1836.] 



Customs and practices of the Thugs, 



87 



disposed of. The goddess of his worship, descended, as usual, 

 to carry away the corpse, but, observing that this man was on the 

 watch, she relinquished her purpose ; and, calling him angrily, re- 

 baked him for his temerity, telling him she could no longer per- 

 form her promise regarding the bodies of the murdered, which his 

 associates must hereafter dispose of, in the best way they could. Hence, 

 say they, arose the practice, invariably followed by the Thugs, of bury- 

 ing the dead ; and to (his circumstance, principally, is to be attributed 

 the extraordinary manner in which their atrocities have remained un- 

 known ; for, with such circumspection and secrecy do they proceed to 

 work, and such order and regularity is there in all their operations, 

 that it is next to impossible a murder should ever be discovered. 



Absurd as the foregoing relation may appear, it has had this effect 

 on the minds of the Thugs, that they do not seem to be visited with 

 any of those feelings of remorse or compunction, at the inhuman deeds 

 in which they have participated, that are commonly supposed to be, 

 at some period of their lives, the portion of all who have trafficked in 

 human blood. On the contrary, they dwell, with satisfaction, on the recol- 

 lection of their various and successful exploits, and refer, with no small 

 degree of pride and exultation, to the instances in which they have been 

 personally engaged, especially if the number of their victims has been 

 great, or the plunder they have acquired has been extensive. 



It is generally believed that Thugs are a distinct sect or race, but 

 this is not exactly the case. The crime is hereditary in families, and 

 many Thugs name their forefathers, as leaders of gangs, for twenty 

 generations past. They recruit their numbers from all classes, and 

 are themselves found in all sorts of guises. Thugs have been found as 

 native officers and privates, in the regiments of the Company and native 

 princes ; they have been arrested, in the capacity of servants to Euro- 

 pean officers, residing in military cantonments ; some have been esta- 

 blished, as merchants and traders, in towns and military bazars, where 

 they have obtained a character for honesty and plain dealing. Others 

 have assumed the characters of religious mendicants, or attendants on 

 sacred shrines, passing their time in reading the Koran, and only quit- 

 ting home to visit some distant and holy place; and the chief informer, 

 among those arrested, was a peon on the personal establishment of 

 Sir David Ochterlony ! 



Notwithstanding their adherence to Hindoo rites of worship observa- 

 ble among the Thugs, a very considerable number of them are Mussul- 

 mans. No judgment of the birth, or caste, of a Thug am, however, be 

 formed from his name, for it not unfrequently happens, that a Hindoo 

 Thug has a Mussulman name, with a Hindoo alias attached to it ; and, 

 vice versa with respect to Thugs who are by birth Mahomedans. Ira 

 almost every instance, these people have more than one appellation, by 



