 43. Murder-trial in Bombay. Confidence-swindlers. Some specialties of India. The plague, juggernaut, suti, etc. Everything on gigantic scale. India first in everything. Eighty states more custom houses than cats. Rich ground for thug society. Hunger is the handmade of genius. Putin had Wilson's new calendar. One day during our stay in Bombay there was a criminal trial of a most interesting sort, a terribly realistic chapter out of the Arabian Nights, a strange mixture of simplicities and pieties, and murderous practicalities, which brought back the forgotten days of thuggy and made them live again, in fact even made them believable. It was a case where a young girl had been assassinated for the sake of her trifling ornaments, things not worth a laborer's days wages in America. This thing could have been done in many other countries, but hardly with a cold business-like depravity, absence of fear, absence of caution, destitution of the sense of horror, repentance, remorse, exhibited in this case. Elsewhere the murderer would have done his crime secretly, by night, and without witnesses. His fears would have allowed him no peace while the dead body was in his neighborhood. He would not have rested until he had gotten it safe, out of the way, and hidden as effectually as he could hide it. But this Indian murderer does his deed in the full light of day, cares nothing for the society of witnesses, is in no way incommodated by the presence of the corpse, takes his own time about disposing of it, and the whole party are so indifferent, so phlegmatic, that they take their regular sleep as if nothing was happening, and no halters hanging over them. And these five bland people close the episode with a religious service. The thing reads like a Meadows-Taylor thug-tail of half a century ago, as may be seen by the official report of the trial. At the Mazagon police court yesterday, Superintendent Nolan again charged Tukaram Suntu, Savat Baya, woman, her daughter Krishni, and Gopal Vithu Banaykar, for Mr. Firoze Hosheng Dastur, 4th Presidency Magistrate, under Sections 302 and 109 of the Code, with having, on the night of the 30th of December last, murdered a Hindu girl named Kasi, aged 12, by strangulation in the room of a chawl at Jakariya Bundur on the Suri Road, and also with aiding and abetting each other in the commission of the offence. After F. A. Little, Public Prosecutor, conducted the case on behalf of the Crown, the accused being undefended. Mr. Little applied under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code to tender pardon to one of the accused, Krishni, woman, aged 22, on her undertaking to make a true and full statement of facts under which the deceased girl Kasi was murdered. The Magistrate, having granted the Public Prosecutor's application, the accused Krishni went into the witness-box, and on being examined by Mr. Little, made the following confession. I am a mill-hand employed at the Jubilee Mill. I recollect the day, Tuesday, on which the body of the deceased Kasi was found. Previous to that, I attended the mill for half a day, and then returned home at three in the afternoon. When I saw five persons in the house, these the first accused, Tukaram, who is my paramour, my mother, the second accused Baya, the accused Gopal, and two guests, named Ramji Daji and Anaji Kungaram. Tukaram rented the room of the chal, situated at Jakariya Bundur Road, from its owner, Girdarilal Radakishan, and in that room I, my paramour, Tukaram, and his younger brother, Yasomahadu, live. Since his arrival in Bombay, from his native country, Yaso came and lived with us. When I returned from the mill on the afternoon of that day, I saw the two guests seated on a cot in the veranda, and a few minutes after the accused Gopal came and took his seat by their side, while I and my mother were seated inside the room. Tukaram, who had gone out to fetch some paan and betel nuts, on his return home, had brought the two guests with him. After returning home, he gave them paan supari. While they were eating it, my mother came out of the room and inquired of one of the guests, Ramji, what had happened to his foot, when he replied that he had tried many remedies, but they had done him no good. My mother then took some rice in her hand and prophesied that the disease which Ramji was suffering from would not be cured until he returned to his native country. In the meantime the deceased Kasi came from the direction of an outhouse and stood in front, on the threshold of our room, with a lotta in her hand. Tukaram then told his two guests to leave the room, and they then went up the steps towards the quarry. After the guests had gone away, Tukaram seized the deceased, who had come into the room, and he afterwards put a waistband around her and tied her to a post which supports aloft. After doing this, he pressed the girl's throat, and having tied her mouth with the dottur, now shown in court, fastened it to the post. Having killed the girl, Tukaram removed her gold head ornament and a gold putli, and also took charge of her lotta. Besides these two ornaments Kasi had on her person, ear studs, a nose ring, some silver toe rings, two necklaces, a pair of silver anklets and bracelets. Tukaram afterwards tried to remove the silver amulets, the ear studs and the nose ring, but he failed in his attempt. While he was doing so, I, my mother, and Gopal were present. After removing the two gold ornaments, he handed them over to Gopal, who was at the time standing near me. When he killed Kasi, Tukaram threatened to strangle me also if I informed any one of this. Gopal and myself were then standing at the door of our room, and we both were threatened by Tukaram. My mother, Baya, had seized the legs of the deceased at the time she was killed, and while she was being tied to the post. Kasi then made a noise. Tukaram and my mother took part in killing the girl. After the murder her body was wrapped up in a mattress and kept on the loft over the door of our room. When Kasi was strangled, the door of the room was fastened from the inside by Tukaram. This deed was committed shortly after my return home from work in the mill. Tukaram put the body of the deceased in the mattress, and after it was left on the loft, he went to have his head shaved by a barber named Sambu Raghu, who lives only one door away from me. My mother and myself then remained in the possession of the information. I was slapped and threatened by my paramour Tukaram, and that was the only reason why I did not inform anyone at that time. When I told Tukaram that I would give information of the occurrence, he slapped me. The accused Gopal was asked by Tukaram to go back to his room, and he did so, taking away with him the two gold ornaments and the lota. Yeso Mahadu, a brother-in-law of Tukaram, came to the house and asked Tukaram why he was washing the water pipe being just opposite. Tukaram replied that he was washing his dotur as a fowl had polluted it. About six o'clock of the evening of that day my mother gave me three pice and asked me to buy a coconut, and I gave the money to Yeso, who went and fetched the coconut and some beetle leaves. When Yeso and others were in the room I was bathing, and after I finished my bath my mother took the coconut and the beetle leaves from Yeso, and we five went to the sea. The party consisted of Tukaram, my mother, Yeso, Tukaram's younger brother, and myself. On reaching the seashore my mother made the offering to the sea and prayed to be pardoned for what we had done. Before we went to the sea someone came to inquire after the girl Kasi. The police and other people came to make these inquiries both before and after we left the house for the seashore. The police questioned my mother about the girl, and she replied that Kasi had come to her door but had left. The next day the police questioned Tukaram, and he too gave a similar reply. This was said the same night when the search was made for the girl. After the offering was made to the sea we partook of the coconut and returned home, when my mother gave me some food. But Tukaram did not partake of any food that night. After dinner I and my mother slept inside the room, and Tukaram slept on a cot near his brother-in-law, Yeso Madahu, just outside the door. That was not the usual place where Tukaram slept. He usually slept inside the room. The body of the deceased remained on the loft when I went to sleep. The room in which we slept was locked, and I heard that my paramour Tukaram was restless outside. About three o'clock the following morning Tukaram knocked at the door, when both myself and my mother opened it. He then told me to go to the steps leading to the quarry and see if anyone was about. Those steps lead to a stable, through which we go to the quarry at the back of the compound. When I got to the steps I saw no one there. Tukaram asked me if anyone was there, and I replied that I could see no one about. He then took the body of the deceased from the loft, and having wrapped it up in his sari, asked me to accompany him to the steps of the quarry, and I did so. The sari now produced here was the same. Besides the sari there was also a choli on the body. He then carried the body in his arms and went up the steps through the stable, and then to the right hand towards the Sahib's bungalow where Tukaram placed the body near a wall. All the time I and my mother were with him. When the body was taken down, Yesu was lying on the cot. After depositing the body under the wall we all returned home, and soon after five a.m. the police again came and took Tukaram away. About an hour after they returned and took me and my mother away. We were questioned about it when I made a statement. Two hours later I was taken to the room, and I pointed out this waistband, the Doctur, the mattress, and the wooden post to Superintendent Nolan and Inspectors Roberts and the Rachanali in the presence of my mother and Tukaram. Tukaram killed the girl Kasi for her ornaments, which he wanted for the girl to whom he was shortly going to be married. The body was found in the same place where it was deposited by Tukaram. The criminal side of the native has always been picturesque, always readable. The Thuggy and one or two other particularly outrageous features of it have been suppressed by the English, but there is enough of it left to keep it darkly interesting. One finds evidence of these survivals in the newspapers. Macaulay has a light-throwing passage upon this matter in his great historical sketch of Warren Hastings, where he is describing some effects which followed the temporary paralysis of Hastings' powerful government brought about by Sir Philip Francis and his party. The natives considered Hastings as a fallen man, and they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen in India a cloud of crows pecking a sick vulture to death—no bad type of what happens in that country as often as fortune deserts one who has been great and dreaded. In an instant all the sycophants, who had lately been ready to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, to poison for him, hasten to purchase the favour of his victorious enemies by accusing him. An Indian government has only to let it be understood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined, and in twenty-four hours it will be furnished with grave charges supported by depositions so full and circumstantial that any person unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity would regard them as decisive. It is well if the signature of the destined victim is not counter-fitted at the foot of some illegal compact, and if some treasonable paper is not slipped into a hiding-place in his house. That was nearly a century and a quarter ago. An article in one of the chief journals of India, the Pioneer, shows that in some respects the native of today is just what his ancestor was then. Here are niceties of so subtle and delicate a sort that they lift their breed of rascality to a place among the fine arts, and almost entitle it to respect. The records of the Indian courts might certainly be relied upon to prove that swindlers as a class in the East come very close to, if they do not surpass, in brilliancy of execution and originality of design, the most expert of their fraternity in Europe and America. India, in a special, is the home of forgery. There are some particular districts which are noted as marks for the finest specimens of the forger's handiwork. The business is carried on by firms who possess stores of stamped papers to suit every emergency. They habitually lay in a store of fresh stamped papers every year, and some of the older and more thriving houses can supply documents for the past forty years, bearing the proper watermark and possessing the genuine appearance of age. Other districts have earned notoriety for skilled perjury, a preeminence that excites a respectful admiration when one thinks of the universal prevalence of the art, and person's desires of succeeding in false suits are ready to pay handsomely to avail themselves of the services of these local experts as witnesses. Various instances illustrative of the methods of these swindlers are given. They exhibit deep cunning and total depravity on the part of the swindler and his pals, and more obtuseness on the part of the victim than one would expect to find in a country where suspicion of your neighbor must surely be one of the earliest things learned. The favourite subject is the young fool who has just come into a fortune and is trying to see how poor a use he can put it to. I will quote one example. Sometimes another form of confidence trick is adopted, which is invariably successful. The particular pigeon is spotted, and, his acquaintance having been made, he is encouraged in every form of vice. When the friendship is thoroughly established the swindler remarks to the young man that he has a brother who has asked him to lend him Rs. ten thousand. The swindler says he has the money and would lend it, but as the borrower is his brother he cannot charge interest. So he proposes that he should hand the dupe the money, and the latter should lend it to the swindler's brother, exacting a heavy prepayment of interest, which, it is pointed out, they may equally enjoy in dissipation. The dupe sees no objection, and on the appointed day receives Rs. seven thousand from the swindler which he hands over to the confederate. The latter is profuse in his thanks and executes a promissory note for Rs. ten thousand payable to bearer. The swindler allows the scheme to remain quiescent for a time, and then suggests that, as the money has not been repaid, and as it would be unpleasant to sue his brother, it would be better to sell the note in the bazaar. The dupe hands the note over, for the money he advanced was not his, and on being informed that it would be necessary to have his signature on the back so as to render the security negotiable, he signs without any hesitation. The swindler passes it on to confederates, and the latter employ a respectable firm of solicitors to ask the dupe if his signature is genuine. He admits it at once, and his fate is sealed. A suit is filed by a confederate against the dupe, two accomplices being made co-defendants. They admit their signatures as endorsers, and the one swears he bought the note for value from the dupe. The latter has no defence, for no court would believe the apparently idle explanation of the manner in which he came to endorse the note. There is only one India. It is the only country that has a monopoly of grand and imposing specialties. When another country has a remarkable thing, it cannot have it all to itself, some other country has a duplicate. But India, that is different. Its marvels are its own. The patents cannot be infringed, imitations are not possible. And think of the size of them, the majesty of them, the weird and outlandish character of the most of them. There is the plague, the black death. India invented it. India is the cradle of that mighty birth. The car of juggernaut was India's invention. So was the suiti. And within the time of men still living eight hundred widows willingly, and in fact rejoicingly, burned themselves to death on the bodies of their dead husbands in a single year. Eight hundred would do it this year if the British government would let them. Famine is India's specialty. Elsewhere, famines are inconsequential incidents. In India they are devastating cataclysms. In one case they annihilate hundreds. In the other, millions. India has two million gods and worships them all. In religion all other countries are paupers. India is the only millionaire. With her everything is on a giant scale, even her poverty. No other country can show anything to compare with it. And she has been used to wealth on so vast a scale that she has to shorten to single words the expressions describing great sums. She describes one hundred thousand with one word, a lack. She describes ten millions with one word, a crore. In the bowels of the granite mountains she has patiently carved out dozens of vast temples and made them glorious with sculptured colonnades and stately groups of statuary, and has adorned the eternal walls with noble paintings. She has built fortresses of such magnitude that the show strongholds of the rest of the world are but modest little things by comparison. Palaces that are wonders for rarity of materials, delicacy and beauty of workmanship and for cost, and one tomb which men go around the globe to see. It takes eighty nations speaking eighty languages to people her, and they number three hundred millions. On top of all this she is the mother and home of that wonder of wonders caste, and of that mystery of mysteries the satanic brotherhood of the thugs. India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization, she had the first accumulation of material wealth. She was populace with deep thinkers and subtle intellects. She had mines and woods and a fruitful soil. It would seem as if she should have kept the lead, and should be today not the meek dependent of an alien master but mistress of the world and delivering law and command to every tribe and nation in it, but in truth there was never any possibility of such supremacy for her. If there had been but one India and one language, but there were eighty of them, where there are eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarreling must be the common business of life. Unity of purpose and policy are impossible. Out of such elements supremacy in the world cannot come. Even caste itself could have had the defeating effect of a multiplicity of tongues, no doubt, for it separates a people into layers and layers and still other layers that have no community of feeling with each other, and in such a condition of things as that patriotism can have no healthy growth. It was the division of the country into so many states and nations that made Thuggy possible and prosperous. It is difficult to realize the situation, but perhaps one may approximate it by imagining the states of our union peopled by separate nations, speaking separate languages, with guards and custom houses strung along all frontiers, plenty of interruptions for travelers and traders, interpreters able to handle all the languages, very rare or non-existent, and a few wars always going on here and there and yonder as a further embarrassment to commerce and excursioning. It would make intercommunication in a measure ungeneral. India had eighty languages and more custom houses than cats. No clever man with the instinct of a highway robber could fail to notice what a chance for business was here offered. India was full of clever men with the highwayman instinct, and so, quite naturally, the brotherhood of the Thugs came into being to meet the long-felt want. How long ago that was nobody knows, centuries it is supposed, one of the chiefest wonders connected with it was the success with which it kept its secret. The English trader did business in India two hundred years and more, before he ever heard of it, and yet it was assassinating its thousands all around him every year, the whole time. END OF CHAPTER XXXIV Official Thug Book. Supplies for Travelling, Bedding, and Other Freight. Seen at Railway Station. Making way for White Man. Waiting passengers, high and low-caste, touch in the cars. Car. Beds made up. Dreaming of Thugs. Baroda. Meet friends. Indian well. The old town. Narrow streets. A mad elephant. The old saw says, Let a sleeping dog lie. Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it. Kinghead Wilson's New Calendar. From Diary January XXVIII. I learned of an official Thug Book the other day. I was not aware before that there was such a thing. I am allowed the temporary use of it. We are making preparations for travel. Mainly the preparations are purchases of bedding. This is to be used in sleeping berths in the trains, in private houses sometimes, and in nine-tenths of the hotels. It is not realizable, and yet it is true. It is a survival. An apparently unnecessary thing, which in some strange way has outlived the conditions which once made it necessary. It comes down from a time when the railway and the hotel did not exist, when the occasional white traveller went horseback or by bullock cart and stopped overnight in the small dock bungalow provided at easy distances by the government, a shelter merely and nothing more. He had to carry bedding along or do without. The dwellings of the English residents are spacious and comfortable and commodiously furnished, and surely it must be an odd sight to see half a dozen guests come filing into such a place and dumping blankets and pillows here and there and everywhere. But custom makes incongruous things, congruous. When buys the bedding, with waterproof hold-all for it at almost any shop, there is no difficulty about it. January 30. What a spectacle the railway station was at train time! It was a very large station, yet when we arrived it seemed as if the whole world was present. Half of it inside, the other half outside, and both halves bearing mountainous head-loads of bedding and other freight, trying simultaneously to pass each other in opposing floods in one narrow door. These opposing floods were patient, gentle, long suffering natives, with whites scattered among them at rare intervals. And wherever a white man's native servant appeared, that native seemed to have put aside his natural gentleness for the time and invested himself with the white man's privilege of making a way for himself by promptly shoving all intervening black things out of it. In these exhibitions of authority Satan was scandalous. He was probably a thug in one of his former incarnations. Inside the great station, tides upon tides of rainbow-costumed natives swept along, this way and that, in massed and bewildering confusion, eager, anxious, belated, distressed, and washed up to the long trains and flowed into them with their packs and bundles, and disappeared, followed at once by the next wash, the next wave. And here and there, in the midst of this hurly-burly, and seemingly undisturbed by it, sat great groups of natives on the bare stone floor—young, slender-brown women, old, gray-wrinkled women, little, soft-brown babies, old men, young men, boys, all poor people, but all the females among them, both big and little, bejeweled with cheap and showy nose-rings, toe-rings, leglets, and armlets—these things constituting all their wealth, no doubt. These silent crowds sat there with their humble bundles and baskets and small household gear about them, and patiently waited. For what? A train that was to start at some time or other during the day or night. They hadn't timed themselves well, but that was no matter. The thing had been so ordered from on high, therefore why worry? There was plenty of time, hours and hours of it, and the thing that was to happen would happen. There was no hurrying it. The natives travelled third class, and at marvelously cheap rates. They were packed and crammed into cars that held each about fifty, and it was said that often a Brahmin of the highest caste was thus brought into personal touch and consequent defilement with persons of the lowest castes. No doubt a very shocking thing if a body could understand it and properly appreciate it. Yes, a Brahmin who didn't own a rupee and couldn't borrow one might have to touch elbows with a rich hereditary lord of inferior caste, inheritor of an ancient title a couple of yards long. And he would just have to stand it, for if either of the two was allowed to go in the cars where the sacred white people were, it probably wouldn't be the August poor Brahmin. There was an immense string of those third class cars, for the natives travelled by hordes, and a weary hard night of it the occupants would have, no doubt. When we reached our car, Satan and Barney had already arrived there with their train of porters carrying bedding and parasols and cigar-boxes and were at work. We named him Barney for short, we couldn't use his real name, there wasn't time. It was a car that promised comfort, indeed luxury, yet the cost of it, well, economy could no further go, even in France, not even in Italy. It was built of the plainest and cheapest partially smoothed boards with a coating of dull paint on them, and there was nowhere a thought of decoration. The floor was bare, but would not long remain so when the dust should begin to fly. Across one end of the compartment ran a netting for the accommodation of hand baggage. At the other end was a door which would shut upon compulsion, but wouldn't stay shut. It opened into a narrow little closet, which had a washbowl in one end of it, and a place to put a towel in case you had one with you, and you would be sure to have towels, because you buy them with the bedding, knowing that the railway doesn't furnish them. On each side of the car and running for an aft was a broad leather-covered sofa to sit on in the day and sleep on at night. Over each sofa hung by straps a wide, flat, leather-covered shelf to sleep on. In the daytime you can hitch it up against the wall out of the way, and then you have a big unencumbered and most comfortable room to spread out in. No car in any country is quite its equal for comfort and privacy, I think. For usually there are but two persons in it, and even when there are four, there is but little sense of impaired privacy. Our own cars at home can surpass the railway world in all details, but that one. They have no coziness. There are too many people together. At the foot of each sofa was a side door for entrance and exit. Along the whole length of the sofa on each side of the car ran a row of large single-plate windows of a blue tint, blue to soften the bitter glare of the sun and protect one's eyes from torture. These could be let down out of the way when one wanted the breeze. In the roof were two oil lamps which gave a light strong enough to read by. Each had a green cloth attachment by which it could be covered when the light should be no longer needed. While we talked outside with friends, Barney and Satan placed the hand baggage, books, fruits and soda bottles in the racks, and the whole dolls and heavy baggage in the closet. Hung the overcoats and sun helmets and towels on the hooks, hoisted the two bed-shelves up out of the way, then shouldered their bedding and retired to the third class. Now then, you see what a handsome, spacious, light, airy, home-like place it was wherein to walk up and down or sit and write or stretch out and read and smoke. A central door in the forward end of the compartment opened into a similar compartment. It was occupied by my wife and daughter. About nine in the evening, while we halted a while at a station, Barney and Satan came and undid the clumsy big hold-alls and spread the bedding on the sofas in both compartments, mattresses, sheets, gay coverlets, pillows all complete. There are no chamber-maids in India. Apparently it was an office that was never heard of. Then they closed the communicating door, nimbly tidied up our place, put the night-clothing on the beds, and the slippers under them, then returned to their own quarters. January 31. It was novel and pleasant, and I stayed awake as long as I could to enjoy it, and to read about those strange people, the thugs. In my sleep they remained with me, and tried to strangle me. The leader of the gang was that giant Hindu who was such a picture in the strong light when we were leaving those Hindu betrothal festivities at two o'clock in the morning. It was he that brought me the invitation from his master to go to Baroda and lecture to that prince, and now he was misbehaving in my dreams. But all things can happen in dreams. It is indeed as the sweet singer of Michigan says, irrelevantly, of course, for the one and unfailing great quality which distinguishes her poetry from Shakespeare's, and makes it precious to us, is its stern and simple irrelevancy. My heart was gay and happy. This was ever in my mind. There is better times are coming, and I hope some day to find myself capable of composing. It was my heart's delight to compose on a sentimental subject if it came in my mind just right. The sentimental song-book, page 49, theme The Author's Early Life, 19th Stanza. Baroda arrived at seven this morning. The dawn was just beginning to show. It was forlorn to have to turn out in a strange place at such a time, and the blinking lights in the station made it seem night still. But the gentlemen who had come to receive us were there with their servants, and they make quick work. There was no lost time. We were soon outside and moving swiftly through the soft gray light, and presently were comfortably housed, with more servants to help than we were used to, and with rather embarrassingly important officials to direct them. But it was custom. They spoke Ballarat English. Their bearing was charming and hospitable. And so all went well. Breakfast was a satisfaction. Across the lawns was visible in the distance through the open window an Indian well, with two oxen tramping leisurely up and down, long inclines, drawing water. And out of the stillness came the suffering screech of the machinery, not quite musical, and yet soothingly melancholy and dreamy and reposeful. A wail of lost spirits one might imagine. And commemorative and reminiscent, perhaps. For, of course, the thugs used to throw people down that well when they were done with them. After breakfast the day began, a sufficiently busy one. We were driven by winding roads through a vast park with noble forests of great trees, and with tangles and jungles of lovely growths of a humbler sort. And at one place three large gray apes came out and pranced across the road. A good deal of a surprise and an unpleasant one, for such creatures belong in the menagerie, and they look artificial and out of place in the wilderness. We came to the city by and by, and drove all through it. Intensely Indian it was, and crumbly, and mouldering, and immemorialy old to all appearance. And the houses, oh, indescribably quaint and curious they were, with their fronts and elaborate lacework of intricate and beautiful wood carving, and now and then further adorned with rude pictures of elephants and princes and gods done in shouting colors. And all the ground floors along these cramped and narrow lanes occupied as shops, shops unbelievably small and impossibly packed with merchantable rubbish, and with nine-tenths naked natives squatting at their work of hammering, pounding, brazing, soldering, sowing, designing, cooking, measuring out grain, grinding it, repairing idols, and then the swarm of ragged and noisy humanity under the horse's feet and everywhere, and the pervading reek and fume and smell. It was all wonderful and delightful. Imagine a file of elephants marching through such a crevice of a street and scraping the paint off both sides of it with their hides. How big they must look, and how little they must make the houses look, and when the elephants are in their glittering court costume, what a contrast they must make with the humble and sordid surroundings. And when a mad elephant goes raging through, belting right and left with his trunk, how do these swarms of people get out of the way? I suppose it is a thing which happens now and then in the mad season, for elephants have a mad season. I wonder how old the town is. There are patches of building, massive structures, monuments, apparently, that are so battered and worn, and seemingly so tired and so burdened with the weight of age, and so dulled and stupefied with trying to remember things they forgot before history began, that they give one the feeling that they must have been a part of original creation. This is indeed one of the oldest of the princedoms of India, and has always been celebrated for its barbaric pumps and splendors, and for the wealth of its princes. CHAPTER 45 Elephant Riding. How does. The new palace. The prince's excursion. Gold and silver artillery. A vice royal visit. Remarkable dog. The bench show. Augustine Daley's back door. Fakir. It takes your enemy and your friend working together to hurt you to the heart, the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. Puddinhead Wilson's new calendar. Out of the town again, a long drive through open country by winding roads among secluded villages nestling in the inviting shade of tropic vegetation, a Sabbath stillness everywhere, sometimes a pervading sense of solitude, but always barefoot natives gliding by like spirits, without sound of footfall, and others in the distance dissolving away and vanishing like the creatures of dreams. Now and then a string of stately camels passed by, always interesting things to look at, and they were velvet-shod by nature and made no noise. Indeed, there were no noises of any sort in this paradise. Yes, once there was one, for a moment, a file of native convicts passed along in charge of an officer, and we caught the soft clink of their chains. In a retired spot, resting himself under a tree, was a holy person, a naked, black Fakir, thin and skinny, and whitey gray all over with ashes. Buy and buy to the elephant stables, and I took a ride. But it was by request. I did not ask for it, and didn't want it, but I took it, because otherwise they would have thought I was afraid, which I was. The elephant kneels down, by command, one end of him at a time, and you climb the ladder and get into the Hauda, and then he gets up one end at a time, just as a ship gets up over a wave, and after that as he strides monstrously about, his motion is much like a ship's motion. The Mahout bores into the back of his head with a great iron prod, and you wonder at his temerity and at the elephant's patience, and you think that perhaps the patience will not last. But it does, and nothing happens. The Mahout talks to the elephant in a low voice all the time, and the elephant seems to understand it all and to be pleased with it, and he obeys every order in the most contented and docile way. Among these twenty-five elephants were two which were larger than any I had ever seen before, and if I had thought I could learn to not be afraid, I would have taken one of them while the police were not looking. In the Hauda house there were many Haudas that were made of silver, one of gold, and one of old ivory, and equipped with cushions and canopies of rich and costly stuffs. The wardrobe of the elephants was there too, vast velvet covers stiff and heavy with gold embroidery, and bells of silver and gold, and ropes of these metals for fastening the things on, harness, so to speak, and monster hoops of massive gold for the elephant to wear on his ankles when he is out in procession on business of state. But we did not see the treasury of crown jewels, and that was a disappointment for in mass and richness it ranks only second in India. By mistake we were taken to see the new palace instead, and we used up the last remnant of our spare time there. It was a pity too for the new palace is mixed modern American-European and has not a merit except costliness. It is wholly foreign to India and impudent and out of place. The architect has escaped. This comes of overdoing the suppression of the thugs. They had their merits. The old palace is oriental and charming, and in consonance with the country. The old palace would still be great if there were nothing of it but the spacious and lofty hall where the derbers are held. It is not a good place to lecture in on account of the echoes, but it is a good place to hold derbers in and regulate the affairs of a kingdom, and that is what it is for. If I had it I would have a derber every day instead of once or twice a year. The prince is an educated gentleman. His culture is European. He has been in Europe five times. People say that this is costly amusement for him, since in crossing the sea he must sometimes be obliged to drink water from vessels that are more or less public and thus damage his caste. To get it purified again he must make pilgrimage to some renowned Hindu temples and contribute a fortune or two to them. His people are like the other Hindus, profoundly religious, and they could not be content with a master who is impure. We failed to see the jewels, but we saw the gold cannon and the silver one. They seemed to be six pounders. They were not designed for business, but for salutes upon rare and particularly important state occasions. An ancestor of the present Gaiquar had the silver one made, and a subsequent ancestor had the gold one made in order to outdo him. This sort of artillery is in keeping with the traditions of Baroda, which was of old famous for style and show. It used to entertain visiting Rajas and Viceroy's with tiger fights, elephant fights, illuminations, and elephant processions of the most glittering and gorgeous character. It makes the circus a pale, poor thing. In the train, during a part of the return journey from Baroda, we had the company of a gentleman who had with him a remarkable looking dog. I had not seen one of its kind before, as far as I could remember, though, of course, I might have seen one and not noticed it, for I am not acquainted with dogs, but only with cats. This dog's coat was smooth and shiny and black, and I think it had tan trimmings around the edges of the dog and perhaps underneath. It was a long, low dog with very short, strange legs, legs that curved inboard. Something like parentheses turned the wrong way. Indeed, it was made on the plan of a bench for length and lowness. It seemed to be satisfied, but I thought the plan poor and structurally weak, on account of the distance between the forward supports and those abaffed. With age the dog's back was likely to sag, and it seemed to me that it would have been a stronger and more practicable dog, if it had had some more legs. It had not begun to sag yet, but the shape of the legs showed that the undue weight imposed upon them was beginning to tell. It had a long nose and floppy ears that hung down, and a resigned expression of countenance. I did not like to ask what kind of a dog it was, or how it came to be deformed, for it was plain that the gentleman was very fond of it, and naturally he could be sensitive about it. From delicacy I thought it best not to seem to notice it too much. No doubt a man with a dog like that feels just as a person does who has a child that is out of true. The gentleman was not merely fond of the dog, he was also proud of it, just the same again as a mother feels about her child, when it is an idiot. I could see that he was proud of it, notwithstanding it was such a long dog, and looked so resigned and pious. It had been all over the world with him, and had been pilgriming like that for years and years. It had traveled fifty thousand miles by sea and rail, and had ridden in front of him on his horse Eighth Thousand. It had a silver medal from the geographical society of Great Britain for its travels, and I saw it. It had won prizes in dog shows, both in India and in England, I saw them. He said its pedigree was on record in the Kennel Club, and that it was a well-known dog. He said a great many people in London could recognize it the moment they saw it. I did not say anything, but I did not think at anything strange. I should know that dog again myself, yet I am not careful about noticing dogs. He said that when he walked along in London people often stopped and looked at the dog. Of course I did not say anything, for I did not want to hurt his feelings, but I could have explained to him that if you take a great long, low dog like that and waddle it along the street anywhere in the world and not charge anything, people will stop and look. He was gratified because the dog took prizes. But that was nothing. If I were built like that I could take prizes myself. I wished I knew what kind of a dog it was and what it was for, but I could not very well ask for that which show that I did not know. Not that I want a dog like that, but only to know the secret of its birth. I think he was going to hunt elephants with it, because I know from remarks dropped by him that he has hunted large game in India and Africa and likes it. But I think that if he tries to hunt elephants with it he is going to be disappointed. I do not believe that it is suited for elephants. It lacks energy. It lacks force of character. It lacks bitterness. These things all show in the meekness and resignation of its expression. It would not attack an elephant, I am sure of it. It might not run if it saw one coming, but it looked to me like a dog that would sit down and pray. I wish he had told me what breed it was, if there are others. But I shall know the dog next time, and then if I can bring myself to it I will put delicacy aside and ask. If I seem strangely interested in dogs I have a reason for it, for a dog saved me from an embarrassing position once, and that has made me grateful to these animals. And if by study I could learn to tell some of the kinds from the others I should be greatly pleased. I only know one kind apart yet, and that is the kind that saved me that time. I always know that kind when I meet it, and if it is hungry or lost I take care of it. The matter happened in this way. It was years and years ago I had received a note from Mr. Augustine Daley of the Fifth Avenue Theatre asking me to call the next time I should be in New York. I was writing plays in those days, and he was admiring them, and trying to get me a chance to get them played in Siberia. I took the first train, the early one, the one that leaves Hartford at 8.29 in the morning. At New Haven I bought a paper, and found it filled with glaring display lines about a bench show there. I had often heard of bench shows, but had never felt any interest in them, because I suppose they were lectures that were not well attended. It turned out now that it was not that, but a dog show. There was a double-leaded column about the king feature of this one, which was called a St. Bernard, and was worth ten thousand dollars, and was known to be the largest and finest of his species in the world. I read all this with interest, because out of my schoolboy readings I dimly remembered how the priests and pilgrims of St. Bernard used to go out in the storms, and dig these dogs out of the snow-dress when lost and exhausted, and give them brandy, and save their lives, and drag them to the monastery, and restore them with gruel. Also there was a picture of this prize dog in the paper, a noble great-creature with a benignant countenance standing by a table. He was placed in that way so that one could get a right idea of his great dimensions. You could see that he was just a shade higher than the table, indeed a huge fellow for a dog. Then there was a description which went into the details. It gave his enormous weight a hundred and fifty and one half pounds, and his length four feet two inches from stem to stern post, and his height three feet one inch to the top of his back. The pictures and the figures so impressed me that I could see the beautiful colossus before me, and I kept on thinking about him for the next two hours. Then I reached New York, and he dropped out of my mind. In the swirl and tumult of the hotel lobby I ran across Mr. Daly's comedian, the late James Lewis of Beloved Memory, and I casually mentioned that I was going to call upon Mr. Daly in the evening at eight. He looked surprised and said he reckoned not. For answer I handed him Mr. Daly's note. Its substance was, come to my private den over the theater where we cannot be interrupted, and come by the back way, not the front. Number 642 Sixth Avenue is a cigar shop. Pass through it, and you are in a paved court with high buildings all around. Enter the second door on the left, and come upstairs. Is this all? Yes, I said. Well, you'll never get in. Why? Because you won't. Or if you do, you can draw on me for a hundred dollars, for you will be the first man that has accomplished it in twenty-five years. I can't think what Mr. Daly can have been absorbed in. He has forgotten the most important detail, and he will feel humiliated in the morning when he finds that you tried to get in and couldn't. Why? What is the trouble? I'll tell you. You see, at that point we were swept apart by the crowd, somebody detained me with a moment's talk, and we did not get together again. But it did not matter. I believed he was joking anyway. At eight in the evening I passed through the cigar shop and into the court and knocked at the second door. Come in! I entered. It was a small room, carpetless, dusty, with a naked-deal table, and two cheap wooden chairs for furniture. A giant Irishman was standing there, with shirt collar and vest unbuttoned, and no coat on. I put my hat on the table and was about to say something when the Irishman took the innings himself, and not with marked courtesy of tone. Walsar, what will you have? I was a little disconcerted, and my easy confidence suffered a shrinkage. The man stood as motionless as Gibraltar, and kept his unblinking eye upon me. It was very embarrassing, very humiliating. I stammered at a false start or two. Then I have just run down from—have you plays? You'll not smoke here, you understand? I laid my cigar on the window-edge, chased my flighty thoughts a moment, then said in a placating manner, I—I have come to see Mr. Daly. I have, have you? Yes. Well, you'll not see him. But he asked me to come. Oh, he did, did he? Yes, he sent me this note, and let me see it. For a moment I fancied there would be a change in the atmosphere now. But this idea was premature. The big man was examining the note, searchingly under the gas-jet. A glance showed me that he had it upside down, disheartening evidence that he could not read. Is it his own hand, right? Yes, he wrote it himself. It did, did he? Yes. Hmm. Well, then why'd he write it like that? Ah, how do you mean? I mean—why wouldn't he put his name to it? His name is to it. That's not it. You are looking at my name. I thought that that was a home-shot. But he did not betray that he had been hit. He said, It's not an easy one to spell. How do you pronounce it? Mark Twain. Hmm. Hmm. Mike Twain. Hmm. I don't remember it. What is it you want to see him about? It isn't I that want to see him. He wants to see me. Oh, he dies, does he? Yes. What does he want to see you about? I don't know. He don't know. And you confess it, because— Well, I can tell you one thing. You'll not see him. Are you in the business? What business? The show business. A fatal question. I recognized that I was defeated. If I answered no, he would cut them out of short and wave me to the door without the grace of a word. I saw it in his uncompromising eye. If I said I was a lecturer, he would despise me and dismiss me with appropriate words. If I said I was a dramatist, he would throw me out of the window. I saw that my case was hopeless, so I chose the course which seemed least humiliating. I would pocket my shame and glide out without answering. The silence was growing lengthy. I'll ask you again. Are you in the show business yourself? Yes. I said it with splendid confidence, or in that moment the very twin of that grand New Haven dog loathed into the room, and I saw that Irishman's eye light eloquently with pride and affection. Yeah. And what is it? I've got a bench-show in New Haven. The weather did change then. You don't say, sir. And that's your show, sir. Oh, it's a grand show. It's a wonderful show, sir, and a proud man I am to see your honour this day. And you'll be an expert, sir, and you'll know all about dogs. More than ever they know themselves, I'll take me oath to it. I said with modesty. I believe I have some reputation that way. In fact, my business requires it. You have some reputation, your honour. Be dad, I believe you. There's not a gentleman in the world that can lay over you in the judgment of a dog, sir. Now I'll venture that your honour'll know that dog's debentions there better than he knows them his own self, and just by the casting of your educated eye upon him. Would you mind giving me a guess if you'll be so good? I knew that upon my answer would depend my fate. If I made this dog bigger than the prize dog, it would be bad diplomacy and suspicious. If I fell too far short of the prize dog, that would be equally damaging. The dog was standing by the table, and I believed I knew the difference between him and the one whose picture I had seen in the newspaper to a shade. I spoke promptly up and said, It's no trouble to guess this noble creature's figures. Height, three feet. Length, four feet and three quarters of an inch. Weight, a hundred and forty-eight and a quarter. The man snatched his hat from its peg and danced on it with joy, shouting, Yeeve, hardly missed it, the hare's breath! Hardly the shade of a shade, your honour. Oh, it's the miraculous eye you've got for the judgment of a dog! And still pouring out his admiration of my capacities, he snatched off his vest and scoured off one of the wooden chairs with it, and scrubbed it and polished it and said, There, sit down, your honour. I'm ashamed of myself that I forgot you were standing all this time. And do put on your hat. You mustn't take cold. It's a draughty place. And here is your cigar, sir, getting cold. I'll give you a light. There. The place is all yours, sir. And if you'll just put your feet on the table and make yourself at home, I'll stir it round and get a candle and light you up the old, crazy stares, and see that you don't comb to any harm. For be this time, Mr. Daily, it'll be that impatient to see, your honour, that he'll be taking the roof off. He conducted me cautiously and tenderly up the stairs, lighting the way and protecting me with friendly warnings, then pushed the door open and bowed me in and went his way, mumbling hearty things about my wonderful eye for points of a dog. Mr. Daily was writing and had his back to me. He glanced over his shoulder presently and jumped up and said, Oh, dear me, I forgot all about giving instructions. I was just writing you to beg a thousand pardons. But how is it you are here? How did you get by that, Irishman? You are the first man that's done it in five and twenty years. You didn't bribe him, I know that. There's not money enough in New York to do it. And you didn't persuade him. He is all ice and iron. There isn't a soft place nor a warm one in him anywhere. What is your secret? Look here, you owe me a hundred dollars for unintentionally giving you a chance to perform a miracle, for it is a miracle that you've done. That is all right, I said, collected of Jimmy Lewis. That good dog not only did me that good turn in the time of my need, but he won, for me, the envious reputation among all the theatrical people from the Atlantic to the Pacific, of being the only man in history who had ever run the blockade of Augustine Daley's back door. End of Chapter 45 This is Chapter 46 of following the equator. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Following the equator by Mark Twain, Chapter 46, the thugs, government efforts to exterminate them, choking a victim, a focure spared, Thief strangled. If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging? Puddin Head Wilson's New Calendar On the train, fifty years ago, when I was a boy in the then remote and sparsely peopled Mississippi Valley, vague tales and rumors of a mysterious body of professional murderers came wandering in from a country which was constructively as far from us as the constellations blinking in space. India. Vague tales and rumors of a sect called Thugs, who waylaid travelers in lonely places and killed them for the contentment of a God whom they worshipped, tales which everybody liked to listen to and nobody believed except with reservations. It was considered that these stories had gathered bulk on their travels. The matter died down and a lull followed. Then Eugene Sue's Wandering Jew appeared and made great talk for a while. One character in it was a chief of thugs, Feringia, a mysterious and terrible Indian who was as slippery and sly as a serpent and as deadly, and he stirred up the thug interest once more. But it did not last. It presently died again this time to stay dead. At first glance it seems strange that this should have happened, but really it was not strange. On the contrary, it was natural. I mean on our side of the water. For the source, once the thug tales mainly came, was a government report, and without doubt was not republished in America. It was probably never even seen there. Government reports have no general circulation. They are distributed to the few and are not always read by those few. I heard of this report for the first time a day or two ago and borrowed it. It is full of fascinations, and it turns those dim, dark fairy tales of my boyhood days into realities. The report was made in 1839 by Major Sleeman of the Indian Service and was printed in Calcutta in 1840. It is a clumsy, great, fat, poor sample of the printer's art, but good enough for a government printing office in that old day, and in that remote region perhaps. To Major Sleeman was given the general superintendents of the giant task of ridding India of Thuggy, and he and his seventeen assistants accomplished it. It was the Aegean stables over again. Captain Valancy, writing in a madrasse journal in those old times, makes this remark. The day that sees this far-spread evil eradicated from India and known only in name will greatly tend to immortalize British rule in the east. He did not overestimate the magnitude and difficulty of the work, nor the immensity of the credit which would justly be due to British rule in case it was accomplished. Thuggy became known to the British authorities in India about 1810, but its wide prevalence was not suspected. It was not regarded as a serious matter, and no systematic measures were taken for its suppression until about 1830. About that time Major Sleeman captured Eugene Su's Thug Chief, Ferringia, and got him to turn King's evidence. The revelations were so stupifying that Sleeman was not able to believe them. Sleeman thought he knew every criminal within his jurisdiction, and that the worst of them were merely thieves. But Ferringia told him that he was in reality living in the midst of a swarm of professional murderers, that they had been all about him for many years, and that they buried their dead close by. These seemed insane tales, but Ferringia said, come and see, and he took him to a grave, and dug up a hundred bodies, and told him all the circumstances of the killings, and named the Thugs who had done the work. It was a staggering business. Sleeman captured some of these Thugs, and proceeded to examine them separately and with proper precautions against collusion, for he would not believe any Indian's unsupported word. The evidence gathered proved the truth of what Ferringia had said, and also revealed the fact that gangs of Thugs were plying their trade all over India. The astonished government now took hold of Thuggy, and for ten years made systematic and relentless war upon it, and finally destroyed it. Gang after gang was captured, tried, and punished. The Thugs were harried and hunted from one end of India to the other. The government got all their secrets out of them, and also got the names of the members of the bands, and recorded them in a book, together with their birthplaces and places of residence. The Thugs were worshippers of Bhoani, and to this God they sacrificed anybody that came handy. But they kept the dead man's things themselves, for the God cared for nothing but the corpse. Men were initiated into the sect with solemn ceremonies, then they were taught how to strangle a person with the sacred choked cloth, but were not allowed to perform officially with it until after long practice. No half-educated strangler could choke a man to death quickly enough to keep him from uttering a sound, a muffled scream, gurgle, gasp, moan, or something of the sort. But the expert's work was instantaneous. The cloth was whipped around the victim's neck, there was a sudden twist, and the head fell silently forward, the eyes starting from the sockets, and all was over. The Thug carefully guarded against resistance. It was usual to get the victims to sit down, for that was the handiest position for business. If the Thug had planned India itself, it could not have been more conveniently arranged for the needs of his occupation. There were no public conveyances, there were no conveyances for hire. The traveller went on foot or in a bullock cart or on a horse which he bought for the purpose. As soon as he was out of his own little state or principality, he was among strangers. Nobody knew him, nobody took note of him, and from that time his movements could no longer be traced. He did not stop in towns or villages, but camped outside of them and sent his servants in to buy provisions. There were no habitations between villages. Whenever he was between villages, he was an easy prey, particularly as he usually travelled by night to avoid the heat. He was always being overtaken by strangers who offered him the protection of their company or asked for the protection of his, and these strangers were often Thugs, as he presently found out to his cost. The landholders, the native police, the petty princes, the village officials, the customs officers, were in many cases protectors and harbours of the Thugs, and betrayed travellers to them for a share of the spoil. At first this condition of things made it next to impossible for the government to catch the marauders. They were spirited away by these watchful friends. All through a vast continent thus infested, helpless people of every caste and kind moved along the paths and trails and couples and groups silently by night, carrying the commerce of the country, treasure, jewels, money, and petty batches of silk, spices, and all manner of wares. It was a paradise for the Thug. When the autumn opened, the Thugs began to gather together by pre-concert. Other people had to have interpreters at every turn, but not the Thugs. They could talk together, no matter how far apart they were born, for they had a language of their own, and they had secret signs by which they knew each other for Thugs, and they were always friends. Even their diversities of religion and caste were sunk in devotion to their calling, and the Muslim and the High-caste and Low-caste Hindu were staunch and affectionate brothers in Thuggery. When a gang had been assembled, they had religious worship, and waited for an omen. They had definite notions about the omens. The cries of certain animals were good omens. The cries of certain other creatures were bad omens. A bad omen would stop proceedings and send the men home. The sword and the strangling cloth were sacred emblems. The Thugs worshiped the sword at home before going out to the assembling place. The strangling cloth was worshiped at the place of assembly. The chiefs of most of the bands performed the religious ceremonies themselves, but the Kayats delegated them to certain official stranglers, Chowars. The rites of the Kayats were so holy that no one but a Chowar was allowed to touch the vessels and other things used in them. Thug methods exhibit a curious mixture of caution and the absence of it. Cold business calculation and sudden, unreflecting impulse. But there were two details which were constant, and not subject to caprice. Patient persistence in following up the prey and pitilessness when the time came to act. Caution was exhibited in the strength of the bands. They never felt comfortable and confident unless their strength exceeded that of any party of travellers they were likely to meet by four or five fold. Yet it was never their purpose to attack openly, but only when the victims were off their guard. When they got hold of a party of travellers, they often moved along in their company several days using all manner of arts to win their friendship and get their confidence. At last, when this was accomplished to their satisfaction, the real business began. A few thugs were privately detached and sent forward in the dark to select a good killing-place and dig the graves. When the rest reached the spot, a halt was called for a rest or a smoke. The travellers were invited to sit. By signs, the chief appointed certain thugs to sit down in front of the travellers, as if to wait upon them, others to sit down beside them and engage them in conversation, and certain expert stranglers to stand behind the travellers and be ready when the signal was given. The signal was usually some commonplace remark like, bring the tobacco. Sometimes a considerable weight ensued after all the actors were in their places, the chief was biding his time in order to make everything sure. Meantime, the talk droned on, dim figures moved about in the dull light, peace and tranquility reigned. The travellers resigned themselves to the pleasant reposefulness and comfort of the situation, unconscious of the death angels standing motionless at their backs. The time was ripe now, and the signal came. Bring the tobacco. There was a mute, swift movement, all in the same instant the men at each victim's sides seized his hands, the man in front seized his feet and pulled, the man at his back whipped the cloth around his neck and gave it a twist. The head sunk forward, the tragedy was over. The bodies were stripped and covered up in the graves, the spoil packed for transportation. Then the thugs gave pious thanks to Boani, and departed on further holy service. The report shows that the travellers moved in exceedingly small groups, twos, threes, fours as a rule. A party with a dozen in it was rare. The thugs themselves seemed to have been the only people who moved in force. They went about in gangs of ten, fifteen, twenty-five, forty, sixty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred, two hundred and fifty, and one gang of three hundred and ten is mentioned. Considering their numbers, their catch was not extraordinary, particularly when you consider that they were not in the least fastidious, but took anybody they could get, whether rich or poor, and sometimes even killed children. Now and then they killed women, but it was considered sinful to do it and unlucky. The season was six or eight months long. One season the half-dozen Bundelkhand and Gualior gangs aggregated seven hundred and twelve men, and they murdered two hundred and ten people. One season the Malwa and Kandahish gangs aggregated seven hundred and two men, and they murdered two hundred and thirty-two. One season the Kandahish and Berar gangs aggregated nine hundred and sixty-three men, and they murdered three hundred and eighty-five people. Here is the tally sheet of the gang of sixty thugs for a whole season. Gang under two noted chiefs, Choti and Shik Nungu from Gualior. Left Pura in Jhansi and on arrival at Sarorah murdered a traveller. On nearly reaching Bhopal met three Brahmins and murdered them. Crossed the Nerbuda at a village called Huthiya murdered a Hindu. Went through Arungabad to Valago. There met a Havildar of the barber-caste and five sepoys, native soldiers. In the evening came to Jokur, and in the morning killed them near the place where the treasure-bearers were killed the year before. Between Jokur and Dolia, Mera sepoye of the shepherd-caste killed him in the jungle. Passed through Dolia and lodged in a village, two miles beyond, on the road to Indore, Mera Biraji, beggar, holy mendicant, murdered him at the Tapa. In the morning, beyond the Tapa, fell in with three Marwari travellers, murdered them. Near a village on the banks of the Tapti met four travellers and killed them. Between Jupra and Dolia, Meto Marwari murdered him. At Dolia met three Marwaris, took them two miles and murdered them. Two miles further on, overtaken by three treasure-bearers, took them two miles and murdered them in the jungle. Came on to Kurgore-Batisa in Indore, divided spoil and dispersed. A total of twenty-seven men murdered on one expedition. Choti, to save his neck, was informer and furnished these facts. Several things are noticeable about his resume. One, business brevity. Two, absence of emotion. Three, smallness of the parties encountered by the sixty. Four, variety in character and quality of the game captured. Five, Hindu and Mohammedan chiefs in business together for Bohani. Six, the sacred caste of the Brahmins not respected by either. Seven, nor yet the character of that mendicant, that Biraji. A beggar is a holy creature, and some of the gangs spared him on that account, no matter how slack business might be. But other gangs slaughtered not only him, but even that sacredest of sacred creatures, the Fakir. That repulsive skin and bone thing that goes around naked and mattes his bushy hair with dust and dirt, and so beflowers his lean body with ashes that he looks like a specter. Sometimes a Fakir trusted a shade too far in the protection of his sacredness. In the middle of a talishite of Ferringias, who had been out with forty thugs, I find a case of the kind. After the killing of thirty-nine men and one woman, the Fakir appears on the scene. Approaching Dorgao met three pundits, also a Fakir mounted on a pony. He was plastered over with sugar to collect flies, and was covered with them. Drove off the Fakir and killed the other three. Leaving Dorgao, the Fakir joined again, and went on in company to Raojana. Met six kutris, on their way from Bombay to Nagpur. Drove off the Fakir with stones and killed the six men in camp, and buried them in the grove. Next day the Fakir joined again, made him leave at Mana. Beyond there fell in with two kahars and a sepoy, and came on towards the place selected for the murder. When near it the Fakir came again. Losing all patience with him gave Mithu, one of the gang, five rupees, two dollars and fifty cents, to murder him, and take the sin upon himself. All four were strangled including the Fakir. Surprised to find among the Fakir's effects thirty pounds of coral, three hundred and fifty strings of small pearls, fifteen strings of large pearls, and a gilt necklace. It is curious the little effect that time has upon a really interesting circumstance. This one, so old, so long ago gone down into oblivion, reads with the same freshness and charm that attached to the news in the morning paper. One spirits go up, then down, then up again, following the chances which the Fakir is running. Now you hope, now you despair, now you hope again, and at last everything comes out right, and you feel a great wave of personal satisfaction go weltering through you, and without thinking, you put out your hand to pat Mithu on the back, when, poof, the whole thing has vanished away, there is nothing there. Mithu and all the crowd have been dust and ashes and forgotten, oh, so many, many, many lagging years. And then comes a sense of injury. You don't know whether Mithu got the swag, along with the sin, or had to divide up the swag and keep all the sin himself. There is no literary art about a government report. It stops the story right in the most interesting place. These reports of thug expeditions run along interminably in one monotonous tune. Matasipoi killed him, Mat Five Pundits killed them, Met Four Rajputs and a woman killed them, and so on, till the statistics get to be pretty dry. But this small trip of Ferringia's Forty had some little variety about it. Once they came across a man hiding in a grave, a thief. He had stolen one thousand one hundred rupees from Dunroj Seith of Paroti. They strangled him and took the money. They had no patience with thieves. They killed two treasure-bearers and got four thousand rupees. They came across two bullocks laden with copper pice, and killed the four drivers and took the money. There must have been half a ton of it. I think it takes a double handful of pice to make an ana, and sixteen anas to make a rupee. And even in those days the rupee was worth only half a dollar. Coming back over their tracks from Baroda they had another picturesque stroke of luck. The lojas of Udipor put a traveller in their charge for safety. Dear, dear, across this abysmal gulf of time we still see Ferringia's lips uncover his teeth, and through the dim haze we catch the incandescent glimmer of his smile. He accepted that trust, good man, and so we know what went with the traveller. Even Rajas had no terrors for Ferringia. He came across an elephant-driver belonging to the Raja of Udipor and promptly strangled him. A total of one hundred men and five women murdered on this expedition. Among the reports of expeditions we find mention of victims of almost every quality and estate. Native soldiers, fakirs, mendicants, holy water-carriers, carpenters, peddlers, tailors, blacksmiths, policemen, native, pastry cooks, grooms, mecca pilgrims, chupraces, treasure-bearers, children, cowherds, gardeners, shopkeepers, palanquin-bearers, farmers, bullock-drivers, male servants seeking work, women's servants seeking work, shepherds, archers, table-waiters, weavers, priests, bankers, boatmen, merchants, grass-cutters. Also a prince's cook, and even the water-carrier of that sublime Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the Governor-General of India. How broad they were in their tastes! They also murdered actors, poor wandering barnstormers. There are two instances recorded, the first one by a gang of thugs under a chief who soils a great name born by a better man, Kipling's deathless Gungadin. After murdering four seapoys, going on toward Indore, met four strolling players and persuaded them to come with us, on the pretense that we would see their performance at the next stage, murdered them at a temple near Bhopal. Second instance, at Delhuti, joined by comedians, murdered them eastward of that place. But this gang was a particularly bad crew. On that expedition they murdered a Fakir and twelve beggars, and yet Bhawani protected them. For once when they were strangling a man in a wood when a crowd was going by close at hand, and the noose slipped and the man screamed, Bhawani made a camel burst out at the same moment with a roar that drowned the scream, and before the man could repeat it, the breath was choked out of his body. The cow is so sacred in India that to kill her keeper is an awful sacrilege, and even the thugs recognize this. Yet, now and then, the lust for blood was too strong, and so they did kill a few cow-keepers. In one of these instances the witness who killed the cowherd said, In Thuggy, this is strictly forbidden, and is an act from which no good can come. I was ill of a fever for ten days afterward. I do believe that evil will follow the murder of a man with a cow. If there be no cow, it does not signify. Another Thug said he held the cowherd's feet while this witness did the strangling. He felt no concern because the bad fortune of such a deed is upon the strangler and not upon the assistance, even if there should be a hundred of them. There were thousands of thugs roving over India constantly during many generations. They made Thuggy a hereditary vocation and taught it to their sons and to their sons' sons. Boys were in full membership as early as sixteen years of age. Veterans were still at work at seventy. What was the fascination? What was the impulse? Apparently it was partly piety, largely gain, and there is reason to suspect that the sport afforded was the chiefest fascination of all. Meadow's Taylor makes a Thug in one of his books claim that the pleasure of killing men was the white man's beast-hunting instinct enlarged, refined, ennobled. I will quote the passage. CHAPTER XVI. Simple rules for saving money. To save half when you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait, and count forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five. Putin had Wilson's new calendar. The Thug said, How many of you English are passionately devoted to sporting? Your days and months are past in its excitement. A tiger, a panther, a buffalo, or a hog rouses your utmost energies for its destruction. You even risk your lives in its pursuit. How much higher game is a Thug's? That must really be the secret of the rise and development of Thuggy. The joy of killing. The joy of seeing killing done. These are traits of the human race at large. We white people are merely modified Thugs. Thugs fretting under the restraints of a not very thick skin of civilization. Thugs who long ago enjoyed the slaughter of the Roman arena, and later the burning of doubtful Christians by authentic Christians in the public squares, and who now, with the Thugs of Spain and Nimes, flock to enjoy the blood and misery of the Bullring. We have no tourists of either sex or any religion who are able to resist the delights of the Bullring when opportunity offers. And we are gentle Thugs in the hunting season, and love to chase a tame rabbit and kill it. Still we have made some progress, microscopic, and in truth scarcely worth mentioning, and certainly nothing to be proud of. Still it is progress. We no longer take pleasure in slaughtering or burning helpless men. We have reached a little altitude where we may look down upon the Indian Thugs with a complacent shudder, and we may even hope for a day, many centuries hence, when our posterity will look down upon us in the same way. There are many indications that the Thug often hunted men for the mere sport of it, that the fright and pain of the quarry were no more to him than are the fright and pain of the rabbit or the stag to us, and that he was no more ashamed of beguiling his game with deceits and abusing its trust than are we when we have imitated a wild animal's call and shot it when it honoured us with its confidence and came to see what we wanted. Madara, son of Nihal and I, Ramzan, set out from Kodhi in the cold weather and followed the high road for about twenty days in search of travellers until we came to Selampur, where we met a very old man going to the east. We won his confidence in this manner. He carried a load which was too heavy for his old age. I said to him, You are an old man, I will age you in carrying your load as you are from my part of the country. He said, Very well, take me with you. So we took him with us to Selampur, where we slept that night. We woke him next morning before dawn and set out and at the distance of three miles we seated him to rest while it was still very dark. Madara was ready behind him and strangled him. He never spoke a word. He was about sixty or seventy years of age. Another gang fell in with a couple of barbers and persuaded them to come along in their company by promising them the job of shaving the whole crew, thirty thugs. At the place appointed for the murder, fifteen got shaved and actually paid the barbers for their work, then killed them and took back the money. A gang of forty-two thugs came across two brahmins and a shopkeeper on the road, beguiled them into a grove, and got up a concert for their entertainment. While these poor fellows were listening to the music, the stranglers were standing behind them, and at the proper moment for dramatic effect they applied the noose. The most devoted fisherman must have a bite at least as often as once a week or his passion will cool and he will put up his tackle. The tiger sportsman must find a tiger at least once a fortnight or he will get tired and quit. The elephant hunter's enthusiasm will waste away little by little and his zeal will perish at last if he plowed around a month without finding a member of that noble family to assassinate. But when the lust in the hunter's heart is for the noblest of all quarries, man, how different is the case, and how watery and poor is the zeal, and how childish the endurance of those other hunters by comparison. Then, neither hunger, nor thirst, nor fatigue, nor deferred hope, nor monotonous disappointment, nor leaden-footed lapse of time can conquer the hunter's patience or weaken the joy of his quest or cool the splendid rage of his desire. Of all the hunting passions that burn in the breast of man, there is none that can lift him superior to discouragements like these but the one, the royal sport, the supreme sport, whose quarry is his brother. By comparison, tiger hunting is a colorless poor thing, for all it has been so bragged about. Why, the thug was content to tramp patiently along a foot in the wasting heat of India, week after week at an average of nine or ten miles a day, if he might but hope to find game some time or other and refresh his longing soul with blood. Here is an instance. I, Ramzan and Haider, set out for the purpose of strangling travelers from Gudipur and proceeded via the fort of Jhulunabad, Nawulgunji, Bangarmoh, on the banks of the Ganges, upwards of one hundred miles, from whence we returned by another route. Still no travelers, till we reached Bawani Gunji, where we fell in with a traveler, a boatman. We inveigled him, and about two miles east of there, Haider, strangled him as he stood, for he was troubled and afraid and would not sit. We then made a long journey, about one hundred and thirty miles, and reached Hussunpur Bundwa, where at the tank we fell in with a traveler. He slept there that night, next morning we followed him and tried to win his confidence. At the distance of two miles we endeavored to induce him to sit down, but he would not, having become aware of us. I attempted to strangle him as he walked along, but did not succeed. Both of us then fell upon him, he made a great outcry, They are murdering me! At length we strangled him and flung his body into a well. After this we returned to our homes, having been out a month, and traveled about two hundred and sixty miles, a total of two men murdered on the expedition. And here is another case related by the terrible Futi Khan, a man with a tremendous record, to be re-mentioned by and by. I, with three others, traveled for about forty-five days a distance of about two hundred miles in search of victims along the highway to Bundwa, and returned by Davodpur, another two hundred miles, during which journey we had only one murder, which happened in this manner. Four miles to the east of Nobustagat we fell in with a traveller, an old man. I, with Khoshal and Haider, inveigled him and accompanied him that day within three miles of Rampur, where, after dark, in a lonely place, we got him to sit down and rest. And while I kept him in talk, seated before him, Haider behind strangled him. He made no resistance. Khoshal stabbed him under the arms and in the throat, and we flung the body into a running stream. We got about four or five rupees each—two dollars or two dollars and fifty cents. We then proceeded homewards, a total of one man murdered on this expedition. There! They trapped four hundred miles, were gone about three months, and harvested two dollars and a half apiece. But the mere pleasure of the hunt was sufficient, that was pay enough, they did no grumbling. Every now and then, in this big book, one comes across that pathetic remark, we tried to get him to sit down, but he would not. It tells the whole story. Some accident had awakened the suspicion in him that these smooth friends who had been petting and coddling him and making him feel so safe and so fortunate, after his forlorn and lonely wanderings, were the dreaded thugs. And now their ghastly invitation to sit and rest had confirmed its truth. He knew there was no help for him, and that he was looking his last upon earthly things, but he would not sit. No, not that. It was too awful to think of. There are a number of instances which indicate that when a man had once tasted the regal joys of manhunting, he could not be content with the dull monotony of a crimeless life afterward. Example from a thug's testimony. We passed through to Kurnal, where we found a former thug named Janua, an old comrade of ours, who had turned religious mendicant and become a disciple and holy. He came to us in the Sarai, and weeping with joy, returned to his old trade. Neither wealth nor honors nor dignities could satisfy a reformed thug for long. He would throw them all away some day and go back to the lurid pleasures of hunting men and being hunted himself by the British. Ramzan was taken into a great native grandese service and given authority over five villages. My authority extended over these people to summons them to my presence, to make them stand or sit. I dressed well, rode my pony, and had two seapoys, a scribe, and a village guard to attend me. During three years I used to pay each village a monthly visit, and no one suspected that I was a thug. The chief man used to wait on me to transact business, and as I passed along old and young made their salam to me. And yet, during that very three years he got leave of absence, to attend a wedding, and instead went off on a thugging lark with six other thugs and hunted the highway for fifteen days with satisfactory results. Afterwards he held a great office under a raja. There he had ten miles of country under his command, and a military guard of fifteen men, with authority to call out two thousand more upon occasion. But the British got on his track, and they crowded him so that he had to give himself up. See what a figure he was when he was gotten up for style, and had all his things on. I was fully armed, a sword, shield, pistols, a matchlock musket, and a flint gun, for I was fond of being thus a raid, and when so armed feared not though forty men stood before me. He gave himself up and proudly proclaimed himself a thug. Then, by request, he agreed to betray his friend and pal Burram, a thug with the most tremendous record in India. I went to the house where Burram slept, often as he led our gangs. I woke him, he knew me well, and came outside to me. It was a cold night, so under pretense of warming myself, but in reality to have light for his seizure by the guards, I lighted some straw and made a blaze. We were warming our hands. The guards drew around us. I said to them, This is Burram, and he was seized, just as a cat seizes a mouse. Then Burram said, I am a thug, my father was a thug, my grandfather was a thug, and I have thugged with many. So spoke the mighty hunter, the mightiest of the mighty, the Gordon coming of his day. Not much regret noticeable in it. Having planted a bullet in the shoulder bone of an elephant, and caused the agonized creature to lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some coffee. Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant's spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points, and approaching very near, I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a slum-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked to find that I was only prolonging the suffering of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible dispatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side. Aiming at the shoulder, I fired six shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal, after which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch six-founder. Large tears now trickled down from his eyes, which he slowly shot and opened. His colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side, he expired. Gordon coming. So many, many times this official report leaves one's curiosity unsatisfied. For instance, here is a little paragraph out of the record of a certain band of a hundred and ninety-three thugs which has that defect. Fell in with Lal Singh Subedar and his family, consisting of nine persons. Traveled with them two days, and the third put them all to death except the two children, little boys of one and a half years old. There it stops. What did they do with those poor little fellows? What was their subsequent history? Did they propose training them up as thugs? How could they take care of such little creatures on a march which stretched over several months? No one seems to have cared to ask any questions about the babies. But I do wish I knew. One would be apt to imagine that the thugs were utterly callous, utterly destitute of human feelings, heartless toward their own families as well as toward other peoples. But this was not so. Like all other Indians they had a passionate love for their kin. A shrewd British officer who knew the Indian character took that characteristic into account in laying his plans for the capture of Eugene Su's famous Ferringia. He found out Ferringia's hiding-place and sent a guard by night to seize him. But the squad was awkward and he got away. However they got the rest of the family, the mother, wife, child and brother, and brought them to the officer at Jubulpur. The officer did not fret but bided his time. I knew Ferringia would not go far while links so dear to him were in my hands. He was right. Ferringia knew all the danger he was running by staying in the neighbourhood. Still he could not tear himself away. The officer found that he divided his time between five villages where he had relatives and friends who could get news for him from his family in Jubulpur jail, and that he never slept two consecutive nights in the same village. The officer traced out his several haunts, then pounced upon all the five villages on the one night, and at the same hour, and got his man. Another example of family affection, a little while previously to the capture of Ferringia's family, the British officer had captured Ferringia's foster brother, leader of a gang of ten, and had tried the eleven and condemned them to be hanged. Ferringia's captured family arrived at the jail the day before the execution was to take place. The foster brother, Juhu, entreated to be allowed to see the aged mother and the others. The prayer was granted, and this is what took place. It is the British officer who speaks. In the morning, just before going to the scaffold, the interview took place before me. He fell at the old woman's feet and begged that she would relieve him from the obligations of the milk, with which she had nourished 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. If a capable artist should make a picture of it, it would be full of dignity and solemnity and pathos, and it could touch you. You would imagine it to be anything but what it was. There is reverence there, and tenderness, and gratefulness, and compassion, and resignation, and fortitude, and self-respect, and no sense of disgrace, no thought of dishonour. Everything is there that goes to make a noble parting, and give it a moving grace and beauty and dignity, and yet one of these people is a thug, and the other a mother of thugs. The uncongruities of our human nature seem to reach their limit here. I wish to make note of one curious thing while I think of it. One of the very commonest remarks to be found in this bewildering array of thug confessions is this. Strangled him, and threw him in a well. In one case they threw sixteen into a well, and they had thrown others in the same well before. It makes a body thirsty to read about it. And there is another very curious thing. The bands of thugs had private graveyards. They did not like to kill and bury at random here and there and everywhere. They preferred to wait, and toll the victims along, and get to one of their regular burying-places, Beels, if they could. In the little kingdom of Aude, which was about half as big as Ireland and about as big as the state of Maine, they had 274 Beels. They were scattered along fourteen hundred miles of road, at an average of only five miles apart, and the British government traced out and located each and every one of them, and set them down on the map. The Aude bands seldom went out of their own country, but they did a thriving business within its borders. So did outside bands who came in and helped. Some of the thug leaders of Aude were noted for their successful careers. Each of four of them confessed to above three hundred murders, another to nearly four hundred. Our friend Ramzan to six hundred and four. He is the one who got leave of absence to attend a wedding and went thugging instead, and he is also the one who betrayed Buram to the British. But the biggest records of all were the murder lists of Futikan and Buram. Futikan's number is smaller than Ramzan's, but he is placed at the head because his average is the best in Aude thug history per year of service. His slaughter was five hundred and eight men in twenty years, and he was still a young man when the British stopped his industry. Buram's list was nine hundred and thirty-one murders, but it took him forty years. His average was one man and nearly all of another man per month for forty years, but Futikan's average was two men and a little of another man per month during his twenty years of usefulness. There is one very striking thing which I wish to call attention to. You have surmised from the listed callings followed by the victims of the thugs that nobody could travel the Indian roads unprotected and live to get through, that the thugs respected no quality, no vocation, no religion, nobody, that they killed every unarmed man that came in their way. That is wholly true, with one reservation. In all the long file of thug confessions an English traveller is mentioned but once, and this is what the thug says of the circumstance. He was on his way from Moe to Bombay. We studiously avoided him. He proceeded next morning with a number of travellers who had sought his protection, and they took the road to Baroda. We do not know who he was. He flits across the page of this rusty old book and disappears into the obscurity beyond, but he is an impressive figure, moving through that valley of death serene and unafraid, closed in the might of the English name. We have now followed the big official book through, and we understand what thuggy was, what a bloody terror it was, what a desolating scourge it was. In 1830 the English found this cancerous organization embedded in the vitals of the Empire, doing its devastating work in secrecy, and assisted, protected, sheltered, and hidden by innumerable confederates, big and little native chiefs, customs officers, village officials, and native police, all ready to lie for it, and the mass of the people, through fear, persistently pretending to know nothing about its doings, and this condition of things had existed for generations, and was formidable with the sanctions of age and old custom. If ever there was an unpromising task, if ever there was a hopeless task in the world, surely it was offered here, the task of conquering thuggy. But that little handful of English officials in India set their sturdy and confident grip upon it, and ripped it out, root and branch. How modest do Captain Valancy's words sound now, when we read them again, knowing what we know. The day that sees this far-spread evil completely eradicated from India, and known only in name, will greatly tend to immortalize British rule in the East. It would be hard to word a claim more modestly than that for this most noble work.