THE RIVER 41 



Inquiries were then instituted, and it was discovered 

 that the women had been the victims of a gang of 

 a species of Thugs. Some of the gang were expert 

 swimmers. They remained near the bathing-places, 

 ostensibly amusing themselves in the water. When 

 a woman with rich ornaments came down to bathe, 

 their confederates signalled them ; one of them swam 

 to the bathing-place, swimming the latter part of the 

 distance under water. The woman was seized by the 

 feet, dragged to where the stream was deep, her orna- 

 ments there cut and dragged off, and the body allowed 

 to float down with the current. 



With regard to the human beings really devoured by 

 alligators, the number is surprisingly small, that is con- 

 sidering how the alligators abound in the rivers and the 

 thousands and thousands of natives — men, women, and 

 children — that each day resort to the rivers and are at 

 all hours bathing in their waters. 



Of all the rivers in India the Ganges has the reputa- 

 tion of being the one in which the alligators the most 

 swarm. It is also the river to which the Hindoos most 

 resort for religious bathing. The Mahomedans make 

 these two circumstances a subject of joke against the 

 Hindoos. They say that the sins washed off by the 

 bathing take bodily form in the persons of these huge 

 reptiles, their vast number indicating the wickedness of 

 the bathers. 



The alligators live in the rivers, but it is said that 

 they are also occasionally found in some of the great 

 reservoirs, or, as they are termed by the English, the 

 tanks. It is not easy to understand how they find their 



