Following the Equator, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Following the Equator, Complete


Why, the Thug was content to tramp patiently along, afoot, in the wasting
heat of India, week after week, at an average of nine or ten miles a day,
if he might but hope to find game some time or other and refresh his
longing soul with blood. Here is an instance:

"I (Ramzam) and Hyder set out, for the purpose of strangling
travelers, from Guddapore, and proceeded via the Fort of Julalabad,
Newulgunge, Bangermow, on the banks of the Ganges (upwards of 100
miles), from whence we returned by another route. Still no
travelers! till we reached Bowaneegunge, where we fell in with a
traveler, a boatman; we inveigled him and about two miles east of
there Hyder strangled him as he stood--for he was troubled and
afraid, and would not sit. We then made a long journey (about 130
miles) and reached Hussunpore Bundwa, where at the tank we fell in
with a traveler--he slept there that night; next morning we followed
him and tried to win his confidence; at the distance of two miles we
endeavored to induce him to sit down--but he would not, having
become aware of us. I attempted to strangle him as he walked along,
but did not succeed; both of us then fell upon him, he made a great
outcry, 'They are murdering me!' at length we strangled him and
flung his body into a well. After this we returned to our homes,
having been out a month and traveled about 260 miles. A total of
two men murdered on the expedition."

And here is another case-related by the terrible Futty Khan, a man with a
tremendous record, to be re-mentioned by and by:

"I, with three others, traveled for about 45 days a distance of
about 200 miles in search of victims along the highway to Bundwa and
returned by Davodpore (another 200 miles) during which journey we
had only one murder, which happened in this manner. Four miles to
the east of Noubustaghat we fell in with a traveler, an old man. I,
with Koshal and Hyder, inveigled him and accompanied him that day
within 3 miles of Rampoor, where, after dark, in a lonely place, we
got him to sit down and rest; and while I kept him in talk, seated
before him, Hyder behind strangled him: he made no resistance.
Koshal stabbed him under the arms and in the throat, and we flung
the body into a running stream. We got about 4 or 5 rupees each ($2
or $2.50). We then proceeded homewards. A total of one man
murdered on this expedition."

There. They tramped 400 miles, were gone about three months, and
harvested two dollars and a half apiece. But the mere pleasure of the
hunt was sufficient. That was pay enough. They did no grumbling.

Every now and then in this big book one comes across that pathetic
remark: "we tried to get him to sit down but he would not." It tells the
whole story. Some accident had awakened the suspicion in him that these
smooth friends who had been petting and coddling him and making him feel
so safe and so fortunate after his forlorn and lonely wanderings were the
dreaded Thugs; and now their ghastly invitation to "sit and rest" had
confirmed its truth. He knew there was no help for him, and that he was
looking his last upon earthly things, but "he would not sit." No, not
that--it was too awful to think of!

There are a number of instances which indicate that when a man had once
tasted the regal joys of man-hunting he could not be content with the
dull monotony of a crimeless life after ward. Example, from a Thug's
testimony:

"We passed through to Kurnaul, where we found a former Thug named
Junooa, an old comrade of ours, who had turned religious mendicant
and become a disciple and holy. He came to us in the serai and
weeping with joy returned to his old trade."

Neither wealth nor honors nor dignities could satisfy a reformed Thug for
long. He would throw them all away, someday, and go back to the lurid
pleasures of hunting men, and being hunted himself by the British.

Ramzam was taken into a great native grandee's service and given
authority over five villages. "My authority extended over these people
to summons them to my presence, to make them stand or sit. I dressed
well, rode my pony, and had two sepoys, a scribe and a village guard to
attend me. During three years I used to pay each village a monthly
visit, and no one suspected that I was a Thug! The chief man used to
wait on me to transact business, and as I passed along, old and young
made their salaam to me."

And yet during that very three years he got leave of absence "to attend a
wedding," and instead went off on a Thugging lark with six other Thugs
and hunted the highway for fifteen days!--with satisfactory results.

Afterwards he held a great office under a Rajah. There he had ten miles
of country under his command and a military guard of fifteen men, with
authority to call out 2,000 more upon occasion. But the British got on
his track, and they crowded him so that he had to give himself up. See
what a figure he was when he was gotten up for style and had all his
things on: "I was fully armed--a sword, shield, pistols, a matchlock
musket and a flint gun, for I was fond of being thus arrayed, and when so
armed feared not though forty men stood before me."

He gave himself up and proudly proclaimed himself a Thug. Then by
request he agreed to betray his friend and pal, Buhram, a Thug with the
most tremendous record in India. "I went to the house where Buhram slept
(often has he led our gangs!) I woke him, he knew me well, and came
outside to me. It was a cold night, so under pretence of warming myself,
but in reality to have light for his seizure by the guards, I lighted
some straw and made a blaze. We were warming our hands. The guards drew
around us. I said to them, 'This is Buhram,' and he was seized just as a
cat seizes a mouse. Then Buhram said, 'I am a Thug! my father was a
Thug, my grandfather was a Thug, and I have thugged with many!'"

So spoke the mighty hunter, the mightiest of the mighty, the Gordon
Cumming of his day. Not much regret noticeable in it.--["Having planted
a bullet in the shoulder-bone of an elephant, and caused the agonized
creature to lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some
coffee. Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant's
spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on
vulnerable points, and, approaching very near, I fired several bullets at
different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by
a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently
touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and
shocked to find that I was only prolonging the suffering of the noble
beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to
finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened
fire upon him from the left side. Aiming at the shoulder, I fired six
shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved
mortal, after which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch
six-founder. Large tears now trickled down from his eyes, which he
slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and
falling on his side he expired."--Gordon Cumming.]

So many many times this Official Report leaves one's curiosity
unsatisfied. For instance, here is a little paragraph out of the record
of a certain band of 193 Thugs, which has that defect:

"Fell in with Lall Sing Subahdar and his family, consisting of nine
persons. Traveled with them two days, and the third put them all to
death except the two children, little boys of one and a half years
old."

There it stops. What did they do with those poor little fellows? What
was their subsequent history? Did they purpose training them up as
Thugs? How could they take care of such little creatures on a march
which stretched over several months? No one seems to have cared to ask
any questions about the babies. But I do wish I knew.

One would be apt to imagine that the Thugs were utterly callous, utterly
destitute of human feelings, heartless toward their own families as well
as toward other people's; but this was not so. Like all other Indians,
they had a passionate love for their kin. A shrewd British officer who
knew the Indian character, took that characteristic into account in
laying his plans for the capture of Eugene Sue's famous Feringhea. He
found out Feringhea's hiding-place, and sent a guard by night to seize
him, but the squad was awkward and he got away. However, they got the
rest of the family--the mother, wife, child, and brother--and brought
them to the officer, at Jubbulpore; the officer did not fret, but bided
his time: "I knew Feringhea would not go far while links so dear to him
were in my hands." He was right. Feringhea knew all the danger he was
running by staying in the neighborhood, still he could not tear himself
away. The officer found that he divided his time between five villages
where he had relatives and friends who could get news for him from his
family in Jubbulpore jail; and that he never slept two consecutive nights
in the same village. The officer traced out his several haunts, then
pounced upon all the five villages on the one night and at the same hour,
and got his man.

Another example of family affection. A little while previously to the
capture of Feringhea's family, the British officer had captured
Feringhea's foster-brother, leader of a gang of ten, and had tried the
eleven and condemned them to be hanged. Feringhea's captured family
arrived at the jail the day before the execution was to take place. The
foster-brother, Jhurhoo, entreated to be allowed to see the aged mother
and the others. The prayer was granted, and this is what took place--it
is the British officer who speaks:

"In the morning, just before going to the scaffold, the interview
took place before me. He fell at the old woman's feet and begged
that she would relieve him from the obligations of the milk with
which she had nourished him from infancy, as he was about to die
before he could fulfill any of them. She placed her hands on his
head, and he knelt, and she said she forgave him all, and bid him
die like a man."

If a capable artist should make a picture of it, it would be full of
dignity and solemnity and pathos; and it could touch you. You would
imagine it to be anything but what it was. There is reverence there, and
tenderness, and gratefulness, and compassion, and resignation, and
fortitude, and self-respect--and no sense of disgrace, no thought of
dishonor. Everything is there that goes to make a noble parting, and
give it a moving grace and beauty and dignity. And yet one of these
people is a Thug and the other a mother of Thugs! The incongruities of
our human nature seem to reach their limit here.

I wish to make note of one curious thing while I think of it. One of the
very commonest remarks to be found in this bewildering array of Thug
confessions is this:

"Strangled him and threw him an a well!" In one case they threw sixteen
into a well--and they had thrown others in the same well before. It
makes a body thirsty to read about it.

And there is another very curious thing. The bands of Thugs had private
graveyards. They did not like to kill and bury at random, here and there
and everywhere. They preferred to wait, and toll the victims along, and
get to one of their regular burying-places ('bheels') if they could. In
the little kingdom of Oude, which was about half as big as Ireland and
about as big as the State of Maine, they had two hundred and seventy-four
'bheels'. They were scattered along fourteen hundred miles of road, at
an average of only five miles apart, and the British government traced
out and located each and every one of them and set them down on the map.

The Oude bands seldom went out of their own country, but they did a
thriving business within its borders. So did outside bands who came in
and helped. Some of the Thug leaders of Oude were noted for their
successful careers. Each of four of them confessed to above 300 murders;
another to nearly 400; our friend Ramzam to 604--he is the one who got
leave of absence to attend a wedding and went thugging instead; and he is
also the one who betrayed Buhram to the British.

But the biggest records of all were the murder-lists of Futty Khan and
Buhram. Futty Khan's number is smaller than Ramzam's, but he is placed
at the head because his average is the best in Oude-Thug history per year
of service. His slaughter was 508 men in twenty years, and he was still
a young man when the British stopped his industry. Buhram's list was 931
murders, but it took him forty years. His average was one man and nearly
all of another man per month for forty years, but Futty Khan's average
was two men and a little of another man per month during his twenty years
of usefulness.

There is one very striking thing which I wish to call attention to. You
have surmised from the listed callings followed by the victims of the
Thugs that nobody could travel the Indian roads unprotected and live to
get through; that the Thugs respected no quality, no vocation, no
religion, nobody; that they killed every unarmed man that came in their
way. That is wholly true--with one reservation. In all the long file of
Thug confessions an English traveler is mentioned but once--and this is
what the Thug says of the circumstance:

"He was on his way from Mhow to Bombay. We studiously avoided him.
He proceeded next morning with a number of travelers who had sought
his protection, and they took the road to Baroda."

We do not know who he was; he flits across the page of this rusty old
book and disappears in the obscurity beyond; but he is an impressive
figure, moving through that valley of death serene and unafraid, clothed
in the might of the English name.

We have now followed the big official book through, and we understand
what Thuggee was, what a bloody terror it was, what a desolating scourge
it was. In 1830 the English found this cancerous organization imbedded
in the vitals of the empire, doing its devastating work in secrecy, and
assisted, protected, sheltered, and hidden by innumerable confederates
--big and little native chiefs, customs officers, village officials, and
native police, all ready to lie for it, and the mass of the people,
through fear, persistently pretending to know nothing about its doings;
and this condition of things had existed for generations, and was
formidable with the sanctions of age and old custom. If ever there was
an unpromising task, if ever there was a hopeless task in the world,
surely it was offered here--the task of conquering Thuggee. But that
little handful of English officials in India set their sturdy and
confident grip upon it, and ripped it out, root and branch! How modest
do Captain Vallancey's words sound now, when we read them again, knowing
what we know:

"The day that sees this far-spread evil completely eradicated from
India, and known only in name, will greatly tend to immortalize
British rule in the East."

It would be hard to word a claim more modestly than that for this most
noble work.




CHAPTER XLVIII.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you
must have somebody to divide it with.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

We left Bombay for Allahabad by a night train. It is the custom of the
country to avoid day travel when it can conveniently be done. But there
is one trouble: while you can seemingly "secure" the two lower berths by
making early application, there is no ticket as witness of it, and no
other producible evidence in case your proprietorship shall chance to be
challenged. The word "engaged" appears on the window, but it doesn't
state who the compartment is engaged, for. If your Satan and your Barney
arrive before somebody else's servants, and spread the bedding on the two
sofas and then stand guard till you come, all will be well; but if they
step aside on an errand, they may find the beds promoted to the two
shelves, and somebody else's demons standing guard over their master's
beds, which in the meantime have been spread upon your sofas.

You do not pay anything extra for your sleeping place; that is where the
trouble lies. If you buy a fare-ticket and fail to use it, there is room
thus made available for someone else; but if the place were secured to
you it would remain vacant, and yet your ticket would secure you another
place when you were presently ready to travel.

However, no explanation of such a system can make it seem quite rational
to a person who has been used to a more rational system. If our people
had the arranging of it, we should charge extra for securing the place,
and then the road would suffer no loss if the purchaser did not occupy
it.

The present system encourages good manners--and also discourages them.
If a young girl has a lower berth and an elderly lady comes in, it is
usual for the girl to offer her place to this late comer; and it is usual
for the late comer to thank her courteously and take it. But the thing
happens differently sometimes. When we were ready to leave Bombay my
daughter's satchels were holding possession of her berth--a lower one.
At the last moment, a middle-aged American lady swarmed into the
compartment, followed by native porters laden with her baggage. She was
growling and snarling and scolding, and trying to make herself
phenomenally disagreeable; and succeeding. Without a word, she hoisted
the satchels into the hanging shelf, and took possession of that lower
berth.

On one of our trips Mr. Smythe and I got out at a station to walk up and
down, and when we came back Smythe's bed was in the hanging shelf and an
English cavalry officer was in bed on the sofa which he had lately been
occupying. It was mean to be glad about it, but it is the way we are
made; I could not have been gladder if it had been my enemy that had
suffered this misfortune. We all like to see people in trouble, if it
doesn't cost us anything. I was so happy over Mr. Smythe's chagrin that
I couldn't go to sleep for thinking of it and enjoying it. I knew he
supposed the officer had committed the robbery himself, whereas without a
doubt the officer's servant had done it without his knowledge. Mr.
Smythe kept this incident warm in his heart, and longed for a chance to
get even with somebody for it. Sometime afterward the opportunity came,
in Calcutta. We were leaving on a 24-hour journey to Darjeeling. Mr.
Barclay, the general superintendent, has made special provision for our
accommodation, Mr. Smythe said; so there was no need to hurry about
getting to the train; consequently, we were a little late.

When we arrived, the usual immense turmoil and confusion of a great
Indian station were in full blast. It was an immoderately long train,
for all the natives of India were going by it somewhither, and the native
officials were being pestered to frenzy by belated and anxious people.
They didn't know where our car was, and couldn't remember having received
any orders about it. It was a deep disappointment; moreover, it looked
as if our half of our party would be left behind altogether. Then Satan
came running and said he had found a compartment with one shelf and one
sofa unoccupied, and had made our beds and had stowed our baggage. We
rushed to the place, and just as the train was ready to pull out and the
porters were slamming the doors to, all down the line, an officer of the
Indian Civil Service, a good friend of ours, put his head in and said:--

"I have been hunting for you everywhere. What are you doing here? Don't
you know----"

The train started before he could finish. Mr. Smythe's opportunity was
come. His bedding, on the shelf, at once changed places with the
bedding--a stranger's--that was occupying the sofa that was opposite to
mine. About ten o'clock we stopped somewhere, and a large Englishman of
official military bearing stepped in. We pretended to be asleep. The
lamps were covered, but there was light enough for us to note his look of
surprise. He stood there, grand and fine, peering down at Smythe, and
wondering in silence at the situation. After a bit he said:--

"Well!" And that was all.

But that was enough. It was easy to understand. It meant: "This is
extraordinary. This is high-handed. I haven't had an experience like
this before."

He sat down on his baggage, and for twenty minutes we watched him through
our eyelashes, rocking and swaying there to the motion of the train.
Then we came to a station, and he got up and went out, muttering: "I must
find a lower berth, or wait over." His servant came presently and carried
away his things.

Mr. Smythe's sore place was healed, his hunger for revenge was satisfied.
But he couldn't sleep, and neither could I; for this was a venerable old.
car, and nothing about it was taut. The closet door slammed all night,
and defied every fastening we could invent. We got up very much jaded,
at dawn, and stepped out at a way station; and, while we were taking a
cup of coffee, that Englishman ranged up alongside, and somebody said to
him:

"So you didn't stop off, after all?"

"No. The guard found a place for me that had been, engaged and not
occupied. I had a whole saloon car all to myself--oh, quite palatial!
I never had such luck in my life."

That was our car, you see. We moved into it, straight off, the family
and all. But I asked the English gentleman to remain, and he did. A
pleasant man, an infantry colonel; and doesn't know, yet, that Smythe
robbed him of his berth, but thinks it was done by Smythe's servant
without Smythe's knowledge. He was assisted in gathering this
impression.

The Indian trains are manned by natives exclusively. The Indian stations
except very large and important ones--are manned entirely by natives, and
so are the posts and telegraphs. The rank and file of the police are
natives. All these people are pleasant and accommodating. One day I
left an express train to lounge about in that perennially ravishing show,
the ebb and flow and whirl of gaudy natives, that is always surging up
and down the spacious platform of a great Indian station; and I lost
myself in the ecstasy of it, and when I turned, the train was moving
swiftly away. I was going to sit down and wait for another train, as I
would have done at home; I had no thought of any other course. But a
native official, who had a green flag in his hand, saw me, and said
politely:

"Don't you belong in the train, sir?"

"Yes." I said.

He waved his flag, and the train came back! And he put me aboard with as
much ceremony as if I had been the General Superintendent. They are
kindly people, the natives. The face and the bearing that indicate a
surly spirit and a bad heart seemed to me to be so rare among Indians--so
nearly non-existent, in fact--that I sometimes wondered if Thuggee wasn't
a dream, and not a reality. The bad hearts are there, but I believe that
they are in a small, poor minority. One thing is sure: They are much the
most interesting people in the world--and the nearest to being
incomprehensible. At any rate, the hardest to account for. Their
character and their history, their customs and their religion, confront
you with riddles at every turn-riddles which are a trifle more perplexing
after they are explained than they were before. You can get the facts of
a custom--like caste, and Suttee, and Thuggee, and so on--and with the
facts a theory which tries to explain, but never quite does it to your
satisfaction. You can never quite understand how so strange a thing
could have been born, nor why.

For instance--the Suttee. This is the explanation of it:

A woman who throws away her life when her husband dies is instantly
joined to him again, and is forever afterward happy with him in heaven;
her family will build a little monument to her, or a temple, and will
hold her in honor, and, indeed, worship her memory always; they will
themselves be held in honor by the public; the woman's self-sacrifice has
conferred a noble and lasting distinction upon her posterity. And,
besides, see what she has escaped: If she had elected to live, she would
be a disgraced person; she could not remarry; her family would despise
her and disown her; she would be a friendless outcast, and miserable all
her days.

Very well, you say, but the explanation is not complete yet. How did
people come to drift into such a strange custom? What was the origin of
the idea? "Well, nobody knows; it was probably a revelation sent down by
the gods." One more thing: Why was such a cruel death chosen--why
wouldn't a gentle one have answered? "Nobody knows; maybe that was a
revelation, too."