Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/510

 very well executed in stone, with four or five figures around it, carved on the same block. I was much inclined to carry it off; it is one of the handsomest pieces of Hindū sculpture I have seen. A few flowers were lying withered before it in the hovel where it stood, placed there, it may be, by the piety of the barber. Even my husband was induced to climb the steps of the ghāt, and to walk through the bazār to the temple, but he did not enter it. A number of idols were under a peepul-tree in the bazār; they were a great temptation, but in this high place of superstition it might be dangerous to carry off a god.

This wandering life is very delightful; I shall never again be content "to sit in a parlour sewing a seam," which the old song gives forth as the height of feminine felicity! Much sooner would I grope through a dark alley idol hunting—`Apropos, by the idols under the peepul-tree was a satī mound, broken and deserted, not even a kālsa was there to claim the passing salām of the Hindū, nor a flower to mark the spot: perhaps the great goddess draws off the worshippers from the deified mortal, although all satīs are peculiarly under her protection.

THE TASHMA-BAZ THUGS.

"Thuggee and Meypunnaism are no sooner suppressed than a new system of secret assassination and robbery is discovered, proving the truth of Colonel Sleeman's remark, that 'India is a strange land; and live in it as long as we may, and mix with its people as much as we please, we shall to the last be constantly liable to stumble upon new moral phenomena to excite our special wonder.' As anticipated, at least one set of new actors have to be introduced to the public, and these are the Tashma-baz Thugs.

"The Thugs formerly discovered went forth on their murderous expeditions under the protection of a goddess, the Tashmabazes have for their genius a European! Who in England would be prepared to credit that the thimble-riggers of English fairs have in India given rise to an association that, in the towns, bazārs, and highways of these provinces, employs the game of stick and garter as the lure for victims destined to