166 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
Of the extent to which their operations were carried I can give no 
better idea than by quoting two anecdotes in Sleeman's Reports. He 
states that he was for three years in charge of a village on the Ner- 
budda, and considered himself “au fait” at every circumstance that 
occurred in the neighbourhood; yet, during that time, 100 people 
were murdered and buried within 400 yards (less than a quarter of a 
mile) of his own residence! Again, he says, he was encamped ina 
Mango-tope, which proved to have been a Bail, and where, on the 
following day, seventeen bodies were exhumed. His wife's bed stood 
above the grave of five, his horses were picketted over five more, and 
the tent-ropes spanned seven others. Though perfectly unconscious of 
this circumstance, Mrs. Sleeman’s rest was disturbed by horrid dreams, 
such as she had never previously du “ Her soul had con- 
sciousness,” &c., &c. See “ Report.” 
Two hundred and fifty boats full of River Thugs, in crews of fifteen, 
infested the Ganges between Benares and Calcutta, during five months of 
every year, under the pretence of conveying pilgrims. Travellers along the 
banks were tracked, and offered a passage, which if refused in the first 
boat was probably accepted from some other. At a given signal the 
crews rush in, double up the poor decoyed victim, break his back, and. 
throw him into the river, where floating corpses are, as you know, too 
numerous to elicit even an exclamation. 
So much for Thuggee. Often as I had heard of it (and read a little), 
I was so interested in Lieut. Ward’s narratives, and so impressed with 
the vigour and success of the persons anggineans employed in the sup- 
pression of this devilish system, that I collected all the above leading 
facts connected with its rise and progress. | 
Mirzapore is a straggling town, with upwards of 100,000 inhabi- 
tants—Qquite a small place for India. Large squares and broad streets 
are interspersed with acres upon acres of low huts and groves of trees. 
The vicinity of the Ganges and its green banks, and the great numbers. 
of fine trees around Mirzapore, render it a pleasing but not a fine town. 
It is built on a dead level flat; and the channel of the river, being 
fifty feet lower, keeps almost oid of sight the few boats that ply upon 
it. The country round consists of fields of barley and wheat, and the 
town itself has the usual Asiatic mixture of squalor and gaudiness. 
You come occasionally upon an ornamented house, of good style and 
excellent workmanship, standing forth in strong contrast with all that 
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