professions. The Thugs, or hereditary murderers, have been completely
put down; but the work of suppression has not yet been equally
successful with regard to the hereditary robbers, as they ever found
a ready harbour of refuge in the waste lands of the late kingdom of
Oude, and, indeed, in every independent state. They usually lived in
colonies, in the midst of wild jungles, difficult of access. With
incredible rapidity they would sweep down on some distant town or
village, plunder some house previously selected for the purpose, and
before any pursuit could be organized they were far advanced on their
homeward journey. To avert suspicion they assumed various disguises
with admirable adaptability. North of the Jumna they generally
travelled as holy-water carriers, because long files of that class
of men were continually traversing the roads of that district. But
to the south of the Jumna they appeared as Brinjaras, or drivers of
laden bullocks, or as pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or as
sorrowing relatives conveying the bones of the departed to the banks
of the Ganges; or as the friends of a bridegroom going to fetch home
his bride. In the funeral processions to the "holy Gunga," men's bones
were borne in red, those of women in white bags, neither of which were
ever allowed to touch the earth, but at their halting grounds were
suspended from the apex of a triangle formed by three short poles or
staves. These were afterwards useful to the Dacoits as handles for the
spear-heads which they carried in their waist-bands. Instead of the
bones of their parents they contented themselves with those of inferior
animals, wild or domestic. The chief advantage of this disguise was
that such mourners were every where treated with the utmost respect,
and never subjected to inconvenient inquiries as to whence they came
or whither they were going. In Central India a more successful mummery
was to assume the garb and appearance of Alukramies, a peculiar
class of pilgrims, who travelled in small parties accompanying a
high-priest--personated by the leader of the gang. "They had four or
five tents, some of white and some of dyed cloth, and two or three
pairs of Nakaras, or kettle-drums, and trumpets, with a great number
of buffaloes, cows, goats, sheep, and ponies. Some were clothed, but
the bodies of the greater part were covered with nothing but ashes,
paint, and a small cloth waist-band. Those who had long hair went
bare-headed, and those who had nothing but short hair wore a piece
of cloth round the head." The pretended Alukramies always took the
precaution of hiring the services of half a dozen genuine Byragees, or
ascetics, whom they put forward in difficult emergencies. They would
often stop for days together in one place, awaiting favourable tidings
from the scouts they sent out in all directions. On arriving at a
village the drums were beat and the trumpets sounded to announce their
approach, and some of the party were sent in, with silver sticks, in
the name of the high-priest to bring the headman to pay his respects
and offer the established Nuzzurana of 1¼ rupee (two shillings and
sixpence). If this offering were not punctually and promptly made,
double the amount was exacted on the following day, and he must
have been a bold man who would venture, by a refusal, to incur the
displeasure of the gods. The landholder, or proprietor of the village,
was also expected to furnish, gratuitously, a sufficient number of
men to carry the tents, flags, drums, and trumpets of these pious
cormorants, whose demands, however, were usually complied with without
a murmur. They were distinguished from other wandering mendicants
by "a large red flag upon a long pole, with the figure of Hunooman,
or the Sun and Moon, embroidered upon it. On one occasion they (the
Dacoits) prevailed upon Cheytun Das, a celebrated Byragee of Hindoon in
Jyepore, then eighty years of age, to enact the high priest, and he was
accompanied by his chief disciple, or son, Gunga Das."
There were various clans, or colonies, of Dacoits. The Budhuks lived
in the Oude Teraie, or belt of forest land lying along the foot of the
Nepaul hills, whence they made frequent incursions into the British
territory, especially to the eastward in the direction of Goruckpore.
They were men of low caste, and would eat anything but bullocks, cows,
buffaloes, snakes, foxes, and lizards. Agricultural employments they
abhorred as too toilsome. According to a familiar proverb, "once a
Budhuk, always a Budhuk, and all Budhuks are Dacoits." Their leaders
were almost invariably men of good descent: some of them affected to
trace back their ancestors for twenty generations, and adduced their
long impunity as a proof that they were predestined to be what they
were, and that, consequently they could never be anything else. "The
tiger's offspring," they would say, "are tigers--the young Budhuks
become Dacoits." In their palmy days they were able to maintain ten
or a dozen wives, but when misfortunes came upon them they were
compelled to reduce the pleasing burden to four or five. And they
were not altogether a burden, for each wife received in the division
of spoil a sum equal to two-thirds of her husband's share. A penitent
Budhuk once made the logical, but ungallant remark, that it was the
women who ought to be transported, for then no more Budhuks would be
born into the world. Nevertheless, in times of trouble the old women
were not without their use. They would then assume the semblance of
extreme poverty, and, mounted on wretched ponies, would travel many a
long weary mile to the place where their relatives were confined, and
by judicious presents to the native officers in authority, generally
succeeded in mitigating the lot, if they failed to accomplish the
release, of the prisoners. In this labour of love they not unfrequently
expended between one and two hundred pounds. There were also Budhuks
by adoption, but these were never allowed to eat with the hereditary
robbers, though they might smoke the same hookah. As a matter of
choice they preferred to avoid bloodshed, but in self-defence, or
to secure the success of their attack they never scrupled either
to wound or to slay outright. Shoojah-ood-Dowlah, Nawab of Oude,
once attempted to direct their love of enterprise into an honorable
channel by enrolling 1,200 of them into a corps, commanded by their
own leaders. But their depredations became so intolerable that they
acquired the appropriate epithet of the "Wolf Regiment," and as they
were continually mutinying they were soon afterwards disbanded. A brief
narrative of a few cases of Dacoitee committed by the Budhuks will give
the best idea of the system they pursued.
In the early part of 1818 a powerful gang started from Khyradee in
Oude with the intention of cutting off a treasure, escorted by sixty
armed police, on the way from Benares to the westward. They disguised
themselves as bird-catchers and took with them "falcons and hawks
of all kinds, well trained, also mynas, parrots, and other kinds of
speaking and mocking birds." They had also a boat prepared to convey
them across the river. Having learnt from their scouts that the
treasure would be lodged on a particular night in the Chobee-ka-Serai
between Allahabad and Cawnpore, they fitted handles to their axes and
spear-heads, and made some rude ladders by means of which, about two
hours after dark, they scaled the wall of the Serai. "A guard which
had been told off for the purpose broke open the gate from the inside
and stood over it to prevent any attack from without, or escape from
within, while the rest attacked the escort and secured the treasure."
In this spirited affair the Dacoits killed eight and wounded seventeen
of the police, carried off £7,600 in specie, and made their escape
without the loss of a single man.
In April of the same year the Governor of Bharaitch forwarded to the
General Treasury at Lucknow the sum of £2,600 in silver and £600 in
gold mohurs, in two carts, escorted by thirty soldiers of the royal
army. It was lodged, for one night, outside the gate of a small fort,
two loaded guns commanding the only approach. A noted leader, named
Naeka, with a gang of eighty Dacoits undertook to cut out the prize.
First of all, he divided his followers into three parties. One division
of twenty men rushed upon the guns and spiked them. A second, of equal
force, fastened the gate of the fort with a strong chain to prevent the
garrison from sallying forth; while the others boldly attacked the
guard and killed four of them--two of their own party, however, being
wounded. As they were returning in hot haste to their homes they were
themselves assailed by two large land owners, who took from them £2,000
in rupees and the whole of the gold. They in their turn fell into the
hands of the king's troops--Naeka and sixty of his associates being
also apprehended. After six years' detention in the Seetapore gaol they
were all released, the landowners paying a fine of £2,000 in addition
to their booty, and the Dacoits a further sum of £1,000.
Fortune, certainly, did not always smile upon them, notwithstanding her
proverbial partiality for the brave. Two gangs having united one day
in May, 1819, attacked the house of Sah Beharee Lall, a rich banker,
residing in the heart of Lucknow, the capital city of Oude. At first
all went well with them, and they carried off upwards of £4,000 into a
jungle not far from Khyrabad. A dispute then arose among the leaders
respecting the division of the plunder, and one of them, thinking
himself unjustly treated, rode off to Lucknow and gave information that
led to the apprehension of two hundred men, women, and children. A
long and tedious imprisonment awaited them, until in despair they rose
upon their guard, in 1834, and seventy of them effected their escape,
leaving five of their comrades on the ground, two of them being killed
upon the spot. The others were released in 1839.
The boldness and suddenness of their onset usually assured their
success. One evening in the month of February, 1822, a party of men,
carrying canes in their hands, and about forty in number, were observed
hurrying along in a loose straggling manner towards the military
station of Nursingpore. On reaching the rivulet that separates the
town from the cantonments they were challenged by the sentry--for
a picket of soldiers was always posted on the bank, under a native
officer. Carelessly answering that they were cowherds and that their
cattle were coming on after them, they proceeded without molestation up
the principal street, but suddenly halted in front of a shop of some
pretensions. Striking their torches against pots containing combustible
matter, with which they had previously provided themselves, they were
instantly surrounded with a blaze of light. Already bewildered, the
bystanders were terrified into silence by a few rapid thrusts of the
spears, into which the canes had been instantaneously transformed. The
house was rifled as if by magic, ten or a dozen persons were killed or
wounded, and in a quarter of an hour from their entrance into the town,
the Dacoits were on their way to the jungles. Within twenty paces on
one side of the house was a police station, and not a hundred paces
on the other side was the picket of sepoys already alluded to. But as
marriage processions were just then of frequent occurrence, it was
supposed that the noise and the glare of the torches belonged to those
very uproarious festivities, until a little boy creeping along a ditch
whispered to the native officer that they had killed his father. The
alarm was immediately given, but before the troops could turn out, the
Dacoits had got a fair start, which carried them beyond the reach of
both horse and foot.
A bolder exploit was performed towards the close of that year. Two
skilful leaders, having collected some forty followers and distributed
among them ten matchlocks, ten swords, and twenty-five spears, waylaid
a treasure going from the native Collector's treasury at Budrauna to
Goruckpore. The prize consisted of £1,200, and was guarded by a Naïk,
or corporal, with four sepoys and five troopers. It had to pass
through a dense jungle, and it was settled--said one of them in after
years--"that the attack should take place there; that we should have
strong ropes tied across the road in front and festooned to trees on
both sides, and, at a certain distance behind, similar ropes festooned
to trees on one side, and ready to be fastened on the other, as soon as
the escort of horse and foot should get well in between them." Having
completed these preparations the gang laid down on either side of
the road patiently awaiting their prey. "About five in the morning,"
continued the narrator, "we heard a voice as if calling upon the
name of God (Allah), and one of the gang started up at the sound and
said, 'Here comes the treasure!' We put five men in front with their
matchlocks loaded not with ball but shot, that we might, if possible,
avoid killing anybody. When we had got the troopers, infantry, and
treasure all within the space, the hind ropes were run across the road
and made fast to the trees on the opposite side, and we opened a fire
in upon the party from all sides. The foot soldiers got into the jungle
at the sides of the road, and the troopers tried to get over the ropes
at both ends, but in vain." The corporal and a horse were killed,
two troopers wounded, and the treasure carried off in spite of a hot
pursuit.
One of the most famous Budhuk chiefs was named Maherban, who lived
in his fort at Etwa in the Oude forest. He had seven wives, who
frequently accompanied him in his expeditions, with the exception of
his chief wife, from whom no such toils and risk were expected. Late
in the autumn of 1818 he and his brother assembled about two hundred
men, women, and children, and wisely settled beforehand the rates of
division of plunder, setting aside a portion for the families of those
who might die or be killed. They then sacrificed ten goats, and, each
dipping a finger into the blood, swore mutual fidelity; after which
they ate and drank and made merry. On the following evening Maherban
and twenty of the principal Dacoits advanced a little way in front of
the rest of the party, and spat in the direction they were about to
pursue. Then raising his hands towards heaven Maherban thus prayed
aloud:--"If it be thy will, O God! and thine, O Kalee! to prosper our
undertaking, for the sake of the blind and the lame, the widow and
the orphan, who depend upon our exertions for subsistence, vouchsafe,
we pray thee, the call of the female jackal!" His followers likewise
lifted up their hands, and having repeated the prayer after their
leader, all sat down in attentive silence. The auspicious omen was
presently heard three times upon the left. Thus assured of success,
Maherban purchased a palanquin for his second wife--suitable for a
man of wealth and dignity. The gang now started for Benares in small
detachments, and took lodgings in different parts of that city where
they stayed a whole month, making offerings and inquiries. Intelligence
was at length received of a cartload of treasure going towards the
west, under the care of an armed police force. On the first night of
December the escort rested with their precious charge in a public Serai
at Josee near Allahabad. Having procured staves for their spears and
handles for their axes, the gang left the palanquin, their wives, and
superfluous clothes, in a grove about four miles distant. At midnight
they arrived at the Serai and were agreeably surprised to find the
gate open. Here one detachment halted and mounted guard, while another
overawed the police, and the rest plundered the treasure. A brave
merchant, named Kaem Khan, likewise reposing in the Serai, in vain
endeavoured to infuse courage into the panic-stricken escort by word
and gesture. Disgusted with their pusillanimity he continued to lay
about him with his long straight sword, wounding two of his assailants
and severing in twain many a spear, until a Dacoit got behind him and
felled him with a bludgeon, when he was quickly put to death. They
then carried off twenty bags containing in all 14,000 Spanish dollars,
and had their wounded men tended at a neighbouring village. As some
compensation for their sufferings they presented each of them with £10
in addition to his share.
A career of triumph had the same effect upon Maherban as upon greater
heroes: it made him indolent and luxurious, and his followers repined
at their forced inactivity. "One day, while he was sitting with two of
his wives, Mooneea and Soojaneea, they taunted him on the long interval
of rest he had enjoyed, while his more active brother had been covering
his followers and family with honour and money. 'You have,' said
Soojaneea, 'been now some ten months without attempting any enterprise
worthy your reputation; you are at your ease, and indulging in sports
no doubt very agreeable to you, but without any honour or profit to
us, while these your followers, men of illustrious birth and great
courage, are suffering from want, and anxiety about their families.
They have been told of a boat coming from Calcutta, laden with Spanish
dollars; if you do not wish to go yourself and take it, pray lend us
your swords, and we will go ourselves, and try what we can do, rather
than let your brave fellows starve.' Maherban was deeply stung by these
reproaches, and waxed very warm, but was too angry to make any reply
to his wives. He got his followers together, and leaving his principal
wife, Mooneea, behind him, he set out in the character of a chief of
high rank, going on a pilgrimage, with Soojaneea carried in a splendid
litter as a princess; and in four months they returned with some 40,000
Spanish dollars." While on his way homewards from this successful
expedition he "gave a large sum of money to a gardener at Seosagur,
about three miles from Saseram, to plant a grove of mango-trees near
a tank, for the benefit of travellers, in the name of Rajah Maherban
Sing, of Gour in Oude, and promised him further aid on future occasions
of pilgrimage, if he found the work progressing well, saying, 'that
it was a great shame that travellers should be left as he had been,
without shade for themselves and their families to rest under, during
the heat of the day.'" As he approached his forest home all the women
went forth to meet him in holiday attire, and welcomed "the conquering
hero"--and the dollars--with music and dancing.
Encouraged by this brilliant success Maherban resolved to proceed at
the close of the season to Sherghottee to intercept another boat-load
of dollars, which his spies told him was to be conveyed from Calcutta
to Benares. First of all he engaged a discharged Sepoy to instruct
his men in the Company's drill, and very apt scholars they proved
themselves. But while this parade work was going on, one of them eloped
with Heera Sing's pretty wife. The injured man straightway applied to
Maherban for redress, but the chief was too busy with his preparations
to attend to a merely personal affair, and probably deemed the loss of
a reluctant wife no very serious matter. Heera Sing then betook himself
to the other leaders, but failed to enlist their sympathy, for a man
who cannot bind a wife by her affections deserves to lose her. Foiled
at all points, he determined upon a large and base revenge: he gave
information of Maherban's movements to the English magistrates.
Suspecting no treachery, Maherban at length set out as a Hindoo
prince with a noble retinue, and attended by a numerous guard of
soldiers dressed in the Company's uniform. Unfortunately for him and
his followers, the Dacoitee of the previous year had been carefully
tracked out and the guilt lodged at the door of the real criminals.
Mr. Cracroft, the magistrate of Jaunpore, was accordingly authorized
to proceed to surprise his fastness with four companies of native
infantry under the command of Captain Anquetil. Their march was
unmolested, and in the heart of a dense unhealthy jungle--though not
so experienced by the Dacoits themselves--they came upon his fort, a
parallelogram sixty yards long by forty wide. It was surrounded by a
ditch with an embankment within, formed of the mud there excavated. At
a short distance was another colony of about five hundred able-bodied
Budhuks governed by Cheyda, Maherban's brother. These united with the
few who had been left at home by the latter, and opened a warm but
ill-directed fire upon the troops, as they advanced with cheers to the
assault. The simple works were carried at the first rush, and whatever
was combustible was committed to the flames. But it was impossible to
follow up the retreating Dacoits, and having inflicted this trivial
injury Captain Anquetil had no alternative but to extricate his
detachment from their dangerous position, and return to head-quarters.
Meanwhile measures were taken by the magistrates at Jaunpore, Behar,
and Benares, to intercept and arrest the gang under Maherban himself.
That chief was artfully induced to leave the high road and make a
pilgrimage to Gunga. Here he was given to understand that there was
an informality in the payment of customs' dues, and that he must halt
until the matter could be adjusted. While encamped in a mango grove
he was suddenly surrounded by the police, but still imagining that
his apprehension was entirely due to the supposed irregularity, his
followers offered no resistance, and only discovered their mistake
on being committed for trial as robbers and murderers. Maherban
himself was hanged in 1821, and the whole of his gang, 160 in number,
imprisoned for life or for limited periods.
After Maherban's execution his principal widow Mooneea succeeded
to the government of the survivors of his colony. In the autumn of
1823 the adventurous dame joined some noted leaders in fitting out
an expedition, consisting of eighty men and seven women, with the
intention of cutting off a treasure party going to Katmandoo. Having
taken the auspices in the usual manner, but actually guided by their
pre-determination, they moved in small parties towards Junnukpore in
the Nepaul territory. While travelling in disguise, some of them
fell in with a detachment of eighty Goorkhas (Nepaul highlanders)
escorting fifteen bullocks laden with 64,000 rupees (£6,400). Two of
them contrived to attach themselves to the escort, while the others
separated to collect their comrades. When about fifty had got together
they resolved to make the attack without waiting for the others. The
guard lodged that night about twelve miles from Jungpore, in a place
surrounded by a wall and ditch, outside of which was an encampment
of nearly 500 merchants, itinerant traders, and other travellers.
The night was clear and bright, but they nevertheless kindled their
torches, and with the aid of two stout ladders hastily constructed,
effected an entrance, surprised the guard, and possessed themselves of
the treasure. It was too cumbersome, however, to be all carried off at
once, and they were consequently obliged to bury about 17,000 rupees.
The news of this outrage having reached the Nepaul military station
of Jalesur, all suspicious persons were detained, and among them some
members of the gang who, under the lash, confessed their complicity
and led to the arrest of twenty-nine others, and to the death of two,
who foolishly resisted. These also being subjected to the lash pointed
out the _caches_ where the 17,000 rupees had been buried, and 35,000
more were found upon their persons: the others got off with the rest
of the treasure. The information obtained from the prisoners furnished
the clue to the apprehension of a vast number of Dacoits whom the Oude
authorities threw into prison without undergoing even the form of a
trial. With like irregularity some of them were released as a _Khyrat_,
or "thanksgiving to God," whenever the King or any member of the royal
family recovered from an illness.
The scanty remnants of this last gang finding their former fastnesses
no longer secure, fled for refuge to the Rajah of Kottar within the
British territories, who readily accepted their presents, and in
return promised them his protection. From these new head-quarters
they frequently sallied forth, and joining their old comrades, made
inroads into Rohilcund and the Doab. Being unable to plunder in western
Oude, because the landowners in their strongholds defied both king and
Dacoits, they confined their depredations to the Company's territories,
and so constantly attacked and plundered the treasuries of the native
collectors, that the Government was compelled to fortify them and
impose a guard. Even this did not always prevail, and large sums of
money were oftentimes carried off, after the guard had been surprised
and overpowered.