rightful gains to himself; we were, therefore, strongly advised by our informer to get out of the way. This we lost no time in doing, and returned at once to our respective homes.

"We afterwards learned that Lall Khan had guessed the cause of our sudden departure, and being suspicious of his followers, had broken up the party and returned to his own country.

"In the following year my uncle and myself again went on a Thugging expedition to the same part of the country. One day we had ingratiated ourselves into the confidence of two travellers, for the purpose of getting an opportunity of throwing over them the 'roumal,'* and we were all sitting under the bund of a tank, drinking toddy, and smoking our caleoons, when who should pass but this identical Lall Khan, alone, and closely muffled up. He evidently wished to conceal himself from our observation, but we knew him, and my uncle sent me to call him towards us.

"He was at first greatly alarmed, but we took him aside, and pointing to the two travellers, persuaded him to join us in murdering them, promising him their horses as his share of the booty should he accede to our request. Lall Khan's avarice overcame his fears. We murdered the travellers, and while he was sitting with us talking the matter over, we suddenly turned upon him, strangled, and buried him on the very spot where we sat.

"On another occasion, we fell in with two Thugs at Lingumpilly (who told us they had got three hundred rupees); we determined to murder them, in order to appropriate their spoils. To effect this object, we agreed to start with them at midnight in quest of some travellers who were expected on that road.

"At the appointed hour they awoke us, but we were very sleepy, and disinclined to move; however, Bowhanee had determined to deliver them into our hands, and they persisted in urging us to start. At last we did so, and before we had proceeded many hundred yards from the village, we threw the fatal noose around their necks, strangled, and buried them forthwith. We then spread our mats upon the spot, slept there till daylight, when we quietly smoked our hookahs, and left the place with our booty, consisting of three hundred rupees, the object of our cupidity."

The native bankers in many parts of India

The "roumal," or handkerchief, is the instrument with which the Thug strangles his unsuspecting victim.

are in the habit of sending their remittances by a particular caste, who, though very poor are wonderfully faithful and trustworthy. They travel in small bodies, with the money artfully concealed in quilted cotton jackets; and though intrusted with sums that would make their fortunes for life, scarcely a single instance of dishonesty has been known amongst them; but these poor fellows are the favourite victims of the Thugs, who, in different disguises, and under various pretences, join them on the road, and keep company with them until they have completely lulled all suspicion on their part. When a favourable opportunity presents itself, the leader of the Thugs gives the accustomed signal, whilst his accomplices, having previously stationed themselves each beside his intended prey, the whole party are instantaneously strangled, and they pride themselves upon performing this horrid act so adroitly that not a shriek or a groan is heard: the eyes of their miserable victims start from their sockets, and gasping fruitlessly for breath, they fall lifeless. to the ground.

On one occasion, while Captain -Was talking to the young Thug above-mentioned, one of these money-carriers, who had been summoned as an evidence, happened to be standing at the tent-door. Captain purposely asked the Thug how they were able to distinguish the money-carriers ?

Thug." Oh, in a hundred ways: in the first place they walk in a peculiar manner, from the weight they have about them, for the same reason, when they sit down they cannot easily rise again, without the assistance of a stout stick, which they always carry with them, and besides they invariably wear a jacket like that," pointing at the same time to the moneycarrier, who was listening to what was said. The poor fellow had hitherto been all attention, but at this last remark he started as if bitten by a snake, and no doubt took an early opportunity to divest himself of so marked and dangerous a costume.

Captain asked the Thug how long it usually was before life was extinct in their victims ?

Thug -"About as long as it would take you to walk six paces."

Captain." Does it occupy as much time as when a person is hanged?"

Thug." I never saw a person hanged, and God forbid that ever I should (he here seemed to shudder at the idea). I saw some poor wretches in a cart, on their way to be hanged at Jutbulpore, but I could not bear to witness the execution."

Captain told me that he had caused more than a hundred bodies of murdered persons to be disinterred within the last few months, in the neighbourhood of Hyderabad, and that they were discovering others daily, at a place called Rajoora; which has been for many years a grand rendezvous of the Thugs. The misfortune is, that these miscreants purchase the connivance of many of the heads of villages and other natives in authority, in the Hyderabad country, and until a severe example is made of some of these abettors, there is little hope of the evil being eradicated. However, Captain had two or three of these persons then in custody, who were no doubt made to pay the penalty of their villany.

I observed to Captain that I had seen a whole family of Thugs in the jail at Salem, about twelve years before; they had then been in jail fifteen years, and I understood they were to remain there for life; but Captain

informed me that they were released about three years after I had seen them, had again betaken themselves to their old trade, and, with the exception of one, then in his custody, had been again captured, tried, and executed the remaining one being also likely soon to receive his deserts.

On my remarking that the party I saw were very respectable-looking men, and particularly pleasing in their address, he assured me that this was generally the case, and that they made it their study to acquire a winning and conciliatory manner, in order that they might the more easily ingratiate themselves with travellers, and more readily accomplish their nefarious ends.

Captain happened to have with him at the time, a large dirk, of a peculiar construction, which had formerly belonged to Dalla, a celebrated Pindarry chief, for whose apprehension Government had offered a reward of ten thousand rupees. Captain was then acting as an assistant to the political agent at Bhopaul, and was using every means for the capture of this Pindarry; but was beginning to despair of success, when a Scikh, of the name of Ram Sing came to him, and said that he had formerly belonged to Dalla's band, but had left him in consequence of some disagreement between them. He then went on to state that he would engage to produce Dalla, dead or

alive, provided that in addition to the promised reward, Captain would guarrantee, on the part of the British Government, full pardon for all former misdemeanours.

Captain asked him what were the misdemeanours he alluded to? He replied, they were mere trifles: that in once attempting to rob a party of travellers, a skirmish ensued between them and his band, in which some of the former had been killed.

Captain, on hearing this, agreed to his terms; and the Seikh went off in quest of the Pindarry chieftain with five followers of his

own.

In about a week he returned, bringing with him Dalla's head, and the dirk aforesaid, for which he received the promised reward.

Of his proceedings on this occasion the Seikh gave the following account:-After quitting Captain, he made the best of his way to a wild and secluded tract of country on the banks of the Nerbudda, where he fell in with Dalla and some of his followers, and proposed to the old Pindarry that they should forget their old differences, and unite their fortunes once more. To this the Pindarry readily agreed.

"I then," said Ram Sing, "wished to ascertain if I were equal to the old man in a personal struggle, as I wished, if possible, to take him alive. I accordingly took an opportunity one day to propose a wrestling match with him by way of amusement, but I soon found that I was a mere child in his powerful grasp. Therefore I resolved upon using the knife. The same evening old Dalla was sitting in his hovel quite alone. Having consulted with my followers, it was agreed that I should suddenly rush upon him and stab him, while my people attacked those of the chief.

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Everything succeeded as we wished; three of the Pindarry's people were killed on the spot, and the rest seeing that I had killed their master, fled instantly for their lives."

This same Ram Sing died a year or two ago, and Captain has since ascertained that the villain was a Jemautdar, or chief of Thugs; and the numerous and atrocious murders in which he had in that capasity been engaged, were in fact the "trifling misdemeanours" for which he had bespoken pardon, ere engaging himself to aid in the capture of Dalla, the Pindarree chieftain.

ERRIVE BRIDGE, which is represented in the engraving from Mr. Fairholt's charming sketch, spans the little river Errive, that the traveller in Ireland, from Connemara in Galway, into the county of Mayo, will have by his side for a considerable distance. The view, as we here see it, is one of exceeding beauty, even in a locality where there is little that is not beautiful, if such a term may be applied to the wild, uncultivated, but most picturesque aspect of nature. Man's estimate of the beautiful is, after all, a question of taste or capacity: all have not the same gifts, the same powers of discernment, or the same qualities of mind to observe with judgment or appreciation; quot homines, tot opiniones applies to the senses no less than to things that appeal to reason and understanding. We once knew an old military officer who had seen much active foreign service in different parts of the world, and consequently must have seen not a few of the "pleasant places" of the earth; and yet he frequently declared "he was never happy off the flag-stones of London." A year or two since, we chanced to be walking through a beautiful green lane, bordered with tall hedges of honeysuckle and wild roses, and overhung with majestic oaks and elms, and graceful becches; "Is not this lovely?" we asked our companion. "Yes, it would be, if the road were pared," was his reply. Certainly de gustibus non disputandum.

To reach the western part of Ireland, in which Errive is situated from Dublin, the tourist would, it is presumed, find his way first to the town of Galway; he would then pursue his course through Connemara, perhaps the wildest and most primitive district in the "emerald isle," and till within a very few years almost as unknown to the stranger as the interior of Africa. There, as a modern writer has observed, "the British law was as inoperative as in the centre of New Holland. There was scarcely a road over which a wheeled carriage could pass; nothing like an inn was to be found. The owners of its soil reigned almost as supreme as the petty despots of Suabia; and the people, although brave and hospitable, were as rude and neglected as the bare rocks among which they lived, to force a meagre sustenance from the sterile soil." Now, though the country in many parts presents much of its original wildness, cultivation and civilisation

are effectually doing their good work upon it, "turning the barren land into a fruitful field," and an idle, improvident, but generous-hearted peasantry, into a comparatively industrious and thrifty race. If the philanthropist, and all who seek the well-being of society, had but a free course for their operations, nowhere would they find their labours more successful than in that portion of the queen's dominions, which has not untruthfully been described as "for centuries hanging like a mill-stone round the neck of England." To accomplish so desirable a result, however, as the perfect amelioration of Ireland, the spirit of party, its heaviest and much crushing curse, must be laid for ever. She cannot flourish so long as this demon of evil spreads its dark wings over the length and breadth of the land.

The Errive, or, as it is sometimes called, the Owen Errive, has one of its principal sources in the Lake of Glenawagh, in the county of Mayo; this lake lies in what is locally termed a" prison," being a bowl-shaped hollow in the northern side of the Furmnamore group of mountains, and is surrounded by bold, perpendicular precipices rising to an elevation of fifteen hundred feet. The course of the stream as it flows southward till it empties itself into the head of Killery harbour, is amid verdant plains alternating with lofty, rugged mountains, which together present some charming "bits" of scenery to tempt the landscape painter. He would, however, feel the deficiency of those adjuncts to the beauties of naturetrees, worthy of being so termed. "To the comparative nudity of the landscape, the wood of Errive," says the author of The Saxon in Ireland, "which skirts the left bank of the stream for a considerable distance, forms a pleasing variety; and though as a wood it would be little thought of in England, yet here it is described by the people in terms so glowing as to excite a smile. It is a standing proof, however, if proof were wanting, that timber as well as grass and corn are natural to the Irish soil."

No one, we should imagine, would travel so far as the Bridge of Errive without stepping aside from his direct route to visit Killery Bay, which lies not far distant, for he would see in its immediate vicinity what would amply reward him for any short delay or extra trouble in reaching it.