68 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III. 



crosses the road ; and even far more trivial circumstances 

 will determine the fate of a dozen of people, and perhaps 

 of an immense treasure. All worship the pickaxe, which is 

 symbolical of their profession, and an oath sworn on it 

 binds closer than on the Koran. The consecration of this 

 weapon is a most elaborate ceremony, and takes place 

 only under certain trees. They rise through various grades : 

 the lowest are scouts ; the second, sextons ; the third are 

 holders of the victims' hands ; the highest, stranglers. 



Though all agree in never practising cruelty, or robbing 

 previous to murder, — never allowing any but infants to 

 escape (and these are trained to Thuggee), and never 

 leaving a trace of such goods as may be identified, — there 

 are several variations in their mode of conducting opera- 

 tions ; some tribes spare certain castes, others none : 

 murder of woman is against all rules ; but the practice 

 crept into certain gangs, and this it is which led to their 

 discountenance by the goddess Davee, and the consequent 

 downfall of the system. Davee, they say, allowed the 

 British to punish them, because a certain gang had mur- 

 dered the mothers to obtain their daughters to be sold to 

 prostitution. 



Major Sleeman has constructed a map demonstrating 

 the number of " Bails," or regular stations for committing 

 murder, in the kingdom of Oude alone, which is 170 miles 

 long by 100 broad, and in which are 274, which are 

 regarded by the Thug with as much satisfaction and 

 interest as a game preserve is in England : nor are these 

 " bails " less numerous in other parts of India. Of twenty 

 assassins who were examined, one frankly confessed to 

 having been engaged in 931 murders, and the least guilty 

 of the number to 24. Sometimes 150 persons collected 

 into one gang, and their profits have often been immense, 



