Part 6

The question that next presented itself for the anxious consideration of the Government was the means of providing for the families of the approvers. If left to their own devices, or the suggestions of want, there was too much reason to apprehend that the elder members, who had already witnessed the taking of human life, might be tempted to revert to the practices of their forefathers. Accordingly, in the year 1838, on the recommendation of Captain Charles Brown, a School of Industry was founded at Jubbulpore, for the purpose of teaching the sons of the approvers a trade or craft by which they might earn an honest livelihood. At first their parents were opposed to the idea, but soon joyfully acquiesced when they came to understand the benevolent motives of the Government. For a time the old Thugs continued to speak with animation of their past achievements, but, gradually weaned from their former habits and associations, they learned to look back with shame upon their antecedents and studiously avoided any further allusion to them. By the end of 1847 the school possessed 850 inmates, of whom 307 were employed as guards, brickmakers, builders, cleaners, &c., &c.; while the remaining 543 applied their superior ingenuity to the manufacture of lac dye, sealing-wax, blankets, _satringees_ (a sort of strong drugget), fine cloth for trousers, _dhotees_, or body cloths, _newar_ tape of sorts, cotton wicks, stockings, gloves, towels, tents, and carpeting. In that year the product of their labour amounted to 131 tents, 3324 yards of Kidderminster carpeting, forty-six woollen carpets, and a vast quantity of towels, tablecloths, plaids, checks, &c., which realised upwards of £3,500. Of this sum £500 were given to the Thugs as an encouragement, and to form a capital for such as were allowed after a time to establish themselves in Jubbulpore on their own account. And nearly £300 were paid to their wives for spinning thread for the factory. Much of the success of this institution has no doubt been due to the excellent and judicious superintendence of Mr. Williams, formerly a patrol of the Delhi Customs.

Let British supremacy in India cease when it will, the suppression of Thuggee will ever remain a glorious monument to the zeal, energy, and judgment of the civil and military servants of the East India Company. It is easy to direct epigram and innuendo against the idea of a body of merchants ruling a vast empire with enlightened and disinterested beneficence. But the impartial student of Anglo-Indian history can readily adduce many such examples as the preceding--for instance, the suppression of Suttee, human sacrifices, and infanticide; the repression of torture, gang robberies, and voluntary mutilation--in order to prove that these merchants were truly princes, these traffickers the honourable of the earth.

The Tusma-Baz Thugs.

The Tusma-Baz Thugs were the fruit of European civilization grafted on the Asiatic stock. At the commencement of the present century one Creagh, a private in an English regiment stationed at Cawnpore, initiated three natives of low degree into the mysteries of an art, formerly practised by thimble-riggers in this country, and known as "pricking the garter." The game, designated Tusma-bazee by his Hindoo disciples, was played in this manner:--a strap being doubled into many folds, the bystanders were requested to insert a stick where the first double took place, which it was impossible to do without the consent of the juggler. Creagh's three apostles speedily became the leaders of as many schools or gangs, numbering in the year 1848, when they were brought to justice, about fifty persons, chiefly residing in the outskirts of Cawnpore. They had long been known to the police authorities as professional gamblers, and had more than once been either punished for that offence or required to furnish security for their good behaviour. It was not their custom, however, to confine their depredations to their native town. On the contrary, they travelled to a considerable distance to the westward, preferring those districts which still remained under the misrule of petty independent princes. Their first proceeding was to conciliate the police, which was usually effected by the promise of one-fourth of their profits. Having thus provided against all chance of molestation, they would meet as strangers, and accidentally, near some well frequented spot, and gradually begin to play. By degrees a crowd gathered around them, and some one or another was certain to be tempted to try his fortune. At first he was, of course, allowed to win, but it rarely happened that he finally escaped being fleeced of his last coin. The leader received a double share of the plunder, in consideration of the risk and expence he incurred in maintaining his followers until a sufficient booty had been secured to render them independent. If any one of the gang was arrested, it was the leader's duty to use every means in his power to release him, and for every rupee he expended for this purpose he was allowed two pice interest. The balance, after deducting the captain's share was equally divided among the rest, and was generally squandered in drinking and gambling among themselves. It was, however, a light and lucrative profession, and they frequently remitted considerable sums of money to their families. But they did not solely rely on their superior sleight of hand. When the opportunity was favourable they did not scruple to add murder to robbery. Their ordinary plan seems to have been by means of medicated sweetmeats, or sugar, hospitably pressed upon the unwary who ventured to test their skill in play. The drug mostly used was expressed from the seed of the _datura_ plant, a powerful and dangerous narcotic. To call them Thugs was evidently a misnomer, for they had none of the observances of that ancient fraternity, nor did they lay any claim to religious motives. They were simply organized bands of vagrants of the most worthless characters, who preferred fraud to labour and murder to industry. Their detection would have taken place at a much earlier period, had not the police been bribed to connive at their proceedings. It is almost superfluous to remark that their practices were no sooner discovered by the European magistrates than their occupation was gone, and themselves severely punished.

Dacoits, or Gang-Robbers of India.

In India, under its native rulers, murder and robbery were hereditary professions. The Thugs, or hereditary murderers, have been completely put down; but the work of suppression has not yet been equally successful with regard to the hereditary robbers, as they ever found a ready harbour of refuge in the waste lands of the late kingdom of Oude, and, indeed, in every independent state. They usually lived in colonies, in the midst of wild jungles, difficult of access. With incredible rapidity they would sweep down on some distant town or village, plunder some house previously selected for the purpose, and before any pursuit could be organized they were far advanced on their homeward journey. To avert suspicion they assumed various disguises with admirable adaptability. North of the Jumna they generally travelled as holy-water carriers, because long files of that class of men were continually traversing the roads of that district. But to the south of the Jumna they appeared as Brinjaras, or drivers of laden bullocks, or as pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or as sorrowing relatives conveying the bones of the departed to the banks of the Ganges; or as the friends of a bridegroom going to fetch home his bride. In the funeral processions to the "holy Gunga," men's bones were borne in red, those of women in white bags, neither of which were ever allowed to touch the earth, but at their halting grounds were suspended from the apex of a triangle formed by three short poles or staves. These were afterwards useful to the Dacoits as handles for the spear-heads which they carried in their waist-bands. Instead of the bones of their parents they contented themselves with those of inferior animals, wild or domestic. The chief advantage of this disguise was that such mourners were every where treated with the utmost respect, and never subjected to inconvenient inquiries as to whence they came or whither they were going. In Central India a more successful mummery was to assume the garb and appearance of Alukramies, a peculiar class of pilgrims, who travelled in small parties accompanying a high-priest--personated by the leader of the gang. "They had four or five tents, some of white and some of dyed cloth, and two or three pairs of Nakaras, or kettle-drums, and trumpets, with a great number of buffaloes, cows, goats, sheep, and ponies. Some were clothed, but the bodies of the greater part were covered with nothing but ashes, paint, and a small cloth waist-band. Those who had long hair went bare-headed, and those who had nothing but short hair wore a piece of cloth round the head." The pretended Alukramies always took the precaution of hiring the services of half a dozen genuine Byragees, or ascetics, whom they put forward in difficult emergencies. They would often stop for days together in one place, awaiting favourable tidings from the scouts they sent out in all directions. On arriving at a village the drums were beat and the trumpets sounded to announce their approach, and some of the party were sent in, with silver sticks, in the name of the high-priest to bring the headman to pay his respects and offer the established Nuzzurana of 1¼ rupee (two shillings and sixpence). If this offering were not punctually and promptly made, double the amount was exacted on the following day, and he must have been a bold man who would venture, by a refusal, to incur the displeasure of the gods. The landholder, or proprietor of the village, was also expected to furnish, gratuitously, a sufficient number of men to carry the tents, flags, drums, and trumpets of these pious cormorants, whose demands, however, were usually complied with without a murmur. They were distinguished from other wandering mendicants by "a large red flag upon a long pole, with the figure of Hunooman, or the Sun and Moon, embroidered upon it. On one occasion they (the Dacoits) prevailed upon Cheytun Das, a celebrated Byragee of Hindoon in Jyepore, then eighty years of age, to enact the high priest, and he was accompanied by his chief disciple, or son, Gunga Das."

There were various clans, or colonies, of Dacoits. The Budhuks lived in the Oude Teraie, or belt of forest land lying along the foot of the Nepaul hills, whence they made frequent incursions into the British territory, especially to the eastward in the direction of Goruckpore. They were men of low caste, and would eat anything but bullocks, cows, buffaloes, snakes, foxes, and lizards. Agricultural employments they abhorred as too toilsome. According to a familiar proverb, "once a Budhuk, always a Budhuk, and all Budhuks are Dacoits." Their leaders were almost invariably men of good descent: some of them affected to trace back their ancestors for twenty generations, and adduced their long impunity as a proof that they were predestined to be what they were, and that, consequently they could never be anything else. "The tiger's offspring," they would say, "are tigers--the young Budhuks become Dacoits." In their palmy days they were able to maintain ten or a dozen wives, but when misfortunes came upon them they were compelled to reduce the pleasing burden to four or five. And they were not altogether a burden, for each wife received in the division of spoil a sum equal to two-thirds of her husband's share. A penitent Budhuk once made the logical, but ungallant remark, that it was the women who ought to be transported, for then no more Budhuks would be born into the world. Nevertheless, in times of trouble the old women were not without their use. They would then assume the semblance of extreme poverty, and, mounted on wretched ponies, would travel many a long weary mile to the place where their relatives were confined, and by judicious presents to the native officers in authority, generally succeeded in mitigating the lot, if they failed to accomplish the release, of the prisoners. In this labour of love they not unfrequently expended between one and two hundred pounds. There were also Budhuks by adoption, but these were never allowed to eat with the hereditary robbers, though they might smoke the same hookah. As a matter of choice they preferred to avoid bloodshed, but in self-defence, or to secure the success of their attack they never scrupled either to wound or to slay outright. Shoojah-ood-Dowlah, Nawab of Oude, once attempted to direct their love of enterprise into an honorable channel by enrolling 1,200 of them into a corps, commanded by their own leaders. But their depredations became so intolerable that they acquired the appropriate epithet of the "Wolf Regiment," and as they were continually mutinying they were soon afterwards disbanded. A brief narrative of a few cases of Dacoitee committed by the Budhuks will give the best idea of the system they pursued.

In the early part of 1818 a powerful gang started from Khyradee in Oude with the intention of cutting off a treasure, escorted by sixty armed police, on the way from Benares to the westward. They disguised themselves as bird-catchers and took with them "falcons and hawks of all kinds, well trained, also mynas, parrots, and other kinds of speaking and mocking birds." They had also a boat prepared to convey them across the river. Having learnt from their scouts that the treasure would be lodged on a particular night in the Chobee-ka-Serai between Allahabad and Cawnpore, they fitted handles to their axes and spear-heads, and made some rude ladders by means of which, about two hours after dark, they scaled the wall of the Serai. "A guard which had been told off for the purpose broke open the gate from the inside and stood over it to prevent any attack from without, or escape from within, while the rest attacked the escort and secured the treasure." In this spirited affair the Dacoits killed eight and wounded seventeen of the police, carried off £7,600 in specie, and made their escape without the loss of a single man.

In April of the same year the Governor of Bharaitch forwarded to the General Treasury at Lucknow the sum of £2,600 in silver and £600 in gold mohurs, in two carts, escorted by thirty soldiers of the royal army. It was lodged, for one night, outside the gate of a small fort, two loaded guns commanding the only approach. A noted leader, named Naeka, with a gang of eighty Dacoits undertook to cut out the prize. First of all, he divided his followers into three parties. One division of twenty men rushed upon the guns and spiked them. A second, of equal force, fastened the gate of the fort with a strong chain to prevent the garrison from sallying forth; while the others boldly attacked the guard and killed four of them--two of their own party, however, being wounded. As they were returning in hot haste to their homes they were themselves assailed by two large land owners, who took from them £2,000 in rupees and the whole of the gold. They in their turn fell into the hands of the king's troops--Naeka and sixty of his associates being also apprehended. After six years' detention in the Seetapore gaol they were all released, the landowners paying a fine of £2,000 in addition to their booty, and the Dacoits a further sum of £1,000.

Fortune, certainly, did not always smile upon them, notwithstanding her proverbial partiality for the brave. Two gangs having united one day in May, 1819, attacked the house of Sah Beharee Lall, a rich banker, residing in the heart of Lucknow, the capital city of Oude. At first all went well with them, and they carried off upwards of £4,000 into a jungle not far from Khyrabad. A dispute then arose among the leaders respecting the division of the plunder, and one of them, thinking himself unjustly treated, rode off to Lucknow and gave information that led to the apprehension of two hundred men, women, and children. A long and tedious imprisonment awaited them, until in despair they rose upon their guard, in 1834, and seventy of them effected their escape, leaving five of their comrades on the ground, two of them being killed upon the spot. The others were released in 1839.

The boldness and suddenness of their onset usually assured their success. One evening in the month of February, 1822, a party of men, carrying canes in their hands, and about forty in number, were observed hurrying along in a loose straggling manner towards the military station of Nursingpore. On reaching the rivulet that separates the town from the cantonments they were challenged by the sentry--for a picket of soldiers was always posted on the bank, under a native officer. Carelessly answering that they were cowherds and that their cattle were coming on after them, they proceeded without molestation up the principal street, but suddenly halted in front of a shop of some pretensions. Striking their torches against pots containing combustible matter, with which they had previously provided themselves, they were instantly surrounded with a blaze of light. Already bewildered, the bystanders were terrified into silence by a few rapid thrusts of the spears, into which the canes had been instantaneously transformed. The house was rifled as if by magic, ten or a dozen persons were killed or wounded, and in a quarter of an hour from their entrance into the town, the Dacoits were on their way to the jungles. Within twenty paces on one side of the house was a police station, and not a hundred paces on the other side was the picket of sepoys already alluded to. But as marriage processions were just then of frequent occurrence, it was supposed that the noise and the glare of the torches belonged to those very uproarious festivities, until a little boy creeping along a ditch whispered to the native officer that they had killed his father. The alarm was immediately given, but before the troops could turn out, the Dacoits had got a fair start, which carried them beyond the reach of both horse and foot.

A bolder exploit was performed towards the close of that year. Two skilful leaders, having collected some forty followers and distributed among them ten matchlocks, ten swords, and twenty-five spears, waylaid a treasure going from the native Collector's treasury at Budrauna to Goruckpore. The prize consisted of £1,200, and was guarded by a Naïk, or corporal, with four sepoys and five troopers. It had to pass through a dense jungle, and it was settled--said one of them in after years--"that the attack should take place there; that we should have strong ropes tied across the road in front and festooned to trees on both sides, and, at a certain distance behind, similar ropes festooned to trees on one side, and ready to be fastened on the other, as soon as the escort of horse and foot should get well in between them." Having completed these preparations the gang laid down on either side of the road patiently awaiting their prey. "About five in the morning," continued the narrator, "we heard a voice as if calling upon the name of God (Allah), and one of the gang started up at the sound and said, 'Here comes the treasure!' We put five men in front with their matchlocks loaded not with ball but shot, that we might, if possible, avoid killing anybody. When we had got the troopers, infantry, and treasure all within the space, the hind ropes were run across the road and made fast to the trees on the opposite side, and we opened a fire in upon the party from all sides. The foot soldiers got into the jungle at the sides of the road, and the troopers tried to get over the ropes at both ends, but in vain." The corporal and a horse were killed, two troopers wounded, and the treasure carried off in spite of a hot pursuit.

One of the most famous Budhuk chiefs was named Maherban, who lived in his fort at Etwa in the Oude forest. He had seven wives, who frequently accompanied him in his expeditions, with the exception of his chief wife, from whom no such toils and risk were expected. Late in the autumn of 1818 he and his brother assembled about two hundred men, women, and children, and wisely settled beforehand the rates of division of plunder, setting aside a portion for the families of those who might die or be killed. They then sacrificed ten goats, and, each dipping a finger into the blood, swore mutual fidelity; after which they ate and drank and made merry. On the following evening Maherban and twenty of the principal Dacoits advanced a little way in front of the rest of the party, and spat in the direction they were about to pursue. Then raising his hands towards heaven Maherban thus prayed aloud:--"If it be thy will, O God! and thine, O Kalee! to prosper our undertaking, for the sake of the blind and the lame, the widow and the orphan, who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe, we pray thee, the call of the female jackal!" His followers likewise lifted up their hands, and having repeated the prayer after their leader, all sat down in attentive silence. The auspicious omen was presently heard three times upon the left. Thus assured of success, Maherban purchased a palanquin for his second wife--suitable for a man of wealth and dignity. The gang now started for Benares in small detachments, and took lodgings in different parts of that city where they stayed a whole month, making offerings and inquiries. Intelligence was at length received of a cartload of treasure going towards the west, under the care of an armed police force. On the first night of December the escort rested with their precious charge in a public Serai at Josee near Allahabad. Having procured staves for their spears and handles for their axes, the gang left the palanquin, their wives, and superfluous clothes, in a grove about four miles distant. At midnight they arrived at the Serai and were agreeably surprised to find the gate open. Here one detachment halted and mounted guard, while another overawed the police, and the rest plundered the treasure. A brave merchant, named Kaem Khan, likewise reposing in the Serai, in vain endeavoured to infuse courage into the panic-stricken escort by word and gesture. Disgusted with their pusillanimity he continued to lay about him with his long straight sword, wounding two of his assailants and severing in twain many a spear, until a Dacoit got behind him and felled him with a bludgeon, when he was quickly put to death. They then carried off twenty bags containing in all 14,000 Spanish dollars, and had their wounded men tended at a neighbouring village. As some compensation for their sufferings they presented each of them with £10 in addition to his share.