Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 14

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 Mirath. Ghat (ghaut) means a ferry, or crossing-place.

Muradabad and Bareilly (Bareli) 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 Rajputana. A body of archers helped to hold the Shah 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 _belha_, 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 Jamaldehi 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 cla.s.ses' (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. Fakir (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 a.r.s.enic, 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 Saharanpur district, where the Ganges issues from the hills.

18. A small princ.i.p.ality in Rohilkhand, between Muradabad and Bareilly (Bareli).

19. The special laws on the subject, namely: Acts x.x.x 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. Sh.o.r.e, 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 ent.i.tled _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 (thagi) 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 Sagar 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 Sagar 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 a.s.sistant. 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 Kahars (palanquin bearers) committed a series of Thug murders in, I think, 1877, at Etawa, 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 a.s.sume 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 Sh.o.r.e, of the Bengal Civil Service, officiated in 1836 as Civil Commissioner and Political Agent of the Sagar 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 Sagar 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 Gwalior. 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 Rajputana; Colonel Spiers was Agent at Nimach, and officiated as Agent in Rajputana; Colonel Caulfield had been Political Agent at Harauti; Colonel Sutherland was Resident at Gwalior, and afterwards Agent in Rajputana; Colonel (Sir C. M.) Wade had been Political Agent at Ludiana; Major Borthwick was employed at Indore; Captain Paton was a.s.sistant 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 Hindi _Mekh-phandiya_, from _mekh_, 'a peg', and _phanda_, 'a noose', equivalent to the Persian _tasmabaz_, 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 Tasmabaz 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 Tasmabaz 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 Rajputana (_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 Patharia, a considerable little town thirty miles from Sagar, supported almost entirely by a few farmers, small agricultural capitalists, and the establishment of a native collector,[2] On leaving Patharia, 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 Sanoda, near the suspension bridge built over the river Bias by Colonel Presgrave, while he was a.s.say master of the Sagar 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 Satpura 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 mult.i.tudes, 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 cla.s.s of merchants, manufacturers, and agricultural capitalists.[8]

At Sanoda there is a very beautiful little fortress or castle now unoccupied, though still entire. It was built by an officer of the Raja Chhatar Sal of Bundelkhand, 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 Rai Singh, was, soon after the castle had been completed, killed in an attack upon a town near Chitrakot;[10] and having, in the estimation of the people, _become a G.o.d_, he had a temple and a tomb raised to him close to our encampment. I asked the people how he had become a _G.o.d_; and was told that some one who had been long suffering from a quartan ague went to the tomb one night, and promised Rai 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 Rai Singh was recognized among them universally as a G.o.d, and a temple raised to his name. This is the way that G.o.ds 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 Sagar 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 Sagar, 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-a.s.sessment; 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 Sagar 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 _coulees_ 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, ma.s.ses of more compact and crystalline basalt, that bear evident signs of having been flows of lava.[l3]

Reasoning from a.n.a.logy 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 was.h.i.+ng away of a part of the basaltic plateau. I soon after found some fossil bones of animals.[15] Going over to Sagar, in the end of 1830, and reasoning there upon the same a.n.a.logy, 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 quant.i.ty of hewn stone (Hind.

_patthar_ or _pathar_) 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 lat.i.tudes 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 Sagar mint was erected in 1820 by Captain Presgrave, the a.s.say 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 Bias is a small stream flowing into the Sunar 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 Sagar territories generally, is formed for the most part of the detritus of trap-rocks that everywhere covered the sandstone of the Vindhya and Satpura 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 Bundelkhand the black, friable soil, often with a high proportion of organic matter, is called 'mar', and is chiefly devoted to raising crops of wheat, gram, or chick-pea (_Cicer arietinum_), linseed, and joar (_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 const.i.tution rather than to the very scanty organic const.i.tuents 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).