The Thugs Or Phansigars of India: Comprising a History of the Rise and Progress of that Extraordinary Fraternity of Assassins; and a Description of the System which it Pursues, and of the Measures which Have Been Adopted by the Supreme Government of India for Its Suppression, Volume 2Carey & Hart, 1839 - Thugs |
Common terms and phrases
affair alias apprehended Arcot arrested bad omen Benares Berar Bhopaul bodies booty Bowlee Brahman brother Bukhs Khan Buksh Bundelcund buried Burwaha called Captain Sleeman Cawnpore classes of Thugs cose Court crime Davey district ditto Dooab Duckun Thugs encamped expedition father Feringeea four gang ghat goor Gwalior heard Hindoos hundred hung Hydrabad Inaent India Indore Jemadar Jhalna Jhoulee Khan Jubulpore Khan Jemadar killed Kurreem leader Lodahas magistrate Malagow Malwa Mohur murder Musulman Nagpore nalah never night Nurbudda officers omen Oude party peculiar to Duckun perpetrated persons Phansigars pick-axe police prisoners proceedings punished Purdil Khan Rajah Rajpoot Rajpootana Resident returned road robbers roomal rupees Sahib Khan Saugor seized sent share Sheikh Sheikh Ahmed Sindouse Sing Sipahees Sowars strangled strangler Subahdar sword taken Telingana Term peculiar territories thousand rupees Thuggee tion told took travellers victims village W. H. SLEEMAN
Popular passages
Page 119 - We all feel pity sometimes ; but the goor of the Tuponee changes our nature : it would change the nature of a horse. Let any man once taste of that goor, and he will be a Thug, though he know all the trades and have all the wealth in the world.
Page 113 - All ! Every one of the operations is to be seen there. In one place, you see men strangling ; in another, burying the bodies ; in another, carrying them off to the graves. There is not an operation in Thuggee that is not exhibited in the caves of Ellora.
Page 88 - Row's, on her way from Poona to Cawnpore. We intended to kill her and her followers, but we found her very beautiful, and after having her and her party three days within our grasp, and knowing that they had a lakh and a half of rupees...
Page 77 - If any man swears to a falsehood upon a pick-axe, properly consecrated, we will consent to be hung if he survives the time appointed ; appoint one, two or three days when he swears, and we pledge ourselves that he does not live a moment beyond the time ; he will die a horrid death ; his head will turn round, his face towards the back, and he will writhe in tortures till he dies.
Page 53 - A Thug considers the persons murdered precisely in the light of victims offered up to the goddess ; and he remembers them, as a Priest of Jupiter remembered the oxen, and a Priest of Saturn the children sacrificed upon their altars. He meditates his murders without any misgivings; he perpetrates them without any emotion of pity ; and he remembers them without any feelings of remorse.
Page 28 - Mysore, in 1799, to 1807 and 1808, the practice, in that part of India, reached its height, and that hundreds of persons were annually destroyed. In one of his reports, the magistrate of Chittoor observes, " I believe that some of the Phansigars have been concerned in above two hundred murders: nor will this estimate appear extravagant, if it be remembered that murder was their profession — frequently their only means of gaining a subsistence. Every man of fifty years of age has probably been actively...
Page 53 - One may meet with tigers, panthers, and lions upon it, and one had best also have a care of robbers, and above all things not to suffer any body to come near one upon the road. The cunningest robbers in the world are in that country.
Page 21 - Phansigars slaughtered ; but she condescended to present them with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for a knife, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose, and ordered them, for the future, to cut and bury the bodies of those whom they destroyed.
Page 114 - Have you seen no others ? Feringeea. — I have seen these two, and also the Lughas carrying away the bodies to the grave, in this manner, and the sextons digging the grave with the sacred pick-axe : all is dope just as if we had ourselves done it ; nothing could be more exact.
Page 53 - The cunningest robbers in the world are in that country. They use a certain slip with a running noose, which they can cast with so much sleight about a man's neck, when they are within reach of him, that they never fail, so that they strangle him in a trice.