Kitabı oku: «Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official», sayfa 8
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.180
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 Hardwār181 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 Nawāb of Rāmpur182 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 Nawāb of Rāmpur, 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 Nawāb of Rāmpur, 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, nawābs, 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, Gwālior, 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.183 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.184
CHAPTER 14
Basaltic Cappings of the Sandstone Hills of Central India—Suspension Bridge—Prospects of the Nerbudda Valley—Deification of a Mortal
On the 29th185 we came on to Pathariā, a considerable little town thirty miles from Sāgar, supported almost entirely by a few farmers, small agricultural capitalists, and the establishment of a native collector,186 On leaving Pathariā, 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.187 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 Sanodā, near the suspension bridge built over the river Biās by Colonel Presgrave, while he was assay master of the Sāgar mint.188 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 Sātpura 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.189 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,190 and its soil, where unexhausted by cropping, is of the richest quality.191 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.192
At Sanodā there is a very beautiful little fortress or castle now unoccupied, though still entire. It was built by an officer of the Rājā Chhatar Sāl of Bundēlkhand, about one hundred and twenty years ago.193 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 Rāi Singh, was, soon after the castle had been completed, killed in an attack upon a town near Chitrakōt;194 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 Rāi 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 Rāi 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.195
On the 2nd we came on to the village of Khojanpur (leaving the town and cantonments of Sāgar 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 Sāgar, 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.196
I have mentioned that the basalt in the Sāgar 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.197
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 1828,198 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.199 Going over to Sāgar, 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.200
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 (thagī) 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 Sāgar 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 Sāgar 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 Kahārs (palanquin bearers) committed a series of Thug murders in, I think, 1877, at Etāwa, 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 Sāgar 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 Sāgar 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 Gwālior. 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 Rājputāna; Colonel Spiers was Agent at Nīmach, and officiated as Agent in Rājputāna; Colonel Caulfield had been Political Agent at Harautī; Colonel Sutherland was Resident at Gwālior, and afterwards Agent in Rājputāna; Colonel (Sir C. M.) Wade had been Political Agent at Lūdiāna; 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 Hindī Mēkh-phandiyā, from mēkh, 'a peg', and phandā, 'a noose', equivalent to the Persian tasmabāz, 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 Tasmabāz 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 Tasmabāz 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 Rājputāna (Some Records of Crime (1867), vol. i, pp. 126-31).
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 Mahāblēshwar. 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)
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.
