The belief in sorcery among these people owes its origin, in a great

measure, to the diseases of the liver and spleen to which the

natives, and particularly the children, are much subject in the

jungly parts of Central India. From these affections children pine

away and die, without showing any external marks of disease. Their

death is attributed to witchcraft, and any querulous old woman, who

has been in the habit of murmuring at slights and ill treatment in

the neighbourhood, is immediately set down as the cause. Men who

practise medicine among them are very commonly supposed to be at the

same time wizards. Seeking to inspire confidence in their

prescriptions by repeating prayers and incantations over the patient,

or over the medicine they give him, they make him believe that they

derive aid from supernatural power; and the patient concludes that

those who can command these powers to cure can, if they will, command

them to destroy. He and his friends believe that the man who can

command these powers to cure one individual can command them to cure

any other; and, if he does not do so, they believe that it arises

from a desire to destroy the patient. I have, in these territories,

known a great many instances of medical practitioners having been put

to death for not curing young people for whom they were required to

prescribe. Several cases have come before me as a magistrate in which

the father has stood over the doctor with a drawn sword by the side

of the bed of his child, and cut him down and killed him the moment

the child died, as he had sworn to do when he found the patient

sinking under his prescriptions.[5]

The town of Jubbulpore contains a population of twenty thousand

souls,[6] and they all believed in this story of the cock. I one day

asked a most respectable merchant in the town, Nâdû Chaudhrî, how the

people could believe in such things, when he replied that he had no

doubt witches were to be found in every part of India, though they

abounded most, no doubt, in the central parts of it, and that we

ought to consider ourselves very fortunate in having no such things

in England. 'But', added he, 'of all countries that between Mandlâ

and Katâk (Cuttack)[7] is the worst for witches. I had once occasion

to go to the city of Ratanpur[8] on business, and was one day, about

noon, walking in the market-place and eating a very fine piece of

sugar-cane. In the crowd I happened, by accident, to jostle an old

woman as she passed me. I looked back, intending to apologize for the

accident, and heard her muttering indistinctly as she passed on.

Knowing the propensities of these old ladies, I became somewhat

uneasy, and on turning round to my cane I found, to my great terror,

that the juice had been all _turned to blood_. Not a minute had

elapsed, such were the fearful powers of this old woman. I collected

my followers, and, leaving my agents there to settle my accounts, was

beyond the boundaries of the old wretch's influence before dark; had

I remained, nothing could have saved me. I should certainly have been

a dead man before morning. It is well known', said the old gentleman,

'that their spells and curses can only reach a certain distance, ten

or twelve miles; and, if you offend one of them, the sooner you place

that distance between you the better.'

Jangbâr Khân, the representative of the Shâhgarh Râjâ,[9] as grave

and reverend an old gentleman as ever sat in the senate of Venice,

told me one day that he was himself an eye-witness of the powers of

the women of Khilautî. He was with a great concourse of people at a

fair held at the town of Râipur,[10] and, while sauntering with many

other strangers in the fair, one of them began bargaining with two

women of middle age for some very fine sugar-canes. They asked double

the fair price for their canes. The man got angry, and took up one of

them, when the women seized the other end, and a struggle ensued. The

purchaser offered a fair price, seller demanded double. The crowd

looked on, and a good deal of abuse of the female relations on both

sides took place. At last a sepoy of the governor came up, armed to

the teeth, and called out to the man, in a very imperious tone, to

let go his hold of the cane. He refused, saying that 'when people

came to the fair to sell, they should be made to sell at reasonable

prices, or be turned out'. 'I', said Jangbâr Khân, 'thought the man

right, and told the sepoy that, if he took the part of this woman, we

should take that of the other, and see fair play. Without further

ceremony the functionary drew his sword, and cut the cane in two in

the middle; and, pointing to both pieces, 'There', said he, 'you see

the cause of my interference'. We looked down, and actually saw blood

running from both pieces, and forming a little pool on the ground.

The fact was that the woman was a sorceress of the very worst kind,

and was actually drawing the blood from the man through the cane, to

feed the abominable devil from whom she derived her detestable

powers. But for the timely interference of the sepoy he would have

been dead in another minute; for he no sooner saw the real state of

the case than he fainted. He had hardly any blood left in him, and I

was afterwards told that he was not able to walk for ten days. We all

went to the governor to demand justice, declaring that, unless the

women were made an example of at once, the fair would be deserted,

for no stranger's life would be safe. He consented, and they were

both sewn up in sacks and thrown into the river; but they had

conjured the water and would not sink. They ought to have been put to

death, but the governor was himself afraid of this kind of people,

and let them off. There is not', continued Jangbâr, 'a village, or a

single family, without its witch in that part of the country; indeed,

no man will give his daughter in marriage to a family without one,

saying, "If my daughter has children, what will become of them

without a witch to protect them from the witches of other families in

the neighbourhood?" It is a fearful country, though the cheapest and

most fertile in India.'

We can easily understand how a man, impressed with the idea that his

blood had all been drawn from him by a sorceress, should become

faint, and remain many days in a languid state; but how the people

around should believe that they saw the blood flowing from both parts

of the cane at the place cut through, it is not so easy to conceive.

I am satisfied that old Jangbâr believed the whole story to be true,

and that at the time he thought the juice of the cane red; but the

little pool of blood grew, no doubt, by degrees, as years rolled on

and he related this tale of the fearful powers of the Khilautî

witches.

Notes:

1. _Ante_, Chapter 9.

2. An orderly, or official messenger, who wears a 'chaprâs', or badge

of office.

3. On the Nerbudda, fifty miles south-east of Jubbulpore.

4. Of the supposed powers and dispositions of witches among the

Romans we have horrible pictures in the 5th Ode of the 6th Book of

Horace, and in the 6th Book of Lucan's _Pharsalia_. [W. H. S.] The

reference to Horace should be to the 5th Epode. The passage in the

_Pharsalia_, Book VI, lines 420-830, describes the proceedings of

Thessalian witches.

5. Such awkward incidents of medical practice are not heard of

nowadays.

6. The population of Jabalpur (including cantonments) has increased

steadily, and in 1911 was 100,651, as compared with 84,556 in 1891,

and 76,023 in 1881.

7. Katâk, or Cuttack, a district, with town of same name, in Orissa.

8. In the Bilâspur district of the Central Provinces. The distance in

a direct line between Mandlâ and Katâk is about 400 miles.

9. Shâhgarh was formerly a petty native state, with town of same

name. The chief joined the rebels in 1857, with the result that his

dominions were confiscated, and distributed between the districts of

Sâgar and Damoh in the Central Provinces, and Jhânsî (formerly

Lalitpur) in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The town of

Shâhgarh is in the Sâgar district.

10. Râipur is the chief town of the district of the same name in the

Central Provinces, which was not finally annexed to the British

dominions until 1854, when the Nâgpur State lapsed.

CHAPTER 12

The Silver Tree, or 'Kalpa Briksha'--The Singhâra or _Trapa

bispinosa_, and the Guinea-Worm.

Poor old Salâmat Alî wept bitterly at the last meeting in my tent,

and his two nice boys, without exactly knowing why, began to do the

same; and my little son Henry[1] caught the infection, and wept

louder than any of them. I was obliged to hurry over the interview

lest I should feel disposed to do the same. The poor old Rânî,[2]

too, suffered a good deal in parting from my wife, whom, she says,

she can never hope to see again. Her fine large eyes shed many a tear

as she was getting into her palankeen to return.

Between Jaberâ and Harduâ, the next stage, we find a great many of

those large forest trees called 'kalap', or 'Kalpa Briksha' (the same

which in the paradise of Indra grants what is desired), with a soft,

silvery bark, and scarcely any leaves. We are told that the name of

the god Râm (Râma) and his consort Sîtâ will be found written by the

hand of God upon all.[3]

I had the curiosity to examine a good many in the forest on both

sides of the road, and found the name of this incarnation of Vishnu

written on everyone in Sanskrit characters, apparently by some

supernatural hand; that is, there was a softness in the impression,

as if the finger of some supernatural being had traced the

characters. Nathû, one of our belted attendants[4] told me that we

might search as deeply as we would in the forest, but we should

certainly find the name of God upon every one; 'for', said he, 'it is

God himself who writes it'. I tried to argue him out of this notion;

but, unfortunately, could find no tree without these characters--some

high up, and some lower down in the trunk--some large and others

small--but still to be found on every tree. I was almost in despair

when we came to a part of the wood where we found one of these trees

down in a hollow, under the road, and another upon the precipice

above. I was ready to stake my credit upon the probability that no

traveller would take the trouble to go up to the tree above, or down

to the tree below, merely to write the name of the god upon them; and

at once pledged myself to Nathû that he should find neither the god's

name nor that of his wife. I sent one man up, and another man down,

and they found no letters on the trees; but this did not alter their

opinion on the point. 'God', said one, 'had no doubt put his name on

these trees, but they had somehow or other got rubbed off. He would

in good time renew them, that men's eyes might be blessed with the

sight of His holy name, even in the deepest forest, and on the most

leafless tree.'[5] 'But', said Nathû, 'he might not have thought it

worth while to write his name upon those trees which no travellers go

to see.' 'Cannot you see', said I, 'that these letters have been

engraved by man? Are they not all to be found on the trunk within

reach of a man's hand?' 'Of course they are', replied he, 'because

people would not be able conveniently to distinguish them if God were

to write them higher up.'

Shaikh Sâdî has a very pretty couplet, 'Every leaf of the foliage of

a green tree is, in the eye of a wise man, a library to teach him the

wisdom of his Creator.'[6] I may remark that, where an Englishman

would write his own name, a Hindoo would write that of his god, his

parent, or his benefactor. This difference is traceable, of course,

to the difference in their governments and institutions. If a Hindoo

built a town, he called it after his local governor; if a local

governor built it, he called it after the favourite son of the

Emperor. In well regulated Hindoo families, one cannot ask a younger

brother after his children in presence of the elder brother who

happens to be the head of the family; it would be disrespectful for

him even to speak of his children as his own in such presence--the

elder brother relieves his embarrassment by answering for him.

On the 27th[7] we reached Damoh,[8] where our friends, the Browns,

were to leave us on their return to Jubbulpore. Damoh is a pretty

place. The town contains some five or six thousand people, and has

some very handsome Hindoo temples. On a hill immediately above it is

the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, which has a very picturesque

appearance.

There are no manufactures at Damoh, except such as supply the wants

of the immediate neighbourhood; and the town is supported by the

residence of a few merchants, a few landholders, and agricultural

capitalists, and the establishment of a native collector. The people

here suffer much from the guinea-worm, and consider it to arise from

drinking the water of the old tank, which is now very dirty and full

of weeds. I have no doubt that it is occasioned either by drinking

the water of this tank, or by wading in it: for I have known European

gentlemen get the worm in their legs from wading in similar lakes or

swamps after snipes, and the servants who followed them with their

ammunition experience the same effect.[9] Here, as in most other

parts of India, the tanks get spoiled by the water-chestnut,

'singhâra' (_Trapa bispinosa_), which is everywhere as regularly

planted and cultivated _in fields_ under a large surface of water, as

wheat or barley is on the dry plains. It is cultivated by a class of

men called Dhîmars, who are everywhere fishermen and palankeen

bearers; and they keep boats for the planting, weeding, and gathering

the 'singhâra'.[10] The holdings or tenements of each cultivator are

marked out carefully on the surface of the water by long bamboos

stuck up in it; and they pay so much the acre for the portion they

till. The long straws of the plants reach up to the surface of the

waters, upon which float their green leaves; and their pure white

flowers expand beautifully among them in the latter part of the

afternoon. The nut grows under the water after the flowers decay, and

is of a triangular shape, and covered with a tough brown integument

adhering strongly to the kernel, which is white, esculent, and of a

fine cartilaginous texture. The people are very fond of these nuts,

and they are carried often upon bullocks' backs two or three hundred

miles to market. They ripen in the latter end of the rains, or in

September, and are eatable till the end of November. The rent paid

for an ordinary tank by the cultivator is about one hundred rupees a

year. I have known two hundred rupees to be paid for a very large

one, and even three hundred, or thirty pounds a year.[11] But the mud

increases so rapidly from this cultivation that it soon destroys all

reservoirs in which it is permitted; and, where it is thought

desirable to keep up the tank for the sake of the water, it should be

carefully prohibited. This is done by stipulating with the renter of

the village, at the renewal of the lease, that no 'singhâra' shall be

planted in the tank; otherwise, he will never forgo the advantage to

himself of the rent for the sake of the convenience, and that only

prospective, of the village community in general.

Notes:

1. Afterwards Captain H. A. Sleeman, He died in 1905.

2. Of Garhâ, see _ante_, Chapter 9, prior to note 10.

3. The real 'kalpa', which now stands in the garden of the god Indra

in the first heaven, was one of the fourteen varieties found at the

churning of the ocean by the gods and demons. It fell to the share of

Indra. [W. H. S.] The tree referred to in the text perhaps may be the

_Erythrina arborescens_, or coral-tree, which sheds its leaves after

the hot weather.

4. That is to say, orderlies, or 'chaprâsîs'.

5. Every Hindoo is thoroughly convinced that the names of Râm and his

consort Sîtâ are written on this tree by the hand of God, and nine-

tenths of the Musalmâns believe the same.

Happy the man who sees a God employed

In all the good and ill that chequer life,

Resolving all events, with their effects

And manifold results, into the will

And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

COWPER. [W. H. S.]

The quotation is from _The Task_, Book II, line 161.

6. Sâdî (Sa'dî) is the poetic name, or _nom de plume_, of the

celebrated Persian poet, whose proper name is said to have been

Shaikh Maslah-ud-dîn, or, according to other authorities, Sharf-ud-

dîn Mislah. He was born about A.D. 1194, and is supposed to have

lived for more than a hundred years. Some writers say that he died in

A.D. 1292. His best known works are the _Gulistân_ and _Bûstân_. The

editor has failed to trace in either of these works the couplet

quoted. Sâdî says in the _Gulistân_, ii. 26, 'That heart which has an

ear is full of the divine mystery. It is not the nightingale that

alone serenades his rose; for every thorn on the rose-bush is a

tongue in his or God's praise' (Ross's translation).

7. November, 1835.

8. Spelled Dhamow in the author's text. The town, the head-quarters

of the district of the same name, is forty-five miles east of Sâgar,

and fifty-five miles north-west of Jabalpur. The _C. P. Gazetteer_

(1870) states the population to be 8,563. In 1901 it had grown to

13,335; and the town is still increasing in importance (_I. G._,

1908). Inscriptions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at

Damoh are noticed in _A. S. R._, vol. xxi, p. 168.

9. The guinea-worm (_Filaria medinensis_) is a very troublesome

parasite, which sometimes grows to a length of three feet. It occurs

in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan, as well as in India.

10. The Dhîmars (Sanskrit _dhîvara_, 'fisherman') are the same caste

as the Kahârs, or 'bearers'. The boats used by them are commonly

'dugout' canoes, exactly like those used in prehistoric Europe, and

now treasured in museums.

11. In the author's time the rupee was worth two shillings, or more,

that is to say, the ninth or tenth part of a sovereign. After 1873

the gold value of the rupee fell, so that at times it was worth

little more than a shilling. Since 1899 special legislation has

succeeded in keeping the rupee practically steady at 1s. 4d. In other

words, fifteen rupees are the legal equivalent of a sovereign, and a

hundred rupees are worth 6 pounds 13s. 4d.

CHAPTER 13

Thugs and Poisoners.

Lieutenant Brown had come on to Damoh chiefly with a view to

investigate a case of murder, which had taken place at the village of

Sujaina, about ten miles from Damoh, on the road to Hattâ.[1] A gang

of two hundred Thugs were encamped in the grove at Hindoria in the

cold season of 1814, when, early in the morning, seven men well armed

with swords and matchlocks passed them, bearing treasure from the

bank of Motî Kochia at Jubbulpore to their correspondents at

Bânda,[2] to the value of four thousand five hundred rupees.[3] The

value of their burden was immediately perceived by these _keen-eyed_

sportsmen, and Kosarî, Drigpâl, and Faringia, three of the leaders,

with forty of their fleetest and stoutest followers, were immediately

selected for the pursuit. They followed seven miles unperceived; and,

coming up with the treasure-bearers in a watercourse half a mile from

the village of Sujaina, they rushed in upon them and put them all to

death with their swords.[4] While they were doing so a tanner from

Sujaina approached with his buffalo, and to prevent him giving the

alarm they put him to death also, and made off with the treasure,

leaving the bodies unburied. A heavy shower of rain fell, and none of

the village people came to the place till the next morning early;

when some females, passing it on their way to Hattâ, saw the bodies,

and returning to Sujaina, reported the circumstance to their friends.

The whole village thereupon flocked to the spot, and the body of the

tanner was burned by his relations with the usual ceremonies, while

all the rest were left to be eaten by jackals, dogs and vultures, who

make short work of such things in India.[5]

We had occasion to examine a very respectable old gentleman at Damoh

upon the case, Gobind Dâs, a revenue officer under the former

Government,[6] and now about seventy years of age. He told us that he

had no knowledge whatever of the murder of the eight men at Sujaina;

but he well remembered another which took place seven years before

the time we mentioned at Abhâna, a stage or two back, on the road to

Jubbulpore. Seventeen treasure-bearers lodged in the grove near that

town on their way from Jubbulpore to Sâgar. At night they were set

upon by a large gang of Thugs, and sixteen of them strangled; but the

seventeenth laid hold of the noose before it could be brought to bear

upon his throat, pulled down the villain who held it, and made his

way good to the town. The Râjâ, Dharak Singh, went to the spot with

all the followers he could collect; but he found there nothing but

the sixteen naked bodies lying in the grove, with their eyes

apparently starting out of their sockets. The Thugs had all gone off

with the treasure and their clothes, and the Râjâ searched for them

in vain.

A native commissioned officer of a regiment of native infantry one

day told me that, while he was on duty over some Thugs at Lucknow,

one of them related with great seeming pleasure the following case,

which seemed to him one of the most remarkable that he had heard them

speak of during the time they were under his charge.

'A stout Mogul[7] officer of noble bearing and singularly handsome

countenance, on his way from the Punjab to Oudh, crossed the Ganges

at Garhmuktesar Ghât, near Meerut, to pass through Murâdâbâd and

Bareilly.[8] He was mounted on a fine Tûrkî horse, and attended by

his "khidmatgâr" (butler) and groom. Soon after crossing the river,

he fell in with a small party of well-dressed and modest-looking men

going the same road. They accosted him in a respectful manner, and

attempted to enter into conversation with him. He had heard of Thugs,

and told them to be off. They smiled at his idle suspicions, and

tried to remove them, but in vain. The Mogul was determined; they saw

his nostrils swelling with indignation, took their leave, and

followed slowly. The next morning he overtook the same number of men,

but of a different appearance, all Musalmâns. They accosted him in

the same respectful manner; talked of the danger of the road, and the

necessity of their keeping together, and taking advantage of the

protection of any mounted gentleman that happened to be going the

same way. The Mogul officer said not a word in reply, resolved to

have no companions on the road. They persisted--his nostrils began

again to swell, and putting his hand to his sword, he bid them all be

off, or he would have their heads from their shoulders. He had a bow

and quiver full of arrows over his shoulders,[9] a brace of loaded

pistols in his waist-belt, and a sword by his side, and was

altogether a very formidable-looking cavalier. In the evening another

party that lodged in the same "sarâi"[10] became very intimate with

the butler and groom. They were going the same road; and, as the

Mogul overtook them in the morning, they made their bows

respectfully, and began to enter into conversation with their two

friends, the groom and butler, who were coming up behind. The Mogul's

nostrils began again to swell, and he bid the strangers be off. The

groom and butler interceded, for their master was a grave, sedate

man, and they wanted companions. All would not do, and the strangers

fell in the rear. The next day, when they had got to the middle of an

extensive and uninhabited plain, the Mogul in advance, and his two

servants a few hundred yards behind, he came up to a party of six

poor Musalmâns, sitting weeping by the side of a dead companion. They

were soldiers from Lahore,[11] on their way to Lucknow, worn down by

fatigue in their anxiety to see their wives and children once more,

after a long and painful service. Their companion, the hope and prop

of his family, had sunk under the fatigue, and they had made a grave

for him; but they were poor unlettered men, and unable to repeat the

funeral service from the holy Koran-would his Highness but perform

this last office for them, he would, no doubt, find his reward in

this world and the next. The Mogul dismounted--the body had been

placed in its proper position, with its head towards Mecca. A carpet

was spread--the Mogul took off his bow and quiver, then his pistols

and sword, and placed them on the ground near the body--called for

water, and washed his feet, hands, and face, that he might not

pronounce the holy words in an unclean state. He then knelt down and

began to repeat the funeral service, in a clear, loud voice. Two of

the poor soldiers knelt by him, one on each side in silence. The

other four went off a few paces to beg that the butler and groom

would not come so near as to interrupt the good Samaritan at his

devotions.

'All being ready, one of the four, in a low undertone, gave the

"jhirnî" (signal),[12] the handkerchiefs were thrown over their

necks, and in a few minutes all three--the Mogul and his servants--

were dead, and lying in the grave in the usual manner, the head of

one at the feet of the one below him. All the parties they had met on

the road belonged to a gang of Jamâldehî Thugs, of the kingdom of

Oudh.[13] In despair of being able to win the Mogul's confidence in

the usual way, and determined to have the money and jewels, which

they knew he carried with him, they had adopted this plan of

disarming him; dug the grave by the side of the road, in the open

plain, and made a handsome young Musalmân of the party the dead

soldier. The Mogul, being a very stout man, died almost without a

struggle, as is usually the case with such; and his two servants made

no resistance.'

People of great sensibility, with hearts overcharged with sorrow,

often appear cold and callous to those who seem to them to feel no

interest in their afflictions. An instance of this kind I will here

mention; it is one of thousands that I have met with in my Indian

rambles. It was mentioned to me one day that an old 'fakîr',[14] who

lived in a small hut close by a little shrine on the side of the road

near the town of Morâdâbâd, had lately lost his son, poisoned by a

party of 'daturiâs', or professional poisoners,[15] that now infest

every road throughout India. I sent for him, and requested him to

tell me his story, as I might perhaps be able to trace the murderers.

He did so, and a Persian writer took it down while I listened with

all the coldness of a magistrate who wanted merely to learn facts and

have nothing whatever to do with feelings. This is his story

literally:

'I reside in my hut by the side of the road a mile and [a] half from

the town, and live upon the bounty of travellers, and the people of

the surrounding villages. About six weeks ago, I was sitting by the

side of my shrine after saying prayers, with my only son, about ten

years of age, when a man came up with his wife, his son, and his

daughter, the one a little older, and the other a little younger than

my boy. They baked and ate their bread near my shrine, and gave me

flour enough to make two cakes. This I prepared and baked. My boy was

hungry, and ate one cake and a half. I ate only half a one, for I was

not hungry. I had a few days before purchased a new blanket for my

boy, and it was hanging in a branch of the tree that shaded the

shrine, when these people came. My son and I soon became stupefied. I

saw him fall asleep, and I soon followed. I awoke again in the

evening, and found myself in a pool of water. I had sense enough to

crawl towards my boy. I found him still breathing, and I sat by him

with his head in my lap, where he soon died. It was now evening, and

I got up, and wandered about all night picking straws--I know not

why. I was not yet quite sensible. During the night the wolves ate my

poor boy. I heard this from travellers, and went and gathered up his

bones and buried them in the shrine. I did not quite recover till the

third day, when I found that some washerwomen had put me into the

pool, and left me there with my head out, in hopes that this would

revive me; but they had no hope of my son. I was then taken to the

police of the town; but the landholders had begged me to say nothing

about the poisoners, lest it might get them and their village

community into trouble. The man was tall and fair, and about thirty-

five; the woman short, stout, and fair, and about thirty; two of her

teeth projected a good deal; the boy's eyelids were much diseased.'

All this he told me without the slightest appearance of emotion, for

he had not seen any appearance of it in me, or my Persian writer; and

a casual European observer would perhaps have exclaimed, 'What brutes

these natives are! This fellow feels no more for the loss of his only

son than he would for that of a goat'. But I knew the feeling was

there. The Persian writer put up his paper, and closed his inkstand,

and the following dialogue, word for word, took place between me and

the old man:

_Question_.--What made you conceal the real cause of your boy's

death, and tell the police that he had been killed, as well as eaten,

by wolves?

_Answer_.--The landholders told me that they could never bring back

my boy to life, and the whole village would be worried to death by

them if I made any mention of the poison.

_Question_.--And if they were to be punished for this they would

annoy you?

_Answer_.--Certainly. But I believed they advised me for my own good

as well as their own.

_Question_.--And if they should turn you away from that place, could

you not make another?

_Answer_.-Are not the bones of my poor boy there, and the trees that

he and I planted and watched together for ten years?

_Question_.-Have you no other relations? What became of your boy's

mother?

_Answer_.-She died at that place when my boy was only three months

old. I have brought him up myself from that age; he was my only

child, and he has been poisoned for the sake of the blanket! (Here

the poor old man sobbed as if his heartstrings would break; and I was

obliged to make him sit down on the floor while I walked up and down

the room.)

_Question_.--Had you any children before?

_Answer_.--Yes, sir, we had several, but they all died before their

mother. We had been reduced to beggary by misfortunes, and I had

become too weak and ill to work. I buried my poor wife's bones by the

side of the road where she died; raised the little shrine over them,

planted the trees, and there have I sat ever since by her side, with

our poor boy in my bosom. It is a sad place for wolves, and we used

often to hear them howling outside; but my poor boy was never afraid

of them when he knew I was near him. God preserved him to me, till

the sight of the new blanket, for I had nothing else in the world,

made these people poison us. I bought it for him only a few days

before, when the rains were coming on, out of my savings-it was all I

had. (The poor old man sobbed again, and sat down while I paced the

room, lest I should sob also; my heart was becoming a little too

large for its apartment.) 'I will never', continued he, 'quit the

bones of my wife and child, and the tree that he and I watered for so

many years. I have not many years to live; there I will spend them,

whatever the landholders may do--they advised me for my own good, and

will never turn me out.'

I found all the poor man stated to be true; the man and his wife had

mixed poison with the flour to destroy the poor old man and his son

for the sake of the new blanket which they saw hanging in the branch

of the tree, and carried away with them. The poison used on such

occasions is commonly the datura, and it is sometimes given in the

hookah to be smoked, and at others in food. When they require to

poison children as well as grown-up people, or women who do not

smoke, they mix up the poison in food. The intention is almost always

to destroy life, as 'dead men tell no tales'; but the poisoned people

sometimes recover, as in the present case, and lead to the detection

of the poisoners. The cases in which they recover are, however, rare,

and of those who recover few are ever able to trace the poisoners;

and, of those who recover and trace them, very few will ever

undertake to prosecute them through the several courts of the

magistrate, the sessions, and that of last instance in a distant

district, to which the proceedings must be sent for final orders.

The impunity with which this crime is everywhere perpetrated, and its

consequent increase in every part of India, are among the greatest

evils with which the country is at this time affected. These

poisoners are spread all over India, and are as numerous over the

Bombay and Madras Presidencies as over that of Bengal. There is no

road free from them, and throughout India there must be many hundreds

who gain their subsistence by this trade alone. They put on all

manner of disguises to suit their purpose; and, as they prey chiefly

upon the poorer sort of travellers, they require to destroy the

greater number of lives to make up their incomes. A party of two or

three poisoners have very often succeeded in destroying another of

eight or ten travellers with whom they have journeyed for some days,

by pretending to give them a feast on the celebration of the

anniversary of some family event. Sometimes an old woman or man will

manage the thing alone, by gaining the confidence of travellers, and

getting near the cooking-pots while they go aside; or when employed

to bring the flour for the meal from the bazaar. The poison is put

into the flour or the pot, as opportunity offers.

People of all castes and callings take to this trade, some casually,

others for life, and others derive it from their parents or teachers.

They assume all manner of disguises to suit their purposes; and the

habits of cooking, eating, and sleeping on the side of the road, and

smoking with strangers of seemingly the same caste, greatly

facilitate their designs upon travellers. The small parties are

unconnected with each other, and two parties never unite in the same

cruise. The members of one party may be sometimes convicted and

punished, but their conviction is accidental, for the system which

has enabled us to put down the Thug associations cannot be applied,

with any fair prospect of success, to the suppression of these pests

to society.[16]

The Thugs went on their adventures in large gangs, and two or more

were commonly united in the course of an expedition in the

perpetration of many murders. Every man shared in the booty according

to the rank he held in the gang, or the part he took in the murders;

and the rank of every man and the part he took generally, or in any

particular murder, were generally well known to all. From among these

gangs, when arrested, we found the evidence we required for their

conviction--or the means of tracing it--among the families and

friends of their victims, or with persons to whom the property taken

had been disposed of, and in the graves to which the victims had been

consigned.

To give an idea of the system by which the Government of India has

been enabled to effect so great a good for the people as the

suppression of these associations, I will suppose that two sporting

gentlemen, A at Delhi, and B in Calcutta, had both described the

killing of a tiger in an island in the Ganges, near Hardwâr[17] and

mentioned the names of the persons engaged with them. Among the

persons thus named were C, who had since returned to America, D, who

had retired to New South Wales, E to England, and F to Scotland.

There were four other persons named who were still in India, but they

are deeply interested in A and B's story not being believed. A says

that B got the skin of the tiger, and B states that he gave it to C,

who cut out two of the claws. Application is made to C, D, E, and F,

and without the possibility of any collusion, or even communication

between them, their statements correspond precisely with those of A

and B, as to the time, place, circumstances, and persons engaged.

Their statements are sworn to before magistrates in presence of

witnesses, and duly attested. C states that he got the skin from B,

and gave it to the Nawâb of Râmpur[18] for a hookah carpet, but that

he took from the left forefoot two of the claws, and gave them to the

minister of the King of Oudh for a charm for his sick child.

The Nawâb of Râmpur, being applied to, states that he received the

skin from C, at the time and place mentioned, and that he still

smokes his hookah upon it; and that it had lost the two claws upon

the left forefoot. The minister of the King of Oudh states that he

received the two claws nicely set in gold; that they had cured his

boy, who still wore them round his neck to guard him from the evil

eye. The goldsmith states that he set the two claws in gold for C,

who paid him handsomely for his work. The peasantry, whose cattle

graze on the island, declare that certain gentlemen did kill a tiger

there about the time mentioned, and that they saw the body after the

skin had been taken off, and the vultures had begun to descend upon

it.

To prove that what A and B had stated could not possibly be true, the

other party appeal to some of their townsmen, who are said to be well

acquainted with their characters. They state that they really know

nothing about the matter in dispute; that their friends, who are

opposed to A and B, are much liked by their townspeople and

neighbours, as they have plenty of money, which they spend freely,

but that they are certainly very much addicted to field-sports, and

generally absent in pursuit of wild beasts for three or four months

every year; but whether they were or were not present at the killing

of the great Garhmuktesar tiger, they could not say.

Most persons would, after examining this evidence, be tolerably well

satisfied that the said tiger had really been killed at the time and

place, and by the persons mentioned by A and B; but, to establish the

fact judicially, it would be necessary to bring A, B, C, D, E, and F,

the Nawâb of Râmpur, the minister of the King of Oudh, and the

goldsmith to the criminal court at Meerut, to be confronted with the

person whose interest it was that A and B should not be believed.

They would all, perhaps, come to the said court from the different

quarters of the world in which they had thought themselves snugly

settled; but the thing would annoy them so much, and be so much

talked of, that sporting gentlemen, nawâbs, ministers, and goldsmiths

would in future take good care to have 'forgotten' everything

connected with the matter in dispute, should another similar

reference be made to them, and so A and B would never again have any

chance.

Thug approvers, whose evidence we required, were employed in all

parts of India, under the officers appointed to put down these

associations; and it was difficult to bring all whose evidence was

necessary at the trials to the court of the district in which the

particular murder was perpetrated. The victims were, for the most

part, money-carriers, whose masters and families resided hundreds of

miles from the place where they were murdered, or people on their way

to their distant homes from foreign service. There was no chance of

recovering any of the property taken from the victims, as Thugs were

known to spend what they got freely, and never to have money by them;

and the friends of the victims, and the bankers whose money they

carried, were everywhere found exceedingly averse to take share in

the prosecution.

To obviate all these difficulties separate courts were formed, with

permission to receive whatever evidence they might think likely to

prove valuable, attaching to each portion, whether documentary or

oral, whatever weight it might seem to deserve. Such courts were

formed at Hyderabad, Mysore, Indore, Lucknow, Gwâlior, and were

presided over by our highest diplomatic functionaries, in concurrence

with the princes at whose courts they were accredited; and who at

Jubbulpore, were under the direction of the representative of the

Governor-General of India.[l9] By this means we had a most valuable

species of unpaid agency; and I believe there is no part of their

public life on which these high functionaries look back with more

pride than that spent in presiding over such courts, and assisting

the supreme Government in relieving the people of India from this

fearful evil.[20]

Notes:

1. A town on the Allahabad and Sâgar road, sixty-one miles north-east

of Sâgar. It was the head-quarters of the Damoh district from 1818 to

1835.

2. The chief town of the district of the same name in Bundêlkhand,

situated on the Kên river, ninety-five miles south-west from

Allahabad.

3. Worth at that time 450 pounds sterling, or a little more.

4. An unusual mode of procedure for professed Thugs to adopt, who

usually strangled their victims with a cloth. Faringia (Feringheea)

Brahman was one of the most noted Thug leaders. He is frequently

mentioned in the author's _Report on the Depredations committed by

the Thug Gangs_ (1840), and the story of the Sujaina crime is fully

told in the Introduction to that volume. Faringia became a valuable

approver.

5. Lieutenant Brown was suddenly called back to Jubbulpore, and could

not himself go to Sujaina. He sent, however, an intelligent native

officer to the place, but no man could be induced to acknowledge that

he had ever seen the bodies or heard of the affair, though Faringia

pointed out to them exactly where they all lay. They said it must be

quite a mistake--that such a thing could not have taken place and

they know nothing of it. Lieutenant Brown was aware that all this

affected ignorance arose entirely from the dread these people have of

being summoned to give evidence to any of our district courts of

justice; and wrote to the officer in the civil charge of the district

to request that he would assure them that their presence would not be

required. Mr. Doolan, the assistant magistrate, happened to be going

through Sujaina from Sâgar on deputation at the time; and, sending

for all the respectable old men of the place, he requested that they

would be under no apprehension, but tell him the real truth, as he

would pledge himself that not one of them should ever be summoned to

any district court to give evidence. They then took him to the spot

and pointed out to him where the bodies had been found, and mentioned

that the body of the tanner had been burned by his friends. The

banker, whose treasure they had been carrying, had an equal dislike

to be summoned to court to give evidence, now that he could no longer

hope to recover any portion of his lost money; and it was not till

after Lieutenant Brown had given him a similar assurance, that he

would consent to have his books examined. The loss of the four

thousand five hundred rupees was then found entered, with the names

of the men who had been killed at Sujaina in carrying it. These are

specimens of some of the minor difficulties we had to contend with in

our efforts to put down the most dreadful of all crimes. All the

prisoners accused of these murders had just been tried for others, or

Lieutenant Brown would not have been able to give the pledge he did.

[W. H. S.] Difficulties of the same kind beset the administration of

criminal justice in India to this day.

6. Of the Marâthâs. The district was ceded in 1818.

7. More correctly written Mughal. The term is properly applied to

Muhammadans of Turk (Mongol) descent. Such persons commonly affix the

title Beg to their names, and often prefix the Persian title Mîrzâ.

8. Meerut, the well-known cantonment, in the district of the same

name. The name is written Meeruth by the author, and may be also

written Mîrath. Ghât (ghaut) means a ferry, or crossing-place.

Murâdâbâd and Bareilly (Barelî) are in Rohilkhand. The latter has a

considerable garrison. Both places are large cities, and the head-

quarter of districts.

9. The bow and quiver are now rarely seen, except, possibly, in

remote parts of Râjputâna. A body of archers helped to hold the Shâh

Najaf building at Lucknow against Sir Colin Campbell in 1858. Even in

1903-4 some of the Tibetans who resisted the British advance were

armed with bows and arrows.

10. An inn of the Oriental pattern, often called caravanserai in

books of travel.

11. Then the capital of Ranjit Singh, the great Sikh chief.

12. 'This is commonly given either by the leader of the gang or the

_belhâ_, who has chosen the place for the murder.' It was usually

some commonplace order, such as 'Bring the tobacco' (_Ramaseeana_,

p.99, &c.). See also Meadows Taylor, _Confessions of a Thug_.

13. The Jamâldehî Thugs resided 'in Oude and some other parts east of

the Ganges. They are considered very clever and expert, and more

stanch to their oath of secrecy than most other classes' (ibid. p.

97). At the time referred to Oudh was a separate kingdom, which

lasted as such until 1856. A map included in the printed Thuggee

papers reveals the appalling fact that the Thugs had 274 fixed

burying-places for their victims in the area of the small kingdom,

about half the size of Ireland.

14. Fakîr (fakeer), a religious mendicant. The word properly applies

to Muhammadans only, but is often laxly used to include Hindoo

ascetics.

15. So called because the poison they use is made of the seeds of the

'datura' plant (_Datura alba_), and other species of the same genus.

It is a powerful narcotic.

16. The crime of poisoning travellers is still prevalent, and its

detection is still attended by the difficulties described in the

text. In some cases the criminals have been proved to belong to

families of Thug stranglers. The poisoning of cattle by arsenic, for

the sake of their hides, was very prevalent forty years ago,

especially in the districts near Benares, but is now believed to be

less practised. It was checked under the ordinary law by numerous

convictions and severe sentences.

17. In the Sahâranpur district, where the Ganges issues from the

hills.

18. A small principality in Rohilkhand, between Murâdâbâd and

Bareilly (Barêlî).

19. The special laws on the subject, namely: Acts xxx of 1836, xviii

of 1837, xix of 1837, xviii of 1839, xviii of 1843, xxiv of 1843, xiv

of 1844, v of 1847, x of 1847, iii of 1848, and xi of 1848, are

printed in pp. 353-7 of the author's _Report on Budhuk alias Bagree

Decoits, &c._ (1849). See Bibliography, _ante._ No. 12.

20. I may here mention the names of a few diplomatic officers of

distinction who have aided in the good cause. _Of the Civil Service_-

-Mr. F. C. Smith, Mr. Martin, Mr. George Stockwell, Mr. Charles

Fraser, the Hon. Mr. Wellesley, the Hon. Mr. Shore, the Hon. Mr.

Cavendish, Mr. George Clerk, Mr. L. Wilkinson, Mr, Bax; _Majors-

General_--Cubbon and Fraser; _Colonels_--Low, Stewart, Alves, Spiers,

Caulfield, Sutherland, and Wade; Major Wilkinson; and, among the

foremost, Major Borthwick and Captain Paton. [W. H. S.]

The author's characteristic modesty has prevented him from dwelling

upon his own services, which were greater than those of any other

officer. Some idea of them may be gathered from the collection of

papers entitled _Ramaseeana_, the contents of which are enumerated in

the Bibliography, _ante._ No. 2. Colonel Meadows Taylor has given a

more popular account of the measures taken for the suppression of

Thuggee (thagî) in his _Confessions of a Thug_, written in 1837 (1st

ed. 1839). The Thug organization dated from ancient times, but

attracted little notice from the East India Company's Government

until the author, then Captain Sleeman, submitted his reports on the

subject while employed in the Sâgar and Nerbudda Territories, where

he had been posted in 1820. He proved that the Thug crimes were

committed by a numerous and highly organized fraternity operating in

all parts of India. In consequence of his reports, Mr. F. C. Smith,

Agent to the Governor-General in the Sâgar and Nerbudda Territories,

was invested, in the year 1829, with special powers, and the author,

then Major Sleeman, was employed, in addition to his district duties,

as Mr, Smith's coadjutor and assistant. In 1835 the author was

relieved from district work, and appointed General Superintendent of

the operations for the suppression of the Thug gangs. He went on

leave to the hills in 1836, and on resuming duty in February, 1839,

was appointed Commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee and

Dacoity, which office he continued to hold in addition to his other

appointments.

Between 1826 and 1835, 1,562 prisoners were tried for the crime of

Thuggee, of whom 1,404 were either hanged or transported for life.

Some individuals are said to have confessed to over 200 murders, and

one confessed to 719. The Thug approvers, whose lives were spared,

were detained in a special prison at Jubbulpore, where the remnant of

them, with their families, were kept under surveillance. They were

employed in a tent and carpet factory, known as the School of

Industry, founded in 1838 by the author and Captain Charles Brown. If

released, they would certainly have resumed their hereditary

occupation, which exercised an awful fascination over its votaries.

Most of the Thug gangs had been broken up by 1860, but cases of

Thuggee have occurred occasionally since that date. A gang of Kahârs

(palanquin bearers) committed a series of Thug murders in, I think,

1877, at Etâwa, in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The office

of Superintendent of Thuggee and Dacoity was kept up until 1904, but

the officer in charge was more concerned with Dacoity (that is to

say, organized gang-robbery with violence) in the Native States than

with the secret crime of Thuggee. Secret crime is now watched by the

Central Criminal Intelligence Department under the direct control of

the Government of India, and has to deal with novel forms of evil-

doing. In India it is never safe to assume that any ancient practice

has been suppressed, and I have little doubt that, if administrative

pressure were relaxed, the old form of Thuggee would again be heard

of. The occasional discovery of murdered beggars, who could not have

been killed for the sake of their property, leads me to suppose that

the Megpunnia variety of Thuggee, that is to say, murder of poor

persons in order to kidnap and sell their children, is still

sometimes practised.

Among the officers named by the author the best known is Sir Mark

Cubbon, who came to India in 1800, and died at Suez in 1861. During

the interval he had never quitted India. He ruled over Mysore for

nearly thirty years with almost despotic power, and reorganized the

administration of that country with conspicuous success (Buckland,

_Dict. of Indian Biography_, Sonnenschein, 1906).

The Hon. Frederick John Shore, of the Bengal Civil Service,

officiated in 1836 as Civil Commissioner and Political Agent of the

Sâgar and Nerbudda Territories. In 1837 he published his _Notes on

Indian Affairs_ (London, 2 vols. 8vo), a series of articles dealing

in the most outspoken way with the abuses and weaknesses of Anglo-

Indian administration at that time.

Mr. F. C. Smith was Agent to the Governor-General at Jubbulpore in

1830 and subsequent years. The author was then immediately

subordinate to him. Messrs. Martin and Wellesley were Residents at

Holkar's court at Indore. Mr. Stockwell tried some of the Thug

prisoners at Cawnpore and Allahabad as Special Commissioner, in

addition to his ordinary duties: correspondence between him and the

author is printed in _Ramaseeana_. Mr. Charles Fraser preceded the

author in charge of the Sâgar district, and in January, 1832, resumed

charge of the revenue and civil duties of that district, leaving the

criminal work to the author. The Hon. Mr. Cavendish was Resident at

Sindhia's court at Gwâlior. Mr. George Clerk became Sir George Clerk

and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, Governor of

Bombay, and Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India; he died at

a great age in 1889. Mr. Lancelot Wilkinson, Political Agent in

Bhopal, was considered by the author to be 'one of the most able and

estimable members of the India Civil Service' (_Journey_, ii. 403).

Mr. Bax was Resident at Indore; Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Low,

was Resident at Lucknow, and had served at Jubbulpore; Colonel

Stewart and Major-General Fraser were Residents at Hyderabad; Major

(Colonel) Alves was Political Agent in Bhopal and Agent in Râjputâna;

Colonel Spiers was Agent at Nîmach, and officiated as Agent in

Râjputâna; Colonel Caulfield had been Political Agent at Harautî;

Colonel Sutherland was Resident at Gwâlior, and afterwards Agent in

Râjputâna; Colonel (Sir C. M.) Wade had been Political Agent at

Lûdiâna; Major Borthwick was employed at Indore; Captain Paton was

Assistant Resident at Lucknow (see _Journey through Kingdom of Oudh_,

vol. ii, pp. 152-69).

Besides the officers above named, others are specified in

_Ramaseeana_ as having done good service.

_Note._--Mr. Crooke suggests, and, I think, correctly, that the words

_Megpunnia_ and _Megpunnaism_ (_ante_, note 20, and Bibliography No.

7) are corruptions of the Hindî _Mêkh-phandiyâ_, from _mêkh_, 'a

peg', and _phandâ_, 'a noose', equivalent to the Persian _tasmabâz_,

meaning 'playing tricks with a strap'. Creagh, a private in a British

regiment at Cawnpore about 1803, is said to have initiated three men

into the peg and strap trick, as practised by English rogues. These

men became the leaders of three Tasmabâz Thug gangs, whose

proceedings are described by Mr. R. Montgomery in _Selections of the

Records of Government_, N.W.P., vol. i, p. 312. A strap is doubled

and folded up in different shapes. The art consists in putting in a

stick or peg in such a way that the strap when unfolded shall come

out double. The Tasmabâz Thugs seem to be identical with the

'Megpunnia' (_N.I.N.& Qu._, vol. i, p. 108, note 721, September

1891).

General Hervey records seven modern instances of strangulation by

Megpunnia Thugs in Râjputâna (_Some Records of Crime_ (1867), vol. i,

pp. 126-31).

CHAPTER 14

Basaltic Cappings of the Sandstone Hills of Central India--Suspension

Bridge--Prospects of the Nerbudda Valley--Deification of a Mortal.

On the 29th[1] we came on to Pathariâ, a considerable little town

thirty miles from Sâgar, supported almost entirely by a few farmers,

small agricultural capitalists, and the establishment of a native

collector,[2] On leaving Pathariâ, we ascend gradually along the side

of the basaltic hills on our left to the south for three miles to a

point whence we see before us this plane of basaltic cappings

extending as far as the eye can reach to the west, south, and north,

with frequent breaks, but still preserving one uniform level. On the

top of these tables are here and there little conical elevations of

laterite, or indurated iron clay.[3] The cappings everywhere repose

immediately upon the sandstone of the Vindhya range; but they have

occasional beds of limestone, formed apparently by springs rising

from their sides, and strongly impregnated with carbonic acid gas.

For the most part this is mere travertine, but in some places they

get good lime from the beds for building.

On the 1st of December we came to the pretty village of Sanodâ, near

the suspension bridge built over the river Biâs by Colonel Presgrave,

while he was assay master of the Sâgar mint.[4] I was present at

laying the foundation-stone of this bridge in December 1827. Mr.

Maddock was the Governor-General's representative in these

territories, and the work was undertaken more with a view to show

what could be done out of their own resources, under minds capable of

developing them, than to supply any pressing or urgent want.

The work was completed in June, 1830; and I have several times seen

upon the bridge as many as it could hold of a regiment of infantry

while it moved over; and, at other times, as many of a corps of

cavalry, and often several elephants at once. The bridge is between

the points of suspension two hundred feet, and the clear portion of

the platform measures one hundred and ninety feet by eleven and a

half. The whole cost of the work amounted to about fifty thousand

rupees; and, under a less able and careful person than Colonel

Presgrave, would have cost, perhaps, double the amount. This work has

been declared by a very competent judge to be equal to any structure

of the same kind in Europe, and is eminently calculated to show what

genius and perseverance can produce out of the resources of a country

even in the rudest state of industry and the arts.

The river Nerbudda neither is nor ever can, I fear, be made

navigable, and the produce of its valley would require to find its

way to distant markets over the Vindhya range of hills to the north,

or the Sâtpura to the south. If the produce of the soil, mines, and

industry of the valley cannot be transported to distant markets, the

Government cannot possibly find in it any available net surplus

revenue in money; for it has no mines of the precious metals, and the

precious metals can flow in only in exchange for the produce of the

land, and the industry of the valley that flows out. If the

Government wishes to draw a net surplus revenue from the valley or

from the districts that border upon it, that is, a revenue beyond its

expenditure in support of the local public establishments, it must

either draw it in produce, or for what can be got for that produce in

distant markets.[5] Hitherto little beyond the rude produce of the

soil has been able to find its way into distant markets from the

valley of the Nerbudda; yet this valley abounds in iron mines,[6] and

its soil, where unexhausted by cropping, is of the richest

quality.[7] It is not then too much to hope that in time the iron of

the mines will be worked with machinery for manufactures; and that

multitudes, aided by this machinery, and subsisted on the rude

agricultural produce, which now flows out, will invest the value of

their labour in manufactured commodities adapted to the demand of

foreign markets and better able from their superior value, compared

with their bulk, to pay the cost of transport by land. Then, and not

till then, can we expect to see these territories pay a considerable

net surplus revenue to Government, and abound in a middle class of

merchants, manufacturers, and agricultural capitalists.[8]

At Sanodâ there is a very beautiful little fortress or castle now

unoccupied, though still entire. It was built by an officer of the

Râjâ Chhatar Sâl of Bundêlkhand, about one hundred and twenty years

ago.[9] He had a grant, on the tenure of military service, of twelve

villages situated round this place; and a man who could build such a

castle to defend the surrounding country from the inroads of

freebooters, and to secure himself and his troops from any sudden

impulse of the people's resentment, was as likely to acquire an

increase of territorial possession in these parts as he would have

been in Europe during the Middle Ages. The son of this chief, by name

Râi Singh, was, soon after the castle had been completed, killed in

an attack upon a town near Chitrakôt;[10] and having, in the

estimation of the people, _become a god_, he had a temple and a tomb

raised to him close to our encampment. I asked the people how he had

become a _god_; and was told that some one who had been long

suffering from a quartan ague went to the tomb one night, and

promised Râi Singh, whose ashes lay under it, that if he could

contrive to cure his ague for him, he would, during the rest of his

life, make offerings to his shrine. After that he had never another

attack, and was very punctual in his offerings. Others followed his

example, and with like success, till Râi Singh was recognized among

them universally as a god, and a temple raised to his name. This is

the way that gods were made all over the world at one time, and are

still made all over India. Happy had it been for mankind if those

only who were supposed to do good had been deified.[11]

On the 2nd we came on to the village of Khojanpur (leaving the town

and cantonments of Sâgar to our left), a distance of some fourteen

miles. The road for a great part of the way was over the bare back of

the sandstone strata, the covering of basalt having been washed off.

The hills, however, are, at this distance from the city and

cantonments of Sâgar, nicely wooded; and, being constantly

intersected by pretty little valleys, the country we came over was

picturesque and beautiful. The soil of all these valleys is rich from

the detritus of the basalt that forms or caps the hills; but it is

now in a bad state of cultivation, partly from several successive

seasons of great calamity, under which the people have been

suffering, and partly from over-assessment; and this posture of

affairs is continued by that loss of energy, industry, and character,

among the farmers and cultivators, which must everywhere result from

these two evils. In India, where the people have learnt so well to

govern themselves, from the want of settled government, good or bad

government really depends almost altogether upon _good or bad

settlements of the land revenue_. Where the Government demand is

imposed with moderation, and enforced with justice, there will the

people be generally found happy and contented, and disposed to

perform their duties to each other and to the state; except when they

have the misfortune to suffer from drought, blight, and other

calamities of season.[l2]

I have mentioned that the basalt in the Sâgar district reposes for

the most part immediately upon the sandstone of the Vindhya range;

and it must have been deposited on the sand, while the latter was yet

at the bottom of the ocean, though this range is now, I believe,

nowhere less than from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the

level of the sea. The marks of the ripple of the sea may be observed

in some places where the basalt has been recently washed off,

beautifully defined, as if formed only yesterday, and there is no

other substance to be seen between the two rocks.

The texture of the sandstone at the surface, where it comes in

contact with the basalt, has in some places been altered by it, but

in others it seems to have been as little changed as the habitations

of the people who were suffocated by the ashes of Vesuvius in the

city of Pompeii. I am satisfied, from long and careful examination,

that the greater part of this basalt, which covers the tableland of

Central and Southern India, must have been held for some time in

suspension in the ocean or lake into which it was first thrown in the

shape of ashes, and then gradually deposited. This alone can account

for its frequent appearance of stratification, for the gentle

blending of its particles with those of the sand near the surface of

the latter; and, above all, for those level steps, or tables, lying

one above another horizontally in parallel bars on one range,

corresponding exactly with the same parallel lines one above another

on a range twenty or thirty miles across the valley. Mr. Scrope's

theory is, I believe, that these are all mere flowing _coulées_ of

lava, which, in their liquid state, filled hollows, but afterwards

became of a harder texture, as they dried and crystallized, than the

higher rocks around them; the consequence of which is that the latter

has been decomposed and washed away, while the basalt has been left

to form the highest elevations. My opinion is that these steps, or

stairs, at one time formed the beds of the ocean, or of great lakes,

and that the substance of which they are composed was, for the most

part, projected into the water, and there held in suspension till

gradually deposited. There are, however, amidst these steps, and

beneath them, masses of more compact and crystalline basalt, that

bear evident signs of having been flows of lava.[l3]

Reasoning from analogy at Jubbulpore, where some of the basaltic

cappings of the hills had evidently been thrown out of craters long

after this surface had been raised above the waters, and become the

habitation both of vegetable and animal life, I made the first

discovery of fossil remains in the Nerbudda valley. I went first to a

hill within sight of my house in 1828,[14] and searched exactly

between the plateau of basalt that covered it and the stratum

immediately below, and there I found several small trees with roots,

trunks, and branches, all entire, and beautifully petrified. They had

been only recently uncovered by the washing away of a part of the

basaltic plateau. I soon after found some fossil bones of

animals.[15] Going over to Sâgar, in the end of 1830, and reasoning

there upon the same analogy, I searched for fossil remains along the

line of contact between the basalt and the surface upon which it had

been deposited, and I found a grove of silicified palm-trees within a

mile of the cantonments. These palm-trees had grown upon a calcareous

deposit formed from springs rising out of the basaltic range of hills

to the south. The commissariat officer had cut a road through this

grove, and all the European officers of a large military station had

been every day riding through it without observing the geological

treasure; and it was some time before I could convince them that the

stones which they had every day seen were really petrified palm-

trees. The roots and trunks were beautifully perfect.[l6]

Notes:

1. November, 1835.

2. In the Damoh District, twenty-four miles west of Damoh. The name

appears to be derived from the 'great quantity of hewn stone (Hind.

_patthar_ or _pâthar_) lying about in all directions'. The _C. P.

Gazetteer_ (1870) calls the place 'a considerable village'.

3. A peculiar formation, of 'widespread occurrence in the tropical

and subtropical regions of the world'. It is ordinarily of a reddish

ferruginous or brick-dust colour, sometimes deepened into dark red.

Apparently the special character which distinguishes laterite from

other forms of red-coloured weathering is the presence of hydrous

oxide of alumina in varying proportions. . . . 'Though there is still

a great deal of uncertainty about the way in which laterite was

formed, the facts which are known of its distribution seem to show

that it is a distinct form of weathering, which is confined to low

latitudes and humid climates; its formation seems to have been a slow

process, only possible on flat or nearly flat surfaces, where surface

rain-wash could not act' (Oldham, in _The Oxford Survey of the

British Empire_, vol. ii, Asia, p. 10: Oxford, 1914). It hardens and

darkens by exposure to air, and is occasionally used as a building

stone.

4. The Sâgar mint was erected in 1820 by Captain Presgrave, the assay

master, and used to employ four hundred men, but, after about ten or

twelve years, the business was transferred to Calcutta, and the

buildings converted to other uses (_C. P. Gazetteer_, 1870). Mints

are now kept up at Calcutta and Bombay only. The Biâs is a small

stream flowing into the Sunâr river, and belonging to the Jumna river

system. The name is printed Beeose in the original edition.

5. Since the author's time the conditions have been completely

changed by the introduction of railways. The East Indian, Great

Indian Peninsular, and other railways now enter the Nerbudda Valley,

so that the produce of most districts can be readily transported to

distant markets. A large enhancement of the land revenue has been

obtained by revisions of the settlement.

6. Details will be found in the _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ (1870).

The references are collected under the head 'Iron' in the index to

that work. Chapter VIII of _Ball's Economic Geology of India_ gives

full information concerning the iron mines of the Central Provinces

and all parts of India. That work forms Part III of the _Manual of

the Geology of India_.

7. The soil of the valley of the Nerbudda, and that of the Nerbudda

and Sâgar territories generally, is formed for the most part of the

detritus of trap-rocks that everywhere covered the sandstone of the

Vindhya and Sâtpura ranges which run through these territories. This

basaltic detritus forms what is called the black cotton soil by the

English, for what reason I know not. [W. H. S.] The reason is that

cotton is very largely grown in the Nerbudda Valley, both on the

black soil and other soils. In Bundêlkhand the black, friable soil,

often with a high proportion of organic matter, is called 'mâr', and

is chiefly devoted to raising crops of wheat, gram, or chick-pea

(_Cicer arietinum_), linseed, and joâr (_Holcus sorghum_). Cotton is

also sown in it, but not very generally. This black soil requires

little rain, and is fertile without manure. It absorbs water too

freely to be suitable for irrigation, and in most seasons does not

need it. The 'black cotton soil' is often known as _regur_, a

corruption of a Tamil word. 'The origin of _regur_ is a doubtful

question. . . . The dark coloration was attributed by earlier writers

to vegetable matter, and taken to indicate a large amount of humus in

the soil; more recent investigations make this doubtful, and in all

probability the colour is due to mineral constitution rather than to

the very scanty organic constituents of the soil,' It may possibly be

formed of 'wind-borne dust', like the loess plains of China (Oldham,

in _The Oxford Survey of the British Empire_, vol. ii, Asia, p. 9:

Oxford, 1914).

8. The land revenue has been largely increased, and the resources and

communications of the country have been greatly developed during the

last half-century. The formation of the Central Provinces as a

separate administration in 1861 secured for the Sâgar and Nerbudda

territories the attention which they failed to obtain from the

distant Government of the North-Western Provinces. Sir Richard

Temple, the first Chief Commissioner, administered the Central

Provinces with extraordinary energy and success.

9. Râjâ Chhatarsâl Bundela was Râjâ of Pannâ. The history of

Chhatarsâl is related in _I.G._ (1908), vol. xix, p. 400, s.v. Panna

State. In 1729 he called in the Marâthâs to help him against Muhammad

Khan Bangash, and when he died in 1731 rewarded them by bequeathing

one-third of his dominions to the Peshwa. The correct date of his

death is Pûs Badi 3, Samvat 1788 (_Hamîrpur Settlement Report_

(1880), note at end of chapter 2). The date is often given

inaccurately.

10. Chitrakôt, in the Bânda district of Bundêlkhand, under the

government of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and seventy-one

miles distant from Allahabad, is a famous place of pilgrimage, much

frequented by the votaries of Râma. Large fairs are held there.

11. The performance of miraculous cures at the tomb is not necessary

for the deification of a person who has been specially feared in his

lifetime, or has died a violent death. Either of these conditions is

enough to render his ghost formidable, and worthy of propitiation.

Shrines to such persons are very numerous both in Bundêlkhand and

other parts of India, Miracles, of course, occur at nearly every

shrine, and are too common and well attested to attract much

attention.

12. These observations are as true to-day as they were in the

author's time. Disastrous cases of over-assessment were common in the

early years of British rule, and the mischief so wrought has been

sometimes traceable for generations afterwards. Since 1833 the error,

though less common, has not been unknown.

13. Since writing the above, I have seen Colonel Sykes's notes on the

formations of Southern India in the _Indian Review_. The facts there

described seem all to support my conclusion, and his map would answer

just as well for Central as for Southern India; for the banks of the

Nerbudda and Chambal, Sôn, and Mahânadî, as well as for those of the

Bâm and the Bîmâ. Colonel Sykes does not, I believe, attempt to

account for the stratification of the basalt; he merely describes it.

[W. H. S.]

The author's theory of the subaqueous origin of the greater part of

the basalt of Central and Southern India, otherwise known as the

'Deccan Trap Series', had been supported by numerous excellent

geologists, but W. T. Blanford proved the theory to be untenable,

there being 'clear and unmistakable evidence that the traps were in

great part of sub-aerial formation', The intercalation of sedimentary

beds with fresh-water fossils is conclusive proof that the lava-flows

associated with such beds cannot be submarine. The hypothesis that

the lower beds of traps were poured out in a vast, but shallow,

freshwater lake extending throughout the area over which the inter-

trappean limestone formation extends appears to be extremely

improbable. The lava seems to have been poured, during a long

succession of ages, over a land surface, uneven and broken in parts,

'with intervals of rest sufficient for lakes, stocked with fresh-

water mollusca, to form on the cold surfaces of several of the lava-

flows' (Holland, in _I.G._ (1907), i. 88). A great tract of the

volcanic region appears to have remained almost undisturbed to the

present day, affected by sub-aerial erosion alone. The geological

horizon of the Deccan trap cannot be precisely defined, but is now

vaguely stated as 'the close of the cretaceous period'. The 'steps',

or conspicuous terraces, traceable on the hill-sides for great

distances, are explained as being 'due to the outcrop of the harder

basaltic strata, or of those beds which resist best the

disintegrating influences of exposure'.

The general horizontality of the Deccan trap over an area of not less

than 200,000 square miles, and the absence of volcanic hills of the

usual conical form, are difficulties which have caused much

discussion. Some of the 'old volcanic vents' appear to have existed

near Poona and Mahâblêshwar. The entire area has been subjected to

sub-aerial denudation on a gigantic scale, which explains the

occurrence of the basalt as the caps of isolated hills. Much further

investigation is required to clear up details (_Manual of the Geology

of India_, ed. 1, Part I, chap. 13)

14. The author took charge of the Jubbulpore District in March 1828.

15. The fossiliferous beds near Jubbulpore, described in the text,

seem to belong to the group now classed as the Lamêtâ beds. The bones

of a large dinosaurian reptile (_Titanosaurus indicus_) have been

identified (_I.G._, 1907, vol. i, p. 88).

16. 'Many years ago Dr. Spry (_Note on the Fossil Palms and Shells

lately discovered on the Table-Land of Sâgar in Central India_, in

_J.A.S.B._ for 1833, vol. ii, p. 639) and, subsequently to him,

Captain Nicholls (_Journal of Asiatic Soc. of Bombay_, vol. v, p.

614), studied and described certain trunks of palm-trees, whose

silicified remains are found imbedded in the soft intertrappean mud-

beds near Sâgar. . . . The trees are imbedded in a layer of

calcareous black earth, which formed the surface soil in which they

grew; this soil rests on, and was made up of the disintegration of, a

layer of basalt. It is covered over by another and similar layer of

the same rock near where the trees occur. . . . The palm-trees, now

found fossilized, grew in the soil, which, in the condition of a

black calcareous earthy bed, we now find lying round their prostrate

stems. They fell (from whatever cause), and lay until their

silicification was complete. A slight depression of the surface, or

some local or accidental check of some drainage-course, or any other

similar and trivial cause, may have laid them under water. The

process of silicification proceeded gradually but steadily, and after

they had there, in lapse of ages, become lapidified, the next

outburst of volcanic matter overwhelmed them, broke them, partially

enveloped, and bruised them, until long subsequent denudation once

more brought them to light' (J. G. Medlicott, in _Memoirs of the

Geological Survey of India_, vol. ii. Part II, pp. 200, 203, 204,

205, 216, as quoted in _C. P. Gazetteer_ (1870), p. 435). The

intertrappean fossils are all those of organisms which would occur in

shallow fresh-water lakes or marshy ground.

Besides the author's friend and relative, Dr. H. H. Spry, Dr.

Spilsbury contributed papers on the Nerbudda fossils to vols. iii,

vi, viii, ix, x, and xiii of the _J.A.S.B._ Other writers also have

treated of the subject, but it appears to be by no means fully worked

out. James Prinsep, to whom no topic came amiss, discussed the

Jubbulpore fossil bones in the volume in which Dr. Spry's paper

appeared. Dr. Spry was the author of a work entitled _Modern India:

with Illustrations of the Resources and Capabilities of Hindustan_ (2

vols. 8vo, 1838). He became F.R.S.

CHAPTER 15

Legend of the Sâgar Lake--Paralysis from eating the Grain of the

_Lathyrus sativus_.

The cantonments of Sâgar are about two miles from the city and

occupied by three regiments of native infantry, one of local horse,

and a company of European artillery.[1] The city occupies two sides

of one of the most beautiful lakes of India, formed by a wall which

unites two sandstone hills on the north side. The fort and part of

the town stands upon this wall, which, according to tradition, was

built by a wealthy merchant of the Banjâra caste.[2] After he had

finished it, the bed of the lake still remained dry; and he was told

in a dream, or by a priest, that it would continue so till he should

consent to sacrifice his own daughter, then a girl, and the young lad

to whom she was affianced, to the tutelary god of the place. He

accordingly built a little shrine in the centre of the valley, which

was to become the bed of the lake, put the two children in, and built

up the doorway. He had no sooner done so than the whole of the valley

became filled with water, and the old merchant, the priest, the

masons, and spectators, made their escape with much difficulty. From

that time the lake has been inexhaustible; but no living soul of the

Banjâra caste has ever since been known to drink of its waters.

Certainly all of that caste at present religiously avoid drinking the

water of the lake; and the old people of the city say that they have

always done so since they can remember, and that they used to hear

from their parents that they had always done so. In nothing does the

Founder of the Christian religion appear more amiable than in His

injunction, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them

not'. In nothing do the Hindoo deities appear more horrible than in

the delight they are supposed to take in their sacrifice--it is

everywhere the helpless, the female, and the infant that they seek to

devour--and so it was among the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian

colonies. Human sacrifices were certainly offered in the cities of

Sâgar during the whole of the Marâtha government up to the year 1800,

when they were put a stop to by the local governor, Âsâ Sâhib, a very

humane man; and I once heard a very learned Brahman priest say that

he thought the decline of his family and government arose from this

_innovation_. 'There is', said he, 'no sin in _not_ offering human

sacrifices to the gods where none have been offered; but, where the

gods have been accustomed to them, they are naturally annoyed when

the rite is abolished, and visit the place and people with all kinds

of calamities.' He did not seem to think that there was anything

singular in this mode of reasoning, and perhaps three Brahman priests

out of four would have reasoned in the same manner.[3]

On descending into the valley of the Nerbudda over the Vindhya range

of hills from Bhopal, one may see by the side of the road, upon a

spur of the hill, a singular pillar of sandstone rising in two

spires, one turning above and rising over the other, to the height of

from twenty to thirty feet. On a spur of a hill half a mile distant

is another sandstone pillar not quite so high. The tradition is that

the smaller pillar was the affianced bride of the taller one, who was

a youth of a family of great eminence in these parts. Coming with his

uncle to pay his first visit to his bride in the procession they call

the 'barât', he grew more and more impatient as he approached nearer

and nearer, and she shared the feeling. At last, unable to restrain

himself, he jumped upon his uncle's shoulder, and looked with all his

might towards the spot where his bride was said to be seated.

Unhappily she felt no less impatient than he did, and raised 'the

fringed curtains of her eye', as he raised his, [and] they saw each

other at the same moment. In that moment the bride, bridegroom, and

uncle were all converted into stone pillars; and there they stand to

this day a monument, in the estimation of the people, to warn men and

womankind against too strong an inclination to indulge curiosity. It

is a singular fact that in one of the most extensive tribes of the

Gond population of Central India, to which this couple is said to

have belonged, the bride always goes to the bridegroom in the

procession of the 'barât', to prevent a recurrence of this calamity.

It is the bridegroom who goes to the bride among every other class of

the people of India, as well Muhammadans as Hindoos. Whether the

usage grew out of the tradition, or the tradition out of the usage,

is a question that will admit of much being said on both sides. I can

only vouch for the existence of both. I have seen the pillars, heard

the tradition from the people, and ascertained the usage; as in the

case of that of the Sâgar lake.

The Mahâdêo sandstone hills, which in the Sâtpura range overlook the

Nerbudda to the south, rise to between four and five thousand feet

above the level of the sea;[4] and in one of the highest parts a fair

was formerly, and is, perhaps, still held[5] for the enjoyment of

those who assemble to witness the self devotion of a few young men,

who offer themselves as a sacrifice to fulfil the vows of their

mothers. When a woman is without children she makes votive offerings

to all the gods, who can, she thinks, assist her, and promises of

still greater in case they should grant what she wants. Smaller

promises being found of no avail, she at last promises her first-

born, if a male, to the god of destruction, Mahâdêo. If she gets a

son, she conceals from him her vows till he has attained the age of

puberty; she then communicates it [_sic_] to him, and enjoins him to

fulfil it. He believes it to be his paramount duty to obey his

mother's call; and from that moment he considers himself as devoted

to the god. Without breathing to any living soul a syllable of what

she has told him, he puts on the habit of a pilgrim or religious

mendicant, visits all the celebrated temples dedicated to this god in

different parts of India;[6] and, at the annual fair on the Mahâdêo

hills, throws himself from a perpendicular height of four or five

hundred feet, and is dashed to pieces upon the rocks below.[7] If the

youth does not feel himself quite prepared for the sacrifice on the

first visit, he spends another year in pilgrimages, and returns to

fulfil his mother's vow at the next fair. Some have, I believe, been

known to postpone the sacrifice to a third fair; but the interval is

always spent in painful pilgrimages to the celebrated temples of the

god. When Sir R. Jenkins was the Governor-General's representative at

the court of Nâgpur,[8] great efforts were made by him and all the

European officers under him to put a stop to these horrors by doing

away with the fair; and their efforts were assisted by the _cholera

morbus_, which broke out among the multitude one season while they

were so employed, and carried off the greater part of them. This

seasonable visitation was, I believe, considered as an intimation on

the part of the god that the people ought to have been more attentive

to the wishes of the white men, for it so happens that Mahâdêo is the

only one of the Hindoo gods who is represented with a white face.[9]

He figures among the _dramatis personae_ of the great pantomime of

the Râmlîlâ[10] or fight for the recovery of Sitâ from the demon king

of Ceylon; and is the only one with a white face. I know not whether

the fair has ever been revived, but [I] think not.

In 1829 the wheat and other spring crops in this and the surrounding

villages were destroyed by a severe hail-storm; in 1830 they were

deficient from the want of seasonable rains; and in 1831 they were

destroyed by blight. During these three years the 'teorî', or what in

other parts of India is called 'kesârî' (the _Lathyrus sativus_ of

botanists), a kind of wild vetch, which, though not sown itself, is

left carelessly to grow among the wheat and other grain, and given in

the green and dry state to cattle, remained uninjured, and thrived

with great luxuriance.[11] In 1831 they reaped a rich crop of it from

the blighted wheat-fields, and subsisted upon its grain during that

and the following years, giving the stalks and leaves only to their

cattle. In 1833 the sad effects of this food began to manifest

themselves. The younger part of the population of this and the

surrounding villages, from the age of thirty downwards, began to be

deprived of the use of their limbs below the waist by paralytic

strokes, in all cases sudden, but in some cases more severe than in

others. About half the youth of this village of both sexes became

affected during the years 1833 and 1834, and many of them have lost

the use of their lower limbs entirely, and are unable to move. The

youth of the surrounding villages, in which the 'teorî' from the same

causes formed the chief article of food during the years 1831 and

1832, have suffered to an equal degree. Since the year 1834 no new

case has occurred; but no person once attacked had been found to

recover the use of the limbs affected; and my tent was surrounded by

great numbers of the youth in different stages of the disease,

imploring my advice and assistance under this dreadful visitation.

Some of them were very fine-looking young men of good caste and

respectable families; and all stated that their pains and infirmities

were confined entirely to the parts below the waist. They described

the attack as coming on suddenly, often while the person was asleep,

and without any warning symptoms whatever; and stated that a greater

portion of the young men were attacked than of the young women. It is

the prevailing opinion of the natives throughout the country that

both horses and bullocks, which have been much fed upon 'teorî', are

liable to lose the use of their limbs; but, if the poisonous

qualities abound more in the grain than in the stalk or leaves, man,

who eats nothing but the grain, must be more liable to suffer from

the use of this food than beasts, which eat it merely as they eat

grass or hay.

I sent the son of the head man of the village and another, who were

among the young people least affected, into Sâgar with a letter to my

friend Dr. Foley, with a request that he would try what he could do

for them; and if he had any fair prospect of being able to restore

these people to the use of their limbs, that measures might be

adopted through the civil authorities to provide them with

accommodation and the means of subsistence, either by private

subscription, or by application to Government. The civil authorities,

however, could find neither accommodation nor funds to maintain these

people while under Dr. Foley's care; and several seasons of calamity

had deprived them of the means of maintaining themselves at a

distance from their families. Nor is a medical man in India provided

with the means found most effectual in removing such affections, such

as baths, galvanic batteries, &c. It is lamentable to think how very

little we have as yet done for the country in the healing art, that

art which, above all others, a benevolent and enlightened Government

should encourage among the people of India.

All we have as yet done has been to provide medical attendants for

our European officers; regiments, and jails. It must not, however, be

supposed that the people of India are without medical advice, for

there is not a town or considerable village in India without its

practitioners, the Hindoos following the Egyptian (Misrânî), and the

Musalmâns the Grecian (Yunânî) practice. The first prescribe little

physic and much fasting; and the second follow the good old rules of

Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, with which they are all tolerably

well acquainted. As far as the office of physician goes, the natives

of India of all classes, high and low, have much more confidence in

their own practitioners than in ours, whom they consider too reckless

and better adapted to treat diseases in a cold than a hot climate.

They cannot afford to give the only fees which European physicians

would accept; and they see them, in their hospital practice, trust

much to their native assistants, who are very few of them able to

read any book, much less to study the profound doctrines of the great

masters of the science of medicine.[12] No native ventures to offer

an opinion upon this abstruse subject in any circle where he is not

known to be profoundly read in either Arabic or Sanskrit lore; nor

would he venture to give a prescription without first consulting,

'spectacles on nose', a book as large as a church Bible. The educated

class, as indeed all classes, say that they do not want our

physicians, but stand much in need of our surgeons. Here they feel

that they are helpless, and we are strong; and they seek our aid

whenever they see any chance of obtaining it, as in the present

case.[13] Considering that every European gentleman they meet is more

or less a surgeon, or hoping to find him so, people who are

afflicted, or have children afflicted, with any kind of malformation,

or malorganization, flock round them [_sic_] wherever they go, and

implore their aid; but implore in vain, for, when they do happen to

fall in with a surgeon, he is a mere passer-by, without the means or

the time to afford relief. In travelling over India there is nothing

which distresses a benevolent man so much as the necessity he is

daily under of telling poor parents, who, with aching hearts and

tearful eyes, approach him with their suffering children in their

arms, that to relieve them requires time and means which are not at a

traveller's command, or a species of knowledge which he does not

possess; it is bitter thus to dash to the ground the cup of hope

which our approach has raised to the lip of mother, father, and

child; but he consoles himself with the prospect, that at no distant

period a benevolent and enlightened Government will distribute over

the land those from whom the afflicted will not seek relief in

vain.[14]

Notes:

1. The garrison is stated in the _Gazetteer_ (1870) to consist of a

European regiment of infantry, two batteries of European artillery,

one native cavalry and one native infantry regiment. In 1893 it

consisted of one battery of Royal Artillery, a detachment of British

Infantry, a regiment of Bengal Cavalry, and a detachment of Bengal

Infantry. According to the census of 1911, the population of Sâgar

was 45,908.

2. The Banjâras, or Brinjâras, are a wandering tribe, principally

employed as carriers of grain and salt on bullocks and cows. They

used to form the transport service of the Moghal armies, and of the

Company's forces at least as late as 1819. Their organization and

customs are in many ways peculiar. The development of roads and

railways has much diminished the importance of the tribe. A good

account of it will be found in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd

ed., 1885, s. v. 'Banjâra'. Dubois (_Hindu Manners, &c._, 3rd ed.

(1906), p. 70) states that 'of all the castes of the Hindus, this

particular one is acknowledged to be the most brutal'.

3. See note on human sacrifice, _ante_, Chapter 8, note 8.

4. In the Hoshangâbâd district of the Central Provinces. The

sandstone formation here attains its highest development, and is

known to geologists as the 'Mahâdêo sandstones'. The new sanitarium

of Pachmarhî is situated in these hills.

5. It has been long since suppressed.

6. Benares is the principal seat of the worship of Mahâdêo (Siva),

but his shrines are found everywhere throughout India. One hundred

and eight of these are reckoned as important. In Southern India the

most notable, perhaps, is the great temple at Tanjore (see chap. 17

of Monier Williams's _Religious Thought and Life in India_).

7. 'This mode of suicide is called Bhrigu-pâtâ, "throwing one's self

from a precipice". It was once equally common at the rock of Girnâr

[in Kâthiâwâr], and has only recently been prohibited' (ibid. p.

349).

8. Nagpore (Nâgpur) was governed by Marâthâ rulers, with the title of

Bhônslâ, also known as the Râjâs of Berâr. The last Râjâ, Raghojî,

died without heirs in 1853. His dominions were then annexed as lapsed

territory by Lord Dalhousie. Sir Richard Jenkins was Resident at

Nâgpur from 1810 to 1827. Nâgpur is now the head-quarters of the

Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces.

9. 'There is a legend that Siva appeared in the Kali age, for the

good of the Brahmans, as "Sveta", "the white one", and that he had

four disciples, to all of whom the epithet "Sveta" is applied'

(Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_, p. 80, note

2). Various explanations of the legend have been offered. Professor

A. Weber is inclined to think that the various references to white

teachers in Indian legends allude to Christian missionaries. The

Mahâbhârata mentions the travels of Nârada and others across the sea

to 'Sveta-dwîpa', the 'Island of the White Men', in order to learn

the doctrine of the unity of God. This tradition appears to be

intelligible only if understood to commemorate the journeys of pious

Indians to Alexandria, and their study of Christianity there (_Die

Griechen in Indien_, 1890, p. 34).

10. The Râmlîlâ, a performance corresponding to the mediaeval

European 'miracle-play', is celebrated in Northern India in the month

of Kuâr (or Asvin, September-October), at the same time as the Durgâ

Pûjâ is solemnized in Bengal. Râma and his brother Lachhman are

impersonated by boys, who are seated on thrones in state. The

performance concludes by the burning of a wicker image of Râvana, the

demon king of Lankâ (Ceylon), who had carried off Râma's queen, Sitâ.

The story is the leading subject of the great epic called the

Râmâyana.

11. The _Lathyrus sativus_ is cultivated in the Punjab and in Tibet.

Its poisonous qualities are attributed to its excessive proportion of

nitrogenous matter, which requires dilution. Another species of the

genus, _L. cicer_, grown in Spain, has similar properties. The

distressing effects described in the text have been witnessed by

other observers (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v.

'Lathyrus').

12. One of the tent-pitchers one morning, after pitching our tent,

asked the loan of a small extra one for the use of his wife, who was

about to be confined. The basket-maker's wife of the village near

which we were encamped was called; and the poor woman, before we had

finished our breakfast, gave birth to a daughter. The charge is half

a rupee, or one shilling for a boy, and a quarter, or sixpence, for a

girl. The tent-pitcher gave her ninepence, which the poor midwife

thought very handsome, The mother had come fourteen miles upon a

loaded cart over rough roads the night before; and went the same

distance with her child the night after, upon the same cart. The

first midwife in Europe could not have done her duty better than this

poor basket-maker's wife did hers. [W. H. S.]

13. The 'present case' was of a medical, not a surgical, nature.

14. The Hindoo practitioners are called 'baid' (Sanskrit 'vaidya',

followers of the Veda, that is to say, the Ayur Veda). The Musalmân

practitioners are generally called 'hakîm'. The Egyptian school

(Misrânî, Misrî, or Suryânî, that is, Syrian) never practise

bleeding, and are partial to the use of metallic oxides. The Yunânî

physicians approve of bleeding, and prefer vegetable drugs. The older

writers on India fancied that the Hindoo system of medicine was of

enormous antiquity, and that the principles of Galenical medical

science were ultimately derived from India. Modern investigation has

proved that Hindoo medicine, like Hindoo astronomy, is largely of

Greek origin. This conclusion has been expressed in an exaggerated

form by some writers, but its general truth appears to be

established. The Hindoo books treating of medicine are certainly

older than Wilson supposed, for the Bower manuscript, written in the

second half of the fourth century of our era, contains three Sanskrit

medical treatises. The writers had, however, plenty of time to borrow

from Galen, who lived in the second century. The Indian aversion to

European medicine, as distinguished from surgery, still exists,

though in a degree somewhat less than in the author's time. Many

municipal boards have insisted on employing 'baids' and 'hakîms' in

addition to the practitioners trained in European methods. Well-to-do

patients often delay resort to the English physician until they have

exhausted all resources of the 'hakîm' and have been nearly killed by

his drastic treatment. One medical innovation, the use of quinine as

a febrifuge, has secured universal approbation. I never heard of an

Indian who disbelieved in quinine. Chlorodyne also is fully

appreciated, but most of the European medicines are regarded with

little faith.

Since the author wrote, great progress has been made in providing

hospital and dispensary accommodation. Each 'district', or unit of

civil administration, has a fairly well equipped combined hospital

and dispensary at head-quarters, and branch dispensaries exist in

almost every district. An Inspector-General of Dispensaries

supervises the medical administration of each province, and medical

schools have been organized at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore, and

Agra. During Lord Dufferin's Viceroyalty and afterwards, energetic

steps were taken to improve the system of medical relief for females.

Pandit Madhusadan Gupta, on January 10, 1836, was the first Hindoo

who ventured to dissect a human body and teach anatomy. India can now

boast of a considerable number of Hindoo and Musalmân practitioners,

trained in European methods, and skilful in their profession. Much

has been done, infinitely more remains to be done. Details will be

found in _I.G._ (1907), vol. iv, chap. 14, 'Medical Administration',

The article 'Medicine' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., 1885, on

which I have drawn for some of the facts above stated, gives a good

summary of the earlier history of medicine in India, but greatly

exaggerates the antiquity of the Hindoo books. On this question

Weber's paper, 'Die Griechen in Indien' (Berlin, 1890, p. 28), and

Dr. Hoernle's remarks on the Bower manuscript (in _J.A.S.B._, vol. lx

(1891), Part I, p. 145) may be consulted. Dr. Hoernle's annotated

edition and translation of the Bower MS. were completed in 1912. Part

of the work is reprinted with additions in the _Ind. Ant._ for 1913

and 1914.

CHAPTER 16

Suttee Tombs--Insalubrity of deserted Fortresses.

On the 3rd we came to Bahrol,[1] where I had encamped with Lord

William Bentinck on the last day of December, 1832, when the

quicksilver in the thermometer at sunrise, outside our tents, was

down to twenty-six degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. The village

stands upon a gentle swelling hill of decomposed basalt, and is

surrounded by hills of the same formation. The Dasân river flows

close under the village, and has two beautiful reaches, one above,

the other below, separated by the dyke of basalt, over which lies the

ford of the river.[2]

There are beautiful reaches of the kind in all the rivers in this

part of India, and they are almost everywhere formed in the same

manner. At Bahrol there is a very unusual number of tombs built over

the ashes of women who have burnt themselves with the remains of

their husbands. Upon each tomb stands erect a tablet of freestone,

with the sun, the new moon, and a rose engraved upon it in bas-relief

in one field;[3] and the man and woman, hand in hand, in the other.

On one stone of this kind I saw a third field below these two, with

the figure of a horse in bas-relief, and I asked one of the gentlemen

farmers, who was riding with me, what it meant. He told me that he

thought it indicated that the woman rode on horseback to bathe before

she ascended the pile.[4] I asked him whether he thought the measure

prohibiting the practice of burning good or bad.

'It is', said he, 'in some respects good, and in others bad. Widows

cannot marry among us, and those who had no prospect of a comfortable

provision among their husband's relations, or who dreaded the

possibility of going astray, and thereby sinking into contempt and

misery, were enabled in this way to relieve their minds, and follow

their husbands, under the full assurance of being happily united to

them in the next world.'

When I passed this place on horseback with Lord William Bentinck, he

asked me what these tombs were, for he had never seen any of the kind

before. When I told him what they were, he said not a word; but he

must have felt a proud consciousness of the debt of gratitude which

India owes to the statesman who had the courage to put a stop to this

great evil, in spite of all the fearful obstacles which bigotry and

prejudice opposed to the measure. The seven European functionaries in

charge of the seven districts of the newly-acquired territories were

requested, during the administration of Lord Amherst in 1826, to

state whether the burning of widows could or should be prohibited;

and I believe every one of them declared that it should not. And yet,

when it was put a stop to only a few years after by Lord William, not

a complaint or murmur was heard. The replies to the Governor-

General's inquiries were, I believe, throughout India, for the most

part, opposed to the measure.[5]

On the 4th we came to Dhamonî, ten miles. The only thing remarkable

here is the magnificent fortress, which is built upon a small

projection of the Vindhya range, looking down on each side into two

enormously deep glens, through which the two branches of the Dasân

river descend over the tableland into the plains of Bundêlkhand.[6]

The rays of the sun seldom penetrate to the bottom of these glens,

and things are, in consequence, grown there that could not be grown

in parts more exposed.

Every inch of the level ground in the bed of the streams below seems

to be cultivated with care. This fortress is said to have cost more

than a million of money, and to have been only one of fifty-two great

works, of which a former Râjâ of Bundêlkhand, Bîrsingh Deo, laid the

foundation in the same _happy hour_ which had been pointed out to him

by his astrologers.[7] The works form an acute triangle, with the

base towards the tableland, and the two sides hanging perpendicularly

over the glens, while the apex points to the course of the streams as

they again unite, and pass out through a deep chasm into the plains

of Bundêlkhand.

The fortress is now entirely deserted, and the town, which the

garrison supported, is occupied by only a small police-guard,

stationed here to see that robbers do not take up their abode among

the ruins. There is no fear of this. All old deserted fortresses in

India become filled by a dense stream of carbonic acid gas, which is

found so inimical to animal life that those who attempt to occupy

them become ill, and, sooner or later, almost all die of the

consequences. This gas, being specifically much heavier than common

air, descends into the bottom of such unoccupied fortresses, and

remains stagnant like water in old reservoirs. The current of pure

air continually passes over, without being able to carry off the mass

of stagnant air below; and the only way to render such places

habitable is to make large openings in the walls on all sides, from

the top to the bottom, so that the foul air may be driven out by the

current of pure atmospheric air, which will then be continually

rushing in. When these fortresses are thickly peopled, the continual

motion within tends, I think, to mix up this gas with the air above;

while the numerous fires lighted within, by rarefying that below,

tend to draw down a regular supply of the atmospheric air from above

for the benefit of the inhabitants. When natives enter upon the

occupation of an old fortress of this kind, that has remained long

unoccupied, they always make a solemn religions ceremony of it; and,

having fed the priests, the troops, and a crowd of followers, all

rush in at once with beat of drums, and as much noise as they can

make. By this rush, and the fires that follow, the bad air is,

perhaps, driven off, and never suffered to collect again while the

fortress remains fully occupied. Whatever may be the cause, the fact

is certain that these fortresses become deadly places of abode for

small detachments of troops, or small parties of any kind. They all

get ill, and few recover from the diseases they contract in them.

From the year 1817, when we first took possession of the Sâgar and

Nerbudda Territories, almost all the detachments of troops we

required to keep at a distance from the headquarters of their

regiments were posted in these old deserted fortifications. Our

collections of revenue were deposited in them; and, in some cases,

they were converted into jails for the accommodation of our

prisoners. Of the soldiers so lodged, I do not believe that one in

four ever came out well; and, of those who came out ill, I do not

believe that one in four survived five years. They were all abandoned

one after the other; but it is painful to think how many hundreds, I

may say thousands, of our brave soldiers were sacrificed before this

resolution was taken. I have known the whole of the survivors of

strong detachments that went in, in robust health, three months

before, brought away mere skeletons, and in a hopeless and dying

state. All were sent to their homes on medical certificate, but they

almost all died there, or in the course of their journey.

Notes:

1. December, 1835. The name of the village is spelled Behrole by the

author.

2. The Dasân river rises in the Bhopâl State, flows through the Sâgar

district of the Central Provinces, and along the southern boundary of

the Lalitpur subdivision of the Jhânsî District, United Provinces of

Agra and Oudh. It also forms the boundary between the Jhânsî and

Hamîrpur Districts, and falls into the Betwa after a course of about

220 miles. The name is often, but erroneously, written Dhasân. It is

the Sanskrit Dasârna.

3. This emblem is a lotus, not a rose flower. The latter is never

used in Hindoo symbolism. The lotus is a solar emblem, and intimately

associated with the worship of Vishnu.

4. It rather indicates that the husband was on horseback when killed.

The sculptures on satî pillars often commemorate the mode of death of

the husband. Sometimes these pillars are inscribed. They usually face

the east. An open hand is often carved in the upper compartment as

well as the sun and moon. A drawing of such a pillar will be found in

_J.A.S.B._, vol. xlvi. Part I, 1877, pl. xiv. _A.S.R._, vol. iii, p.

10; vol. vii, p. 137; vol. x, p. 75; and vol. xxi, p. 101, may be

consulted.

5. The 'newly-acquired territories' referred to are the Sâgar and

Nerbudda Territories, comprising the seven districts, Sâgar,

Jubbulpore, Hoshangâbâd, Seonî, Damoh, Narsinghpur, and Baitûl, ceded

in 1818, and now included in the Central Provinces. The tenor of the

replies given to Lord Amherst's queries shows how far the process of

Hindooizing had advanced among the European officials of the Company.

Lord Amherst left India in March, 1828. See _ante._ Chapter 4 and

Chapter 8, for cases of satî (suttees). For a good account of the

suttee discussions and legislation, see D. Boulger, _Lord William

Bentinck_ (1897), chap. v, in 'Rulers of India' Series. No other

biography of Lord William Bentinck exists.

6. Dhamonî is in the Sâgar district of the Central Provinces, about

twenty-nine miles north of Sâgar. The fort was taken by General

Marshall in 1818. It had been rebuilt by Râjâ Bîrsingh Deo of Orchhâ

on an enormous scale about the end of the sixteenth century. In the

original edition, the author's march is said to have taken place 'on

the 24th'. This must be a mistake for 'on the 4th'; as the last date,

that of the march to Bahrol, was the 3rd December. The author reached

Agra on January 1, 1836,

7. The number fifty-two is one of the Hindoo favourite numbers, like

seven, twelve, and eighty-four, held sacred for astronomical or

astrological reasons. Bîrsingh Deo was the younger brother of

Râmchand, head of the Bundêla clan. To oblige Prince Salîm,

afterwards the Emperor Jahângîr, he murdered Abûl Fazl, the

celebrated minister and historian of Akbar, on August 12, 1602,

Jahângîr, after his accession, rewarded the murderer by allowing him

to supersede his brother in the headship of his clan, and by

appointing him to the rank of 'commander of three thousand'. The

capital of Bîrsingh was Orchhâ. His successors are often spoken of as

Râjâs of Tehrî. The murder is fully described in _The Emperor Akbar_

by Count von Noer, translated by A. S. Beveridge, Calcutta, 1890,

vol. ii, pp. 384-404. Orchhâ is described _post_, Chapters 22,23.

CHAPTER 17

Basaltic Cappings--Interview with a Native Chief--A Singular

Character.

On the 5th[1] we came to the village of Seorî. Soon after leaving

Dhamonî, we descended the northern face of the Vindhya range into the

plains of Bundêlkhand. The face of this range overlooking the valley

of the Nerbudda to the south is, as I have before stated, a series of

mural precipices, like so many rounded bastions, the slight dip of

the strata being to the north. The northern face towards Bundêlkhand,

on the contrary, here descends gradually, as the strata dip slightly

towards the north, and we pass down gently over their back. The

strata have, however, been a good deal broken, and the road was so

rugged that two of our carts broke down in descending. From the

descent over the northern face of the tableland into Bundêlkhand to

the descent over the southern face into the valley of the Nerbudda

must be a distance of one hundred miles directly north and south.

The descent over the northern face is not everywhere so gradual; on

the contrary, there are but few places where it is at all feasible;

and some of the rivers of the tableland between Jubbulpore and

Mirzapore have a perpendicular fall of more than four hundred feet

over these mural precipices of the northern face of the Vindhya

range.[2] A man, if he have good nerve, may hang over the summits,

and suspend in his hand a plummet that shall reach the bottom.

I should mention that this tableland is not only intersected by

ranges, but everywhere studded with isolated hills rising suddenly

out of basins or valleys. These ranges and isolated hills are all of

the same sandstone formation, and capped with basalt, more or less

amygdaloidal. The valleys and cappings have often a substratum of

very compact basalt, which must evidently have flowed into them after

these islands were formed. The question is, how were these valleys

and basins scooped out? 'Time, time, time!' says Mr. Scrope; 'grant

me only time, and I can account for everything.' I think, however,

that I am right in considering the basaltic cappings of these ranges

and isolated hills to have once formed part of continued flat beds of

great lakes. The flat parallel planes of these cappings,

corresponding with each other, however distantly separated the hills

they cover may be, would seem to indicate that they could not all

have been subject to the convulsions of nature by which the whole

substrata were upheaved above the ocean. I am disposed to think that

such islands and ranges of the sandstone were formed before the

deposit of the basalt, and that the form of the surface is now

returning to what it then was, by the gradual decomposition and

wearing away of the latter rock. Much, however, may be said on both

sides of this, as of every other question. After descending from the

sandstone of the Vindhya[3] range into Bundêlkhand, we pass over

basalt and basaltic soil, reposing immediately on syenitic granite,

with here and there beds and veins of pure feldspar, hornblende, and

quartz.

Takht Singh, the younger brother of Arjun Singh, the Râjâ of

Shâhgarh,[4] came out several miles to meet me on his elephant.

Finding me on horseback, he got off from his elephant, and mounted

his horse, and we rode on till we met the Râjâ himself, about a mile

from our tents. He was on horseback, with a large and splendidly

dressed train of followers, all mounted on fine sleek horses, bred in

the Râjâ's own stables. He was mounted on a snow-white steed of his

own breeding (and I have rarely seen a finer animal), and dressed in

a light suit of silver brocade made to represent the scales of steel

armour, surmounted by a gold turban. Takht Singh was more plainly

dressed, but is a much finer and more intelligent-looking man. Having

escorted us to our tents, they took their leave, and returned to

their own, which were pitched on a rising ground on the other side of

a small stream, half a mile distant. Takht Singh resides here in a

very pretty fortified castle on an eminence. It is a square building,

with a round bastion at each corner, and one on each face, rising

into towers above the walls.

A little after midday the Râjâ and his brother came to pay us a

visit; and about four o'clock I went to return it, accompanied by

Lieutenant Thomas. As usual, he had a nautch (dance) upon carpets,

spread upon the sward under awnings in front of the pavilion in which

we were received. While the women were dancing and singing, a very

fine panther was brought in to be shown to us. He had been caught,

full-grown, two years before, and, in the hands of a skilful man, was

fit for the chase in six months. It was a very beautiful animal, but,

for the sake of the sport, kept wretchedly thin.[5] He seemed

especially indifferent to the crowd and the music, but could not bear

to see the woman whirling about in the dance with her red mantle

floating in the breeze; and, whenever his head was turned towards

her, he cropped his ears. She at last, in play, swept close by him,

and with open mouth he attempted to spring upon her, but was pulled

back by the keeper. She gave a shriek, and nearly fell upon her back

in fright.

The Râjâ is a man of no parts or character, and, his expenditure

being beyond his income, he is killing his goose for the sake of her

eggs--that is, he is ruining all the farmers and cultivators of his

large estate by exactions, and thereby throwing immense tracts of

fine land out of tillage. He was the heir to the fortress and

territory of Garhâ Kotâ, near Sâgar, which was taken by Sindhia's

army, under the command of Jean Baptiste Filose,[6] just before our

conquest in 1817. I was then with my regiment, which was commanded by

Colonel, afterwards Major-General, G------,[7] a very singular

character. When our surgeon. Dr. E------, received the newspaper

announcing the capture of Garhâ Kotâ in Central India by _Jean-

Baptiste_, an officer of the corps was with him, who called on the

colonel on his way home, and mentioned this as a bit of news. As soon

as this officer had left him, the colonel wrote off a note to the

doctor: 'My dear Doctor,--I understand that that fellow, _John the

Baptist_, has got into Sindhia's service, and now commands an army--

do send me the newspapers.' These were certainly the words of his

note, and, at the only time I heard him speak on the subject of

religion he discomfited his adversary in an argument at the mess by

'Why, sir, you do not suppose that I believe in those fellows,

Luther, Calvin, and John the Baptist, do you?'

Nothing could stand this argument. All the party burst into a laugh,

which the old gentleman took for an unequivocal recognition of his

victory, and his adversary was silenced. He was an old man when I

first became acquainted with him. I put into his hands, when in camp,

Miss Edgeworth's novels, in the hope of being able to induce him to

read by degrees; and I have frequently seen the tears stealing down

over his furrowed cheeks, as he sat pondering over her pages in the

corner of his tent. A braver soldier never lived than old G------;

and he distinguished himself greatly in the command of his regiment,

under Lord Lake, at the battle of Laswâri[8] and siege of

Bharatpur.[9] It was impossible ever to persuade him that the

characters and incidents of these novels were the mere creations of

fancy--he felt them to be true--he wished them to be true, and he

would have them to be true. We were not very anxious to undeceive

him, as the illusion gave him pleasure and did him good. Bolingbroke

says, after an ancient author, 'History is philosophy teaching by

example.'[10] With equal truth may we say that fiction, like that of

Maria Edgeworth, is philosophy teaching by emotion. It certainly

taught old G------ to be a better man, to leave much of the little

evil he had been in the habit of doing, and to do much of the good he

had been accustomed to leave undone.

Notes:

1. December 5, 1835, The date is misprinted '3rd' in the original

edition. See note 2 to last preceding chapter, p. 110.

2. A good view of the precipices of the Kaimûr range, the eastern

continuation of the Vindhyan chain, is given facing page 41 of vol. i

of Hooker's _Himalayan Journals_ (ed. 1855).

3. The author's theory is untenable. He failed, to realize the vast

effects of sub-aerial denudation. All the evidence shows that the

successive lava outflows which make up the Deccan trap series

ultimately converted the surface of the land over which they welled

out into an enormous, nearly uniform, plain of basalt, resting on the

Vindhyan sandstone and other rocks. This great sheet of lava,

extending, east and west, from Nâgpur to Bombay, a distance of about

five hundred miles, was then, in succeeding millenniums, subjected to

the denuding forces of air and water, until gradually huge tracts of

it were worn away, forming beds of conglomerate, gravel, and clay.

The flat-topped hills have been carved out of the basaltic surface by

the agencies which wore away the massive sheet of lava. The basaltic

cappings of the hills certainly cannot have 'formed part of continued

flat beds of great lakes'. See the notes to Chapter 14, _ante_. Mr.

Scrope was quite right. Vast periods of time must be allowed for

geological history, and millions of years must have elapsed since the

flow of the Deccan lava.

4. In the Sâgar district. The last Raja joined the rebels in 1857,

and so forfeited his rank and territory.

5. The name panther is usually applied only to the large, fulvous

variety of _Felis pardus (Linn.) (F. leopardus, Leopardus varius)_.

The animal described in the text evidently was a specimen of the

hunting leopard, _Felis jubata (F. guttata, F. venatica)_.

6. This officer was one of the many '_condottieri_' of various

nationality who served the native powers during the eighteenth

century, and the early years of the nineteenth. He commanded five

infantry regiments at Gwâlior. His 'kingdom-taking' raid in 1815 or

1816 is described _post_ in Chapter 49. The history of the family is

given by Compton in _European Military Adventures of Hindustan from

1784 to 1803_ (Unwin, 1892), App. pp, 352-6. In 1911 Michael Filose

of Gwâlior was appointed K.C.I.E.