PHANSIGARS. 
133 
cations near their own abodes, they excite no terror 
among those who happen to reside within their vici- 
nity. Their deeds of robbery and of death are 
committed at a distance from their homes, in order 
that those domestic sanctuaries may not be disturbed 
by the officers of justice ; and should detection fol- 
low a murder, they are always apprehended in the 
neighbourhood of the spot where the murder is per- 
petrated. 
Although the society of these plunderers is com- 
posed almost entirely of men, yet women are occa- 
sionally admitted, and upon some occasions allowed 
to apply the dhoute ; as was the case in the attempt 
upon the Coorg already mentioned. They some- 
times select a handsome girl, and place her in a 
convenient spot, where, by her beauty or a well- 
feigned story of distress, she may interest some un- 
suspecting passenger, whom she betrays to almost 
certain destruction. Should he be on horseback, she 
will induce him to take her up behind him ; after 
which, when an opportunity offers, she throws the 
noose over his head, leaps from the horse, drags him 
to the ground, and strangles him. 
Besides the Phansigars, there are in India other 
tribes of robbers far more numerous, indeed, but 
none so sanguinary. The Pindarees, who of late 
years have been so formidable as to require an 
army to crush them, are now nearly if not quite ex- 
terminated; but the Bhills, a race of mountaineers 
inhabiting the hilly tracts of Candeish, Malwa, and 
Raj put an a, are still a daring race of marauders. 
(< Existing,” says Sir John Malcolm, “ as they have 
N 
