T H U 



409 



T H U 



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 Sans- 

 crit origin ; and the worship of Kali corresponds so well to 

 the religious ceremonies of the Thugs, that there can be 

 no doubt as to their identity. To satisfy the reader on 

 this head we refer to the 5th volume of the ' Asiatic Re- 

 searches,' where a chapter from the Kalika Purana has 

 been translated and communicated by Mr. Blaquiere. 



All the ceremonies of the Thugs are fixed by this 

 Puntna, the date of which it is difficult to ascertain, but, 

 frequent allusions being made to it in the Vira Charita, a 

 drama of Bhavabhuti, who lived at the court of king 

 Bhoja in the beginning of the eighth century of our aera, 

 we have sufficient reason to refer it at least to his time, if 

 not to a previous period. 



The Thugs then are a degenerate sect of Kalt wor- 

 shippers. They are very numerous in Bengal ; but they 

 offer only buffaloes and kids (Colebrook, ' Essays,' i. Ill), 

 and shed their blood, which they present to the idol in 

 cups that are kept for that purpose. In like manner as 

 the Sakta-s left the pure worship of Siva in order to indulge 

 their gross sensuality, the Thugs abandoned the original 

 wor-hip of Kali to get a livelihood by plunder. Both 

 nevertheless adhere strictly to the injunctions of their 

 re hgion, which is taught in the Tantras of the Saktas and 

 in the tradition of the Thugs, and thereby convert crime 

 into a sacred duty. As well may be expected, secrecy 

 was dictated by prudence, and hence it is that we find 

 the Thugs seldom mentioned by travellers. 



Thevenot, in his Travels (part iii., eh. 22), is the first to 

 notice them ; he describes them as infesting the road 

 from Agra to Delhi, 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 Sothas were 

 frequently women. About ten years after Thevenot, Dr. 

 Fryer found them at Surat, where a gang of them were 

 executed. He describes them as Thevenot does, and it 

 appears from the description that they belonged to the 

 laooltaneat, a peculiar class of Mohammedan Thugs. 



Although the whole of the ceremonial is Hindu, the 

 Thuirs tin m-elves, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, 

 maintain that they descend from seven Mohammedan 

 clans, Thu^s, lilivs, Bnrsote, Kachunee, Huttar, Ganoo, 

 and Thumlee (' Rama>eeana,' p. 11); the seven clans are 

 admitted to be the most antient and the original stock on 

 which all the others have been engrafted. This circum- 

 stance may lead us to suspect that Mohammedams were 

 indeed the first to give a sort of political system to the 

 Thugs; and tin: seven clans of Ismailis, whose occupation 

 v. ;is murder as dreadful as that of the Thugs, may, when per- 

 secuted in the last days of their political existence, have 

 joined themselves to the Hindu Phansigars, and, adopting 

 their ritual, have given rise to their present institution. 

 This point is investigated with much ingenuity in an 

 article on the ' Secret Societies of Asia,' in the 49th vol. 

 of ' Blackwood's Magazine' (part civ.). Shah Jehan and 

 Aurengzebe instituted criminal proceedings against them. 

 After this we again lose si<;ht of them until the time of 

 Hyder AH, who proceeded against them in a summary way. 

 Mysore however seems to have been their favourite resi- 

 dence ; 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 1791) ; but it was not before 1810 that any 

 measures were taken for their extermination ; and a plan 

 for their suppression, which promises success, was adopted 

 in 1830 by the then governor-general, Lord William 

 Bentinck. Since that time their numbers have rapidly 

 diminished, and it is to be hoped that they will soon be 

 . extinct. 



. or Vocabulary of the Peculiar Language 



' Iii/ tin- Thugs:, Calcutta, 1836; this work is written by 



Col. Slceman ; The Confessions of a Thug, by Captain 



, 1840, London ; Illustrations of the History and 



1'rnrnrfn nf t/ir> Thugs, London, 1837-) 



THUJA, or THUYA, the name of a genus of plants be- 

 longing to the natural order Coniferae. This name is derived 

 from Oi'ia, as, on account of the pleasant odour given out by 

 the wood in burning, it was used in antient sacrifices. The 

 species 01 is are more commonly known by the 



P. C., No. 1539. 



name of Arbor Vita;, but why this name has been given 

 to it is a matter of uncertainty. Clusius, who wrote in the 

 sixteenth century, gives it this name, and Dr. Royle says 

 that the Cypress, an allied genus, is called the tree of life 

 in the East. It belongs to the section of Coniferse called 

 Cupressinae by Richard, in which Cupressus, Callitris, 

 Taxodium, and Juniperus are also included. The pistils 

 and stamens are in separate flowers on the same tree. The 

 male catkins are terminal and solitary ; the pollen of each 

 flower is included in four cases that are attached to the 

 inner face of the scale towards its base. The female cat- 

 kin is terminal ; the ovary is united to the bractea, form- 

 ing together a kind of receptacle ; each receptacle has 

 two ovules ; the receptacles are semipeltate, imbricated, 

 and smooth, or, in some cases, have a recurved beak near the 

 tip ; the seeds in some are slightly winged. The leaves are 

 scale-like, closely imbricated or compressed. The species 

 are evergreen, either trees or shrubs, and are inhabitants of 

 Asia, Africa, and North America. 



T. occiderttalis, the Western or American Arbor Vitae, 

 has the branchlets 2-edged ; the leaves imbricated in four 

 rows, ovato-rhomboid, adpressed, and tuberculated ; the 

 cones are obovate with the interior scales truncate and 

 gibbous beneath the apex. This plant is a large shrub or 

 small tree, and is a native of North America, from Canada 

 to the mountains of Virginia and the Carolinas. It is not so 

 frequent in the Southern states, and is found there on the 

 steep banks of mountain-torrents. In the Northern states 

 of America it is sometimes called the white cedar, but 

 more commonly arbor vitse. It grows best in cool moist 

 places, on the borders of rivers and lakes, and in swamps, 

 some of which it covers to the extent of 50 to 100 acres. 

 The stem of this tree seldom rises straight from the ground, 

 but makes a short bend before it becomes straight. On 

 this account it is difficult to obtain trunks of any length, 

 and, although the timber is very durable, it is not much 

 used in building. It makes good posts and rails, which last 

 three or four times as long as any other species. Its branches 

 are used for making brooms, a recommendation of which 

 is, that they exhale an agreeable odour. In Great Britain 

 the American arbor vitae is planted as an ornamental shrub, 

 for which purpose it flourishes best in low moist and shel- 

 tered situations. It will bear cutting well, and hence is 

 employed for making hedges. It grows slowly, making 

 6 or 8 inches of stem in a year ; the largest specimens in 

 this country have attained a height of from 30 to 45 feet. 



T. Drift/tail's, the Oriental or Chinese Arbor Vitae, has 

 2-edged branchlets ; imbricated, ovato-rhomboid, adpressed 

 haves, furrowed in the middle and in 4 rows ; the cones 

 are elliptic with the interior scales blunt, and mucronate 

 beneath the apex. It is a native of rocky situations in 

 Siberia and China, and on the mountains of Japan. It is 

 a low tree and easily distinguishable from the American 

 species by its denser foliage and lighter green colour. It 

 has a straight trunk-, and seldom exceeds 18 or 20 feet in 

 height. It is a hardy plant, and flourishes in the gardens 

 about London, where it was first introduced by Miller in 

 1762. 



T. pendula, the Pendulous or Weeping Arbor Vitse, has 

 opposite, decussating, spreading, lanceolate, mucronate, 

 keeled, somewhat distant leaves; globose cones; convex 

 smooth scales ; filiform pendulous branches. It is a native 

 of Tartary, and is an elegant shrub, but only a few speci- 

 mens exist at present in this country. 



T. articulata of Desfontaines is now ca-lled Callitrifi 

 quadrivalvis, four-valved Callitris. The genus Callitris 

 differs from Thuja in having the scales of the female cat- 

 kins, from 4 to 6 in number, opening like the valves of a 

 regular pericarp, and the seeds at the base of these scales 

 winged on the margin. The four-valved Callitris has flat- 

 tened articulated leaves ; the female catkin with four oval 

 pointed valves, two of which have seeds. It is a native of 

 Barbary, and attains a height of from 15 to 20 feet. It 

 was first discovered by Desfontaines on Mount Atlas in 

 17!)(i. The Kiini-sandarac of commerce [SANDARAC], 

 according to Broussonet, Brongniart, and others, is the 

 produce of this tree, although it is often ascribed to the 

 Juniperus communis. This substance is brought into the 

 market in tears, which are clear, shining, and diaphanous, 

 and of whitish-yellow colour. When reduced to a fine 

 powder, it makes an excellent pounce. Dissolved in 

 spirits of wine, it forms a delicate varnish. Under the 

 name of alerce, the wood of this tree is in great repute in 



VOL. XXIV. 3 G 



