70 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III. 



for three years in charge of a district on the Nerbudda, 

 and considered himself acquainted with every circumstance 

 that occurred in the neighbourhood ; yet, during that time, 

 100 people were murdered and buried within less than a 

 quarter of a mile of his own residence ! 



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 pretence 

 of conveying pilgrims. Travellers along the banks were 

 tracked, and offered a passage, which if refused in the first 

 boat was probably accepted in some other. At a given 

 signal the crews rushed in, doubled up the decoyed victim, 

 broke his back, and threw him into the river, where floating 

 corpses are too numerous to elicit even an exclamation. 



At Mirzapore I engaged a boat to carry me down the 

 river to Bhagulpore, whence I was to proceed to the 

 Sikkim-Himalaya. The sketch at p. 88 will give some 

 idea of this vessel, which, though slow and very shabby, 

 had the advantage of being cooler and more commodious 

 than the handsomer craft. Its appearance was not 

 unlike that of a floating haystack, or thatched cottage : 

 its length was forty feet, and breadth fifteen, and it 

 drew a foot and a half of water : the deck, on 

 which a kind of house, neatly framed of matting, was 

 erected, was but a little above the water's edge. My 

 portion of this floating residence was lined with a kind of 

 reed- work formed of long culms of Saccharum. The crew 

 and captain consisted of six naked Hindoos, one of whom 

 steered by the huge rudder, sitting on a bamboo-stage 

 astern ; the others pulled four oars in the very bows 

 opposite my door, or tracked the boat along the river- 

 bank. 



In my room (for cabin I cannot call it) stood my palkee, 



