responsibility upon himself. We have sometimes killed other prohibited people, particularly those of low caste, whom we ought not even to have touched."

Among the privileged classes are washermen, poets, professors of dancing, blacksmiths, carpenters, musicians, oil-venders, sweepers, the maimed, the leprous, and those persons who carry the water of the Ganges into distant parts of India, to be used for religious purposes.

The sacred cow, in the eyes of all Hindoos who have any pretensions to consistency, is a protection to its possessor; art is, however, sometimes resorted to, for the purpose of removing this impediment to business. A party of Thugs projected the murder of fourteen persons, including several women; but the design could not be carried into effect, because the victims had a cow with them. With

some difficulty, they were persuaded to sell the cow to the Thugs; who, to induce the travellers to consent to the sale, pretended that they had vowed to make an offering of a cow at Shaphore, and were much in want of one. The cow was actually presented to a Brahman at Shaphore; and, the obstacle being removed, the whole of the unsuspecting travellers, including the females, were, two or three hours afterwards, strangled.

The movements of the followers of Thuggee are invariably governed by omens with which they believe their goddess favors them. However favorably an expedition may have been commenced, success is liable to be postponed by a multiplicity of ominous appearances. The dog enjoys the prerogative of putting a veto on their proceedings, by shaking his head. Sneezing entitles all the travellers within the gripe of the assassins to the

privilege of an escape, and no one dares to put them to death. The fighting of cats, in the fore part of the night, is a good omen; but, if heard towards morning, it betokens evil; the evil, however, may be averted by gargling the mouth with a little sour milk, and then spirting it out. The fighting of cats during the day is a very bad omen, and threatens great evil: if the cats fall down from a height while fighting, it is still worse. These ills are beyond the healing influence of sour milk, and call for nothing less than sacrifice. The noise of jackals fighting is also a very bad omen, and involves the necessity of leaving the part of the country in which the gang hears it. Almost every sound made by animals, birds, and insects, and also their various movements, are regarded as ominous either of good or of evil. "There are always signs around us," say the Thugs, "to guide us to rich booty and to warn us of danger; and if we are only wise enough to discern them, and religious enough to attend to them, we shall prosper in all our undertakings."

The following colloquy will illustrate the opinions, entertained by Thugs generally, as to the danger of associating with those who have not been regularly educated; the importance of attending to rules and omens; and the value and excellence of Thug learning.

Capt. Sleeman. You consider that a borka (a leader) is capable of forming a gang, in any part of India to which he may be obliged to flee?

Sahib and Nasir. Certainly; in any part that we have seen of it.

Capt. S. Do you know any instance of it?

Sahib and Nasir. A great number. Mudee Khan was from the old Sindouse stock, and was obliged to emigrate after the attack upon that place. Many years afterwards, we met him in the Deccan; and he had then a gang of fifty Thugs, of all castes and descriptions. We asked him who they were: he told us that they were weavers, braziers, bracelet-makers, and all kinds. of ragamuffins, whom he had scraped together, about his new abode on the banks of the Heran and Nerbudda Rivers, in the districts of Jebul pore and Nursingpore. He was a Mussulma"; and so were Lal Khan, and Kalee Khan, who formed gangs, after the Sindouse dispersion, along the same rivers.

Capt. S. But these men have all been punished; which does not indicate the protection of Davy.

Sahib and Nasir. It indicates the danger of scraping to

gether such a set of fellows for Thuggee. They killed all people indiscriminately, women and men, of all castes and professions; and knew so little about omens, that they entered upon their expeditions, and killed people, in spite of such as the most ignorant ought to have known were prohibited. They were punished, in consequence, as we all knew that they would be; and we always used to think it dangerous to be associated with them, for even a few days. Ask many of them who are now here- Kureem Khan, Sheikh Kureem, Rumzanee, and others— whether this is not true; and whether they ever let go even a sweeper, if he appeared to have a rupee about him.

Capt. S. And you think that, if they had been well instructed in the signs and rules, and attended to them, they would have thrived?

Sahib and Nasir. Undoubtedly! so should we all.

Capt. S. You think that an inexperienced person could not any where form a gang of Thugs of himself?

Sahib and Nasir. Never. He could know nothing of our rules of augury, or proceedings; and how could he possibly succeed? Does not all our success depend upon knowing and observing omens and rules?

Capt. S. It would, therefore, never be very dangerous to release such a man.

Sahib and Nasir. Never; unless he could join men better instructed than himself. Every one must be convinced, that it is by knowing and attending to omens and rules that Thuggee has thrived.

The practice of Thuggee is not confined to adventurers upon land. The rivers of India are infested by bands of fresh-water pirates, of similar habits to those of the land Thugs, possessing the same feeling, and differing from them only in a few trifling particulars. There is still another class of Thugs, who murder such persons only as are travelling with their children. Their only object is to secure the children and sell them into slavery.

The dark and cheerless night of superstition, which has long clouded the moral vision of India, has given rise to institutions and practices so horrible, that, without the most convincing evidence, their existence could not be credited by minds trained under happier circumstances than those which prevail in the East. That giant power, which has held the human race in chains wherever the pure and unadulterated doctrines of revelation have not penetrated, has, in India, revelled in the wantonness of

prosperity; the foundations of delusion have been laid wide and deep; the poison of a false and brutalizing creed has been insinuated into every action of daily life; and the most obvious distinctions of right and wrong have been obliterated.

The fact of the existence of the cold-blooded miscreants who, in India, make a trade of assassination, is sufficiently horrible; but when it is added, that their occupation is sanctioned by the national religion, that the Thugs regard themselves as engaged in the special service of one of the dark divinities of the Hindoo creed, that the instruments of murder are in their eyes holy, and that their faith in the protection of their goddess, and the perpetuity of their craft, is not to be shaken, we must be struck by the reflection, that we have opened a page in the history of man, fearful and humiliating beyond the ordinary records of iniquity.

-

The genius of Paganism, which has deified every vice, and thus provided a justification of the indulgence of every evil propensity, has furnished the Thugs with a patron goddess worthy of those whom she is believed to protect. Of Kalee, the deity of destruction, they are the most devout and assiduous worshippers in her name they practise their execrable art; and their victims are immolated in her honor. The Thugs believe that Kalee formerly coöperated more directly with them, by disposing of the bodies of those whom they murdered, but she required them not to look back to witness her operations. All was well, so long as they observed this rule; but the services of the goddess as a sextoness were lost through the carelessness or indiscreet curiosity of one of the association. Of the circumstances attendant on this mischance, there are different versions; and at least two are in pretty general circulation. According to one, a party of Thugs, having destroyed a traveller, left the body, as usual, unburied, in perfect confidence of receiving the wonted aid from the goddess. A novice, however, unguardedly looking behind him, saw the patroness of the Thugs in the act of feasting on the corpse, one half of it hanging out of her mouth. According to another report, the person looking back was a slave; and the goddess was engaged, not in satisfying the demands of hunger, or gratifying a taste for luxury by swallowing the murdered traveller, but in tossing the body into the air; for what purpose does not appear. The offence to the goddess is said, also, to have been aggravated by the fact that she was not attired with sufficient strictness to satisfy her sense of decorum. Both tales

agree in representing the goddess as highly displeased, and as visiting her displeasure upon her servants, the Thugs, by condemning them to bury their victims themselves. Though she refused any longer to relieve the earth of the loathsome burdens with which her worshippers encumbered it, she was so considerate as to present her friends with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for a knife, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose. Whether or not this origin of the pickaxe be generally received, it is certain that this instrument is held by the Thugs, throughout India, in the highest veneration. Its fabrication is superintended with the greatest care; and it is consecrated to the holy duty to which it is destined with many ceremonies. In the first place, a lucky day must be fixed upon the leader of the gang then instructs a smith to make the required tool, and the process is conducted with the most profound secrecy. The door is peremptorily closed against all intrusion; the leader never quits the forge while the manufacture is going on; and the smith must engage in no other work till his sacred task is completed. The pickaxe, being made, must next be consecrated. Certain days of the week are deemed more auspicious for this purpose than the rest: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, enjoy the distinction. Care is taken that the shadow of no living thing may fall on the axe, as this would contaminate the devoted implement, and frustrate all the pains that had been taken in its formation. A doctor most deeply versed in the learning of the Thugs undertakes the solemn office of consecration. He sits down with his face to the west, and receives the pickaxe in a brass dish. The instru-. ment which is to supply the want occasioned by the cessation of the goddess's personal labors is first washed in water, which is received into a pit dug for the purpose. The pickaxe then receives three other ablutions. The second washing is made with a mixture of sugar and water; the third with sour milk; and the fourth with ardent spirits. With red lead the pickaxe is marked, from the head to the point, with seven spots. It is again placed on the brass dish, and, with it, a cocoa-nut, some cloves, white sandal-wood, sugar, and a few other articles. A fire is now kindled, and the fuel consists of dried cow-dung and the wood of the mango or byr-tree. All the articles deposited in the brass pan are, with the exception of the cocoa-nut, thrown into the fire; and when the flame rises, the Thug priest, holding the pickaxe with both hands, passes it seven times through the fire. The cocoa-nut is now stripped of its outer coat, and