- ' 



LI i 



and U the special appellation of secret murderers in India. Of tin '.-.- 

 origin nothing can be said with any degree of certainty. The Tlmi;- 

 themselve* refer it to the remotest antiquity, and there U no doubt 

 that the ceremonies with which they carry on their murderous trade 

 can be traced as far back an the KAlika Pur&na, where we find them 

 riser rili ill with the utmost accuracy. Their gangs, consisting of from 

 ten to two or three hundred men of all races, cartes, wet*, and religion*. 

 yet all joining in the worship of Kill, moved about all parts of India, 

 sacrificing to their tutelary goddess every victim that they could seize, 

 and sharing the plunder among themselves. Still they shed no blood, 

 except when forced by circumstances ; murder being their religion, the 

 performance of it* duties required secrecy, and the instrmm-n- <>t 

 death was a rope or a handkerchief, which could excite no suspicion. 

 They were stranglera. Kvery gang hail its leader, the Jemadar or 

 Sirdar; it* teacher, the Guru, whose duty it was to initiate the novice 

 into the secret of using the roomal, or handkerchief. Then came the 

 Khtttlaln, that U, stranglen ; and the Sothat, or entrappers ; and at 

 last the Ltykam, or gravediggen. In a country like India, the 

 striking character of whose inhabitants is an almost incredible apathy, 

 it was easy for them to commit the most outrageous murders without 

 exciting the interest of the victim's relations. The immense jungles 

 which border the roads afforded the Lughaeea every facility for effec- 

 tually concealing the bodies ; and the prevailing custom of travelling 

 in parties prevented the designs of the Sotha from being suspected, 

 whenever be succeeded in offering the protection of his Jemadar to 

 travellers whom their wealth induced him to entrap. The Thugs 

 generally assumed the appearance of merchants, which increased the 

 confidence of their victims, whom they despatched with the greatest 

 celerity whenever they found a convenient place. Whilst the Bhuttotes 

 arranged themselves in a manner to effect their purpose with facility, 

 the Lughaees dug the hole ; and at a given signal the noose was passed 

 round the neck of the traveller, and, being taken unawares, he was 

 strangled without being able to make any resistance. He was then 

 thrown into the hole, and Urge incisions were made in the abdomen to 

 prevent the corpse from swelling, and the whole was covered over with 

 a layer of dry sand, another of thorns and bushes, and over all was 

 thrown the earth which had been dug out, which they smoothed down 

 so as not to attract the notice of travellers. After every murder they 

 offered a sacrifice to Kali, which they called Tajxmntr. It was performed 

 in the following manner : A large sheet was spread over the cleanest 

 spot they could select, and on thia^was cast a pile consisting of one rupee 

 and four anas' worth of coarse sugar ; near this they placed the conse- 

 crated pickaxe (an instrument sacred to Siva and Bhavant), and a piece 

 of silver as a nfyxj danana, or silver offering. The leader then sat 

 down on the sheet, and the best strangle placed themselves on each 

 side of him with their faces to the west. They then distributed the 

 sugar and ate it in solemn silence. But for this, as well as other cere- 

 monies, we must refer to the works of Colonel Sloeman and Captain 

 Meadows, as well as to an article in the 130th number of the ' Edinburgh 

 Review.' 



We have already observed that Thugs were found exercising their 

 fearful trade in all parts of India. In the Deccon they were called 

 Phanslgars (from Sanskrit pfaa, a noose) or noosers, and on them we 

 have a very interesting paper in the 13th volume of the 'Asiatic 

 Researches. Their customs are the same as those of the northern 

 Thugs ; but, having fewer Mohammedans among them, they are more 

 strict observers of the duties which their religion imposes ; they kill 

 neither women, nor old men, nor any of the subjects which the Kfilika 

 Puruna (in the ' Rudhira Adyaya') declares to be unfit for a sacrifice to 

 Devi. In the same volume of the ' Asiatic Researches ' there is another 

 article on them, by Mr. Shokespear : both were written in 1816. 



The origin of this atrocious worship is undoubtedly Hindu. The 

 Thugs maintain that their occupation is represented in the caves of 

 Ellora, as well as all other trades. Moreover, the terms they use are 

 chiefly of Sanskrit origin ; and the' worship of Kali, as described in the 

 KAlika Purana, corresponds so well to the religious ceremonies of the 

 Thugs, that there can be little doubt as to their identity. ('Asiatic 

 Researches,' vol. v.) All the ceremonies of the Thugs are fixed by 

 Parana, the date of which it is difficult to ascertain ; but frequent 

 allusions are made to it in the Vlra Charita, a drama of Bhuvabhuti, 

 who lived at the court of King Bhoja in the beginning of the 8th 

 century of our era. 



Ttu'-vcnot, in hi* ' Travels ' (part iii., ch. 22), is the first to notice 

 the Thug* : he describes them as infesting the road from Agra to 

 lirllii, and using a long rope furnished with a noose, which they throw 

 with great dexterity round the traveller's neck ; and he relates that 

 their Hothas were frequently women. About ten years after Thovenot, 

 Dr. Fryer found them at Surat, where a gang of them were executed. 

 He describes them as Thovenot does ; and it appears from the descrip- 

 tion that they belonged to the Mooltancat, a peculiar class of 

 Mohammedan Thugs. 



Although the whole of the ceremonial U Hindu, the Thugs them- 

 elves, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, maintain that they descend 

 from seven Mohammedan clans, Thugs, lihys, Uursote, Kachunce, 

 Huttar, Ganoo, and Thundee (' Ramaaeeana,' p. 11); the seven clans 

 are admitted to be the most ancient and the original stock on which all 

 the other* have been engrafted. This circumstance may lead us to 

 suspect that Mohammedans were indeed the first to give a sort of 



political system to the Thugs ; and the seven clans of lunailis, whose 

 occupation was murder as dreadful as that of the Thugs, may . 

 persecuted in the last days of tlu-ir political existence, have joined 

 themselves to the Hindu I'honslgars, and, adopting their ritual, have 

 given rise to their present institution. This point U investigated ith 

 much ingenuity in an article on the ' Secret Societies of Asia,' in the 

 49th vol. of ' Blackwood's Magazine.' Shah Jehan and Aurengzebe 

 instituted criminal proceedings against them. After this we again 

 lose sight of them until the time of Hyder Ali, who proceeded against 

 them in a summary way. Mysore, however, seems to have been their 

 favourite residence ; for in order to suppress them, in the reign of 

 Tippoo Sultan, many of them were apprehended and sentenced to hard 

 labour, and others suffered mutilation. It was in Mysore also that the 

 English government first discovered them soon after 179E* ; but it was 

 not before 1810 that any measures were taken for their extennin 

 and a plan for their suppression, which was successful, was adopted in 

 1830 by the then governor-general. Lord William Bentinck. 



(liamcuetana, or Vocabulary of the Pi mcd lif the 



Thugt, Calcutta, 1836: this work is written by (VI. 'sleuman;' The 

 Conftsrimu of a Thug, by Captain Meadows, 1840, London.) 



Till MoNK. A hydrocarbon produced by the action of iodine upon 

 the essential oil of Arbor Vitro (T/tuja occidtntalis). 



THUNDER is an explosion accompanied by a loud noise, which is 

 heard after a discharge of lightning from the clouds. The character of 

 the noise is variable : it sometimes resembles that which is produced 

 when a single piece of ordnance is fired ; at other times it is a rolling 

 sound like the successive discharges of several great guns ; and occa- 

 sionally it may be compared to a series of sharp reports from a fire of 

 musketry. 



The identity of lightning with the electric fluid is now well >. 

 [LIUHTNING], but the physical cause of the detonation which accom- 

 panies the flash is still the subject of conjecture ; in general it is con- 

 sidered that lightning, by its heat, creates a partial vacuum in the 

 atmosphere, and that the sudden rushing of air into the void space 

 produces the sound ; but various reasons have been assigned for its 

 prolongation. It was formerly supposed that the rolling noise U 

 merely the result of several echoes caused by the sound being reflected 

 from mountains, woods, buildings, or clouds, or from the latter alone 

 when a thunder-storm takes place over the ocean : this opinion seems 

 to have been founded upon the fact that the report of a fire-arm dis- 

 charged in a mountainous tract is prolonged by the echoes during at 

 least half a minute, which is about the time that the rolling of thunder 

 continues. But though the reflections of sound are, very probably, in 

 part, or at times, the causes of the prolongation of the report arising 

 from the explosion, yet it must be admitted that these will not always 

 afford a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. It may happen, 

 for example, that, when the sky is uniformly covered with clouds, a 

 flash of lightning will dart from the zenith, and, after a few seconds, 

 the crash of thunder will take place accompanied by a rolling sound : 

 soon, a second flash may pierce the clouds in the zenith and thunder 

 may follow, but now the crash, though loud, may not be prolonged. 

 It is justly observed by M. Arago that this is very different from the 

 phenomena of echoes ; and the explanation which was first proposed 

 by Dr. Hooke ('Posthumous Works,' 1705) is perhaps that winch 

 possesses the highest degree of probability. The flashes of lightning. 

 Dr. Hooke observes, are either simple or multiple : the first occupies 

 but one small portion of space, and gives rise to an instantaneous re- 

 port ; the multiple flash takes place at different parts of one long line : 

 if these parts should bo situated in a circular arc, and the observer 

 should be in its centre, all the reporta would arrive at hU ear at the 

 same time, and still one loud crash only would be heard ; but if the. 

 parts were nearly in a straight line, and the observer were at one of its 

 extremities, the reports, whether they take place at the same instant 

 or in succession, would arrive at his ear at different times, depending 

 wholly or portly on the distances. It may be considered therefore 

 that the rolling arises from the circumstance that the points of ex- 

 plosion are at different distances from the observer; and it will follow 

 that the duration of the noise is equal to the time in which sound 

 travels through an interval equal to the difference bet\\. -i n the ] 

 of two lines drawn from the observer to the two extretn 

 flash. The flash of lightning and the report of the thunder take place 

 in reality at the same moment ; but since sound travels at the rate of 

 1100 feet per second, while the passage of light from the .!...,.! to the 

 observer may be considered as instantaneous, it i. -11. i-ount- 



ing the number of seconds which elapse between the time of seeing 

 the flash and hearing the report, the distance of tli<> thunder -cloud 

 from the observer may bo ascertained if 1100 feet be multiplied by 

 that number of seconds. 



An opinion prevails that thunder has been heard when the sky was 

 without a cloud, but the fact can scarcely be said to be satisfactorily 

 established ; for the sounds which, in countries subject to earthquakes, 

 have been supposed to be thunder, proceed from under the ground, 

 and may result from a different cause. Volney however relates that, 

 being one day at Pontchartrain near Versailles, when no cloud wan 

 visible, he heard distinctly four or five claps of thunder ; he add*, tint 

 about an hour afterward* the sky became overcast, anil a violent hail- 

 storm followed. On this relat _'o observes, that the 

 could not have been heard if they had come from clouds at a ; 



