. The skins, bones, and 
 offal were thrown into a pit dug for the purpose. 
 When every man's appetite was satiated, they 
 washed their face and hands over the pit, and 
 filled it up and levelled it with the ground. 
 Should any profane eye witness any part of the 
 preparations, or a spark fall on the sheet and 
 burn a hole, or any animal touch the offal, the. 
 leader must expect to die within a year and 
 all his companions would come to grief. 
 
 Besides the land Thugs there was a bold and 
 skilful clan calling themselves Bungoos, or Pun- 
 goos, who practised the same vocation on the 
 Hooghly river, going up as far as Benares or 
 even Cawnpore, but chiefly infesting the Burdwan 
 district. Their system and dialect differed con- 
 siderably from those of their land brethren. 
 Their leaders assumed the appearance of the 
 proprietor or captain of a passenger boat, while 
 some of his gang bent to the oars or towed the
 
 RIVER THUGS. 75 
 
 vessel along the bank, and the others, dressed 
 as pilgrims or shopkeepers, took their seat on 
 deck ; these were the stranglers and their assist- 
 ants. A few of the most plausible and insinua- 
 ting members were employed as Sothas, or 
 inveiglers. These wandered on the roads leading 
 to the various Ghauts, or landing places, and con- 
 trived to get into conversation with the travellers 
 who seemed bound for the river. On arriving 
 at the Ghaut they would see a clean tidy boat, 
 already partially filled with passengers and ready 
 to swing off. They naturally hastened on board, 
 rejoicing at not being detained. The river Thugs 
 always faced their victims, sitting in a row on 
 one side of the deck opposite to them. So soon 
 as an opportunity presented itself, the look-out 
 man smote the deck three times with his hand. 
 Then the helmsman gave the jhirnee, by exclaim- 
 ing Bhugna ko paun do, " give my sister's son 
 some paun." Up sprang the pretended voyagers, 
 and throwing the roomal round the neck of their 
 victims pressed it tightly in front, bending their 
 head backwards, while their assistants held their 
 feet and hands. Though sometimes one Thug 
 would almost suffice for the purpose, nine of 
 them have been known to strangle seven men 
 stronger than themselves, and twelve have over-
 
 76 RIVER THUGS. 
 
 powered ten. When the convulsive writhings had 
 ceased, they made certainty doubly sure by break- 
 ing the backbone and violently kicking or punch- 
 ing their victims with their elbows. The bodies 
 were then pushed into the river through a window 
 made in either side of the boat, immediately 
 above the water-mark. The greatest care was 
 taken to avoid shedding any blood, which by dis- 
 colouring the stream might lead to suspicion 
 and detection. If a drop were spilt, they returned 
 home and offered up expiatory sacrifices. Women 
 were invariably permitted to escape, and all 
 property of a suspicious character was at once 
 destroyed. Their proceedings, however, were no 
 secret to the river police, whose silence was secured 
 by rich presents. Their very existence was thus 
 kept from the knowledge of the European magis- 
 trates until the year 1836, but in little more 
 than twelve months afterwards 161 of the mis- 
 creants had been arrested, and the names obtained 
 of thirty-eight others. There were usually about 
 fourteen to each boat, and there were eighteen 
 boats regularly occupied in this dreadful business, 
 besides several engaged for occasional service. 
 The hot and wet seasons were deemed equally 
 unfavourable, as few travellers were then abroad ; 
 the most productive months being November,
 
 AN " AFFAIR" ON THE RIVER. 77 
 
 December, January, and February. A party of 
 river Thugs, occupying two boats, contrived to 
 become acquainted with the Manjee, or comman- 
 der of a boat laden with tobacco and hemp, and 
 persuaded him and his crew to stop with them 
 at a chur, or sand-bank, and cook their dinners 
 together. After the repast the Thug leader 
 asked the others to join his party in fulfilling a 
 vow he had made to the god Hurry Sote. So 
 they all sang the song of Hurry Sote, when the 
 leader suddenly exclaimed, " Now, Hurry, give us 
 our plunder !" Five Thugs instantly leaped on" 
 the throats of the Manjee and his crew, threw 
 them back upon the sand and strangled them. 
 Then their comrades fell upon the lifeless corpses, 
 broke their backbones, punched them on the ribs 
 with their fists and elbows, and dragging them 
 into the deep running water let them float down 
 the stream. 
 
 Perhaps a better idea than has yet been given 
 of the nature and extent of Thuggee, may be 
 derived from Captain Sleeman's Official Report 
 of an Expedition into Malwa, Guzerat, Kandeish, 
 and Berar, by gangs from Gwalior, Bundlecund, 
 and the Saugor districts, in 1827-28. The 
 leader was our old friend Feringeea, who started 
 from Gorha with twenty-five Thugs and proceeded
 
 78 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 to Moghul ka Serai, where he fell in with two 
 Mahrattas. These were put to death about three 
 miles further on. Arriving at Tuppa, in Indore, 
 the gang was then joined by eleven more Thugs, 
 who all went on together to Raghooghur, where 
 they met two Mahrattas and a Marwaree on 
 their way from Saugor to Indore. Here Soper 
 Sing and fifteen Thugs came up with them, 
 escorting a bird-catcher and two shopkeepers 
 journeying from Indore to Patna, All six were 
 strangled in the night and buried in one grave. 
 Next morning Feringeea's party, with five of 
 Soper Sing's crossed the Nerbudda at the Pug- 
 lana Ghaut, and at Samneer murdered three 
 Sipahees, in search of service, at mid-day, and 
 left their bodies by the road side. The next 
 stage was Kurajgow Kuringee, whence they ac- 
 companied a traveller, who was going towards 
 the south, for sixteen miles, where they killed 
 him and buried his corpse beneath the walls of a 
 small Hindoo temple. Thence they passed 
 through Omrowtee to Larun Kurnajee, and in 
 their camp in a grove killed a traveller whom 
 they had brought on with them from Bam ; and 
 also a thief found skulking among some tombs, 
 who had one hundred and ten pounds worth 
 of stolen goods in his possession. At Busum
 
 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 79 
 
 their numbers were swelled by a reinforcement 
 of fifty Thugs under four leaders. Going on 
 together in one body they encamped near Nan- 
 dair, and there murdered five travellers. Some 
 of the new arrivals having again left them, the 
 others held on to Rovegow, where they overtook 
 nine persons, whom they accompanied about three 
 miles and strangled just before daybreak. At 
 Hyderabad they lodged near the bridge over the 
 Hoosa Nuddee, where they killed and buried a 
 Brahman and two Rajpoots with whom they 
 had scraped an acquaintance in the Bhegan 
 Bazar. Wandering on to Gungakhera they fell in 
 with three Marwarees, whom they escorted a 
 stage on the Holwa road. One of the travellers 
 being accidentally thrown from his horse, was 
 instantly strangled, and his companions of course 
 shared the same fate. As they had not reached 
 the appointed Beyl, they left the bodies upon 
 the ground, a prey to jackals and carnivorous 
 birds. Their next encampment was at Purureea, 
 in Holwa, where they murdered a Soobahdar 
 (native commissioned officer), five sepoys, and a 
 woman. At Doregow they met three Pundits 
 and with them a Byragee (Hindoo ascetic), 
 mounted on a pony, plastered over with sugar 
 and covered with flies. Driving away the men-
 
 80 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 dicant, they killed and buried the Pundits. On 
 leaving Doregow the Byragee again joined them 
 and went on in their company to Raojana, where 
 they overtook six cloth-merchants travelling 
 from Bombay to Nagpore. As the mendicant 
 was much in their way, they pelted him with 
 stones, and having thus got rid of him they killed 
 the merchants, burying their bodies in the grove. 
 The next day the Byragee again joined them and 
 proceeded with them to Mana, where they fell in 
 with two bearers and a sepoy. Shaking off their 
 troublesome companion, they hastened on to the 
 spot selected for the contemplated murder, where 
 the mendicant once more came up with them. 
 Their patience being exhausted, they offered one 
 of the gang ten shillings extra to kill him and 
 take the sin upon himself. All four were then 
 strangled, and, to their astonishment, the Byra- 
 gee proved the most valuable prize of all ; for 
 upon him and his pony they found many pounds 
 weight of coral, 350 strings of small pearls, 
 fifteen strings of large pearls, and a gilded neck- 
 lace. Soon after they arrived at Omrowtee, 
 between which and Nadgow they got hold of two 
 men, whom they murdered at their encampment. 
 They were treasure bearers and had with them 
 400 worth of silver. These are a peculiar class
 
 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 81 
 
 of men, excessively poor, but famed for their 
 honesty. They were never known to betray their 
 trust, and would rather yield their life than sur- 
 render their charge. They bore no weapons, 
 chiefly relying on the poverty of their garb and 
 external appearance. The Bombay and Surat 
 merchants used to employ them in conveying 
 specie through Kandeish and Surat to Indore and 
 Rajpootana, and they generally succeeded in 
 escaping the notice of mere marauders ; but it 
 was a different thing with the Thugs who took 
 life officially and professionally, content with a 
 farthing but oftener reaping a fruitful harvest. 
 
 From Nadgow the band proceeded to Kura- 
 gow, and soon afterwards in passing through a 
 small dry ravine fell in with four men driving 
 two bullocks laden with copper pice. The men 
 were instantly put to death, and their bodies 
 slightly covered with stones and rubbish. Aftef 
 this affair two of their leaders with their respec- 
 tive followers returned home, while the others 
 strolled onwards through Burhanpore to Indore, 
 where they received an accession of strength by 
 the junction of three leaders with sixty Thugs. 
 
 Three Marwarees being here inveigled into a 
 house occupied by a part of the gang, never again 
 went forth into the road. They remained at In- 
 
 D 2
 
 82 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 dore a whole day, but were not idle, for Feringeea 
 prevailed upon four more Marwarees to accom- 
 pany him to the encampment of the remainder of 
 the gang, and they likewise were dismissed to 
 Hades. Soon after leaving Indore they fell in 
 with four travellers, whom they murdered in camp 
 that evening. Feringeea's party then diverged 
 from the main body and passed through Saugor to 
 Chutterpore, where intelligence was received that 
 a body of armed men were in pursuit of them. 
 They, therefore, doubled back and came to 
 Kondee, a short distance from which they mur- 
 dered two travellers. At Raghooghur they were 
 reinforced by twelve of their fraternity, and on 
 the following day by thirty more under Sheikh 
 Inaent : and at Dubohee, near Bhilsa, they 
 were joined by two more leaders with twenty 
 Thugs. Here they murdered two sepoys. After 
 this affair fifty of them under Sheik Inaent went 
 on to Baroda, where they all fell sick and were 
 glad to return to Bheelpore. Their convalescence 
 was celebrated by the murder of two Bearers. 
 Encouraged by this success they journeyed to 
 Oodeypore in the Dhar Pergunnah. Three se- 
 poys and another man were strangled next morn- 
 ing about two miles from the town. A little fur- 
 ther on they overtook an elephant driver, in the
 
 FERINGEEA'S EXPEDITION. 83 
 
 service of the Oodeypore Rajah, and him they 
 murdered at night at a village called Amjhera. 
 Passing through Mhow, to a village on the 
 side of Raghooghur, they fell in with three 
 Bearers, whom they strangled next morning. 
 They then held on through Ashta till they en- 
 countered a Havildar (non-commissioned native 
 officer), a sepoy, and another, of whom they dis- 
 posed the following morning. Shortly afterwards a 
 large portion of this gang returned home, whereon 
 the Sheikh went off and rejoined Feringeea. Their 
 junction had scarcely been effected before it was 
 announced that the police were close upon their 
 track. Many more of the Thugs then started off 
 homewards, and others retreated to a stream 
 near Peepala, where, notwithstanding their fears, 
 they made away with two sepoys, another man, 
 and a woman. 
 
 A village called Jhundawala was the scene of 
 their next exploit a Bearer their next victim. 
 After that they came to Tuppa, and, as they 
 were setting out next morning, were joined by a 
 Havildar, a sepoy, and two women, whom they 
 murdered on the following day. Arriving at 
 Kenjarra they strangled two more sepoys, and 
 four more a few days afterwards. The gang 
 then broke up, and Feringeea returned to his
 
 84 A LARGE EXPERIENCE. 
 
 home in Tehree. Since lie last parted from his 
 wife, unconscious of his crimes, he had been an 
 accomplice in the murder of one hundred men 
 and five women. Let not this appalling number 
 appear incredible. In the kingdom of Oude, a 
 fair sample of native government, there were 1406 
 miles of road infested by Thugs, and no fewer 
 than two hundred and seventy -four Beyls, or sites 
 of murder; that is, one in every five miles and a 
 half. Twenty Thugs, admitted as Approvers, 
 acknowledged that they were present, respectively, 
 at 508, 931, 350, 377, 604, 119, 42, 103, 264, 
 203, 195, 294, 117, 322, 340, 28, 65, 81, 153, 
 and twenty-four murders, the least experienced 
 having witnessed twenty-four murders, and the 
 most 931 thus giving an average of 256 mur- 
 ders to each of the twenty. The same Beyl 
 was not unfrequently the scene of several mur- 
 ders. Captain Sleeman mentions a striking in- 
 stance of this. When Feringeea was first brought 
 before him a prisoner, in December 1830, he 
 offered, if his life were spared, to give information 
 that would lead to the arrest of some large gangs 
 who had appointed to rendezvous at Jyepore in 
 the following February. Some incredulity as to 
 his power to do so having been expressed, he 
 begged to be allowed to accompany the " Sahib"
 
 A BEYL. 85 
 
 a short distance on his official tour of inspection, 
 when he would afford ample evidence as to his 
 knowledge of Thuggee. He promised no more 
 than he was able to perform. Two stages from 
 Saugor on the road to Seronge, Captain Sleeman 
 encamped for the night in a small mango grove 
 near the village of Selohda. At an early hour 
 of the next morning Feringeea desired to see 
 him, and pointing to three different spots declared 
 they were so many graves. " A Pundit and six 
 attendants, murdered in 1818, lay among the 
 ropes of my sleeping tent, a Havildar and four 
 Sipahees murdered in 1824, lay under my horses, 
 and four Brahman carriers of Ganges-water and 
 a woman, murdered soon after the Pundit, lay 
 within my sleeping-tent. The sward had grown 
 over the whole, and not the slightest sign of its 
 ever having been broken was to be seen." All 
 night long Mrs. Sleeman had tossed about in her 
 sleep, tormented by horrible dreams, probably 
 engendered by the foul air arising from so many 
 graves certainly not caused by the spirits of 
 the departed, and, perhaps, many a ghost story 
 may owe its origin to some similar cause. Still 
 doubting, Captain Sleeman sent for the police 
 and a posse of villagers, who after digging down 
 about five feet came upon the skeletons of the
 
 86 CONNIVANCE OF ZEMINDARS. 
 
 Havildar and his comrades, and afterwards the 
 others were discovered in succession. Feringeea 
 then proposed to discover other graves in the 
 neighbouring groves, but Captain Sleeman could 
 stand no more of such horrors for that morning. 
 It transpired that the Pundit's horse had been 
 presented to the proprietor of the village, in 
 which some of the gang actually resided, and that 
 the others came thither every year and stopped some 
 time "feasting, carousing and murdering," and yet 
 neither the police nor the inhabitants appeared 
 to have the slightest suspicion of the real nature 
 of their pursuits. It must be remembered that 
 they never murdered any but strangers and 
 wayfarers, and that the villagers and their property 
 would be perfectly secure. It would be an excess 
 of charity, however, to suppose that the Zemindar 
 had not a shrewd guess as to the means by which 
 his horse was obtained. During the three years, 
 1822 to 1824, both inclusive, that Captain Slee- 
 man was magistrate of the Nursingpore district 
 in the Nerbuddah valley, and as he imagined 
 cognizant of every crime and every bad character 
 within its limits, he was perfectly unconscious 
 that there was a Thug village only 400 yards 
 from the Court-house, and that only a few miles 
 distant the groves of Mundaisur contained fully
 
 NUMBER OF VICTIMS. 87 
 
 one hundred dead bodies. These groves were a 
 favourite place of rendezvous for gangs coming 
 from Upper India and from the Deccan, with the 
 connivance and under the protection of two 
 respectable landholders, descendants of the pious 
 individuals who had planted those trees to shelter 
 the unhoused wanderer. 
 
 The destruction of life and property since the 
 commencement even of the present century must 
 have been enormous. It is known that in 1826-27, 
 two hundred and five men and six women were 
 murdered by different gangs in Malwah and Raj- 
 pootana. In 1827-28, three hundred and sixty- 
 four males and twenty-one females were strangled 
 in Kandeish, Berar, and Guzerat. In 1828-29, 
 two hundred and twenty-six men and six women 
 were thus disposed of in Malwah and Kandeish. 
 In 1829-30, ninety-four men, four women, and 
 a child perished in Baroda and Bundlecund. In 
 1830-31 the Bundlecund gangs destroyed fifty- 
 seven males and one female. In 1830-31-32, 
 one hundred and seventy males and five females 
 were murdered in Rajpootana and Guzerat. And 
 in 1832-33, forty-one males were strangled in the 
 Gwalior district alone. It has been estimated 
 that on an average more than ten distinct cases 
 of murder occurred in every expedition, and that
 
 DURATION OF THUGGEE. 
 
 every Thug went upon at least ten expeditions, 
 which would assign to each a guilty complicity 
 in fully one hundred murders. The amount of 
 property of which they despoiled the public must 
 also have been very great, and occasionally indi- 
 vidual prizes were of no trivial value. Thus in 
 1826 a party of fourteen were murdered by a 
 gang of one hundred and fifty Thugs, and a booty 
 secured worth 2,500. In 1827, seven men were 
 murdered by three hundred and fifty Thugs, and 
 robbed of 2,200. In 1828, the murder of nine 
 persons by a gang of one hundred and twenty- 
 five yielded 4,000 ; and in 1829, that of six 
 persons produced 8,200, to be divided between 
 one hundred and fifty Thugs. 
 
 It must seem incredible, but it is nevertheless 
 the simple fact, that this terrible system of mur- 
 der flourished for nearly two centuries under 
 those native governments of whose excellence so 
 much has been said in certain quarters. The 
 division of the vast peninsula into many separate, 
 independent, and jealous states, no doubt, encou- 
 raged the perpetration of crime by facilitating 
 escape and rendering detection and apprehension 
 almost impossible. So long as their own subjects 
 or tenants were not molested, neither princes 
 nor landed proprietors considered themselves
 
 PRUDENCE OF THE THUGS. 89 
 
 bound to interfere with an institution of which 
 they entertained a mysterious dread, and whence 
 they derived goodly gifts and a handsome revenue. 
 Superstition and cupidity were powerful allies in 
 favour of the Thugs, who, besides, in their palmy 
 days, exhibited admirable prudence and tact in 
 avoiding whatever might be offensive to their 
 patrons and injurious to themselves. They were 
 especially careful not to touch any European, for 
 they well knew that from such they were more 
 likely to receive lead than gold, and that search 
 would be made for the missing man; nor, indeed, 
 was the like facility afforded for familiarity, owing, 
 in a great measure, as Fuseli would say, to " de 
 d d ignorance of de language." All tell-tale 
 property they quickly destroyed, and never com- 
 mitted a murder near home, or where they were 
 known ; nor after a murder did they ever pro- 
 ceed in the direction whence their victims had 
 come, lest they should be betrayed by a horse, 
 a bullock, or an ass, being anywhere recognised. 
 The native custom of sending remittances in the 
 form of jewels and precious metals without any 
 armed escort, and of carrying considerable sums 
 upon the person, increased the temptation of 
 doing honour to Bhowanee. The vast popula- 
 tion, too, was always in motion. Parties of tra-
 
 90 DISCOVERY OF THUGGEE. 
 
 vellers, or lonely wanderers, on foot, or on horse- 
 back, streamed along the roads and bye-paths, 
 reposing in the intense heat of the day or during 
 the moonless hours of the night beneath the 
 hospitable shade of a grove of mangoes and other 
 stately trees, or around the well that owed its 
 origin to pious vanity. And the very terror felt 
 for their unknown enemies made the travellers 
 an easier prey, for in seeking to avoid the danger, 
 they frequently ran into it by inviting the com- 
 pany of the mild, cheerful and intelligent com- 
 panions, who were ever ready to converse with 
 them, to walk with them, and to murder them. 
 Their existence was first known to the English in 
 1799, after the fall of Seringapatam, when a 
 hundred Phanseegars, or Thugs, were taken pri- 
 soners at Bangalore, though even then they were 
 not suspected of pursuing an hereditary profes- 
 sion. The first regular information concerning 
 their habits was not obtained until 1807, when 
 a gang of them was arrested between Chittore 
 and Arcot. It had frequently been remarked, 
 indeed, that very many sepoys never returned to 
 their regiments on the expiration of then* leave 
 of absence, and they were struck off the rolls as 
 deserters. But when the true cause of their 
 absence was discovered, the Commander-in-Chief,
 
 DIFFICULTY OF SUPPRESSION. 91 
 
 Major-General St. Leger, issued a general order 
 in 1810, warning the native troops against asso- 
 ciating with chance companions on the road, and 
 advising them to send their money to their homes 
 by means of hoondees, or bills, and not to travel 
 by night. The evil, however, was of too mon- 
 strous a growth to be thus easily checked. And 
 there was likewise great difficulty experienced in 
 bringing home any particular crime, even when 
 the perpetrators happened to be in custody. The 
 merchants and bankers whose property had been 
 stolen were reluctant to appear in court to give 
 evidence : it was looked upon as somewhat of an 
 indignity, and the cautious delays of English juris- 
 prudence caused a waste of time they could ill 
 endure. Their money was gone, and there was 
 an end of it. It was predestined that it should 
 go in that manner. The thieves were merely 
 instruments working out the will of Providence. 
 Against them they bore no malice or vindictive 
 feeling. Even the relatives of murdered men 
 refused to come forward until they obtained a 
 promise that they should not be summoned to 
 appear in a distant court. And in the majority 
 of cases it was impossible to ascertain who were 
 the murdered persons, or whence they came. 
 A few isolated cases of conviction did, indeed,
 
 92 MEASURES FOR SUPPRESSION. 
 
 occur, as in 1823, when Mr. Molony arrested a 
 gang of 115 in the valley of the Nerbudda, and 
 convicted the whole of them; and again in 
 1826, when a large gang was arrested in the 
 same valley by Major Wardlaw, and their guilt 
 proven. But these exceptions rather tended to 
 make the Thugs more cautious than to induce 
 them to relinquish their ancestral vocation. It was 
 not until 1829-30 that the task of suppression 
 was fairly commenced. The honour of the ini- 
 tiative was reserved for Lord William Bentinck, 
 who passed certain acts rendering Thuggee the 
 object of a special judicature, and giving a wider 
 discretion to the officers employed in its sup- 
 pression. His lordship was fortunate in his 
 selection of the special officers. It is needless to 
 do more than mention the names of the late 
 Major General, then Captain, Sleeman, Major, 
 now Colonel, Borthwick, Colonel Stewart, Cap- 
 tain Patton, Captain Malcolm, Captain G. Rollings, 
 and Mr. F. C. Smith. The best proof of the ability 
 and energy displayed by these gentlemen is the fact 
 that by the year 1840 the committals amounted 
 to 3,689. Of this number, 466 were hanged, 
 1,504 transported, 933 imprisoned for life, 81 
 confined for different periods, 86 called upon to 
 give ample security for their future good con-
 
 THEIR SUCCESS. 93 
 
 duct, 97 acquitted, and 56 admitted as ap- 
 provers : 12 effected their escape, and 208 died 
 a natural death before sentence was passed. 
 The approvers were not absolutely pardoned, or 
 even released from custody. Sentence was passed 
 upon them in the usual manner, but respited as 
 long as they showed signs of repentance and 
 reformation. The utmost caution was used in 
 sifting their evidence and in confronting them 
 with the accused, but their testimony was so 
 clear and so thoroughly substantiated that no 
 reasonable man could entertain the slightest 
 doubt as to their veracity. So complete was the 
 success of the measures now adopted that on the 
 17th of August, 1840, Hoossain Dost Khan, a 
 powerful Talooqdar (baronial lord) in the Nizam's 
 dominions, previously an avowed opponent of the 
 British, wrote a letter to Captain Malcolm, from 
 which the following is an extract : " Seeing that 
 the best arrangements have been made in this 
 matter, "the whole of the inhabitants of the coun- 
 try, and travellers, have been emancipated from 
 the fear of Thugs ; day and night they raise their 
 hands in prayer to state that in the days of 
 kings bygone no such peace and comfort existed. 
 Thanks to Almighty God, the power of con- 
 ferring this great boon, a source of great renown
 
 94 COMMITTALS AND CONVICTIONS. 
 
 has been reserved for you from the beginning of 
 the world, in order that this matter should be so 
 arranged. Where are the murdered men? How 
 can there be any, when you do not even hear the 
 slightest allusion to Thugs ? The whole world 
 are giving thanks for this." It must be con- 
 fessed, however, that there was some slight exag- 
 geration in the worthy Talooqdar's congratula- 
 tions, for in the course of the next seven years 
 531 more Thugs were apprehended and com- 
 mitted for trial. Of these, 33 were hanged, 174 
 transported, 267 imprisoned for life and 27 for 
 shorter periods, 5 called upon to put in bail, 125 
 acquitted, and 46 admitted as approvers : besides 
 11 who died, and 2 who made their escape. It 
 was no easy matter to prevent the last contin- 
 gency, so great was their patience and ingenuity. 
 Towards the close of 1834, twenty-seven prisoners 
 escaped from the Jubbulpore gaol, by cutting 
 through their irons and the bars of their windows, 
 with thread smeared with oil and then incrusted 
 with finely-powdered stone. In 1848 also there 
 were 120 committed, of whom 5 were hanged, 
 24 transported, 11 imprisoned for life and 31 for a 
 limited period, 7 required to find substantial 
 bail, 1 2 acquitted, and 9 admitted as approvers : 
 2 died, and 10 remained under trial. Since that
 
 THE JUBBULPORE JAIL. 95 
 
 year Thuggee appears to have quite died out. In 
 1853, indeed, some cases occurred in the Pun- 
 jaub, but vigorous measures being at once 
 adopted, under the superintendence of Captain 
 Sleeman, whose happy lot it was to complete the 
 good work inaugurated by his distinguished 
 father, its final suppression was almost coinci- 
 dent with its revival. 
 
 The question that next presented itself for the 
 anxious consideration of the Government was the 
 means of providing for the families of the ap- 
 provers. If left to their own devices, or the 
 suggestions of want, there was too much reason 
 to apprehend that the elder members, who had 
 already witnessed the taking of human life, might 
 be tempted to revert to the practices of their fore- 
 fathers. Accordingly, in the year 1838, on the 
 recommendation of Captain Charles Brown, a 
 School of Industry was founded at Jubbulpore, 
 for the purpose of teaching the sons of the ap- 
 provers a trade or craft by which they might 
 earn an honest livelihood. At first their parents 
 were opposed to the idea, but soon joyfully 
 acquiesced when they came to understand the 
 benevolent motives of the Government. For a 
 time the old Thugs continued to speak with 
 animation of their past achievements, but, gradu-
 
 96 THE JUBBULPORE JAIL. 
 
 ally weaned from their former habits and associ- 
 ations, they learned to look back with shame 
 upon their antecedents and studiously avoided 
 any further allusion to them. By the end of 
 1847 the school possessed 850 inmates, of whom 
 307 were employed as guards, brickmakers, 
 builders, cleaners, &c., &c. ; while the remaining 
 543 applied their superior ingenuity to the 
 manufacture of lac dye, sealing-wax, blankets, 
 satringees (a sort of strong drugget), fine cloth 
 for trousers, dhotees, or body cloths, newar tape 
 of sorts, cotton wicks, stockings, gloves, towels, 
 tents, and carpeting. In that year the product 
 of their labour amounted to 131 tents, 3324 
 yards of Kidderminster carpeting, forty-six wool- 
 len carpets, and a vast quantity of towels, table- 
 cloths, plaids, checks, &c., which realised upwards 
 of 3,500. Of this sum 500 were given to the 
 Thugs as an encouragement, and to form a capital 
 for such as were allowed after a time to establish 
 themselves in Jubbulpore on their own account. 
 And nearly 300 were paid to their wives for 
 spinning thread for the factory. Much of the 
 success of this institution has no doubt been 
 due to the excellent and judicious superinten- 
 dence of Mr. Williams, formerly a patrol of the 
 Delhi Customs.
 
 BENEFITS OF BRITISH RULE. 97 
 
 Let British supremacy in India cease when 
 it will, the suppression of Thuggee will ever 
 remain a glorious monument to the zeal, energy, 
 and judgment of the civil and military servants 
 of the East India Company. It is easy to direct 
 epigram and inueudo against the idea of a body 
 of merchants ruling a vast empire with en- 
 lightened and disinterested beneficence. But 
 the impartial student of Anglo-Indian history 
 can readily adduce many such examples as the 
 preceding for instance, the suppression of 
 Suttee, human sacrifices, and infanticide ; the 
 repression of torture, gang robberies, and volun- 
 tary mutilation in order to prove that these 
 merchants were truly princes, these traffickers 
 the honourable of the earth.
 
 THE Tusma-Baz Thugs were the fruit of 
 European civilization grafted on the Asiatic 
 stock. At the commencement of the present 
 century one Creagh, a private in an English 
 regiment stationed at Cawnpore, initiated three 
 natives of low degree into the mysteries of an 
 art, formerly practised by thimble-riggers in 
 this country, and known as " pricking the 
 garter." The game, designated Tusma-bazee by 
 his Hindoo disciples, was played in this man- 
 ner : a strap being doubled into many folds, 
 the bystanders were requested to insert a stick 
 where the first double took place, which it was im- 
 possible to do without the consent of the juggler. 
 Creagh' s three apostles speedily became the 
 leaders of as many schools or gangs, numbering 
 in the year 1848, when they were brought to 
 justice, about fifty persons, chiefly residing in 
 the outskirts of Cawnpore. They had long been 
 known to the police authorities as professional 
 gamblers, and had more than once been either 
 punished for that offence or required to furnish
 
 PRICKING THE GARTER. 99 
 
 security for their good behaviour. It was not 
 their custom, however, to confine their depreda- 
 tions to then* native town. On the contrary, 
 they travelled to a considerable distance to the 
 westward, preferring those districts which still 
 remained under the misrule of petty indepen- 
 dent princes. Their first proceeding was to 
 conciliate the police, which was usually effected 
 by the promise of one-fourth of their profits. 
 Having thus provided against all chance of mo- 
 lestation, they would meet as strangers, and 
 accidentally, near some well frequented spot, and 
 gradually begin to play. By degrees a crowd 
 gathered around them, and some one or another 
 was certain to be tempted to try his fortune. 
 At first he was, of course, allowed to win, but it 
 rarely happened that he finally escaped being 
 fleeced of his last coin. The leader received a 
 double share of the plunder, in consideration of 
 the risk and expence he incurred in maintaining 
 his followers until a sufficient booty had been 
 secured to render them independent. If any 
 one of the gang was arrested, it was the leader's 
 duty to use every means in his power to release 
 him, and for every rupee he expended for this 
 purpose he was allowed two pice interest. The 
 balance, after deducting the captain's share was
 
 100 PERFIDIOUS HOSPITALITY. 
 
 equally divided among the rest, and was generally 
 squandered in drinking and gambling among 
 themselves. It was, however, a light and lucra- 
 tive profession, and they frequently remitted con- 
 siderable sums of money to their families. But 
 they did not solely rely on their superior sleight 
 of hand. When the opportunity was favourable 
 they did not scruple to add murder to robbery. 
 Their ordinary plan seems to have been by means 
 of medicated sweetmeats, or sugar, hospitably 
 pressed upon the unwary who ventured to test 
 their skill in play. The drug mostly used was 
 expressed from the seed of the datura plant, a 
 powerful and dangerous narcotic. To call them 
 Thugs was evidently a misnomer, for they had 
 none of the observances of that ancient fraternity, 
 nor did they lay any claim to religious motives. 
 They were simply organized bands of vagrants of 
 the most worthless characters, who preferred fraud 
 to labour and murder to industry. Their detec- 
 tion would have taken place at a much earlier 
 period, had not the police been bribed to connive 
 at their proceedings. It is almost superfluous 
 to remark that their practices were no sooner 
 discovered by the European magistrates than their 
 occupation was gone, and themselves severely 
 punished.
 
 aorite, 0r <Sang-|jtoWrjer8 0ff 
 
 IN India, under its native rulers, murder 
 and robbery were hereditary professions. The 
 Thugs, or hereditary murderers, have been com- 
 pletely put down ; but the work of suppression 
 has not yet been equally successful with regard 
 to the hereditary robbers, as they ever found a 
 ready harbour of refuge in the waste lands of the 
 late kingdom of Oude, and, indeed, in every inde- 
 pendent state. They usually lived in colonies, in 
 the midst of wild jungles, difficult of access. With 
 incredible rapidity they would sweep down on 
 some distant town or village, plunder some house 
 previously selected for the purpose, and before 
 any pursuit could be organized they were far 
 advanced on their homeward journey. To avert 
 suspicion they assumed various disguises with 
 admirable adaptability. North of the Jumna 
 they generally travelled as holy-water carriers, 
 because long files of that class of men were con- 
 tinually traversing the roads of that district. 
 But to the south of the Jumna they appeared as
 
 102 CONVENIENT DISGUISES. 
 
 Brinjaras, or drivers of laden bullocks, or as 
 pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or as 
 sorrowing relatives conveying the bones of the 
 departed to the banks of the Ganges ; or as the 
 friends of a bridegroom going to fetch home his 
 bride. In the funeral processions to the " holy 
 Gunga," men's bones were borne in red, those 
 of women in white bags, neither of which were 
 ever allowed to touch the earth, but at their 
 halting grounds were suspended from the apex of 
 a triangle formed by three short poles or staves. 
 These were afterwards useful to the Dacoits as han- 
 dles for the spear-heads which they carried in their 
 waist-bands. Instead of the bones of their parents 
 they contented themselves with those of inferior 
 animals, wild or domestic. The chief advantage 
 of this disguise was that such mourners were 
 every where treated with the utmost respect, and 
 never subjected to inconvenient inquiries as to 
 whence they came or whither they were going. 
 In Central India a more successful mummery 
 was to assume the garb and appearance of Aluk- 
 ramies, a peculiar class of pilgrims, who travelled 
 in small parties accompanying a high-priest per- 
 sonated by the leader of the gang. " They had 
 four or five tents, some of white and some of 
 dyed cloth, and two or three pairs of Nakaras, or
 
 PRETENDED PILGRIMS. 103 
 
 kettle-drums, and trumpets, with a great number 
 of buffaloes, cows, goats, sheep, and ponies. 
 Some were clothed, but the bodies of the greater 
 part were covered with nothing but ashes, paint, 
 and a small cloth waist-band. Those who had 
 long hair went bare-headed, and those who had 
 nothing but short hair wore a piece of cloth" 
 round the head." The pretended Alukramies 
 always took the precaution of hiring the services 
 of half a dozen genuine Byragees, or ascetics, 
 whom they put forward in difficult emergencies. 
 They would often stop for days together in one 
 place, awaiting favourable tidings from the scouts 
 they sent out in all directions. On arriving at a 
 village the drums were beat and the trumpets 
 sounded to announce their approach, and some 
 of the party were sent in, with silver sticks, in the 
 name of the high-priest to bring the headman to 
 pay his respects and offer the established Nuzzu- 
 rana of 1J- rupee (two shillings and sixpence). If 
 this offering were not punctually and promptly 
 made, double the amount was exacted on the 
 following day, and he must have been a bold 
 man who would venture, by a refusal, to incur 
 the displeasure of the gods. The landholder, or 
 proprietor of the village, was also expected to 
 furnish, gratuitously, a sufficient number of men
 
 104 THE BUDHUK DACOITS. 
 
 to carry the tents, flags, drums, and trumpets of 
 these pious cormorants, whose demands, however, 
 were usually complied with without a murmur. 
 They were distinguished from other wandering 
 mendicants by " a large red flag upon a long pole, 
 with the figure of Hunooman, or the Sun and Moon, 
 embroidered upon it. On one occasion they (the 
 Dacoits) prevailed upon Cheytun Das, a celebrated 
 Byragee of Hindoon in Jyepore, then eighty years 
 of age, to enact the high priest, and he was accom- 
 panied by his chief disciple, or son, Gunga Das." 
 There were various clans, or colonies, of Dacoits. 
 The Budhuks lived in the Oude Teraie, or belt of 
 forest land lying along the foot of the Nepaul 
 hills, whence they made frequent incursions into 
 the British territory, especially to the eastward in 
 the direction of Goruckpore. They were men 
 of low caste, and would eat anything but bul- 
 locks, cows, buffaloes, snakes, foxes, and lizards. 
 Agricultural employments they abhorred as too 
 toilsome. According to a familiar proverb, 
 "once a Budhuk, always a Budhuk, and all 
 Budhuks are Dacoits." Their leaders were almost 
 invariably men of good descent : some of them 
 affected to trace back their ancestors for twenty 
 generations, and adduced their long impunity as 
 a proof that they were predestined to be what
 
 ADVANTAGES OP POLYGAMY. 105 
 
 they were, and that, consequently they could 
 never be anything else. " The tiger's offspring," 
 they would say, " are tigers the young Budhuks 
 become Dacoits." In their palmy days they were 
 able to maintain ten or a dozen wives, but when 
 misfortunes came upon them they were compelled 
 to reduce the pleasing burden to four or five. 
 And they were not altogether a burden, for each 
 wife received in the division of spoil a sum equal 
 to two-thirds of her husband's share. A penitent 
 Budhuk once made the logical, but ungallant 
 remark, that it was the women who ought to be 
 transported, for then no more Budhuks would be 
 born into the world. Nevertheless, in times of 
 trouble the old women were not without their 
 use. They would then assume the semblance of 
 extreme poverty, and, mounted on wretched 
 ponies, would travel many a long weary mile to 
 the place where their relatives were confined, and 
 by judicious presents to the native officers in 
 authority, generally succeeded in mitigating the 
 lot, if they failed to accomplish the release, of the 
 prisoners. In this labour of love they not unfre- 
 quently expended between one and two hundred 
 pounds. There were also Budhuks by adoption, 
 but these were never allowed to eat with the 
 hereditary robbers, though they might smoke the 
 
 E 2
 
 106 THE WOLF REGIMENT. 
 
 same hookah. As a matter of choice they pre- 
 ferred to avoid bloodshed, but in self-defence, or 
 to secure the success of their attack they never 
 scrupled either to wound or to slay outright. Shoo- 
 jah-ood-Dowlah, Nawab of Oude, once attempted 
 to direct their love of enterprise into an honorable 
 channel by enrolling 1,200 of them into a corps, 
 commanded by their own leaders. But their 
 depredations became so intolerable that they 
 acquired the appropriate epithet of the " Wolf 
 Regiment," and as they were continually mutiny- 
 ing they were soon afterwards disbanded. A brief 
 narrative of a few cases of Dacoitee committed 
 by the Budhuks will give the best idea of the 
 system they pursued. 
 
 In the early part of 1818 a powerful gang 
 started from Khyradee in Oude with the inten- 
 tion of cutting off a treasure, escorted by sixty 
 armed police, on the way from Benares to 
 the westward. They disguised themselves as 
 bird-catchers and took with them " falcons and 
 
 1 
 
 hawks of all kinds, well trained, also mynas, 
 parrots, and other kinds of speaking and mocking 
 birds." They had also a boat prepared to convey 
 them across the river. Having learnt from their 
 scouts that the treasure would be lodged on a 
 particular night in the Chobee-ka-Serai between
 
 A SPIRITED AFFAIR. 107 
 
 Allahabad and Cawnpore, they fitted handles to 
 their axes and spear-heads, and made some rude 
 ladders by means of which, about two hours after 
 dark, they scaled the wall of the Serai. "A guard 
 which had been told off for the purpose broke 
 open the gate from the inside and stood over it 
 to prevent any attack from without, or escape 
 from within, while the rest attacked the escort 
 and secured the treasure." In this spirited affair 
 the Dacoits killed eight and wounded seventeen 
 of the police, carried off 7,600 in specie, and 
 made their escape without the loss of a single 
 man. 
 
 In April of the same year the Governor of 
 Bharaitch forwarded to the General Treasury 
 at Lucknow the sum of 2,600 in silver and 
 600 in gold mohurs, in two carts, escorted 
 by thirty soldiers of the royal army. It was 
 lodged, for one night, outside the gate of a 
 small fort, two loaded guns commanding the only 
 approach. A noted leader, named Naeka, with 
 a gang of eighty Dacoits undertook to cut out 
 the prize. First of all, he divided his followers 
 into three parties. One division of twenty men 
 rushed upon the guns and spiked them. A 
 second, of equal force, fastened the gate of the 
 fort with a strong chain to prevent the garrison
 
 108 JUSTICE IN OUDE. 
 
 from sallying forth ; while the others boldly 
 attacked the guard and killed four of them two 
 of their own party, however, being wounded. 
 As they were returning in hot haste to their 
 homes they were themselves assailed by two large 
 land owners, who took from them 2,000 in ru- 
 pees and the whole of the gold. They in their 
 turn fell into the hands of the king's troops 
 Naeka and sixty of his associates being also ap- 
 prehended. After six years' detention in the 
 Seetapore gaol they were all released, the land- 
 owners paying a fine of 2,000 in addition to 
 their booty, and the Dacoits a further sum of 
 1,000. 
 
 Fortune, certainly, did not always smile upon 
 them, notwithstanding her proverbial partiality 
 for the brave. Two gangs having united one 
 day in May, 1819, attacked the house of Sah 
 Beharee Lall, a rich banker, residing in the heart 
 of Lucknow, the capital city of Oude. At first 
 all went well with them, and they carried off. 
 upwards of 4,000 into a jungle not far from 
 Khyrabad. A dispute then arose among the 
 leaders respecting the division of the plunder, and 
 one of them, thinking himself unjustly treated, 
 rode off" to Lucknow and gave information that 
 led to the apprehension of two hundred men,
 
 THE NURSINGPORE AFFAIR. 109 
 
 women, and children. A long and tedious im- 
 prisonment awaited them, until in despair they 
 rose upon their guard, in 1834, and seventy 
 of them effected their escape, leaving five of 
 their comrades on the ground, two of them 
 being killed upon the spot. The others were 
 released in 1839, 
 
 The boldness and suddenness of their onset 
 usually assured their success. One evening in 
 the month of February, 1822, a party of men, 
 carrying canes in their hands, and about forty in 
 number, were observed hurrying along in a loose 
 straggling manner towards the military station 
 of Nursingpore. On reaching the rivulet that 
 separates the town from the cantonments they 
 were challenged by the sentry for a picket of 
 soldiers was always posted on the bank, under a 
 native officer. Carelessly answering that they 
 were cowherds and that their cattle were coming 
 on after them, they proceeded without molestation 
 up the principal street, but suddenly halted in 
 front of a shop of some pretensions. Striking 
 their torches against pots containing combustible 
 matter, with which they had previously provided 
 themselves, they were instantly surrounded with 
 a blaze of light. Already bewildered, the by- 
 standers were terrified into silence by a few rapid
 
 110 THE NURSINGPORE AFFAIR. 
 
 thrusts of the spears, into which the canes had 
 been instantaneously transformed. The house 
 was rifled as if by magic, ten or a dozen persons 
 were killed or wounded, and in a quarter of an 
 hour from their entrance into the town, the Da- 
 coits were on their way to the jungles. Within 
 twenty paces on one side of the house was a 
 police station, and not a hundred paces on the 
 other side was the picket of sepoys already alluded 
 to. But as marriage processions were just then 
 of frequent occurrence, it was supposed that the 
 noise and the glare of the torches belonged to 
 those very uproarious festivities, until a little boy 
 creeping along a ditch whispered to the native 
 officer that they had killed his father. The alarm 
 was immediately given, but before the troops 
 could turn out, the Dacoits had got a fair start, 
 which carried them beyond the reach of both 
 horse and foot. 
 
 A bolder exploit was performed towards the 
 close of that year. Two skilful leaders, having 
 collected some forty followers and distributed 
 among them ten matchlocks, ten swords, and 
 twenty-five spears, waylaid a treasure going from 
 the native Collector's treasury at Budrauna to 
 Goruckpore. The prize consisted of 1,200, and 
 was guarded by a Naik, or corporal, with four
 
 AN AMBUSH. Ill 
 
 sepoys and five troopers. It had to pass through 
 a dense jungle, and it was settled said one of 
 them in after years " that the attack should 
 take place there ; that we should have strong 
 ropes tied across the road in front and festooned 
 to trees on both sides, and, at a certain distance 
 behind, similar ropes festooned to trees on one 
 side, and ready to be fastened on the other, 
 as soon as the escort of horse and foot should 
 get well in between them." Having completed 
 these preparations the gang laid down on either 
 side of the road patiently awaiting their prey. 
 "About five in the morning," continued the 
 narrator, " we heard a voice as if calling upon 
 the name of God (Allah), and one of the gang 
 started up at the sound and said, * Here comes 
 the treasure ! ' We put five men in front with 
 their matchlocks loaded not with ball but shot, 
 that we might, if possible, avoid killing anybody. 
 When we had got the troopers, infantry, and trea- 
 sure all within the space, the hind ropes were run 
 across the road and made fast to the trees on the 
 opposite side, and we opened a fire in upon the 
 party from all sides. The foot soldiers got into 
 the jungle at the sides of the road, and the troopers 
 tried to get over the ropes at both ends, but in 
 vain." The corporal and a horse were killed, two
 
 112 PREPARATORY CEREMONIES. 
 
 troopers wounded, and the treasure carried off in 
 spite of a hot pursuit. 
 
 One of the most famous Budhuk chiefs was 
 named Maherban, who lived in his fort at Etwa 
 in the Oude forest. He had seven wives, who 
 frequently accompanied him in his expeditions, 
 with the exception of his chief wife, from whom no 
 such toils and risk were expected. Late in the 
 autumn of 1818 he and his brother assembled 
 about two hundred men, women, and children, 
 and wisely settled beforehand the rates of division 
 of plunder, setting aside a portion for the families 
 of those who might die or be killed. They then 
 sacrificed ten goats, and, each dipping a finger 
 into- the blood, swore mutual fidelity ; after which 
 they ate and drank and made merry. On the 
 following evening Maherban and twenty of the 
 principal Dacoits advanced a little way in front 
 of the rest of the party, and spat in the direction 
 they were about to pursue. Then raising his 
 hands towards heaven Maherban thus prayed 
 aloud : " If it be thy will, God ! and thine, 
 Kalee! to prosper our undertaking, for the sake 
 of the blind and the lame, the widow and the 
 orphan, who depend upon our exertions for sub- 
 sistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee, the call of the 
 female jackal ! " His followers likewise lifted up
 
 ATTACK ON A SERAI. 113 
 
 their hands, and having repeated the prayer after 
 their leader, all sat down in attentive silence. 
 The auspicious omen was presently heard three 
 times upon the left. Thus assured of success, 
 Maherban purchased a palanquin for his second 
 wife suitable for a man of wealth and dignity. 
 The gang now started for Benares in small detach- 
 ments, and took lodgings in different parts of 
 that city where they stayed a whole month, 
 making offerings and inquiries. Intelligence was 
 at length received of a cartload of treasure going 
 towards the west, under the care of an armed 
 police force. On the first night of December the 
 escort rested with their precious charge in a public 
 Serai at Josee near Allahabad. Having procured 
 staves for their spears and handles for their axes, 
 the gang left the palanquin, their wives, and 
 superfluous clothes, in a grove about four miles 
 distant. At midnight they arrived at the Serai 
 and were agreeably surprised to find the gate 
 open. Here one detachment halted and mounted 
 guard, while another overawed the police, and the 
 rest plundered the treasure. A brave merchant, 
 named Kaem Khan, likewise reposing in the Se- 
 rai, in vain endeavoured to infuse courage into 
 the panic-stricken escort by word and gesture. 
 Disgusted with their pusillanimity he continued
 
 114 TOO MANY BY HALF. 
 
 to lay about him with his long straight sword, 
 wounding two of his assailants and severing in 
 twain many a spear, until a Dacoit got behind 
 him and felled him with a bludgeon, when he was 
 quickly put to death. They then carried off 
 twenty bags containing in all 14,000 Spanish 
 dollars, and had their wounded men tended at a 
 neighbouring village. As some compensation for 
 their sufferings they presented each of them with 
 10 in addition to his share. 
 
 A career of triumph had the same effect upon 
 Maherban as upon greater heroes : it made him 
 indolent and luxurious, and his followers repined 
 at their forced inactivity. " One day, while he 
 was sitting with two of his wives, Mooneea and 
 Soojaneea, they taunted him on the long interval 
 of rest he had enjoyed, while his more active bro- 
 ther had been covering his followers and family 
 with honour and money. ' You have/ said Soo- 
 janeea, ' been now some ten months without 
 attempting any enterprise worthy your reputation ; 
 you are at your ease, and indulging in sports no 
 doubt very agreeable to you, but without any 
 honour or profit to us, while these your followers, 
 men of illustrious birth and great courage, are 
 suffering from want, and anxiety about their 
 families. They have been told of a boat coming
 
 A CONSIDERATE PILGRIM. 115 
 
 from Calcutta, laden with Spanish dollars ; if you 
 do not wish to go yourself and take it, pray lend 
 us your swords, and we will go ourselves, and 
 try what we can do, rather than let your brave 
 fellows starve.' Maherban was deeply stung by 
 these reproaches, and waxed very warm, but was 
 too angry to make any reply to his wives. He 
 got his followers together, and leaving his princi- 
 pal wife, Mooneea, behind him, he set out in the 
 character of a chief of high rank, going on a pil- 
 grimage, with Soojaneea carried in a splendid 
 litter as a princess ; and in four months they re- 
 turned with some 40,000 Spanish dollars." While 
 on his way homewards from this successful expedi- 
 tion he " gave a large sum of money to a gardener 
 at Seosagur, about three miles from Saseram, to 
 plant a grove of mango-trees near a tank, for the 
 benefit of travellers, in the name of Rajah Maher- 
 ban Sing, of Gour in Oude, and promised him 
 further aid on future occasions of pilgrimage, if 
 he found the work progressing well, saying, ' that 
 it was a great shame that travellers should be left 
 as he had been, without shade for themselves and 
 their families to rest under, during the heat of 
 the day.' ' As he approached his forest home 
 all the women went forth to meet him in holiday
 
 116 CONSEQUENCES OF AN ELOPEMENT. 
 
 attire, and welcomed "the conquering hero" 
 and the dollars with music and dancing. 
 
 Encouraged by this brilliant success Maherban 
 resolved to proceed at the close of the season to 
 Sherghottee to intercept another boat-load of 
 dollars, which his spies told him was to be con- 
 veyed from Calcutta to Benares. First of all he 
 engaged a discharged Sepoy to instruct his men 
 in the Company's drill, and very apt scholars they 
 proved themselves. But while this parade work 
 was going on, one of them eloped with Heera 
 Sing's pretty wife. The injured man straightway 
 applied to Maherban for redress, but the chief 
 was too busy with his preparations to attend to a 
 merely personal affair, and probably deemed the 
 loss of a reluctant wife no very serious matter. 
 Heera Sing then betook himself to the other 
 leaders, but failed to enlist their sympathy, for 
 a man who cannot bind a wife by her affections 
 deserves to lose her. Foiled at all points, he de- 
 termined upon a large and base revenge : he gave 
 information of- Maherban' s movements to the 
 English magistrates. 
 
 Suspecting no treachery, Maherban at length 
 set out as a Hindoo prince with a noble retinue, 
 and attended by a numerous guard of soldiers
 
 A BUDHUK STRONGHOLD. 117 
 
 dressed in the Company's uniform. Unfortu- 
 nately for him and his followers, the Dacoitee of the 
 previous year had been carefully tracked out and 
 the guilt lodged at the door of the real criminals. 
 Mr. Cracroft, the magistrate of Jaunpore, was 
 accordingly authorized to proceed to surprise his 
 fastness with four companies of native infantry 
 under the command of Captain Anquetil. Their 
 march was unmolested, and in the heart of a dense 
 unhealthy jungle though not so experienced by 
 the Dacoits themselves they came upon his fort, 
 a parallelogram sixty yards long by forty wide. 
 It was surrounded by a ditch with an embank- 
 ment within, formed of the mud there excavated. 
 At a short distance was another colony of about 
 five hundred able-bodied Budhuks governed by 
 Cheyda, Maherban's brother. These united with 
 the few who had been left at home by the latter, 
 and opened a warm but ill- directed fire upon the 
 troops, as they advanced with cheers to the assault. 
 The simple works were carried at the first rush, 
 and whatever was combustible was committed to 
 the flames. But it was impossible to follow up 
 the retreating Dacoits, and having inflicted this 
 trivial injury Captain Anquetil had no alternative 
 but to extricate his detachment from their dan- 
 gerous position, and return to head-quarters.
 
 118 A FEMALE DACOIT. 
 
 Meanwhile measures were taken by the magis- 
 trates at Jaunpore, Behar, and Benares, to inter- 
 cept and arrest the gang under Maherban himself. 
 That chief was artfully induced to leave the high 
 road and make a pilgrimage toGunga. Here he was 
 given to understand that there was an informality 
 in the payment of customs' dues, and that he must 
 halt until the matter could be adjusted. While 
 encamped in a mango grove he was suddenly sur- 
 rounded by the police, but still imagining that his 
 apprehension was entirely due to the supposed 
 irregularity, his followers offered no resistance, and 
 only discovered their mistake on being committed 
 for trial as robbers and murderers. Maherban 
 himself was hanged in 1821, and the whole of 
 his gang, 160 in number, imprisoned for life or 
 for limited periods. 
 
 After Maherban's execution his principal widow 
 Mooneea succeeded to the government of the sur- 
 vivors of his colony. In the autumn of 1823 the 
 adventurous dame joined some noted leaders in 
 fitting out an expedition, consisting of eighty men 
 and seven women, with the intention of cutting 
 off a treasure party going to Katmandoo. Having 
 taken the auspices in the usual manner, but actu- 
 ally guided by their pre-determination,they moved 
 in small parties towards Junnukpore in the Nepaul
 
 A DARING EXPLOIT. 119 
 
 territory. While travelling in disguise, some of 
 them fell in with a detachment of eighty Goork- 
 has (Nepaul highlanders) escorting fifteen bullocks 
 laden with 64,000 rupees (6,400). Two of them 
 contrived to attach themselves to the escort, while 
 the others separated to collect their comrades. 
 When about fifty had got together they resolved 
 to make the attack without waiting for the others. 
 The guard lodged that night about twelve miles 
 from Jungpore, in a place surrounded by a wall 
 and ditch, outside of which was an encampment 
 of nearly 500 merchants, itinerant traders, and 
 other travellers. The night was clear and bright, 
 but they nevertheless kindled their torches, and 
 with the aid of two stout ladders hastily con- 
 structed, effected an entrance, surprised the guard, 
 and possessed themselves of the treasure. It was 
 too cumbersome, however, to be all carried off at 
 once, and they were consequently obliged to bury 
 about 17,000 rupees. The news of this outrage 
 having reached the Nepaul military station of Ja- 
 lesnr, all suspicious persons were detained, and 
 among them some members of the gang who, 
 under the lash, confessed their complicity and led 
 to the arrest of twenty-nine others, and to the 
 death of two, who foolishly resisted. These also 
 being subjected to the lash pointed out the caches
 
 120 A PRACTICAL THANKSGIVING. 
 
 where the 17,000 rupees had been buried, and 
 35,000 more were found upon their persons : the 
 others got off with the rest of the treasure. The 
 information obtained from the prisoners furnished 
 the clue to the apprehension of a vast number of 
 Dacoits whom the Oude authorities threw into 
 prison without undergoing even the form of a 
 trial. With like irregularity some of them were 
 released as a Khyrat, or "thanksgiving to God," 
 whenever the King or any member of the royal 
 family recovered from an illness. 
 
 The scanty remnants of this last gang finding 
 their former fastnesses no longer secure, fled for 
 refuge to the Rajah of Kottar within the British 
 territories, who readily accepted their presents, and 
 in return promised them his protection. From these 
 new head-quarters they frequently sallied forth, 
 and joining their old comrades, made inroads into 
 Rohilcund and the Doab. Being unable to plunder 
 in western Oude, because the landowners in their 
 strongholds defied both king and Dacoits, they 
 confined their depredations to the Company's ter- 
 ritories, and so constantly attacked and plundered 
 the treasuries of the native collectors, that the 
 Government was compelled to fortify them and 
 impose a guard. Even this did not always pre- 
 vail, and large sums of money were oftentimes
 
 THE SEEAR MARWARS. 121 
 
 carried off, after the guard had been surprised 
 and overpowered. 
 
 The Budhuks dwelling in the eastern part oft 
 the Teraie were better known as Seear Marwars, 
 and were originally husbandmen, but took to 
 Dacoitee in the Nawabship of Sh6"ojah-ood- 
 Doolah. They numbered in all from four to six 
 thousand males, but were divided into colonies of 
 three or four hundred each, clustered round a 
 rude fort. They were in the habit of giving 
 25 per cent, of their booty to the Zemindars 
 whose protection they enjoyed, and by whom 
 they were generally subsidized to fight their 
 battles with their neighbours, or with the farmers 
 of the revenue. In 1826-27 Mr., now Sir, 
 Frederick Currie, the magistrate of Goruckpore, 
 organised a system of repression by means of a 
 corps of Irregular Cavalry under Major Hawkes, 
 and an augmentation of his own police force. 
 That gentleman flattered himself that he had 
 completely put down this tribe of Dacoits, but, 
 in fact, he had only driven them into another 
 district. Their old haunts no longer sheltering 
 them from pursuit, they removed their household 
 gods to Rohilcund, the Doab (" Mesopotamia"), 
 Rajpootana, and Gwalior. The Budhuk colonies, 
 however distant from one another, kept up an 
 
 p
 
 122 INTERMARRIAGES. 
 
 interchange of civilities and intermarried with 
 one another. Members of the same gote, or 
 family, though belonging to different colonies, 
 could not intermarry, but as there were several 
 ffotes in every colony, the different settlements 
 could interchange sons and daughters. For 
 instance Solunkee (" Mr. Brown") could not 
 marry a person of the same name in his own, or 
 in any another colony, but there was no objection 
 to his taking to wife the daughter of Powar 
 ("Mr. Jones,") or Dhundele ("Mr. Robinson") 
 however closely they might be connected with 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Currie certainly did succeed in momen- 
 tarily checking the depredations of the plunderers 
 in his own district, but within three years the 
 evil had returned to its former dimensions. And 
 of these some idea may be formed from the state- 
 ment that between 1818 and 1834, the Budhuks 
 of the Oude Teraie were known to have com- 
 mitted 118 Dacoitees, in which 172 men were 
 killed, 682 wounded, and property carried off to 
 the value of nearly 115,000 : although 457 of 
 the miscreants were arrested, only 186 could be 
 legally convicted. But the actual number of 
 gang-robberies far exceeded that which was re- 
 ported. Many of the Dacoits boasted that they
 
 LUCKA. 123 
 
 had been engaged in a dozen or fifteen expedi- 
 tions. One of them confessed to Mr. Hodgson, 
 in 1824, that he had participated in seven 
 Dacoitees, yielding a total of 36,900. A noted 
 leader, named Lucka, was engaged in forty-nine, 
 in the course of twenty-five years, some of them 
 taking place at a distance of four or five hundred 
 miles from his home. A Chumbul Dacoit con- 
 fessed to thirty-eight in twenty-seven years, and 
 another to twenty-three in twenty-two years ; 
 and another Oude Budhuk to thirty-nine in 
 thirty-three years. They generally commenced 
 at an early age, from eighteen to twenty, accord- 
 ing to the vigour of their constitution. Lucka, 
 of whom mention is made above, was arrested 
 under the disguise of a Byragee, his body smeared 
 with ashes and a house of peacock's feathers on 
 his back : but the restlessness of his eye, and the 
 nervous movements of his limbs betrayed him. 
 Arrest and punishment, however, were always 
 endured with commendable resignation, being 
 considered as the accidents of their profession. 
 
 The achievements of Bukshee and other leaders 
 soon proved the fallacy of Mr. Currie's compla- 
 cent belief in the efficacy of his repressive mea- 
 sures. In -November, 1830, Bukshee's gang 
 slowly travelled through Oude, in the disguise of
 
 124 BUKSHEE'S AFFAIR. 
 
 Ganges water-carriers, moving in small parties 
 and encamping in groves to avoid unpleasant 
 interrogatories. Arriving at the frontiers, they 
 gradually concentrated towards Sursole in the 
 Cawnpore district, where they were informed by 
 their spies that a private treasure was on its way 
 from Mirzapore to Furruckabad. Having cut 
 handles for their axe and spear heads, they 
 crossed the Ganges in a boat previously pur- 
 chased for the occasion, and worked by two well- 
 disposed ferrymen. After reaching the opposite 
 bank they had still ten miles to go, so that it was 
 almost midnight before they attained their desti- 
 nation. A sudden rush was all that was then 
 necessary, though to increase the panic caused 
 by their irruption they deemed it expedient to 
 wound six or seven of the escort. Breaking 
 open the boxes, they abstracted twenty-five bags, 
 each containing 1000 rupees (in all, 2,500), and 
 made off to the river. But by that time it was 
 daylight, and the ferrymen had run their boat 
 under the shelter of a high bank, and were fast 
 asleep. Afraid to make a noise by hallooing to 
 them, the Dacoits buried then* treasure in the 
 sands and dispersed themselves among the neigh- 
 bouring villages until nightfall. In the mean- 
 time the police had discovered their boat, but
 
 THE MIRZAPORE EXPEDITION. 125 
 
 being assured by the men that it had brought 
 over only some fodder for cattle, they immediately 
 gave it up. Soon after sunset the robbers met 
 at the appointed rendezvous, where they found 
 the boatmen anxiously expecting them. So, 
 digging up the treasure, they went on board and 
 were safely ferried over to the other side, present- 
 ing each of these men with fifty rupees. 
 
 About the same season of the following year 
 Bukshee again took the field in his old disguise, 
 and moved down to Allahabad. This was the 
 place of rendezvous for the different detach- 
 ments, and here they made their offerings to the 
 gods, and received the blessings of the priests 
 and prayers for success in all their undertakings. 
 They then returned to the left bank and dropped 
 down the river till they came opposite to Bindachul, 
 where there stood a celebrated temple to Davee. 
 Again crossing to the right bank they worshipped 
 at the shrine of the goddess of destruction, 
 and were rewarded for their devotion by the 
 intelligence that a merchant's shop in Mirzapore, 
 only four miles distant, promised a rich booty. 
 Accordingly, so soon as it was dusk they ad- 
 vanced two miles in that direction, and throwing 
 off their disguise concealed themselves in a hol- 
 low till past eight o'clock to allow the streets to
 
 126 A CHARACTERISTIC INCIDENT. 
 
 get empty. Then they hurried on to the town 
 and stopped before the house chosen for their 
 operations, every avenue to which was guarded 
 by parties told off for that purpose. Suddenly 
 lighting their torches they rushed in at the still 
 open door, stabbing and slashing right and left, 
 and carried off between four and five thousand 
 pounds sterling. A few minutes afterwards they 
 were again clear of the town. Returning to their 
 place of concealment they resumed their gar- 
 ments, hastened thence to the river, and pre- 
 sented each of the boatmen with a hundred 
 rupees for conveying them safely across. In due 
 time they reached their forest homes without 
 hurt or molestation. Connected with this expe- 
 dition there occurred a characteristic incident. 
 To avoid disputes Bukshee had stipulated before 
 hand that he should receive one-fifth of the plun- 
 der in addition to his proper portion and the re- 
 payment of the outlay he incurred in fitting out 
 and maintaining the gang, in order to ransom his 
 parents who had been detained in the gaol at 
 Lucknow for the last twelve years. He was no 
 doubt sincere in his intention to apply these funds 
 in the manner he had stated, but unhappily he 
 had several wives, who somehow absorbed the 
 whole amount, and his parents accordingly re-
 
 CONVENIENT MORALITY. 127 
 
 mained in confinement. When reproached with 
 having obtained the money under fraudulent pre- 
 tences, Bukshee excused himself by the patriotic 
 remark that his father was now too old to be of 
 any service to the colony : he did not, however, 
 offer to refund the eight thousand rupees he had 
 thus obtained. 
 
 The Dacoits do not appear to have possessed 
 the honour that is supposed to exist among 
 thieves in so high a degree as the Thugs. A 
 notable instance of the laxity of their mutual 
 engagements was furnished about the same time 
 that Bukshee successfully defrauded his followers. 
 A gang of forty Dacoits, under two brothers, 
 named Hemraj and Mungul Sing, and their 
 cousin Dhurmoo, were lying at Sherghottee, in 
 the hope of intercepting a treasure then on the 
 way from Calcutta to Benares. Here they were 
 joined, much against their inclination, by a party 
 of fourteen under Ghureeba, who threatened to 
 inform against them unless they agreed not only 
 to admit him into partnership, but also to set 
 aside a proportionate share of the plunder for a 
 gang of twenty-five under Bureear, from, whom 
 he had recently parted. After considerable alter- 
 cation Ghureeba carried his point, and the con- 
 vention was ratified by oaths of mutual fidelity.
 
 128 HONOUR AMONG THIEVES. 
 
 Then they all went on together to the village of 
 Dungaen, at the foot of the hills, where they 
 attacked the treasure-party at night, and, after 
 killing four and wounding sixteen of the escort, 
 carried off twenty-eight bags, each containing 
 2,500 rupees (in all, 6,000). Hemraj and 
 Mungul Sing now adhered so far to their pre- 
 vious engagements, that they allowed to Ghureeba 
 and the absent Bureear the shares to which they 
 were entitled, but refused to burden themselves 
 in behalf of a party who had rendered them no 
 assistance. Ghureeba expostulated with them 
 to no purpose, and declared he would hold them 
 answerable for the whole amount. After some 
 further jangling, it was finally arranged that 
 30,000 rupees should be buried until Bureear 
 could fetch them himself, and this labour was 
 voluntarily undertaken by Mungul Sing. On 
 their return home, Bureear displayed such indig- 
 nation at their unfriendly conduct that they were 
 constrained to pacify him with a present of 2,000 
 rupees, and a month afterwards Mungul Sing 
 and some others set out with him to dig up the 
 treasure. But instead of 30,000, they found 
 only 18,000 rupees. As might be expected, this 
 discovery of the treachery of his associates did 
 not tend to mollify the already exasperated
 
 AN ORDEAL. 129 
 
 Bureear. In his wrath he applied for redress to 
 Rajah Gung Sing, of Dhera Jugdeespore, in the 
 kingdom of Oude, and appointed him arbiter. 
 The Rajah proposed to decide the question by 
 an appeal to heaven, and to this Mungul Sing 
 and his party were compelled to assent. A 
 blacksmith was thereupon ordered to make some 
 cannon-balls red hot, and these were placed with 
 tongs on the palms of the suspected persons' 
 hands, defended only by a thin peepul leaf. The 
 ordeal was to carry these balls a certain distance 
 without being burned, but after taking a few 
 paces they all gave in. They were consequently 
 pronounced guilty, and were sentenced to refund 
 the money they had purloined, and to pay a fine 
 of 500 rupees to the Rajah. In default of resti- 
 tution, they were delivered over in irons to 
 Bureear, who kept them in confinement for 
 several months, and threatened to cut off their 
 ears unless they made good his loss. But, find- 
 ing that his own followers were opposed to any 
 further severity, he prudently connived at their 
 escape. " The hands of Boohooa, who after- 
 wards rose to the distinction of a leader, still 
 (1849) bear the marks of the burning he got; 
 and, in showing them to me (Captain Sleeman) 
 one day, he confessed that the ' decision of the 
 
 F 2
 
 130 ATTACK ON B1THORE. 
 
 Deity' in that case was a just one ; that he had 
 really assisted Mungul Sing in robbing Ghureeba 
 on that occasion of 10,000 rupees, by burying 
 them in a pit at some distance from the rest ; 
 and that he, Nundran, and another of the party, 
 afterwards helped themselves to three out of the 
 ten thousand, unknown to Mungul Sing." What 
 became of the two thousand still unaccounted 
 for the total deficiency being 12,000 he was 
 unable to say. 
 
 The same Bukshee, of whom so much has 
 already been said, was informed by his spies, in 
 January, 1833, that the ex-Peishwah Bajee Rao 
 had hoarded a large amount of gold coin at 
 Bithore, on the right bank of the Ganges, not 
 far from Cawnpore. He accordingly assembled 
 a numerous band of Dacoits, who, after receiving 
 their instructions, broke up into small parties, 
 which concentrated at a particular spot at the 
 appointed time. They then boldly stormed the 
 ex-Peishwah's palace, wounded eighteen of his 
 servants, and carried off 50,000 rupees in silver 
 and 15,000 gold mohurs, each worth fifteen 
 rupees. As they approached their homes they 
 were met by their female relatives in triumphant 
 procession, to whom they made a largesse of 
 fifteen mohurs and twenty rupees to lay out in
 
 THE QUEEN OF OUDE. 
 
 sweetmeats for themselves and their children. 
 On the following day every man in the village 
 received five gold mohurs, seven rupees, and two 
 four-anna pieces (worth sixpence a piece). A 
 series of the most shocking debaucheries ensued, 
 which resulted in the death of Chunda, the 
 second leader of the gang. Six months after- 
 wards the Oude authorities surprised the colony, 
 when Bukshee and a hundred of his followers 
 were put to the sword, and nearly three hundred 
 taken prisoners ; a considerable quantity of plun- 
 der was seized at the same time. The Budhuks, 
 however, were soon released, and the king even 
 entertained the idea of restoring the recovered 
 property to its rightful owner. But the queen is 
 said to have suggested to his majesty " that if 
 he suffered the ex-Peishwah to recover his pro- 
 perty in this way, he would expose himself to a 
 demand from the honourable company for all 
 that had been taken by gangs from the same 
 colonies in their attacks upon numerous public 
 treasuries and private storehouses in all parts of 
 their dominions, and add to the grounds already 
 urged for depriving him of his country ; but 
 that if he allowed the property to be quietly, the 
 noise about it would soon cease, while he would 
 escape all further responsibility and odium."
 
 132 THE JHANSI AFFAIR. 
 
 Her majesty's advice was both too prudent and 
 too palatable to be lightly rejected, and the pro- 
 perty was, accordingly, " quietly absorbed." 
 
 A yet more dashing, though not equally pro- 
 fitable enterprise was that of the famous Budhuk 
 chief, Gujraj, in 1839. In the absence of the 
 Rajah of Jhansi, who had gone with nearly all 
 his armed retainers to a marriage festival in the 
 Duteea Rajah's family, Gujraj, with fifty fol- 
 lowers, scaled the wall of that town, attacked 
 the bankers' shops, killed one man and wounded 
 another, and finally got off unmolested with 
 4,000 worth of plunder. This leader was 
 warmly patronised by the Rajah of Nurwur, who 
 had always half a. dozen of his men to guard 
 him while he slept. 
 
 In Rajpootana, Gwalior, and Malwa the 
 Dacoits called themselves Bagrees, or Bagorras. 
 This clan numbered about 1,200 families, prin- 
 cipally settled, or rather bivouacked, on the 
 banks of the Chumbul. Of their proceedings 
 less is known than concerning those of their 
 Oude brethren. They were greatly favoured by 
 the native princes and powerful landholders, and 
 even when they were seized their punishment 
 seldom went further than a compulsory restitu- 
 tion of the stolen property. They rarely insulted
 
 BHART SING. 133 
 
 women beyond demanding of them their gold 
 and silver ornaments, and their reckless liberality 
 made them so popular with the poorer classes 
 that when some of the petty princes were urged 
 by the Indian Government to take steps to put 
 down Dacoitee within their respective territories, 
 they excused themselves on the ground that it 
 would cause a revolution. They were, besides, 
 much prized as auxiliaries in the state of per- 
 petual warfare that existed among these inde- 
 pendent princes. When the Alwar Chief, in 
 1783, renounced his allegiance to the Rajah of 
 Jyepore, his sword and shield was Kishna, 
 the great Bagree leader. At a later period, his 
 grandson, Bijee Sing, rendered an important 
 service to the lord of Alwar, for which he re- 
 ceived an estate worth 4,000 rupees a year, rent 
 free for ever. The commander of the Jyepoor 
 forces had reduced the Alwar Chief to great 
 straits, when the latter invoked the aid of Bhart 
 Sing and Bijee Sing, who came to his assistance 
 with 500 Bagrees, resolute and well armed men. 
 The Manukpoor Gotra estate was offered as a 
 reward to any one who would assassinate the 
 enemy's leader. The Dacoits accepted the ad- 
 venture. "Bhart Sing approached the tent at 
 night with only four or five followers, whom he
 
 134 MILITARY DUTIES. 
 
 left outside. He entered the tent, and found 
 the minister asleep and entirely defenceless. He 
 could not kill a man in that state, and taking up 
 his sword, shield, and turban, which lay by the 
 bedside, he returned with them to Bijee Sing, 
 saying that he could never stab a brave man in 
 that defenceless state. Bijee Sing then went, 
 entered the tent which was still without a sentry, 
 and stabbed the minister to the heart." 
 
 At another time the Rajah of Kerowlie engaged 
 a small band of Bagrees to assist him in besieg- 
 ing his cousin the Thakoor Luchmun Sing, in the 
 city of Ameergur. " The duty assigned to us" 
 said one of them " was to cut off all supplies, 
 and at night to attack the advanced batteries 
 thrown out by the garrison upon elevated places. 
 The commandant allowed us to select as many 
 as we wanted of his best soldiers on whose cou- 
 rage we could most rely, and we generally took 
 about the same number as we ourselves. We 
 then reconnoitred the strongest batteries, some- 
 times in the daytime in all manner of disguises, 
 sometimes at night creeping along the ground 
 like wild animals, till we got up close to them, 
 and saw all that we wanted to see. After we 
 had become well acquainted with the positions, 
 in three or four days we entered upon the attack.
 
 MILITARY DUTIES. 135 
 
 Well armed with swords, shields, and spears, and 
 some with muskets, we advanced close to the 
 ground till we got so near that we could rush in 
 upon them before the enemy could deliver their 
 fire. No man is permitted to carry a matchlock 
 on such occasions ; nor do we, indeed, ever carry 
 them in our enterprises, because the light of the 
 matches might warn people of our approach and 
 bring their fire upon us. When within the pro- 
 per distance the signal is given, and we start up, 
 and rush in, and kill every man we can. There 
 are always supporting parties of troops close be- 
 hind us, to follow up our attack and keep posses- 
 sion of the surprised batteries. In this way we 
 in one night surprised and took three of the 
 batteries which Luchmun Sing had placed upon 
 a hill near his fort. The night was dark, and we 
 attacked them all at the same time. We were 
 about forty Bagrees, and we had with us about 
 sixty select soldiers, and for each battery we had 
 from thirty to thirty-five men; but we knew 
 every inch of the ground we were to act upon, 
 and we could rely upon each other. We on such 
 occasions stop all supplies that they try to get 
 into the besieged fort. We watch for several 
 nights and permit the people to take in all they 
 please unmolested; and when we know all the
 
 136 PIOUS SCOUKDRELS. 
 
 roads by which the supplies go in, we attack 
 them all in one night, and are allowed to keep 
 what we get for ourselves." 
 , These Bagrees were as scrupulously devout in 
 their way as the Italian banditti are said to be, 
 whom they resembled in more than one point. 
 Ajeet Sing, the leader of a Chumbul gang, in 
 describing a Dacoitee that had yielded 40,000 
 rupees, went on to say : " Four thousand five 
 hundred rupees were taken to cover the expenses 
 of the road, to offer to the gods who had guided 
 us, and to give in charity to the poor. For 
 offerings to the gods we purchase goats, sweet 
 cakes, and spirits ; and having prepared the feast, 
 we throw a handful of the savoury food upon the 
 fire in the name of the gods who have most 
 assisted us ; but of the feast so consecrated, no 
 female but a virgin can partake. The offering is 
 made through the man who has successfully in- 
 voked the god on that particular occasion ; and 
 as my god had guided us on this, I was em- 
 ployed to prepare the feast for him, and to throw 
 the offering on the fire. The offering must be 
 taken up before the feast is touched, and put 
 upon the fire, and a little water must be sprin- 
 kled upon it. The savoury smell of the food as 
 it burns, reaches the nostrils of the god and
 
 AN ARISTOCRAT. 137 
 
 delights him. On this, as on most occasions, I 
 invoked the spirit of Gunga Sing, my grand- 
 father, and to him I made the offering. I con- 
 sidered him to be the greatest of all my ancestors 
 as a robber, and him I invoked on this trying 
 occasion. He never failed me when I invoked 
 him, and I had the greatest confidence in his aid. 
 The spirits of our ancestors can easily see whether 
 we shall succeed in what we are about to under- 
 take ; and when we are to succeed, they order us 
 on, and when we are not, they make signs to 
 us to desist." 
 
 The same Ajeet Sing described a singular 
 superstition that existed among the Bagrees. 
 One of his comrades happened to be severely 
 wounded on the wrist, and became so faint from 
 loss of blood that he was obliged to be carried. 
 As he passed under a Banyan tree, " the spirit of 
 the place fell upon him, and the four men who 
 carried him fell down with the shock." The 
 phenomenon was thus explained. " If any man 
 who has been wounded on the field of battle, or 
 in a Dacoitee, be taken bleeding to. a place 
 haunted by a spirit, the spirit gets very angry 
 and lays hold of him : he comes upon him in all 
 manner of shapes, sometimes in that of a buffalo, 
 at others in that of a woman, sometimes in the
 
 138 THE SPIRIT OF THE LIVER. 
 
 air above, and sometimes from the ground below; 
 but no one can see him except the wounded per- 
 son he is angry with and wants to punish. Upon 
 such a wounded person we always place a naked 
 sword, or some other sharp steel instrument, as 
 spirits are much afraid of weapons of this kind. 
 If there be any good conjuror at hand to charm 
 the spirits away from the person wounded, he 
 recovers, but nothing else can save him. When 
 the spirit seized Gheesa under the tree, we had 
 unfortunately no conjuror of this kind, and he, 
 poor fellow ! died in consequence. It was evi- 
 dent that a spirit had got hold of him, for he 
 could not keep his head upright ; it always fell 
 down upon his right or left shoulder as often as 
 we tried to put it right, and he complained much 
 of a pain in the region of the liver. We there- 
 fore concluded the spirit had broken his neck, 
 and was consuming his liver." 
 
 Dead bodies were usually burned, and the 
 ashes thrown into the sacred stream. Sometimes 
 this could not be done, as, for instance, when 
 one died upon an expedition, and there was no 
 time or means to make a funeral pyre. In such 
 cases the body would be hastily buried, or, as 
 once occurred, thrust into a porcupine's hole, 
 and some of the fingers cut off and carried home
 
 BENEFIT OF ANCESTRY. 139 
 
 to the sorrowing relatives. The part was then 
 burned for the whole, and the gang presented a 
 widow with money to distribute in alms, and 
 enabled her to make a handsome offering to the 
 family priest. Each colony had two or three 
 especial deities, who were the spirits of ancestors 
 distinguished in the " imperial business," as 
 they proudly designated their vocation. When 
 they desired to know who of their forefathers 
 was the most sympathetic, the most interested 
 in their welfare, they carefully noted the inco- 
 herent ravings of a delirious man, or one suffer- 
 ing from epilepsy. His rambling talk was attri- 
 buted to the temporary possession of his tongue 
 by some departed spirit. If there were any 
 doubt as to whose it was, the family priest, or a 
 relative of the sick man, would throw on the 
 ground a few grains of wheat, or coloured glass 
 beads, mentioning the name of some ancestor, 
 and at the same time crying odd or even. If 
 they cried correctly two or three times consecu- 
 tively, they had discovered the demigod. They 
 then sacrificed a goat, or some other animal, that 
 the pleasant odour of the culinary operations 
 might gratify the nostrils of the " daimon," 
 while the assembled friends loudly sang his 
 praises. If the patient began to amend during
 
 140 TAKING THE AUSPICES. 
 
 the sacrifice, it was deemed a full confirmation 
 of their belief, and a new " Lar familiaris," or 
 household god was added to the polytheism of 
 the colony. 
 
 The chief deities worshipped by the Dacoits 
 in common were Kalee or Davee, and Sooruj 
 Deota or Sun God. Before setting out upon 
 an expedition, they were always careful to take 
 the auspices; which was done in this manner. 
 Having procured several goats, the principal men 
 assembled, and while one of them held some 
 water in his mouth, the others prayed, " thou 
 Sun God ! And all ye other gods ! if we are 
 to succeed in the enterprise we are about to 
 undertake, we pray ye to cause these goats to 
 shake their bodies ! " If they do not shake 
 them after the gods have been thus duly invoked, 
 the enterprise must not be entered upon, and 
 the goats are not sacrificed. We then try the 
 auspices with the wheat ; we have a handful of 
 wheat, a large shell, a brass jug, cloth, and 
 frankincense (gogul), and scented wood (dhoojp) 
 to burn. We burn the frankincense and scented 
 wood, and blow the shell; and taking out a 
 pinch of the grains, put them on the cloth and 
 count them. If they come up odd, the omen 
 is favourable; if even, it is bad. After this,
 
 THE BOWREES. . 141 
 
 which we call the auspices of the Akut, we take 
 that of the Seearnee, or female jackal. If it 
 calls on the left, it is good ; if on the right, it is 
 bad. If the omens turn out favourable in all 
 three trials then we have no fear whatever ; but 
 if they are favourable in only one trial out of 
 the three, the enterprise must be given up." 
 
 The Bowrees appear to have been an off-set of 
 the Bagree Dacoits. They affected to be de- 
 scended from Rajpoots, but in truth very little is 
 known as to their origin. Their peculiar dialect, 
 however, was Guzerattee, though for generations 
 past they had not even visited that province, but 
 the circumstance is in favour of the theory that 
 traces them to Chittore, the capital of Mewar, 
 adjacent to Guzerat, whence they are believed to 
 have emigrated when Akhbar captured that city 
 in 1567. According to the deposition of Dhokul 
 Sing, made in 1839, the Bowrees were "not a 
 people of yesterday we are of ancient and 
 illustrious descent." Their ancestor, Pardhee, was 
 one of the companions of Ram in his expedition 
 for the recovery of Seeta. " If," said this ap- 
 prover, " if any prince happens to have an enemy 
 that he wishes to have made away with, he sends 
 for some of our tribe, and says, ' Go, and bring
 
 142 "ALL, HONOURABLE MEN?" 
 
 such or such an one's head.' We go, and steal 
 into his sleeping apartments, and take off the 
 person's head without any other person knowing 
 anything about it. If the prince wanted, not 
 the head of his enemy, but the gold tassels of 
 the bed on which he lay asleep, we brought them 
 to him. In consequence of our skill in these 
 matters, we were held everywhere in high esteem ; 
 and we served princes and had never occasion to 
 labour at tillage. We who came to the Delhi 
 territory (they were mostly located about Delhi, 
 Mozuffernugur, and Meerut), and were called 
 Bowrees, took to thieving. Princes still employed 
 us to take off the heads of their enemies, and 
 rob them of their valuables. At present the 
 Bowrees confine themselves almost exclusively to 
 robbing tents; they do not steal cattle, or cut 
 into ("dig through") houses ; but they will rob 
 a cart on the highway occasionally any other 
 trade than robbery they never take to." During 
 the absence of the men on some thriving expe- 
 dition, their wives and families were protected 
 and maintained by the Zemindar, on whose land 
 they resided, and who likewise was ever ready to 
 advance a small sum of money to enable his 
 respectable tenants to take to the road secure
 
 COGNATE TRIBES. 143 
 
 of repayment with usury. Before setting out 
 they sacrificed a goat to Davee, and offered burnt 
 offerings. 
 
 They also presented sweetmeats to the goddess, 
 and vowed no stinted quantity should they return 
 successful from their wanderings. To omens 
 they paid great regard. A couplet in familiar 
 use among them was to the effect, that " if the 
 cow and the deer cross from the left to the right, 
 and the snake from right to left, and the blue 
 jay from left to right, even the wealth that has 
 gone from thee shall come back." 
 
 Of the cognate tribes of Sanseea and Bereea 
 Dacoits some interesting details may be gathered 
 from the official reports of the Commissioners for 
 the suppression of Dacoitee. According to tra- 
 dition there lived a long time ago, in the province 
 or Mharwar, two uterine brothers named Sains 
 Mull and Mullanoor. Sains was very illiterate 
 and found it extremely difficult to earn a liveli- 
 hood by his own exertions. So he went to the 
 god Bhugvvan and represented his case. The 
 deity heard him with compassion and gave him 
 an order upon every village in the world for the 
 payment of half a crown from each. Returning 
 home the foolish fellow showed the paper to his 
 brother, who, moved by envy, tore it in pieces.
 
 144 MERCENARY MINSTRELS. 
 
 A fraternal squabble naturally ensued, which at 
 length terminated by both of them repairing to 
 Bughvvan. But the god declined to give a second 
 order, and advised Mullanoor to assume the life 
 of a mendicant, while his brother was to maintain 
 himself by singing and dancing. From the for- 
 mer were descended the Bereeas, who wandered 
 about the country, playing the dUol (a kind of 
 drum), begging and stealing : the men and 
 women living together in a promiscuous state of 
 extreme socialism. The descendents of the other 
 brother were called Sanseeas, also a roving tribe, 
 pretending to deal in cattle, goats, horses, cloth, 
 grain, or anything else that came into their hands. 
 They were generally in great request as Shuts, 
 or Bards at the marriage festivals of the Jats. 
 Their business was to trace the lineage of their 
 entertainer to the founders of the Jat family, and 
 celebrate the heroic virtues of his ancestors. If 
 the host proved a niggard, and refused to comply 
 with the exorbitant demands of these vagabond 
 minstrels, they would make an effigy of his father 
 and parade it up and down before his house ; 
 or even, in extreme cases, suspend it from a bam- 
 boo and fix it over his door, by which means he 
 temporarily lost caste, so that none of his neigh- 
 bours would drink or smoke with him. In former
 
 THE SANSEEAS. 145 
 
 times these Bhats almost lived upon the Jats, 
 each claiming, as his peculiar province, fifty or a 
 hundred families who, in succession, gave him 
 yearly one day's food and two shillings and six- 
 pence in money. The Sanseeas were divided 
 into two sub-clans, the Malhas and the Kalkas 
 the former being descended from Sains Mull's 
 son, and the latter from his grand-daughter by 
 an adopted son. A Malha could not marry a 
 Malha, nor a Kalka a Kalka, but the young men 
 of the one family chose their wives from among the 
 young women of the other. Originally the San- 
 seeas confined themselves to mendicancy, min- 
 strelsy, and cattle-lifting, but after a time, em- 
 boldened by poverty or impunity, they took to 
 Dacoitee, which they reduced to a regular system. 
 In their expeditions they left their old men and 
 women, and their children at home, under the 
 protection of a friendly Zemindar, but took with 
 them a few young women and such as had chil- 
 dren at the breast, with a view to avert suspicion. 
 When they arrived within two days' march of 
 the scene of their projected operations, the main 
 body halted, while the leader with a small party 
 of followers, male and female, went on to recon- 
 noitre and make the necessary preparations. 
 Their usual plan was to enter a liquor shop, and 
 
 G
 
 146 PRELIMINARY PREPARATIONS. 
 
 while purchasing some spirits, to ask the name of 
 some respectable money-changer or banker. They 
 thus learnt the address of the one who was 
 esteemed the wealthiest. On the following morn- 
 ing at early dawn they repaired to his. shop, 
 because at that hour he would be obliged te go 
 to his treasure-chest, whereas, later in the day he 
 would have a small supply of money beside him 
 for ordinary business. Having now ascertained 
 where his hoard was deposited, and such other 
 particulars as might be useful, they proceeded to 
 the bazar and procured a sufficient quantity of 
 bamboos for spear-staves. These they buried 
 near the town on their way back to the camp. 
 All things being ready they took some spirituous 
 liquor and spilling a little on the ground, prayed 
 aloud : " O Davee ! Mother ! If we succeed in 
 our business and get a good deal of booty, we 
 will make a grand pooja/t (religious festival) to 
 thee, and offer thee a cocoa-nut !" The goddess 
 being propitiated, the next step was to assign to 
 every man his particular post : some to act as 
 scouts, others to guard the avenues, others again 
 to rush into the house, while the Jemadar, or 
 leader, reserved to himself the task of breaking 
 open the money-chest with his trusty hatchet. 
 Early next morning they advanced to an easy
 
 A DACOITEE. 147 
 
 distance of the place, and some of them went for- 
 ward for the spear-staves buried on the previous 
 day. A Sanseea, of approved tact and intelli- 
 gence again entered the town to purchase oil for 
 the torches, and to make the final reconnoissance. 
 So soon as darkness descended, the gang threw 
 off their clothes and started at a rapid pace, 
 without once looking behind. If they had reason 
 to expect that the local police would be vigi- 
 lant a rare occurrence they concealed their 
 spears in a bundle of reeds or coarse straw, which 
 one of them carried on his head, followed by 
 another to personate the purchaser of the fodder. 
 On arriving in front of the shop, the bundle was 
 thrown on the ground, the cord hastily loosened, 
 the spears extracted and the torches lighted. Then 
 the Jemadar invoked the aid of his patron deity 
 and vowed a grateful offering if the chest should 
 at once yield to his blows. Raising their war- 
 cry Deen ! Deen ! they furiously assaulted the 
 bystanders, pelting them with stones, striking 
 them with their spears, and even wounding them 
 if obstinate. The Jemadar, the torch-bearers, and 
 four or five determined men, under favour of the 
 tumult, broke into the house, smashing doors and 
 all other impediments. In a few minutes after- 
 wards the house was abandoned by the unwel-
 
 148 RETURN HOMEWARDS. 
 
 come intruders, who moved off to the place of 
 rendezvous as fast as their weighty plunder would 
 permit them ; the Jemadar piously imploring 
 of Bhugwan to send their pursuers in a wrong 
 direction. Should one of the gang happen to 
 have been slain, his spirit was likewise invoked, 
 and spirituous liquor and a goat promised to his 
 manes. At every temple on the road, and at 
 every stream they had to cross, they threw down 
 a rupee or two to propitiate the genius of the 
 place. When within a couple of miles of their 
 encampment they called aloud Koo-Koo. If no 
 response were heard they pushed on rapidly, 
 occasionally imitating the call of the partridge : 
 when close at hand they uttered a hissing noise. 
 On their actual arrival they were certain to find 
 everything packed up and ready for a start. 
 Mounted on their rough, hardy little ponies they 
 would cover a distance of sixty to eighty miles in 
 twenty-four hours for two or three consecutive 
 days, until fairly beyond all danger of pursuit. 
 Any one was allowed to join a gang on payment 
 of a few rupees, though not to carry a spear or 
 enter the house until his coolness and courage 
 had been freely tested. If a Dacoit committed 
 homicide he was obliged to expiate his blood- 
 guiltiness by making apooja/i, at which he trusted
 
 RELIGIOUS CREED. 149 
 
 his comrades with half a crown's worth of liquor. 
 In the division of spoils the Jemadar claimed one- 
 tenth in addition to the repayment of his advances 
 towards fitting out the expedition. The balance 
 was then divided among the entire gang, the 
 leader again sharing, and provision was made for 
 the wounded and for the widows of those who 
 had fallen. 
 
 The religious creed of the Sanseeas was suffi- 
 ciently simple. " I believe" said one of them, 
 "in Ram (God), Bhowanee, and Sheik Fureed, 
 whose shrine is at Gierur, about eighteen miles 
 from Hingunghat. There we make offerings after 
 a successful expedition. Sheikh Fureed acquired 
 his saintship thus : he first performed a devo- 
 tional penance of twelve years, carrying about 
 with him a load of wood tied to his stomach, but 
 that was not accepted : next another, in which 
 he ate nothing but forest leaves for twelve years 
 not accepted : lastly, his third trip, he hung 
 himself up by the heels in iron chains in a Baolee 
 (a well) at Gierur ; then he was taken up and 
 asked what he wanted ; he said, to have every 
 request granted ; this was promised, and he dis- 
 appeared. Many people now pray to him for 
 luck." 
 
 Like the Thugs and the other Dacoits, the
 
 150 OMENS. 
 
 Sanseeas prided themselves on the exact observ- 
 ance of omens. They looked upon it as unfor- 
 tunate to hear the cry of the jackal or the cat, a 
 kite screaming while sitting on a tree, the bray- 
 ing of an ass, a flute, or the lamentation over the 
 dead. It was equally inauspicious to see a dog 
 run away with any one's food, a woman break a 
 water-pitcher, a hare, a wolf, a fox, a chamelion, 
 an oil-vender, a carpenter, a blacksmith, two cows 
 tied together, or a thief in custody. If they 
 encountered a corpse, or if a turban fell off, or 
 the Jemadar forgot to put some bread in his 
 waist-belt, or left his spear or axe behind him 
 the expedition must be deferred. But nothing 
 could be more promising than to meet a woman 
 selling milk, or any one carrying a bag of money, 
 or a basket of grain, or fish, or a pitcher of water. 
 Nor was it less encouraging to see a calf sucking, 
 or a pig, or a blue jay, or a marriage procession. 
 
 Their most binding form of attestation was by 
 means of a piece of new cotton cloth, exactly 
 1J- cubit square, in which was tied up half-a- 
 pound of coarse sugar. The accuser hung the 
 parcel upon the branch of a peepul tree, and 
 challenged the accused to touch it. If the latter 
 foreswore himself, he would sicken within three 
 days. Another ordeal was to tie seven peepul
 
 ORDEALS. 151 
 
 leaves, one over the other, on the palm of the 
 suspected person's hand, on which a red-hot iron 
 plate was then placed. Unless he carried this 
 seven paces without suffering any inconvenience 
 and deposited it upon seven thorns arranged to 
 receive it, he was pronounced guilty. At other 
 times a Punchayut, or Council of Elders, seated 
 themselves on the bank of a river, when one 
 of them stepped forward and fired two arrows 
 together from one bow, the one in the name of 
 Bhugwan, the other in that of the Punchayut. 
 The furthest one was then stuck upright in the 
 ground, while a man walked into the stream up 
 to his breast and planted a bamboo in the chan- 
 nel. The accused also entered the water and 
 laid hold of the pole. A member of the Punch- 
 ayut having clapped his hands seven times as a 
 signal for him to plunge his head under the 
 water, set off at the top of his speed for the 
 arrow, brought it back, and again clapped his 
 hands seven times. If the accused had kept his 
 head immersed until this second signal, he was 
 deemed innocent : otherwise, his guilt was held 
 to be satisfactorily proven. 
 
 When a male child was born, his head was 
 carefully shaved, with the exception of a small 
 spot dedicated to Bhugwan. This lock of hair
 
 152 FUNERAL RITES. 
 
 was all that he was permitted to wear until the 
 completion of his tenth or twelfth year, when it 
 also was shorn off by the barber, and his relatives 
 gave a grand entertainment to the tribe. Those 
 who died before this ceremony were simply buried 
 with the face downwards : the only solemnity 
 being the preparation of some sweet cakes, of 
 which three were given to a dog and the rest 
 consumed by relatives and friends. But those 
 who survived this important epoch of their lives 
 were, after death, placed on a funeral pyre. When 
 the fire was extinguished, the ashes were care- 
 fully examined and the bones buried on the spot. 
 Great feasting and jollity then followed, and the 
 spirit of the deceased, propitiated by an offering 
 of swines' flesh and spirits, was invoked to aid 
 and protect his family. 
 
 Matrimony was a matter of arrangement be- 
 tween the parents ; a Punchayut deciding the 
 amount of the dower to be given by the father 
 of the bridegroom to the bride's father. The 
 marriage ceremony consisted in a libation of 
 spirits to Bhugwan, the Supreme Being, and a 
 public declaration that the boy and girl were 
 henceforth man and wife ; the whole concluding 
 with a feast. If a man happened to be touched 
 by the petticoat of his mother-in-law, or daugh-
 
 THE BOLAIIUM DACOITEE. 153 
 
 ter-in-law, he lost caste, and therefore took care 
 never to go near them. The same result was 
 the consequence of his being struck by his wife's 
 petticoat in the course of connubial strife. By 
 thus losing caste he was incapacitated from joining 
 his tribe in worship, or in funeral rites, though 
 he was still allowed to eat and drink with them. 
 However, a handsome entertainment to his bro- 
 ther robbers and a humble offering to the gods 
 removed all impurities, social and religious. 
 
 The Bolarum Dacoitee committed in 1837 is 
 such an excellent illustration of the system 
 adopted by the Sanseeas that no apology need be 
 offered for the length of the narrative, as given 
 to Captain Malcolm ten years afterwards by one 
 of the Dacoits actually engaged in it. 
 
 "From this place (Sadaseopath) I and four 
 others came on to Hyderabad, where we looked 
 about us for five days, but finding nothing likely 
 to suit our purpose, we went to Bolarum, and took 
 up our quarters at a buneeya's (tradesman's) shop 
 in the village of Alwal, close to the cantonments. 
 In the cantonments we soon discovered a respec- 
 table looking shop, which appeared well suited 
 for a Dacoitee. Early one morning I took fifty 
 shuhr-chelnee rupees with me and went to the 
 shop, where I found the owner transacting busi- 
 
 G 2
 
 154 THE BOLARUM DACOITEE. 
 
 ness. I asked him to exchange the shuhr-chelnee 
 for bagh-chelnee rupees, and when I had agreed 
 to give him one pice discount on each rupee, he 
 went and unlocked one of two large -sized boxes, 
 which I saw in an inner room, and out of which 
 he took the money I required. I also noticed 
 some silver horse-furniture hanging upon a peg 
 on the wall, and in a niche a dagger and a pair 
 of pistols." " Having thus obtained all the in- 
 formation I required as to the exact spot where 
 the property was likely to be found, I next 
 examined the position of the different guards 
 likely to interrupt us in the act of breaking into 
 the house. I found that a guard of eighteen 
 men was stationed at the chowrie (police station) 
 some distance off, and that a sentry was posted 
 at night at a place where four streets met, close 
 to the shop I had reconnoitred. Prom the latter 
 I feared no opposition, as he could easily be over- 
 powered, and we calculated upon breaking into 
 the house before the chowrie-guard could turn 
 out and come to the rescue of the banker." 
 
 " I then returned to my comrades, with whom 
 I remained for two days, making ourselves ac- 
 quainted with all the localities about the place, the 
 roads leading from it, and in fact with everything 
 that might be of use to us in the enterprise we
 
 THE BOLARUM DACOITEE. 155 
 
 were about to undertake. Among other things, 
 we learnt that after gun-fire, or eight o'clock, the 
 guard had orders to stop all parties entering the 
 cantonments, and we therefore determined to 
 commence operations before that hour." 
 
 " We then returned to Sadaseopath (forty miles 
 distant), and on relating the result of our pro- 
 ceedings to the gang, it was determined to risk 
 a Dacoitee on the Sowar's house at Bolarum. 
 Our next proceeding was to convey as secretly 
 as possible to the vicinity of that place sufficient 
 arms and axes to answer our purpose ; these 
 were made up into bundles and entrusted to 
 four men, who proceeded in the night time to 
 Puttuncherroo, and on the following night, a cou- 
 ple of hours before daybreak, we reached a small 
 nullah (ravine) behind the mosque near Bolarum, 
 where the axes and spears were carefully buried 
 in the sand. The rest of our party in the mean- 
 time struck their camp, and, leaving the high 
 road, made to the village of Tillapoor, about 
 eight or nine miles from the fort of Golcondah." 
 
 "The gang chosen for the Dacoitee consisted 
 of twenty-four able men, under Rungelah Jem- 
 adar and myself, and left Tillapoor about ten 
 o'clock in the forenoon, and, in small parties of 
 two and three, reached at twilight the spot where
 
 156 THE BOLARUM DACOITEE. 
 
 our arms were concealed. We then procured 
 some oil from the shop in the cantonments, and, 
 about half-past seven or nearly eight o'clock, we 
 proceeded in straggling order towards the shop 
 about to be attacked, and which we reached 
 without being challenged by any one. The sentry 
 posted near the shop we were about to attack did 
 not appear to suspect or notice us ; and the 
 moment our mitssal (torch) was lighted, he was 
 speared by Baraham Shah and Kistniah, while 
 others commenced breaking in the doors of the 
 inner room, the outer partition of the shop having 
 been found open. Three bankers, whom we 
 found writing their accounts in the outer shop, 
 rushed into the house and disappeared. The 
 lock of the door yielded to one blow from the 
 axe of Rungelah, and, on throwing down the 
 planks of which it was formed, we found the box 
 which I had seen on a former occasion, unlocked 
 and open. Out of this we took sixteen bags full 
 of money, leaving four, which we were obliged to 
 relinquish, as we were pressed for time, and had 
 not sufficient men at hand to remove them. The 
 whole place now was in a state of commotion and 
 uproar ; and, as we drew off as fast as we could, 
 we were followed by a crowd of camp-followers 
 and Sipahees, to the place where a number of
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF SUPPRESSION. 157 
 
 bullocks were picketed. We here struck into the 
 paddy (rice) fields, and across these our pursuers 
 did not attempt to follow us. A short distance 
 from Bolarum, two of the bags -broke, and the 
 money fell to the ground ; and as it was dark, 
 and we had no time to search for it, we lost 
 nearly 1,500 rupees." Nevertheless, they got 
 off with 14,500 rupees, and with silver horse- 
 furniture valued at 15 more. 
 
 The impossibility of guarding against these 
 organized attacks by large bodies of armed men, 
 through the means of the ordinary police, induced 
 Lord Auckland in 1838 to appoint Captain Slee- 
 man commissioner for the suppression of Dacoitee, 
 in addition to his duties as General Superinten- 
 dent of measures for the suppression of Thuggee. 
 The task was a difficult one. Not only were the 
 Dacoits protected and screened by the native 
 princes, land owners, and magistrates their own 
 numbers and determination rendered their appre- 
 hension a matter of some danger. It was after- 
 wards ascertained that in 1839 there were no 
 fewer than seventy-two leaders south of the 
 Jumna who could gather together 1,625 fol- 
 lowers; and to the north of that river forty-six 
 leaders, supported by 1,445 men. In the Oude 
 jungles were many powerful colonies, who were
 
 158 PROGRESS OF SUPPRESSION. 
 
 usually warned by friendly Zemindars of the 
 approach of danger, and thus enabled to flee to 
 less accessible fastnesses. On one occasion 1,500 
 of them escaped into Nepaul where they tempo- 
 rarily dispersed, to meet again at a given rendez- 
 vous. The Commissioner himself aptly compared 
 their colonies to a ball of quicksilver, which, if 
 pressed by the finger, will divide into many 
 smaller globules, all certain to come together 
 again and cohere as firmly as before. However, 
 the constant alarms to which they were now 
 subjected, compelled them to conceal themselves 
 in such unhealthy spots that they were decimated 
 by disease. In the Goruckpore district a gang, 
 consisting of ninety-four men and 280 women 
 and children, suffered so much from this cause 
 that they voluntarily surrendered themselves. 
 Others were hunted down from one district to 
 another, until in despair they yielded themselves 
 prisoners, or endeavoured to abandon their illegal 
 vocation and settle down to agricultural pursuits. 
 Many of the prisoners, being conditionally par- 
 doned, were admitted into the police force, where 
 they distinguished themselves by their courage 
 and intelligence. It is a remarkable trait in the 
 character of the Dacoits that they rarely for- 
 feited their word. If once they pledged them-
 
 ATTRACTIONS OF DACOITEE. 159 
 
 selves not to revert to their former evil habits, 
 there was little danger of a relapse. An experi- 
 mental colony was formed of the approvers and 
 their families near Moradabad, at a place called, 
 de nomine facti, Buddukabad. The result has 
 been satisfactory, though the Dacoits usually 
 complained of the difficulty of confining their 
 expenditure to the comparatively small means 
 furnished by honest industry. A Budduk, they 
 would say, cannot live on eight rupees a month 
 (three rupees being the wages of an ordinary 
 labourer) : he requires at least two rupees a day, 
 because he eats meat and takes large quantities 
 of ghee and rice, and loves liquor, and is addicted 
 to polygamy. One of them, who had been ten 
 years in prison, being asked by Capt. Ramsay 
 if, in the event of his liberation, he would promise 
 to amend his life, shook his head and answered 
 with a merry laugh : " No, no, that would never 
 do. Why should I become an honest man work 
 hard all day in the sun, rain, and all weathers, 
 and earn what ? Some five or six pice a day ! 
 We Dacoits lead very comfortable and agreeable 
 lives. When from home, which is generally only 
 during the cold season, we march some fourteen 
 or sixteen miles a-day 1 for, perhaps, a couple of 
 months, or say four, at the outside commit a
 
 160 DIFFICULTY OF REPENTANCE. 
 
 Dacoitee and bring home money sufficient to 
 keep us comfortable for a year, or perhaps two. 
 When at home we amuse ourselves by shooting, 
 or visiting our friends, or in any way most 
 agreeable eat when we please, and sleep when 
 we please can, what you call an honest man, 
 do that?" 
 
 Another who had passed a like period within 
 the gaol at Lucknow, returned to Dacoitee a few- 
 months after his release. " I was then young," 
 said he, " and in high spirits I had been con- 
 fined with many other old Dacoits and in gaol 
 I used to hear them talking of their excursions, 
 how they got 50,000 rupees here and 20,000 
 rupees there ; and I used to long for my release, 
 that I might go on Dacoitee and enjoy myself." 
 The confessions of both these men would be 
 readily endorsed by many inmates of our own 
 prisons. Evil associations and the charms of a 
 contraband career are equally potent in Europe 
 and in Asia. But among the natives of India 
 the profession of a Dacoit was not regarded as 
 one of shame and disgrace. Indeed, even the 
 Commissioner avowed he could see little differ- 
 ence, ethically, between expeditions in quest of 
 plunder, and those for the purpose of conquest ; 
 it was a question of degree, not of principle.
 
 AN IMPERIAL BUSINESS. 161 
 
 They themselves gloried in their calling. "Ours," 
 they said, " has been a Padshahee Kam (an im- 
 perial business) ; we have attached and seized 
 boldly the thousands and hundreds of thousands 
 that we have freely and nobly spent : we have 
 been all our lives wallowing in wealth and bask- 
 ing in freedom, and find it hard to manage with 
 a few copper pice a day we get from you." So 
 energetic, however, and persevering were the 
 measures adopted for the suppression of this 
 " Padshahee Kam" that within a very few years 
 after their inauguration, there existed in the Upper 
 Provinces scarcely even the nucleus of a gang. 
 The few who still remained at liberty were known 
 by name and personal appearance, and only 
 escaped apprehension by leading simple and in- 
 offensive lives, gaining their daily bread by their 
 daily labour. 
 
 The task of suppression in the Lower Pro- 
 vinces has been attended with so many peculiar 
 difficulties, from the natural configuration of the 
 country, that Dacoitee can hardly yet be said to 
 be extinguished. But its days are numbered, 
 and a marked diminution of cases is observable 
 every year. The apathy of their victims has, un- 
 doubtedly, been one great cause of the impunity 
 so long enjoyed by these daring marauders.
 
 162 RELUCTANCE TO PROSECUTE. 
 
 This reluctance to prosecute, though partly owing 
 to a well founded dread of incurring the ven- 
 geance of the comrades of convicted Dacoits, is 
 chiefly attributable to the repugnance felt by all 
 respectable natives to appear in Court even as 
 complainants. The tedious formalities of legal 
 proceedings appear to them in the light of studied 
 annoyances, and their dignity is offended by the 
 distrust with which their statements are neces- 
 sarily received. Perhaps, the ancient mode of 
 administering justice would be, after all, the most 
 efficacious, and certainly most in accordance with 
 the native character. The elders of the town, or 
 village, seated at the gate, or beneath the grateful 
 shade of stately trees, and presided over by an 
 English gentleman conversant with their habits 
 and language, and possessed of tact, patience, and 
 good sense, would probably dispense more even- 
 handed justice than is obtained by all the costly 
 paraphernalia of courts of law founded on a totally 
 different phase of civilization. Be this as it may, 
 enough has now been said to disprove the vulgar 
 allegation of indifference to the welfare of their 
 fellow subjects so flippantly and frequently urged 
 against the Government of the East India Com- 
 pany. And these are only two out of many in- 
 stances that might be adduced to show that their
 
 A GRATEFUL RECOMPENCE. 163 
 
 administration has been one of continued and 
 consistent progress. It is reserved for posterity 
 to admire the gratitude that seeks to reward the 
 annexation and improvement of a vast empire by 
 maligning the motives of those to whom this 
 country is indebted for the brightest gem in the 
 imperial crown, vilipending their services, and 
 depriving them of power and patronage.
 
 SOME curious and interesting information has 
 been furnished by Captain C. Barr, of the Bom- 
 bay Native Infantry, with regard to the Mangs, 
 or Kholapore Dacoits. It is needless to observe, 
 that Kholapore was one of the early divisions of 
 the Mahratta empire, or that it separated from 
 the main body in 1729, under the auspices of 
 one of the younger branches of Sivajee's family. 
 The Mangs occupied the very lowest grade in the 
 ladder of society or, rather, they were looked 
 upon as outcasts, and quite beyond the pale of 
 society. They harboured in wilds and forests, 
 and lived upon carrion, roots, and wild fruits. 
 Their real occupation, however, was that of border 
 robbers ; and yet it was a source of pride among 
 them that their wives should remain ignorant of 
 the nature of their pursuits. They never robbed 
 or defrauded one another ; they even believed 
 that the spoliation of " the Gentiles " necessitated 
 an expiation, which usually assumed the form of 
 a gift of a pair of shoes to a Brahman, and alms
 
 THE NAICK. 165 
 
 
 
 to the poor. Experience had taught them the 
 expediency of employing a peculiar dialect per- 
 haps it was the original language of their race. 
 Their leader, or headman, was called the Na'ik, 
 and was selected by the majority of votes for his 
 skill in planning an expedition, his bravery in 
 carrying it out, and his integrity in the division of 
 the spoils. The office was, consequently, not he- 
 reditary ; but they so far believed in the efficacy 
 of blood, as to allow considerable weight for a 
 father's merits. The Na'ik's person and property 
 were alike inviolable. On all ceremonial occasions 
 his precedence was allowed; in disputes, his 
 decision was final ; and on him devolved the duty 
 of laying out plans for robberies. To every band 
 was attached an informer, who was also the 
 receiver of the stolen goods. These scoundrels ge- 
 nerally pretended to be, and perhaps were, bangle- 
 sellers, dealers in perfume, goldsmiths, jewellers, 
 &c., &c. In this capacity they were admitted into 
 women's apartments, and so enabled to form a 
 correct notion of the topography of a house, and 
 a shrewd guess as to the wealth of its inmates. 
 Their mode of conducting a Dacoitee was in all 
 respects similar to those already described. The 
 only persons exempt from their depredations were 
 bangle-sellers and agricultural labourers, who, in
 
 166 SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 return, afforded them refuge and hospitality in 
 the hour of need. After a successful foray, each 
 of the gang contributed one-fourth of his share to 
 the Na'ik, towards the common fund for defraying 
 the expenses of preparation, absolution, and feasts 
 of triumph. The informer was not entitled to 
 any specific sum ; but, as he enjoyed the privi- 
 lege of pre-emption of the booty, his interests are 
 not likely to have been overlooked. 
 
 Like all barbarous tribes, and all persons ad- 
 dicted to criminal practices, the Mangs were 
 extremely superstitious. They never, for instance, 
 set out upon an expedition on a Friday. 
 The new-born child was bathed in a spot 
 previously prepared for the purpose, and bap- 
 tized by the Brahman, in the name of the deity 
 presiding over that particular hour. In the 
 family, however, and throughout life, the neophyte 
 sinner was known by some household name. 
 Danger was encountered at an early period of 
 life. The mother and another woman stood on 
 opposite sides of the cradle, and the former tossed 
 her child to the other, commending it to the 
 mercy of Jee Gopal, and waited to receive it back 
 in like manner, in the name of Jee Govind. 
 
 The Mangs usually married young in life. If 
 a girl happened to hang heavy on hand, she was
 
 TEST OF A SON-IN-LAW. 167 
 
 married, at the age of puberty, to the deity. In 
 other words, she was attached as a prostitute to 
 the temple of the god Khundoba, or the goddess 
 Yellania. Those belonging to the service of the 
 latter were wont, in the month of February, to 
 parade the streets in a state of utter nudity. 
 It was customary, previous to a secular marriage, 
 for the parents of the bridegroom to ask for the 
 hand of the bride. A test of the aspirant's 
 address was then demanded. In one instance, 
 the father of the maiden filled a silver vessel 
 with water up to the brim after carefully sus- 
 pending it over his head in bed, so that the 
 slightest touch would be certain to splash the 
 water on to his face. The suitor, however, was 
 not daunted by the difficulty of the enterprise. 
 Procuring some dry porous earth, he employed 
 it as a sponge, carefully applying it to the surface 
 of the water. Having thus reduced the level of the 
 surface, he cut the strings, carried off the vessel, 
 and next morning claimed his bride. The mar- 
 riage ceremonies were by no means interesting, 
 except when a bachelor wooed a widow. In 
 this case he was first united to the asclepias 
 gigantea, which was immediately transplanted. 
 Withering away and dying, it left him at liberty 
 to marry the charming widow. If a lady sur-
 
 168 A WIDOW'S SUBSTITUTE. 
 
 vived the sorrow caused by the death of two or 
 three husbands, she could not again enter the 
 holy state unless she consented to be married 
 with a fowl under her armpit the unfortunate 
 bird being afterwards killed to appease the manes 
 of her former consorts. 
 
 Each family had its household god, but all 
 agreed in the common worship of Davee, as the 
 tutelar deity of the tribe. Their chief festival 
 was the Dusserah, on which day they usually set 
 out on their expeditions, armed with sword and 
 shield, and iron crowbar. Unhappily, the Mangs 
 must be spoken of in the past tense. The ser- 
 vants of the East India Company, actuated, no 
 doubt, by mercenary motives, have put an end 
 to their depredations and compelled them to 
 resort to honest and common-place industry. 
 Thus are sentimentality and romance crushed at 
 the India House.
 
 IN the year 1851 it was accidentally discovered 
 that the British territories had long been infested 
 with gangs of thieves from the Banpoor States. 
 These Sunoreahs, or Oothaeegeerahs, who ex- 
 tended their depredations into the very heart of 
 Calcutta, had carried on their vocation with im- 
 punity for many generations. Their existence 
 was well known, however, to the native authori- 
 ties, from whom they received protection and 
 encouragement. The head man of each village 
 was ex officio chief of the Sunoreahs, and kept a 
 registry of the various " nals," or gangs under 
 his own jurisdiction usually from seven to ten 
 in number. In Tehree they were estimated at 
 4,000, in Banpoor at 300, and in Dutteeah also 
 at 300. There were in all twelve villages occupied 
 by them, presided over by a Government officer, 
 whose duty it was to act as umpire in all dis- 
 putes arising out of the division of spoils. 
 
 Shortly after the Dusserah festival the chiefs 
 
 H
 
 170 THE MOOKEEA. 
 
 of each village repaired to their favourite Brah- 
 man priest to ascertain in what direction they 
 were to bend their steps. This having been duly 
 indicated, together with the auspicious day and 
 hour, they started off in a body to some place of 
 considerable note. Here the gang, consisting, 
 probably, of fifty or sixty men, was subdivided 
 into parties of ten or twelve, and detached to 
 adjacent towns and villages, while the leader, 
 with a strong party, remained at the point of 
 separation. Hither they all returned in the 
 month of July ; and, if their joint exertions had 
 produced fifty or sixty rupees for each man, they 
 then hastened home to prepare their fields for 
 the summer crop. But should fortune have 
 proved unfavourable they again took to the road, 
 while their leader alone hastened back to the 
 village laden with plunder for their respective 
 families. The office of Mookeea, or leader, was 
 hereditary, and, in default of male issue, de- 
 scended to females. If among the booty there 
 happened to be any object of peculiar elegance 
 or value, it was ceremoniously presented to the 
 chief of the state. Thus, the head of the Tehree 
 Government acknowledged a present of two 
 valuable pearl nose ornaments, by bestowing on 
 the thief a grant of land, rent free, in perpetuity;
 
 DEPOTS. 171 
 
 and the Rajah of Banpore was known to have 
 accepted two handsome watches and a pair of 
 arm ornaments. There was no mystery in the 
 disposal of their stolen goods. These were openly 
 sold in the market places and bazaars at half 
 their value, and, during the absence of the 
 Sunoreahs on their thieving expeditions, the 
 village money-lender unhesitatingly supplied their 
 families with whatever they might require. Of 
 course, care was taken never to commit any 
 depredations within the territories of their pro- 
 tectors and patrons. 
 
 The Sunoreahs had " chounees," or depots in 
 all parts of India, where they could always find 
 a ready sale for their effects. Near Calcutta 
 their head quarters were at the serai of the 
 Rajah of Burdwan, whose ostentatious hospitality 
 oftentimes maintained as many as 200 of them. 
 Though usually possessed of ample means, they 
 never scrupled to accept alms with the Byragees, 
 or religious mendicants at Burdwan. No matter 
 how widely they might have roamed from their 
 native villages, they always found ready pur- 
 chasers for their pilferings, and they themselves 
 easily recognised each other by means of a pecu- 
 liar " bolee," or slang. 
 
 When their proceedings first became known to
 
 172 ATTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. 
 
 Major P. Harris, Superintendent of Chundeyree, 
 that officer immediately addressed the Rajah of 
 Banpoor on the subject, and elicited from him 
 a most naive and characteristic reply, the follow- 
 ing extract from which well exemplifies the native 
 notions of morality and good government : 
 
 " I have to state that from former times these 
 people following their profession, have resided in 
 my territory and in the states of other native 
 princes ; and they have always followed this call- 
 ing, but no former kings, or princes or authority 
 have ever forbidden the practice ; therefore these 
 people for generations have resided in my terri- 
 tory and the states of other princes ; proceeding 
 to distant districts, to follow their occupation, 
 robbing by day for a livelihood for themselves 
 and families, both cash, and any other property 
 they could lay hands on. In consequence of 
 these people stealing by day only, and that they 
 do not take life, or distress any person, by per- 
 sonal ill-usage, and that they do not break into 
 houses, by digging wells or breaking door-locks, 
 but simply by their smartness manage to abstract 
 property ; owing to such trifling thefts I looked 
 on their proceedings as petty thefts, and have 
 not interfered with them. As many States as 
 there may be in India, under the protection of
 
 TRIFLING THIEVES. 173 
 
 the British Government, there is not one in which 
 these people are not to be found, and it is possi- 
 ble that in all other States who protect them, the 
 same system is pursued towards them as in my 
 district ; and besides, these people thieving only 
 by day, the police officers in the British territories 
 are not expected to exert themselves, the loss 
 having occurred simply through the owner's 
 negligence. Owing to this circumstance, your 
 friend looking on their transgressions as trifling, 
 I have not caused my police to interfere with 
 them. The British Government, who issue orders 
 to all the native powers in India, have never 
 directed the system of Sunoreahs to be stopped. 
 From this I conclude that their offence is looked 
 upon by the British Government, as trifling ; and 
 probably this is the reason that neither the British 
 Government, nor any other authority, have ever 
 directed me to stop their calling; and on this 
 account, from property that they have brought 
 home, and I have heard that it suited me, or that 
 they themselves, considering the article to be a 
 curiosity from a distant province, have presented 
 to me through my servants ; thus, viewing the 
 offence as trifling, that there was no owner to 
 the property, I received it from them, and gave 
 them a trifle in return."
 
 LONDON : 
 LEWIS AND SON, HUNTERS, 21, FINCH LANE, COENRILL.
 
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