ELICHPOOR AND MUNGROOL. 
77 
about half way between Elichpoor and Hingolee, 
under the little range of hills which bound the pro- 
vince of Berar, on the north. Here, the mausoleum 
of Meer Haiat Kalundur was a refuge for the mis- 
creants, in cases of alarm ; the officiating fakhirs 
having been accomplices if not actors in this trade 
of blood, until detected. From the assumed sanctity 
of their office, and the implicit confidence placed in 
them by unwary travellers who sought shelter in the 
tomb or in adjacent serais , these fakhirs , of course, 
enjoyed every possible facility for entrapping their 
prey. During the recent operations of the govern- 
ment for the suppression of thuggi , the remains of an 
appalling number of murdered persons were dis- 
covered in the neighbourhood, and many of the guilty 
blood-stained perpetrators were brought to execution, 
although befriended by the landholders as well as by 
the priests. 
What rendered this abhorrent, inhuman system of 
thuggi peculiarly frightful in its nature and effect, 
was the wonderful secrecy with which its operations 
were carried on, notwithstanding the almost incre- 
dible extent to which all classes and characters of 
persons engaged in it ; a religious secrecy, not infe- 
rior to that of free-masonry, and which, like that, 
had apparently existed for hundreds of years, without 
violation. It also possessed a mystic language of 
its own, by which the fraternity, like those of the 
masonic craft, were enabled to recognise and com- 
h 2 
