-"the first expedition they neither see nor hear any thing of murder. They know not our trade; they get presents, purchased out of their share, and become fond of the wandering life, as they are always mounted upon ponies. Before the end of the journey they always know that we rob: the next expedition they suspect that we commit murder, and some of them even know it; and in the third expedition they see all. "Q. Do they not become frightened?

"A. Not after the first expedition."

But some extraordinary cases to the contrary have occurred.

"About twelve years ago, my cousin Aman Subadur took out with us my cousin Kuhora, a lad of fourteen, for the first time. He was mounted on a pretty pony, and Hursooka, an adopted son of Aman's, was appointed to take charge of the boy.

"We fell in with five Sikhs, and when we set out before daylight in the morning, Hursooka, who had been already on three expeditions, was ordered to take the bridle and keep the boy in the rear out of sight and hearing. The boy got alarmed and impatient; got away from Hursooka, and gallopped up at the instant the signal for murder was given. He heard the screams of the men, and saw them all strangled. He was seized with a trembling, and fell from his pony; he became immediately delirious; was dreadfully alarmed at the turbans of the murdered men and when any one touched him or spoke to him, talked about the murders, and screamed exactly like a boy talks in his sleep; and trembled violently if any one touched or spoke to him. We could not get him on, after burying the bodies. Aman and I, and a few others, sat by him while the gang went on: we were very fond of him, and tried all we could to tranquillize him; but he never recovered his senses, and before evening he died. I have seen many instances of feelings greatly shocked at the sight of the first murder, but never one so strong as this. Kuhora was a very fine boy, and Hursooka took his death much to heart, and turned religious mendicant: he is now at some temple on the bank of the Nerbudda river."--(See pp. 148, 149.)

A discovery has been more recently made of an extensive combination of river Thugs on the Ganges. Their plan of operation is to have many boats at various landing-places on the river, which are kept extremely neat and inviting for travellers. From fourteen to sixteen Thugs are on board each boat, of whom some are disguised as, and perform the work of, ordinary boatmen; while the others assume the appearance of well-drest, respectable travellers, who profess to be either going or returning from pilgrimage to Benares, or some of the holy places on the river. The inveiglers are sent out on the roads which lead from or run parallel to it, where they fall in with parties whose destination is either up or down the stream. Having acquired the necessary information, the inveiglers pretend to be bound to the same place; talk of the

Sikhs or Singhs, the nation inhabiting the Punjab.

delay and fatigue of a land journey, and propose to proceed by water. The travellers are then taken to the spot where one of the Thug boats is waiting, and, after some bargaining, are taken on board. Often, to lull suspicion, much difficulty is made about receiving them; the captain of the boat objects on the pretence of having been already hired by others; and the Thugs, who figure as passengers, declare that there is no room to spare. When at length the travellers are received, the boat pushes off, the Thugs familiarly chatting with them: all being at length prepared and no other boat near, the steersman above gives the signal by three taps, and the victims are strangled. The bodies are then stripped and thrown into the river.

The difficulty of eradicating the river Thugghee will be far greater than has been found in dealing with this crime by land, on account of circumstantial evidence not being forthcoming. In the land Thugghee, the depositions of the approvers are corroborated by digging up the bodies, hundreds of which have been brought to light; but this resource fails in the river Thugghee, where the bodies are carried away by the stream; and there the sight of corpses floating excites no observation, because thousands of the poorer classes, not being able to afford the expense of burning their dead, merely throw them into the river. Plundered property also is sometimes found on the land Thugs, or proved to have been in their possession; but the custom houses on the river were so numerous, and the fear of search so great,* that the miscreants there never retained about them any article at all likely to lead to suspicion. Nevertheless, by a proper system of Thug police, this, as well as Thugghee by land, will be eradicated. The superstition of the Thugs themselves will assist in this end; as many of them now believe that, owing to their neglect of the rites and ceremonies prescribed by their deity, she has ordained that the British Government shall eradicate Thugghee. They are appalled at the numbers that have been hanged or transported; and of late no sooner is a gang arrested on suspicion than some of them offer to become approvers to save themselves; so much so, that many more approvers can be obtained than are required. Our readers will almost deem it impossible that such organized gangs of murderers, amounting to several thousands, could carry on their villainy almost undiscovered so long;-for two or three centuries at least. The difficulty, however, nearly vanishes when we reflect on the mode of travelling in India, described at the head of this article, and on the peculiar system of the Thugs. In the first place they seldom murder near their own homes: but

These custom houses have since been abolished to the great benefit of trade.

even this would be a point of little importance when we consider, secondly, that travellers, and generally from a distant part of the country, are their victims: thirdly, that they invariably murder before they rob.

"It is a maxim with these assassins that 'dead men tell no tales,' and upon this maxim they invariably act. They permit no living witness to their crimes to escape, and therefore never attempt the murder of any party, until they can feel secure of being able to murder the whole. They will travel with a party of unsuspecting travellers for days, and even weeks together; eat with them, sleep with them; attend worship with them at the holy shrines on the road; and live with them on the closest terms of intimacy, till they find time and place suitable for the murder of the whole." (p. 53.)

Lastly, they avoid exciting suspicion by being careful to leave behind them no marks even of a crime having been committed. The travellers who become their victims were men seeking for service; or returning home with the savings of years; merchants going on business to a distant town; or others journeying either from business or pleasure. They might be murdered in the morning twilight within half a mile of the serai or village in which they had passed the night; while the Thugs who watched and had marked them for their prey were encamped at a short distance. No one missed them: the people of the serai or village which they had left took it for granted that they had proceeded on their way; and those of the next halting-place in advance were ignorant of their approach. It is not till days, weeks, months, or even years had passed away that their relations, hearing nothing of their arrival at their intended destinations, make inquiries, and it is seldom that they can ascertain even the place about which the travellers were probably murdered. Unless the inquiry be made within a short time, and there may have been something in the appearance or equipage of the travellers to attract attention, the villagers and others who reside along the road would not recollect whether those inquired for had passed or not. But even supposing (as has occasionally occurred) that the relations succeed in tracing the travellers to a certain spot, beyond which all clue is lost; this gives a moral certainty that they have been murdered at no great distance, that is, within a few miles adjacent.-But how, within such a space, are they to pitch upon the spot where the bodies are interred ?—and more,-where are the murderers? probably hundreds of miles away; and even should they by chance be again encamped on the very spot, what means are there of detection? In ordinary thefts, and by local thieves, the tracing and discovery of stolen property affords a very powerful means of bringing the matter home to the perpetrators; but this

VOL. XXI. NO. XLI.

C

has but little effect against Thugs. They contrive to obtain full knowledge of the persons, residence, and destination of those they murder, and are careful not to dispose of any recognizable articles where they might by chance be perceived. Such as have any peculiar marks are destroyed.

Considering all these circumstances, it is not astonishing that so little has been done towards suppressing this association of miscreants. The fact is, that until this five or six years, no one had any correct notion of its extent: all that was known up to that period was, that travellers were occasionally enticed and murdered by people called Thugs, who assumed the garb of inoffensive way-farers. By some extraordinary chance, such as one of the victims having made his escape, or some of the stolen property being unexpectedly recognized, or one of the gang having turned informer in consequence of a quarrel for the division of the spoil, a few of these miscreants were occasionally discovered and punished. Even had the various governments into which India is divided, been aware of the extent of the evil and anxious to destroy it, they would have been unable to do so: insulated efforts would have produced little or no benefit; the jealousies which existed would have prevented their combining for the purpose; and for a century and half or more, there has not existed any paramount power which could devise a general plan of operations, and compel the rest to submit to it.

Other causes are not wanting which tended to prevent any attempts being made, even in detail, to arrest the proceedings of the different gangs of Thugs. Some of the native chiefs knowingly harboured and protected them as a source of revenue from which they derived considerable sums annually, out of the profits of their plunder. The Thugs lived in villages like other people, and generally cultivated small portions of ground to maintain appearances so that the native chiefs, if questioned, pretended of course to know nothing of their real character; asserting that these people lived, cultivated, and paid their rent like others, and accounting for the absence of most of the male population during several months, by saying that they went for service and returned periodically with the amount of their earnings. In other cases, native chiefs who would have readily punished a gang of thieves when apprehended, were deterred from doing so by a superstitious dread. The Thugs always endeavoured to impress the belief that they were acting according to the injunctions of their deity Bowanee, and that all who opposed them would feel the vengeance of their goddess. The few instances in which Thugs were put to death by native chiefs were generally cases of personal vengeance, because these villains had murdered some relation

or dependant of the chief, and were by good fortune apprehended immediately, "in the red-hand." It has unfortunately in several instances occurred that after punishing Thugs, the chief himself, his son, or some relation has died within a short time: whether some of the Thug fraternity took secret means to ensure such an occurrence, cannot be ascertained; but they seized all such opportunities to substantiate the belief which they endeavoured to inculcate. In general, a native chief would merely extort a sum of money from the Thugs, or keep them in confinement for a time, after which they were released; and not unfrequently they were discharged at once. Their own superstition however, as has just been explained, is now beginning to operate against them.

The following will show what extraordinary proceedings occur sometimes in India. A dispatch of dollars to the value of four thousand pounds sterling, made on account of a rich merchant of Indoor, Dhun Raj, was carried off by Thugs, who murdered the attendant guards, near a place called Burwaha Ghaut, on the Nerbudda. He contrived to ascertain who the Thugs were, and, being a man of considerable influence, to occasion their arrest and detention in gaol by the native chiefs in whose jurisdiction they lived after some time an agreement was made with the Thugs to release them if they would refund the money or its

amount.

"Some paid out of the fruits of former expeditions, others borrowed in anticipation of future success; and those who had neither money nor credit, pledged themselves to pay part of their future earnings."-p.190.

The Thugs durst not break their engagements for fear of Dhun Raj, and after some time he realized the full sum of which he had been plundered. Finding, however, that he could turn his power and influence to so good an account, he began to assume the character of a patron of Thugs he had always some of the principal leaders about his person, and yearly exacted large sums of money from the principal gangs in return for his protection, threatening those who refused with arrest and punishment and such was his influence, that he could procure the release of a gang from almost any gaol in central India.

Though the British Indian government was free from the superstitions or the corruption which prevented the native chiefs from punishing Thugs, it was not the less hampered by prejudices of its own, and by real difficulties which lay in the way of the object desired. Regarding the prejudices alluded to, it is necessary to explain a little of the secret springs that actuated the government. The members at the head of the administration have always had a tolerably correct idea of the oppressive nature