In common with brigands of all nationalities, the Thugs generally frequented districts abounding in hills and fastnesses which afforded a secure retreat in times of danger. Particular tracts were preferred where they could murder their victims with thegreatest security. They lurked by the way in the extensive jungles which offered cover and concealment, and where the soil was soft and easily turned up for digging graves. The Thugs cherished pleasant memories of these happy hunting grounds so often associated with their successes. To reach the scene of action they often performed long journeys and were absent from home for many months at a time. Their game was almost invariably travellers whom they encountered on the road, or for whom they frequently laid in wait outside towns and villages at the ordinary resting places. Their method was to send scouts into the town to find out whether persons of property were likely to be setting out on journeys and with what possessions. Children were often employed in this way. Each gang of Thugs was under ajemadar, or chief, who directed their movements; they very seldom assumed any disguise, but had the appearance of ordinary travellers or traders. They generally put an end to their victims in the same manner, that of strangling, and it was the custom to assign three of them to perform this deed. While moving along quietly, one of the Thugs would suddenly throw a cloth around the neck of the person doomed to death and retain hold of one end of it while the other end would be seized by the second accomplice; this was then drawn tight, the two Phansigars pressing their victim’s head forward, and at the same time the third villain, in readiness behind the traveller, seized hislegs, and he was thrown to the ground and despatched. Meanwhile, other members of the gang kept watch in advance and in the rear to prevent interference; if they were disturbed during their operation, a cloth was thrown over the victim, and the company pretended that one of their comrades had fallen sick by the roadside, and made great lamentations. The bodies of the victims were carefully buried so as to escape observation and leave no clue for detection.
In the early part of the nineteenth century the audacity and murderous activity of the Thugs increased to such a fearful extent that the British government was roused to serious consideration. It could not remain indifferent to an evil of such magnitude. Startling cases began to crop up and disturb the equanimity of the official mind. One of the first revelations was secured in 1814 by an officer, Lieutenant Brown, when appointed to investigate the circumstances of a murder in the northern part of the province of Central India, at no great distance from Jubbulpore, a city closely connected with Thuggee from the subsequent trial and incarceration of a large number of the ringleaders in the Jubbulpore gaol. Mr. Brown, when engaged in his inquiry at a village named Sujuna, on the road to Hatta, heard a horrible story of a gang-robbery in the neighbourhood. A party of two hundred Thugs had encamped in a grove in the early morning of the cold season of 1814, when seven men, well-armedwith swords and matchlocks, passed, conveying treasure from a bank in Jubbulpore to its correspondent in Banda. The treasure was ascertained to be of the value of 4,500 rupees, and a number of Thugs, well-mounted, gave chase. Coming up with their prey at a distance of seven miles, in a water course half a mile from Sujuna, they attacked the treasure-bearers with their swords, contrary to their common practice of strangling their victims, the latter plan being possible only when the objects of their desire were taken unawares. Moreover, the robbers left the bodies where they lay, unburied and exposed, which was also an unusual proceeding. A passing traveller, who had seen the murderers at work, was also put to death to prevent his giving the alarm. As much rain fell that day, none of the villagers approached the spot till the following morning, when the bodies were discovered and a large crowd came to gaze at them. Great difficulty was experienced in bringing home the crime to its perpetrators. This often happened in such cases from the strong reluctance of people to give evidence and appear in court for the purpose; even the banker who had lost his cash hesitated to come forward and prove his loss, and this was no isolated case. Once before, the wood at Sujuna had been the rendezvous of robbers, who had slaughtered a party of treasure-bearers travelling between Jubbulpore and Saugor. Sixteen were strangled, but the seventeenth escaped with his life and runninginto the town, gave the alarm. The native rajah, at that time supreme, hurried to the spot, but only came upon the bodies abandoned by the thieves, who had made off with the treasure.
These depredations were greatly facilitated by the prevailing practice of transmitting large amounts of cash and valuables from place to place by hand. Remittances were made in gold and silver to save the rate of exchange, although an admirable system of transfer by bank bills was almost universal in India. Money carriers by profession were to be met with in all parts of India, who were trusted by merchants to convey to distant parts enormous sums in cash and large parcels of jewels; their fidelity, sagacity and poverty-stricken appearance, natural or assumed, were relied upon as a sufficient security, and it was attested by Sleeman that although he had to investigate hundreds of cases in which they had been murdered in the discharge of their duty, he had never heard of one who betrayed his trust. The sums secured by the Thugs, after murdering these faithful but unfortunate servants, were immense, and amounted in the few years between 1826 and 1830 to hundreds of thousands of rupees. They could not escape their fate, being constantly watched and spied upon, and were often brought to light by customs officers in the native states, from whom the lynx-eyed, keen-witted Thug spies gained much information to assist in their robberies.
The discovery of this extensive organisation for murder was greatly aided by the fearful disclosures made by some of the captured leaders. The most noted of these informers was a certain Feringhea, who is supposed to have been the original of the character of Ameer Ali, the principal person and narrator in Colonel Meadows-Taylor’s “Confessions of a Thug.” He had fallen into the hands of the famous Captain Sleeman, then the political agent of the provinces bordering on the Nurbudda, by whose untiring energy the whole system of Thuggee as then practised was laid bare. Through his efforts large gangs were apprehended which had assembled in Rajputana to pursue their operations in that country, and among the great numbers committed to safe custody in the various gaols, especially that of Jubbulpore, precise information was obtained leading to the breaking up of the diabolical conspiracy. It was then found that Thuggee was actively practised throughout India. The circle, which seemed at first centred about Jubbulpore, gradually widened until it included the whole continent, from the foot of the Himalayas to the waters that wash Cape Comorin. From the Gulf of Cutch to the tea plantations of Assam, every province was implicated, and the revelations of the informers were substantiated by the disinterment of the dead.
Sir William Sleeman has left a personal record of his own achievements. “While I was in the civil charge of the district of Nursingpoor, in the valleyof the Nurbudda, in the years 1822, 1823 and 1824,” he tells us, “no ordinary robbery or theft could be committed without my becoming acquainted with it; nor was there a robber or a thief of the ordinary kind in the district, with whose character I had not become acquainted in the discharge of my duty as magistrate; and if any man had then told me that a gang of assassins by profession resided in the village of Kundelee, not four hundred yards from my court, and that the extensive groves of the village of Mundesur, only one stage from me, on the road to Saugor and Bhopaul, were one of the greatestbeles, or places of murder, in all India; and that large gangs from Hindustan and the Dukhun used to rendezvous in these groves, remain in them for days together every year, and carry on their dreadful trade along all the lines of road that pass by and branch off from them, with the knowledge and connivance of the two landholders by whose ancestors these groves had been planted, I should have thought him a fool or a madman; and yet nothing could have been more true. The bodies of a hundred travellers lie buried in and around the groves of Mundesur; and a gang of assassins lived in and about the village of Kundelee while I was magistrate of the district, and extended their depredations to the cities of Poona and Hyderabad.”
Similar to the preceding account, as showing the daring character of the Thuggee operations, was the fact that in the cantonment of Hingolee, the leaderof the Thugs of that district, Hurree Singh, was a respectable merchant of the place, with whom Captain Sleeman, in common with many other English officers, had constant dealings. On one occasion this man applied to the officer in civil charge of the district, Captain Reynolds, for a pass to bring some cloths from Bombay, which he knew were on their way accompanied by their owner, a merchant of a town not far from Hingolee. He murdered this person, his attendants and cattle-drivers, brought the merchandise up to Hingolee under the pass he had obtained and sold it openly in the cantonment; nor would this ever have been discovered had he not confessed it after his apprehension, and gloried in it as a good joke. Many persons were murdered in the very bazaar of the cantonment, within one hundred yards from the main guard, by Hurree Singh and his gang, and were buried hardly five hundred yards from the line of sentries. Captain Sleeman was himself present at the opening of several of these unblessed graves (each containing several bodies), which were pointed out by the “approvers,” one by one, in the coolest possible manner, to those who were assembled, until the spectators were sickened and gave up further search in disgust. The place was the dry channel of a small water course, communicating with the river, no broader or deeper than a ditch; it was near the road to a neighbouring village, and one of the main outlets from the cantonment to the country.
Some of the operations in which Thugs were concerned, and the nature of their proceedings, are of especial interest. In the year 1827, Girdharee Thug joined a gang of seven Thugs under Bukshee Jemadar ... and set forth on an expedition. The party proceeded to Cawnpore where they were joined by Runnooa Moonshee with nine Thug followers, so that the gang amounted to eighteen Thugs, who all went on to Pokraya. At this place they fell in with two travellers going from Saugor to the Oude territory, who were decoyed by Runnooa Moonshee, and the next morning, having been escorted about a couple of miles towards Cawnpore, they were strangled by two Thugs, Oomeid and Davee Deen, who buried the bodies in the bed of a stream. After this the gang proceeded on the road leading to Mynpooree, as far as Bewur, where they found a Kayet on his way from Meerut to the eastward, who was decoyed into joining the company of the Thugs. After passing the night together, the traveller was taken to a garden a short distance from the village, where he was induced to sit down and was then strangled, his body being thrown into a well. They went on to Sultanpoor and Mynpooree, where the number of the gang was increased to twenty-one by three more Thugs who joined them. The gang advanced on the same road as far as Kurkoodda in the Meerut district, but meeting with no success in their search for victims, they turned back toward Malagurh, and on arriving there sent one of thegang as a scout into the town. He discovered two travellers, a Brahmin and a Kuhar, who were proceeding from Kurnal to the Oude territory, and whom he persuaded to join the Thugs. Early the following morning the Thugs escorted these travellers about two miles beyond the village, where they were strangled and their bodies buried. After this affair the gang passed through Boolund Shuhur and stopped to rest at a police station two miles from the town. A Chuprassee from Meerut passed by on his way to Cawnpore. The Thugs addressed him and persuaded him to join their band, and they all went to Koorja, where they rested for the night in a caravansary. Long before daylight the gang, accompanied by the traveller, proceeded on the road to Muttra, and on the way one of the company found an opportunity to strangle the Chuprassee.
The band next went to Secundra and while halting there decoyed two Brahmins travelling from Kurnaul toward Lucknow. Runnooa Moonshee took them under his own protection, and the next morning they were escorted in an easterly direction and strangled. The bodies were thrown into a dry well and the earth heaped over them. After this murder, the gang went to Jullalabad, where they rested in the caravansary; and finding that two travellers, a Brahmin and a Rajpoot, had previously put up in the same place, a Thug was deputed to decoy them by inviting them to join the band; the travellers agreed, and were put to death in the usualmanner and their bodies buried. In this way the expedition proceeded for some weeks, the gang was joined by other Thugs until it amounted to sixty in number; then it separated into two parties, each going in a different direction, but they joined forces again at Allahabad and commenced operations in the Cawnpore district. Twenty-seven of the Thugs quitted the gang and returned to their homes; the remainder went to Meetapore, where they met two travellers on their way to Agra, whom they decoyed into their company. Two more travellers were also persuaded to join the gang, and besides these four others were also inveigled, among them two rich persons who were staying in the same inn; the last named had engaged a carriage in which to continue their journey, but the Thugs, anxious to get into friendly relations, offered horses on more favourable terms. The proprietors of the carriage, enraged at this proposition, threatened to have the Thugs arrested, but the matter was arranged amicably and the travelling party, with their Thug attendants, proceeded on their way. Their fate was sealed, for on reaching a convenient spot in the Mynpooree district they were strangled and their bodies rifled. The alarm, however, was given soon afterward, and all the robbers were taken up by order of the British magistrate and lodged in gaol. It was found that in the course of this one expedition the Thugs had murdered fifty-two victims and gained spoil to the value of 5,000 rupees.
The Thugs did not confine their operations to attacking travellers on land. There were many gangs who worked on the rivers and kept their boats on the Nurbudda and Ganges, into which they decoyed passengers when bent upon their destruction. They resided chiefly in villages along the banks and kept their boats at the principal ghats or points of passage, as at Monghyr, Patna, Cawnpore and as far up the river as Furuckabad. Their murders were always perpetrated in the day time. A certain number of them were employed as actual boatmen, wearing the dress and doing the work; others acted as decoys, having no connection seemingly, but arriving at the banks as well-dressed travellers, merchants or pilgrims bound for or returning from the sacred places such as Benares or Allahabad. In the meantime thesothasor “inveiglers” sent out by the gang to bring in passengers, being well dressed and respectable, would accost those they met upon the road and invite them to join in the voyage by river. The boats in waiting at the ghat were invariably kept clean and looked inviting, with other respectably dressed travellers awaiting the moment of departure. Often enough it was at first pretended to be inconvenient to take the newcomers on board, the captain alleging that he was short of room, but at last he would yield to the urgent request of thesothas, and the trusting passengers would be taken on board and accommodated below. After departure the disguised Thugs on deck wouldcommence to sing and amuse themselves noisily until a quiet spot was reached, when the signal was given—the death-warrant in this case—by three taps upon the deck above. The victims below were forthwith strangled by the appointed stranglers, who were in close attendance upon their prey. After death had been inflicted the murderers proceeded to break the spinal bones of their victims by placing a knee in the back and pulling over the head and shoulders; this was to prevent all possibility of recovery. Then the bodies were stabbed through under the armpits and thrown overboard, while the boat made its way to the next ghat, where the “inveiglers” were landed to repeat their operations with others. No part of the booty was retained, lest it might form a clue to detection, except the cash found upon the dead or in their baggage. These river Thugs often ran the risk of being captured, but they were generally well known to the village watchmen on the river side, whom they were ready to bribe.
Their extraordinary audacity and the success with which they murdered their victims is recorded in the memorandum prepared in March, 1836, by an officer, Captain Lowis, who did much to bring them to justice. He speaks of repeated instances in which ten or a dozen persons were put to death by boats’ crews, hardly more numerous than their victims. In one case seven men were murdered at one and the same time by a crew of nine Thugs. Thevictims were often men from the west country, notoriously stronger and braver than the natives of Bengal. Strange to say, the deadly business was often completed in small boats, in which there seemed too little room to move or plan the fell purpose unperceived. Frequently the Thug boatmen made friends with their victims, as in the case of a boat laden with tobacco and hemp, when the captain and crew persuaded their passengers to land on a sand bank to cook and eat their dinner together. After the meal, the Thug leader invited his friends to join in a song of praise to the Hindu divinity, and while it was being sung the Thugs adroitly got behind their victims and strangled them.
A shocking story was revealed in the trial of three Bengalis who were arraigned at Berhampore on suspicion of having committed Thuggee. It appeared that one of them, Madhub by name, had arrived at the Serai with a large sum of money in the hollow of a joint of bamboo; two others, Gunga Hurree Mitter and Kunhaye, quickly came upon the scene in pursuit of the first whom they accused of having stolen the money from their boat. Madhub retorted that they were Thugs and wanted to murder him. This squabble excited suspicion and ended in the arrest of all three. Within a few days two Bengali boats, full of suspicious characters and laden with much money and property, were seized between Monghyr and Patna and news came thatfour travelling merchants had recently disappeared. It was strongly suspected that these merchants had been murdered and great efforts were made to obtain a clue to the guilty parties. Gunga Hurree Mitter, above mentioned, seemed willing to turn approver, and although stoutly denying that he was concerned in this particular crime he at length confessed to complicity in many frightful murders as a river Thug and admitted as many as fifty murders between Moorshedabad and Barr, where the boats had been seized. About this time another very notorious Thug was arrested in the Burdwan district who volunteered valuable information in exchange for his life and confessed to being an accomplice in the murder of the merchants.
Accounts of such affairs, as found in contemporary records, might be multiplied indefinitely. Colonel Sleeman’s report of the Thug depredations for a year or two when they were most virulent—1836-37—fills one large volume. On a map which he made of a portion of the kingdom of Oude, showing a territory one hundred miles wide from north to south, and one hundred and seventy miles from east to west, are marked an endless number of spots between Lucknow, Cawnpore, Manickpur, Pertabgurh and Fyzabad, all of them indicatingbelesor scenes of murders perpetrated. These places were pointed out by captured Thugs and “approvers” who had been actively present and taken part in the murders. There were some 274belesin all, or onefor about every five miles; the fact was proved by the continual disinterment of skulls and skeletons of the often nameless victims. Each recorded great atrocities and many wholesale murders. The number of deaths for which each Thug miscreant was personally responsible seems incredible. One man, Buhran by name, killed 931 victims in forty years of active Thuggee, and another, Futteh Khan, killed 508 persons in twenty years, making an average of two monthly for each assassin.
When the British government was roused to the determination to suppress Thuggee, nearly every village was tainted with the system and no district was without its resident gangs of Thugs, or free from their depredations. The campaign once undertaken was prosecuted with extraordinary vigour, and the pursuit organised was so keen that very rapid progress was made in putting down this terrible scourge. Whole gangs were arrested, one after the other; the ringleaders were quickly tried and executed, or bought their lives at the price of informing against and contributing to the capture of their fellows. Difficulties often arose in securing conviction. Fear kept witnesses from testifying; bankers were reluctant to acknowledge their losses; relations were loth to identify corpses; and the revelations made by the approvers could not always be corroborated. But the work of extermination never slackened, and a few short years sufficed to put down the seemingly hydra-headed evil. It is possible thatsome more distant and inaccessible regions escaped, such as the Concan or Malabar coast, to which the gangs never penetrated; and gangs were not permanently located in such districts as Khandeish and Rohilcund; but they were visited by robbers from other neighbourhoods, for a gang generally avoided a district occupied by their own families and friends. And the tide of murder swept unsparingly year after year over the whole face of India from the Himalayan mountains in the north, to the east, west and south as far as the most remote limits of Madras.
Murder a religious rite—Consulting the omens—The sacred pickaxe or “kussee”—The “goor” or consecrated sugar—Certain castes under the protection of the goddess Bhowanee spared—Women seldom killed—Belief of Thugs that the neglect of omens and murder of women were the causes of arrest and downfall—The apprenticeship of a young member to the practices of Thuggee.
When and how Thuggee began may not be definitely known, but it is certain that its votaries always attributed a divine origin to the practice. They esteemed the wholesale taking of life to which they were vowed a pious act, performed under the immediate orders and protection of the Hindu goddess, indifferently called Devee or Durga, Kali or Bhowanee. Murder was in fact a religious rite, the victim being a sacrifice to the deity. The strangler was troubled with no remorse; on the contrary, he gloried in his deed as the pious act of a devout worshipper. He prepared his murders without misgiving, perpetrated them without emotions of pity, and looked back upon them with satisfaction, not regret.
The Thugs gave free vent to some of the worst passions of perverse humanity; they were treacherous,underhanded, pitiless to those they deemed their legitimate prey. But yet they were seldom guilty of wanton cruelty; the pain they inflicted was only that caused by depriving a human being of life. It was a rule with them never to murder women, and they generally spared infant children whom they adopted, bringing them up in their traditions. Even if a woman was doomed to suffer she was most scrupulously preserved from insult beforehand, either by act or word. In private life they were patterns of domestic virtue, affectionate to their own families, fond of their homes; well conducted, law abiding subjects of the state that gave them shelter.
For two centuries at least Thuggee flourished with rank luxuriance in India, a soil exactly suited to its growth, fostered by the bigoted adherence to its tenets and a firm faith in the rewards vouchsafed to close observance of its rites and ceremonies. The Thugs were noted formalists in the performance of their dread business. When they went out to kill, they were governed by the strictest rules of procedure, and steadfastly believed that the breach of any, even the smallest, would entail discomfiture and misfortune. They gave the most unlimited credence to superstitions, followed omens blindly and implicitly, and undertook nothing without consulting their pundits, or wise men versed in precedent and traditionary lore. No Thug, Sleeman tells us, who had been fully initiated in the mysteries, doubted the inspiration of the pickaxe (the sacred emblem inthe faith of Thuggee), when consecrated in due form, or doubted that the omens sought and observed were all-sufficient to guide them to their prey or warn them from their danger. They were satisfied that only by the neglect of these and the careless worship rendered to the goddess could the suppression of Thuggee have become possible to the British government.
The most portentous omen was that invited from the deity on the eve of a new expedition for gang-robbery. When about to be undertaken, a chief pundit was asked to name a day for departure and the road to take. On the day suggested thejemadar, or leader of the party, would start out holding in his right hand thelota, a brass pot filled with water suspended by a string from his mouth; in his left hand he carried the sacred pickaxe and a clean white handkerchief in which were several coins. He proceeded a short distance along the road named by the pundit and then paused to pray to the “great goddess and universal mother” to vouchsafe some signal that the proposed expedition met with her approval. The best possible omen was the braying of an ass and if it was heard on the left, followed by a second bray on the right, it was believed that the expedition would be an entire and lasting success even if continued for years. The first, on the left, is called thepilhaoo; the second, on the right, thethibaoo. The terms are applied to the voices of any animals, but by far the most effective is deemedthe braying of the ass, whose voice is equal to any hundred birds and superior to that of any other animal.
The initial ceremony, after the omen, proceeded by the leader’s seating himself on the ground with thelotabefore him. He remained thus seated for seven hours while his followers brought him food and made the necessary preparations for the journey. If thelotashould have fallen from his hand terrible disaster might be anticipated and thejemadarwould inevitably die during the year. If any one was heard weeping as they left the village, great evil impended; the same threatened if they met a corpse being carried out, or if they met an oil vendor, a carpenter, a potter, a dancing master, a blind or lame man, afakirwith a brown waist band or ajogiwith long ragged hair. A corpse from any village but their own was a good omen. The call of a jackal, of which there were three kinds, threatened great evil, and if at work the gang instantly quit the country leaving any victims marked down for slaughter untouched. The call of the lizard was a good omen, that of a wolf or a hare crossing the path, bad, entailing an immediate halt and change of route. If a dog was seen to shake his head operations had to be suspended for three days.
In all Thug ceremonies the sacred pickaxe orkusseeplayed a great part. It was treated with the utmost respect and was so holy that to be sworn upon it meant an oath more binding than on Gangeswater, and perjury on the pickaxe would entail the death of the foresworn within six days. The superstition was that the perjurer would die horribly, with his head turned round, his face toward his back, and writhing in tortures till the end came. The oath on the pickaxe was in use when the Thugs filled the gaols and it was made upon a piece of cloth fashioned in the shape of thekussee. A legend existed that thekusseewas the gift of the goddess herself when she had been greatly incensed by the contravention of one of her laws. At first the Thugs did not trouble about the corpses of their victims but blindly left them for Kali’s disposal. One day a slave looked back and saw her throwing them in the air, and in her rage the goddess condemned her votaries to bury their bodies themselves, digging the graves with the consecrated pickaxe. It was to be made by some blacksmith in the presence of thejemadar. The consecration follows a long ceremony, including many washings in water, sour milk and ardent spirits, and the pickaxe is first used to smash a cocoanut, the kernel of which is eaten by the assembled worshippers. The pickaxe was entrusted to the safe keeping of thejemadar.
When on the road it was carried by the most sober and careful man of the party. In camp he buried it in a secure place with its point toward the intended route, but they believed that when unearthed, if another direction was better, the point would be found supernaturally changed. It was atone time the rule to throw the pickaxe down a well at the nightly halt, and many witnesses declared that it used to spring up spontaneously from the water in the morning to come into the hand of its carrier at his call. Several of the Thug prisoners in Jubbulpore gaol assured Sir William Sleeman that this was absolute fact, and went so far as to declare they had seen it happen. Thekusseewas religiously worshipped every seventh day.
Another important agent in the Thug religion was thegooror consecrated sugar. It was an offering to Bhowanee, made as a sacrifice oftupounee, to celebrate the commission of any murder. An exact amount of coarse sugar was purchased to the worth of 1 rupee, 4 annas. A clean place was selected and the sugar laid out on a sheet or blanket, on which were also put the sacred pickaxe and a piece of silver coin. The leader of the gang having taken his seat on the blanket, surrounded by the most notable stranglers, with the rest outside, made a small hole in the ground for thegoorand then dedicated it saying, “Great goddess, who vouchsafed 1 lac and 62,000 rupees to Toora Naig and Koduk Bunwaree in their need, so we pray thee fulfil our desires.” (Toorah Naig was a celebratedjemadarwho, single-handed, with his servant, Koduk Bunwaree, killed a man possessed of plunder, and bringing it home, divided it honestly among their assembled comrades as though they had all been present at the murder.) The Thugs ferventlyrepeated the prayer and thegoorwas distributed, first to those on the blanket, who ate in solemn silence, and when they had finished, it was given to the rest who were entitled by their rank to receive it. No one but a man who had strangled his victim was suffered to partake of thegoor, which had a miraculous effect; and the Thugs were persuaded that if any human being tasted it he would take forthwith to the trade. The Thug chief Feringhea told Sir William Sleeman that thegoorcompletely changed a man’s nature, adding,—“It would change the nature of a horse. Let anyone taste it and he will be a Thug, though he know all the trades and have all the wealth in the world. For my own part I was well to do; my relations were rich and I held high office myself in which I was sure of promotion. Yet I was always miserable when absent from my gang. While I was still a mere boy, my father made me taste that fatal sugar, and if I were to live a thousand years I should never be able to follow any other trade.”
There was a hierarchy in the caste of Thuggee. The first grade was thekuboola, or “tyro,” who after initiation was first employed as scout, then as grave-digger,lughae; next in rank was theshumseea, whose duty it was to hold the hands and feet of the victim when being strangled by thebhurtote, who is of the highest grade in the organisation. The initiation was made early; a Thug parent apprenticed his son at thirteen or fourteen years. Thecandidate having bathed and dressed in new clothes, which had never been bleached, was led by hisguru, or spiritual director, into a room where the leaders of the band were assembled seated on a white cloth; the sacred pickaxe was placed in his right hand, and raising his left on high, he repeated a fearful oath dictated to him and sworn on the Koran, after which he ate a small piece of the consecratedgoor. He pledged himself to be faithful, brave and secret, to pursue to destruction every human being whom chance or his own ingenuity threw into his power. Only he was forbidden to kill the members of certain castes, such as sweepers, oil-vendors, blacksmiths, carpenters, professional musicians, any maimed or leprous persons, the carriers of Ganges water or any man travelling accompanied by a cow. As a general rule women were spared, and many cases are quoted of the misfortunes that overtook those who disregarded this regulation. Feringhea stated that his gang after killing many women had no luck, and his family fell into great misfortune. Sometimes when they encountered a rich old woman, she was sacrificed, and even youth and beauty did not always escape; but the consequences were always the same. After the murder of the woman Kalee Bebee, who was travelling with a goldchudurfor a sacred tomb, the perpetrators were severely punished by fate. One got worms in his body and died barking like a dog; others died miserably in gaol or after crossing the black water(transportation to Penang). The families concerned became extinct. Thugs who had slain women admitted that they deserved the worst evils that could befall them.
The crime of killing women was sometimes aggravated by the murder of their children. In the case of the murder of Bunda Alee, Moonshee of General Doveton commanding at Jhalna, his wife and daughters were strangled. One of the Thugs would have adopted the infant child and was carrying it off, when a comrade pressed him to kill it also lest they should be detected on crossing the Nurbudda. Whereupon the miscreant threw the living child on the heap of dead bodies in the open grave, and the child was buried alive.
The apprenticeship to murder was gradual. The young members saw and heard nothing of the first affair after their initiation; they were ignorant of the exact business, but grew to like the life as they were mounted on ponies and received presents purchased out of their share of the booty. On the second expedition they began to suspect that murder was committed, and on the third they witnessed the actual deed. They accepted the horrible situation, and were seldom much shocked. But in one case told by Feringhea, a lad of fourteen, out for the first time and mounted on a pony, was committed to the charge of a young comrade, who was to keep him in the rear out of sight and hearing of the affair when the signal was given. Unfortunately, the boybroke away and galloped up in time to witness the scene; he heard the screams and saw them all strangled. He fell off his pony and became delirious, screaming and trembling violently if anyone touched him or spoke to him. They sat by him when the gang went on and vainly attempted to pacify him, but he never recovered his senses and died the same night. A somewhat similar case is told by Sleeman of an affair near Shikarpore, where the place selected for the murder was in an extensive jungle by the river side, and a party of travellers were strangled, all but two young boys who were to be saved for adoption. One of them, when the bodies were being thrown into a ditch covered with earth and bushes, began to scream violently, and the Thug who had intended to adopt him, finding it impossible to pacify him, seized him by the legs and dashed his brains out against a stone. The dead boy was left where he lay and his body was found by a fisherman, who gave the alarm which led to the pursuit and arrest of the Thugs.
Colonel Meadows-Taylor in his “Confessions of a Thug” graphically pictures the sufferings of his hero after the first affair he witnessed. “Do what I would,” the Thug confesses, “the murdered father and son appeared before me; the old man’s voice rung in my ears, and the son’s large eyes seemed to be fixed on mine. I felt as though a thousandskitans(devils) sat on my breast, and sleep would not come to my eyes. It appeared socold-blooded, so unprovoked a deed, that I could not reconcile myself in any way to having become even a silent spectator of it.” Next day his father reasoned with him, making him eat thegoor, and explaining that having put his hand to the work he must not turn back. As soon as thekuboolahas got over the first feelings of disgust and his courage is equal to the blood-thirsty business, he becomes the disciple of some renowned and experienced member of the gang, and instruction is given in strangling. He is entrusted with the handkerchief,roomal, and taught how to make the knot with a piece of silver inserted. When he has fully learned the process, one of the travellers at the next affair is entrusted to him, and with ashumseeaat hand to assist, he regularly graduates as abhurtoteand is eligible to become a leader of a gang of his own.
The stern resolve of the British government to suppress Thuggee, and the energetic assistance of the agents employed were no doubt the true cause of its being stamped out. The neglect of omens, the signs sent by Bhowanee to warn her votaries of threatened dangers, and the murder of women and persons of the protected castes, brought down upon the Thugs, in their own opinion, their deserved retribution. One leader of a gang was arrested with seventeen others because, as they said, he persisted in his purpose when a screaming hare had crossed his path. They pleaded that an omen was an order, and disobedience brought its own punishment. Wemay accept such explanations for what they are worth, and may assign to a more reasonable cause the activity in the years between 1826 and 1840, when no less than 3,689 Thugs were arrested and tried. Of these a large number were hanged, transported or imprisoned for life. A few were acquitted or died before sentence; a certain number became approvers or informers, and no doubt a fatal blow was struck at these horrid crimes which had been so long fostered and supported by nearly all classes in the community; landowners, native officers of the courts, police and village authorities.
Commission appointed in 1837 to consider means for the suppression of Dacoity—Story of a daring attack upon government—Disguises assumed by Dacoits—The Brinjaras—The “Byragee” or religious devotee—Professional poisoners and highway robbers—The datura—Its action and employment—Hereditary descendants of Thugs—Predatory tribes of criminal instinct—Some noted Dacoits—Female leaders—Theft of government treasure in a British garrison—A Dacoit’s revenge.
It has been asserted that although Thuggee has been ostensibly stamped out in India, road murders are still committed in considerable numbers by the agency of poison administered to travellers, and that this is the work of Bhowanee’s votaries carrying on the old business, still impelled by their horrible religion. This impression is believed to be erroneous. There is no evidence that the gang-robbers who undoubtedly use poison such as opium, arsenic, datura and other drugs to stupefy or kill their victims, belong to the fell organisation so long a scourge in Indian society; or that the worship of Bhowanee, observed with such murderous rites, still exists in India. Nevertheless, the administration of poison by professional robbers, who infested the mainroads and lurked in the vicinity of large towns, was largely and for the most part mysteriously practised until a comparatively recent date, if it is not indeed still prevalent. It was one of the forms of Dacoity, a crime akin to Thuggee, but without its religious pretensions, and ever one of the most serious evils combated by the British government. This widespread plague throve and prospered by reason of the fierceness and audacity of certain classes and the timidity and submissiveness characteristic of others. “In Bengal proper,” says Sir Richard Temple, “it was a crime with an extensive organisation, having professional ringleaders followed by gangs of enrolled men.” It was repressed and to a great extent broken up by the strong administrative machinery of the British government, but the crime still crops up in a milder form and is “one of the earliest symptoms of impending scarcity, political excitement or any social trouble.”
We may pause to examine some of the earlier records of Dacoity. A commission to consider its suppression was instituted in India in the year 1837. Hitherto but little had been ascertained of the character or methods employed by this class of criminal. Although Dacoities were every day committed and reported by the magistrates, it was thought that these gangs resided for the most part between the Ganges and Jumna rivers and in the kingdom of Oude, but information regarding their habits and location was vague and uncertain. Everyone talkedof Budhuk Dacoits and their daring robberies, but no one knew who or what they were, whence they came or how their system was organised. In the course of this inquiry, the magistrate of the Gorruckpore district, which borders on the kingdom of Oude, informed the government that the Dacoits were not inhabitants of any part of the British territories but organised banditti from Oude, and that to deal effectively with this crime was altogether beyond the power of the magistrates of the district and the local police. He instanced in proof of the strength and daring of the Dacoits the details of an attack made upon a party of government treasure-bearers in 1822. This story was related long afterward to an English official by one of the Dacoits concerned in the affair and is given in his own words as follows:
“About eighteen years ago Lutee Jemadar sent a messenger to me to say that he should like to join me in an expedition, and I went to him with Jugdeum and Toke to settle preliminaries. The first day was spent in feasting and nothing was settled about business. On the following day he told me that remittances of government treasure went every month from Peprole to Gorruckpore, and if we were prudent we might get some of it. It had, however, become known that an escort of troopers and foot-soldiers always accompanied these remittances and unless the attack was in the nature of a surprise some casualties were likely to occur. After exploringthe ground, it was seen that the way passed through an extensive jungle, so thick that horsemen could not safely leave the high road.” A point in this jungle was selected for the attack and to facilitate it strong ropes were fastened across the road ahead, while other ropes were in readiness to block it behind so soon as treasure and escort had passed through. A gang of forty was collected for the robbery, ten matchlock-men, ten swordsmen and twenty-five spearmen, who proceeded to lie in ambush awaiting news of the approach of their prey. On the third morning it was near at hand, the ropes ahead were fixed and a number of men posted, armed with matchlocks loaded with shot, as the Dacoits did not desire to take life. As soon as the trap was laid and the time of retreat intercepted, fire was opened from all sides. The escort was thrown into confusion, the foot soldiers sought refuge in the bush, the horsemen tried to escape by jumping over the ropes, while the thieves broke in upon the treasure and took possession of some 12,000 rupees.
Daring attacks of this kind by gangs drawn from this great family of professional and hereditary robbers were frequent in all parts of India. No district between the Berhampootra, the Nurbudda, the Sutlej and the Himalayas was free from them, and no merchant or manufacturer could feel himself secure for a single night from the depredations of Budhuk Dacoits. In 1822, in the district of Nursingpoorin the Nurbudda valley, in the dusk of evening, a party of about thirty persons, apparently armed with nothing but walking sticks in their hands, passed the picket of Sepahees, who stood with a native commissioned officer on the bank of a rivulet separating the cantonments from the town of Nursingpoor. On being challenged by the sentries, they said they were cowherds who had been out with their cattle which were following close behind. They walked up the street, and having arrived in front of the houses of the most wealthy merchants, they set their torches in a blaze by a sudden blow upon the pots containing combustibles; everybody who ventured to move or to make the slightest noise was stabbed; the houses were plundered, and in ten minutes more the assailants fled with their booty, leaving about twelve persons dead and wounded on the ground. A magistrate close at hand despatched large parties of foot and horse police in all directions, but no one was seized nor was it discovered whence the gang had come, or any particulars as to their identities. This occurred in the month of February, when marriage processions take place every day in all large towns; the nights are long, and much money is circulated in the purchase of cotton in all cotton districts like that of Nursingpoor. There was a large police guard within twenty paces of the Dacoity on one side, and this picket of Sepahees within a hundred paces on the other. Both saw the blaze of the torches and heard the noise, but bothmistook it for a marriage procession, and the first intimation given of the real character of the party was by a little boy, who had crept along a ditch unobserved by the Dacoits, and half dead with fright, whispered to the officer commanding them that they were robbers and had killed his father. Before the officer could get his men ready, all were gone and nothing more was heard of them until twenty years later, when the perpetrators of the attack were detected and brought to justice.
The Dacoits sometimes assumed disguises to hide the real nature of their business. In 1818 a notorious leader named Maheran with a gang of fifty Budhuks, set out from Khyradee in the Oude Terai under the disguise of bird catchers. They had with them falcons, hawks of all kinds, well-trained, also mynas, parrots and other varieties of speaking and mocking birds. At Bareilly, in Oude, they were joined by another small gang, and all proceeded in pursuit of some treasure on its way from Benares westward, carried by ponies under charge of twenty-fourburkundazes, “native watchmen,” and policemen. They determined to attack the treasure party at their halting place between Allahabad and Cawnpore. A boat had been purchased to keep along the bank of the river, ready to help the party across after the attack, and by this the women and children were all landed on the Oude side of the river opposite the Serai. Maheran with two or three selected men in disguise remained with the treasure untilthey saw it safely lodged for the night, when he returned to his gang to make arrangements for the attack. Ladders, torches and handles for the spear-heads and axes had been provided in the usual way, and two hours after dark they scaled the wall of the Serai. Meanwhile confederates within broke open the gate from the inside and stood over it to prevent interruption, while the rest attacked the escort and secured the treasure. They killed six persons of the guards, wounded seventeen and secured 70,000 rupees.
Maheran was captured in a later expedition and hanged, but his widow Moneea took his place as leader of the gang and shortly afterward fitted out another expedition to Junnukpoor in the Nepal territory several hundred miles to the east of their bivouac, to intercept some treasure on its way to the capital, Khatmandu. This expedition consisted of eighty chosen men and seven women. After taking the auspices they set out in small parties toward the appointed place of rendezvous. On the way, one of the parties, under a leader named Johuree, fell in with fifteen bullocks laden with treasure under the charge of eighty Gorkhas. The Dacoits, being in disguise, managed to join the escort without exciting suspicion and ascertained that they were carrying a treasure to the value of 64,000 rupees from the collector’s treasury in the plain to the capital. Johuree ordered two of his men to continue with the escort and went on himself with the rest to join theother leaders at the appointed place and to consult with them. He found that only a part of the gang had arrived and these thought it wiser to postpone an attack until the rest came up, saying, “If we succeed in taking the treasure, many of our friends must be seized on suspicion and beaten into confessions that may lead to the ruin of all, whereas if we forbear this time we shall be all collected before the next monthly remittance goes up, and we may secure it with little hazard to our friends or to ourselves.”
Johuree urged that one bird in the hand was worth two in the bush and at length prevailed upon the others to accept his counsel. They mustered fifty men and prepared to follow the treasure. The two scouts continued with the treasure escort in the disguise of pilgrims, and when they had seen it safely lodged at a spot under the first range of hills and had carefully reconnoitred the position, one of them hastened to Johuree with his report. All now set out and reached the village of Bughalee in the evening. From this place Johuree went forward to reconnoitre and found the treasure lodged in a fortified place with a wall and ditch all around it. A party of four or five hundred traders who carried goods from the plains to the hills were encamped on the edge of the ditch. After carefully surveying the position, Johuree returned to his friends and ordered that a couple of stout ladders twenty feet long should be made out of wood cut in the forest.Advancing in silence, they placed these ladders and got over the ditch and wall close to where the treasure lay. It was about midnight, with a good moon and clear sky, but still they thought it necessary to light their torches, and under the blaze they commenced the attack. The escort was taken by surprise and made but a feeble resistance. The gang took the whole amount of 64,000 rupees and effected their retreat without losing a man. On reaching a retired spot two or three miles from the scene of action, they divided the spoil, but every man had too much to admit of rapid travelling, so 17,000 rupees were buried at this place, and with the remaining 47,000 rupees the party moved on through the forest. As soon as news of the loss of the treasure reached the Nepal cantonments at Jalesar, whence it had been despatched, every suspicious person that could be found was seized. Two regiments then stationed at Jalesar were despatched through the forest to the westward to intercept the robbers, and fell in with some of Johuree’s party, from whom they recovered a portion of the treasure, while Johuree got safely home with the rest.
The precision with which veterans remembered and described Dacoities at which they had assisted during their lives was often wonderful. One of the leaders of the Oude Terai gangs named Lucke, when arrested, described forty-nine Dacoities at which he had been present during his career of twenty-five years. The local authorities to whom his narrativeswere sent endorsed his account of forty-one as having been perpetrated precisely as he described them, though many of them had taken place near Calcutta, some four or five hundred miles from the bivouac in Oude forest from which the gang had set out.
Reference has been made to the disguises assumed by the Dacoits. The most suitable to the locality in which they were about to work were as a rule selected. Thus, north of the Jumna they became carriers of Ganges, or holy water, because men of that class were continually to be met with on those roads. South of the Jumna they pretended to be pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or relatives sadly conveying the bones of the departed to the banks of the Ganges, or the friends of a bridegroom sent to fetch and bring home his bride. The rôle of funeral mourners was very popular because out of respect for their sorrowful business they were treated with much deference and subjected to no inconvenient inquiries as to whence they came or whither they were going. The bones they carried were commonly those of inferior animals, wild or domestic; they were kept in bags,—red for male bones, white for female,—and at their halting places these bags were suspended from the apex of a triangle formed by three stout poles, to be used later as the handles for the spear-heads concealed in their waistbands. Another favourite disguise was that of the Brinjaras, the traditional carriers of grain and salt, who travellong distances conveying the grain to the sea coast and returning with the salt. These Brinjaras were a peculiar and distinct race, who were much employed by the Duke of Wellington (when Sir Arthur Wellesley) as food-carriers in his Indian campaigns. Their appearance was distinctive and their costume peculiar; of intelligent countenance and strongly knit, wiry frames, they dressed—the women especially—in fantastic parti-coloured clothes; the women’s arms were completely encased from shoulder to wrist in bracelets of bone or ivory; they wore coins round their necks and curiously interwoven in their hair, which gave a strange, flighty, wild air to their always expressive and sometimes good-looking faces. The Brinjaras strictly adhered to certain customs; they did not intermarry, and lived in no fixed abode, although they halted often in the same encampment for some time; they observed the stars and scrupulously followed omens; they spoke the languages of most of the places they visited, but had a peculiar dialect of their own. They had no defined religion.
A good account of the Brinjaras is given by Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, in his “Indian Travels.” “We passed a large encampment of ‘Brinjaras,’” he writes, “or carriers of grain, a singular wandering race, who pass their whole time in transporting this article from one part of the country to another, seldom on their own account, but as agents for more wealthy dealers. They moveabout in large bodies with their wives, children, dogs and loaded bullocks. The men are all armed as a protection against petty thieves. From the sovereigns and armies of Hindustan they have no apprehensions. Even contending armies allow them to pass and repass safely, never taking their goods without purchase, nor even preventing them, if they choose, from victualling their enemy’s camp. Both sides wisely agree to respect and encourage a branch of industry, the interruption of which might be attended with fatal consequences to both.”
The Brinjaras’ disguise not only served as a convenient cloak for the Dacoits, but they sometimes followed the nefarious business on their own account. The larger number no doubt were fairly honest and industrious people, but some succumbed to the temptation of their roving life and the facilities offered for criminal acts in their extensive wanderings, taking to Dacoity and to the kidnapping of children, a profitable business, especially of female children for whom there was a ready sale. General Charles Hervey, the famous Indian police officer, had but a poor opinion of the Brinjaras, whom he called formidable robbers. His account of them is, however, interesting as supplementing Bishop Heber’s. He came across them in large numbers at the Sambhur Salt Lake not far from Jeypore, which they visited from the most distant regions, with immense droves of pack bullocks, bringing grain and taking away salt. He says:“Their animals may be seen tethered in hundreds on the wide shores of the extensive lake, eachtandaor company of their sort being camped under a distinct Naik, or headman, in the centre of the drove appertaining to it, with their bullock packs or panniers neatly collected in piles of hundreds in their midst. In the daytime, when halted, their cattle are taken out to pasture wherever pasture may be obtained, tended by the fewest men, often mere lads, and not infrequently by girls; at evening they are driven home, when a piece of oil-cake is given to each animal, called by name, and it is curious to watch the process, how well each animal knows its name and waits expectantly for its turn to be called. At night the bullocks are tethered by means of a rope passed round their front feet and entwined with another rope fixed to the ground with strong stakes. They are picketed in this manner with their heads turned inwards, in a circle round the resting place of their owners in their midst, and fires are kept burning throughout the night to scare away tigers or other beasts of prey. I have come upon the encampments of these roving people, in the wildest jungles, or threading their way with their long straggling lines of laden cattle through the most intricate ground, whether of rock, forest, sand-hills, or marsh, and have been quite fascinated by the strangeness of their manner and their quaint wild ways.”
Another successful disguise made use of by theDacoits in Central India was that of the garb and appearance of Alkuramies, a peculiar class of pilgrims who travelled in small parties accompanying a high priest, who was represented as the leader of the gang. “They had four or five tents, some of white and some of dyed cloth, and two or three pairs ofnakaras, or ‘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 shoes and a small cloth waistband. Those who had long hair went bareheaded and those who had nothing but short hair wore a piece of cloth round the head.” The pretended Alkuramies always took the precaution of hiring the services of half a dozen genuine Byragees or ascetics, whom they put forward in difficult emergencies.
They are strange people, these Byragees, or religious devotees, whether pretended or real. There are many classes of them with various names: Jogis, Sunyasis, Byragis, Aghunhotas, and mostly all incorrigible rogues. When travelling in bands they are stalwart naked fellows, strong-limbed and sturdy, unpleasant to meet abroad despite their sham sanctity. Their solicitation of alms is more like a threat as they offer their begging bowls, peremptorily demanding contributions. They do not whine or fawn like ordinary beggars, but lift their voices in execration when their appeals are not readily met and with their naked slate-colouredbodies raised to their full height, they cast dust into the air to emphasise their maledictions. Whether by alms or thefts, the mendicant leads an easy, lazy life, his needs are well cared for by the charitable who firmly believe they “acquire merit” by ministering to them.
General Charles Hervey has given a graphic account of a Byragee he came across at Thunjna on the edge of Rajputana, whose lair ormhutwas on one of the hills above the town. It was “erected nearly at the very top of it among several overhanging rocks, and reached only by a long parapeted causeway, all substantially constructed of solid masonry, but not yet completed. The ascetic in possession was in the usual nude condition, four square inches of rag forming his entire personal apparel. His body was covered with ashes, his head folded round and round with his own braided hair like a tall tiara, and his face and forehead plastered with white symbolic daubs. Sleek he was, and in good condition withal—not at all a starving mendicant, whatever his penances; and he had a fat pony too, in a well-littered shed close by his own comfortable den, to get up to and scramble into which must cause the good little beast some trouble. I asked the man why thus disfigure himself? I was rebuked for the impertinence by no reply, as, silently beholding me, he squatted on his upraised hams on the stone-built terrace of the lofty spot.... He had, like most of his kind throughout India, wandered tomany distant regions and sacred spots, famed from olden times as places to be visited, whatever the difficulties of the pilgrimage.... He had, indeed, been a mighty traveller and persistent pilgrim, this nude, besmeared gymnosophist, of small wants and great energy, and the naked hermit became quite attractive, rapt as he was, however unclothed and unbeauteous, as he narrated his ‘painful marchings’ and the wondrous sights he had beheld and bowed down to.
“Other equally devoted and fanatic individuals, leading, like this man, eremitical lives in caves and hovels in wild and unfrequented spots and inaccessible places on crags or rocky eminences by side of river or sea, or on temple-topped hill or difficult mountain peak, held sacred as the abode of their Devi and not to be profaned, may be met with, ... but few so observant or so communicative and friendly.... Many are their devices of evil-doing when abroad; and here I confine the remark to those who are not what they seem to be. Thugs, poisoners and kidnappers are to be found among Jogis. When visiting Dwarka many years ago, I was loudly cursed by a Byragee for not readily enough yielding to his demand for alms, and as I put off from the shore, to give point to his execrations, the angered fellow, stark and gray, seemed a very blue devil, as, standing to his full height and with both arms stretched upwards, he flung dust into the air while uttering his direst maledictions.”
Professional poisoning in carrying out highway robbery was at one time spread over every portion of the province of Bengal, and there is no doubt it was equally prevalent in Bombay and Madras. Murders were constantly committed along the road upon unwary travellers who rashly joined company with strangers deliberately purposing to kill and rob them; and numbers of thefts were also perpetrated by the administration of drugs to render their victims insensible and at their mercy.
The crime was greatly aided by the facility with which poison in some form or other could be obtained. Many shopkeepers traded in poisons, selling these goods openly and with the most reckless indifference. Even when the law laid restrictions on the sale of poisons, the evilly disposed could provide himself from the roots of trees in the jungle, garden or wayside, or they might be bought from the numerous travelling quacks, and the localhakimsor “native doctors” were often not unwilling to supply the noxious drugs. Moreover, in almost every village some hag of evil repute, half-witch, half-midwife, given to criminal practices and commonly believed to be a professional poisoner, did a systematic business in supplying drugs. Upon one old woman, who was arrested near Sasseram in 1835, were found letters and credentials from numerous members of the poisoning community at large who dealt with her.
The drug most commonly used by the road poisonersis produced from the datura plant,stramonium, both the purple flowered and the white flowered, and is prepared from the seeds or the leaves. Its noxious effects were well known to the ancients. In “Purchas: His Pilgrimage,” that most famous series of seventeenth century travels, we read, “They have (in India) an Herbe called Durroa which causeth distraction without understanding anything done in a man’s presence; sometimes it maketh a man sleepe as if hee was dead for the space of four and twenty hours and in much quantity it killeth.” It is referred to in Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy.” Garcias ab Horto makes mention of “an herbe called daturah, which if it be eaten, for twenty-four hours following takes away all sense of grief, makes them incline to laughter and mirth.” As an instrument in facilitating theft and other criminal designs its properties were widely recognised. In Bengal it was usually given as an ingredient of sweetmeats, or mixed with bread or coffee, sherbet, milk,tari, “native spirits,” or introduced into tobacco. It was relied upon to stupefy; not necessarily to kill, but to produce intoxication or delirium, or profound lethargy resembling coma, with dilated pupils but natural respiration. Even when life is not seriously endangered, the effects of the poison upon the person are such that they seldom recover their bodily vigour. One was still a cripple after a dose taken seven years before; another continued unable to articulate andwas like a man stricken with paralysis. Memory is long impaired and often never recovered; idiocy sometimes supervenes. The detection of the crime is thus prevented. If death occurs, it may be attributed to disease, suicide or wild beasts; if the patient survives, he has no clear idea what has happened to him.
The action of datura is generally an indication that it has been administered. It is not only a powerful narcotic, but there are quite unmistakably characteristic symptoms. The patient, if not incapable of movement, will perform the most fantastic antics, will exhibit great excitement, ramble in his talk, fly into a violent rage when questioned. As it takes effect, the sufferer grows very thirsty, and dry in the throat. There are three stages or sets of symptoms observed: First, headache, dryness of the mucous membrane, difficulty in walking, languor, impairment of vision, with the pupils greatly dilated; second, maniacal delirium, flushed face, eyes glistening, violent perspiration from incessant motion; third, insensibility, coma and possibly collapse with fatal results. In the last condition the sufferer becomes giddy, staggers, falls and dies.
Some of the cases of poisoning by datura may be quoted here to show the boldness with which it was practised. One crime was committed in a Jain temple near Bhagalpur in Bengal, where the victims were the priest and two of his attendants.The latter were found one morning in a state of mad intoxication, reeling about the ground, and the priest was missing, but his body was picked up three days afterward in a dry well. It was the work of a gang of professional poisoners who had visited the temple ostensibly to make an offering to the god but in reality to murder the priest. One of them bought sweetmeats which were doctored with powdered datura-seed, and handed them over to the priest for presentation. According to custom, he ate some of the sweetmeats, giving a part also to the two temple attendants. The poisoners waited till the drug had taken effect and then attacked the priest who was lying unconscious near the shrine; one of them throttled him; a second sat heavily upon his chest; a third held his hands, and a fourth trampled him underfoot. The helpless victim soon died in convulsions. The next act was to rifle the secret treasury kept in an inner chamber, and the plunder was stowed in sacks and carried away in a cart. In the end by the aid of “approvers” seven of the robbers were arrested. Three were sentenced to death, and the others to transportation for life to the Andaman Islands.
Numerous victims of the crime of road poisoning were found among the Powindahs or Afghan traders who travel down every year from above the passes on the northwest frontier and who brought their strings of camels laden with merchandise and products of the soil, or drove a good business inhorse-dealing. They sold cloth and shawls, condiments, sun-dried fruits, sweetmeats, valuable furs, long-haired Persian cats, strong, surefooted little horses calledyaboos. They visited all parts of India as far as Cape Comorin, and when their goods were sold, congregated at certain points for the homeward journey, and with their wallets well-lined, they were a likely prey for the poisoners. Although shrewd bargainers, they are an unwary lot not difficult to dupe and cajole. These “Cabulis,” as they were styled, were at one time the constant victims of datura poisoning in Bombay, where they often collected to enjoy the proceeds of their trading and purchase goods to carry home. Numbers of them were admitted to the hospital suffering from poison, the fatal effects of which they had escaped, thanks to their robust constitutions.
Once at Patna, in Bengal, a horse-dealer from Cabul, who had disposed of his stud profitably, rashly made friends with a couple of rogues whom he met by the way and who had so ingratiated themselves with him as to be accepted as travelling companions. On reaching Benares one of them, who passed as the other’s servant, went on ahead to a Serai to prepare food, which was ready on the arrival of the party and of which the Afghan partook with the others. All were seized with the usual symptoms, and while insensible the horse-dealer was robbed. Again, a party of five, travelling from Calcutta, were beguiled on the way by an obligingstranger whom they presently engaged to go out and buy food for them in the bazaar and prepare it for them. They left the Serai with him to continue their journey by rail, but were found unconscious on the way to the station, having been robbed of their money and most of their apparel.
General Hervey quotes a curious instance of the heredity of the criminal instinct which showed itself in the descendants of the old Thugs settled at Jubbulpore, in the days of the active pursuit of these murderers by Sir William Sleeman. A generation of young Thugs had grown up around the School of Industry, a kind of reformatory for the offspring of the captured criminals, and the careers of some of these have been followed. Many of the youths found employment with European gentlemen as private servants, and in one particular instance the inherited propensity was curiously illustrated. A railway engineer, Mr. Upham, employed in the construction of the Indian Peninsula Railway, was stationed at Sleemanabad near Jubbulpore. Returning home one evening, much fatigued after a long tour of inspection, he lay down to rest on his bed and from his tent, the curtain of which was raised for ventilation, he saw two of his table servants—both of them lads from the reformatory—engaged in cooking his dinner. He presently noticed that they squeezed into the pot on the fire certain green pods they had plucked from a neighbouring bush, and presuming they were herbs of somesort added for flavour, he said nothing, but he was curious and having little appetite he dined very lightly, chiefly on rice and milk. He picked some of the pods, however, and put them in his pocket, where they remained till next day, when he became ill and rode over to see the doctor. He fainted when he reached the doctor’s office. Restoratives being promptly applied, he so far recovered as to be able to produce the pods which the doctor at once pronounced to be of datura. Suspicion thus aroused, the two servants were arrested and brought to trial, when the head cook was convicted and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. This boy was of the old Thug stock, and obviously the desire to destroy human life was in his blood, brought out by greed; for the object was, of course, to rob Mr. Upham while he was unconscious.
They were apparently irreclaimable, these Thug children. One boy was detained in prison until grown up in the hope that he would prove well-conducted. All his relations had been Thugs; his father (who had been executed), his uncles, brothers and forebears for several generations, and numbers of them had suffered the extreme penalty. He was cognisant of their misdeeds and the retribution that overtook them, but his own inclinations lay the same way, and no sooner was he at large than he embraced the evil trade and was soon known as ajemadarwith an increasing reputation as a daring leader of Dacoits. Eventually he was won over tothe side of justice and did good service as an “approver.”
A noted Thug poisoner of later days was a certain Rora, the Meerasee—a class of hereditary singers—who was long criminally active and in the end was sentenced to transportation for nineteen years on several counts. His favourite victims were the drivers of bullock hackeries, which with an accomplice he would hire, and after they were taken several stages, he would become friendly with the driver, offering food, drink or tobacco, which was, of course, drugged and produced the usual narcotic effects. When the driver fell off his box insensible, they left him to lie there and made off with the vehicle and its beasts, disposing of them at the first chance. This process was repeated with other carts and conveyances plying for hire, and in all cases datura was the drug employed. This Rora was arrested on one occasion, and having to pass his own house got permission to go in; after which he came out with a gift of poisoned sweetmeats for his escort, and easily escaped when his custodians yielded to the potency of the datura.
A form of highway robbery was the “Megphunnah Thuggee,”—the poisoning of parents to remove them and allow of the kidnapping of their deserted children. The motive of this crime was to become possessed of the jewels and ornaments worn by the children, or to sell the latter at distant places or to wanderers who would carry them to far-off countriesfor questionable purposes. Brinjaras bought male children to bring up in their trade, and nomadic gipsies with travelling shows wanted females to be reared to their performing business. Thus a gang of Megphunnah thieves assembled for a feast fell upon a family of Yats, father and mother, with two girls and a boy, and having strangled the parents in good old Thug fashion and sold the children, repeated the process continually as they wandered on. The gains were small, but the murders were many and numbers were sold into slavery of the worst sort.
Dacoity was practised on a large scale in many districts by whole gangs under well-known leaders with adherents or well-wishers and informants in every village. At each religious festival in the autumn, the band assembled at the summons of its acknowledged chief in some deserted fort or temple, and settled a plan for the coming season, when operations were discussed; the names of the selected victims, the nature of the expected booty, the chances of resistance or the interference of the authorities. New members were affiliated and sworn in at these meetings and the work went on gaily by the various parties till the approach of the monsoon, when the whole band reassembled, divided the spoil and went into winter quarters. One member of the gang was always a goldsmith, who melted down the ornaments acquired, while silks and clothes were disposed of to friendly shopkeepers.