Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official by William Sleeman

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The town of Jubbulpore contains a population of twenty thousand
souls,[6] and they all believed in this story of the cock. I one day
asked a most respectable merchant in the town, Nadu Chaudhri, how the
people could believe in such things, when he replied that he had no
doubt witches were to be found in every part of India, though they
abounded most, no doubt, in the central parts of it, and that we
ought to consider ourselves very fortunate in having no such things
in England. 'But', added he, 'of all countries that between Mandla
and Katak (Cuttack)[7] is the worst for witches. I had once occasion
to go to the city of Ratanpur[8] on business, and was one day, about
noon, walking in the market-place and eating a very fine piece of
sugar-cane. In the crowd I happened, by accident, to jostle an old
woman as she passed me. I looked back, intending to apologize for the
accident, and heard her muttering indistinctly as she passed on.
Knowing the propensities of these old ladies, I became somewhat
uneasy, and on turning round to my cane I found, to my great terror,
that the juice had been all _turned to blood_. Not a minute had
elapsed, such were the fearful powers of this old woman. I collected
my followers, and, leaving my agents there to settle my accounts, was
beyond the boundaries of the old wretch's influence before dark; had
I remained, nothing could have saved me. I should certainly have been
a dead man before morning. It is well known', said the old gentleman,
'that their spells and curses can only reach a certain distance, ten
or twelve miles; and, if you offend one of them, the sooner you place
that distance between you the better.'

Jangbar Khan, the representative of the Shahgarh Raja,[9] as grave
and reverend an old gentleman as ever sat in the senate of Venice,
told me one day that he was himself an eye-witness of the powers of
the women of Khilauti. He was with a great concourse of people at a
fair held at the town of Raipur,[10] and, while sauntering with many
other strangers in the fair, one of them began bargaining with two
women of middle age for some very fine sugar-canes. They asked double
the fair price for their canes. The man got angry, and took up one of
them, when the women seized the other end, and a struggle ensued. The
purchaser offered a fair price, seller demanded double. The crowd
looked on, and a good deal of abuse of the female relations on both
sides took place. At last a sepoy of the governor came up, armed to
the teeth, and called out to the man, in a very imperious tone, to
let go his hold of the cane. He refused, saying that 'when people
came to the fair to sell, they should be made to sell at reasonable
prices, or be turned out'. 'I', said Jangbar Khan, 'thought the man
right, and told the sepoy that, if he took the part of this woman, we
should take that of the other, and see fair play. Without further
ceremony the functionary drew his sword, and cut the cane in two in
the middle; and, pointing to both pieces, 'There', said he, 'you see
the cause of my interference'. We looked down, and actually saw blood
running from both pieces, and forming a little pool on the ground.
The fact was that the woman was a sorceress of the very worst kind,
and was actually drawing the blood from the man through the cane, to
feed the abominable devil from whom she derived her detestable
powers. But for the timely interference of the sepoy he would have
been dead in another minute; for he no sooner saw the real state of
the case than he fainted. He had hardly any blood left in him, and I
was afterwards told that he was not able to walk for ten days. We all
went to the governor to demand justice, declaring that, unless the
women were made an example of at once, the fair would be deserted,
for no stranger's life would be safe. He consented, and they were
both sewn up in sacks and thrown into the river; but they had
conjured the water and would not sink. They ought to have been put to
death, but the governor was himself afraid of this kind of people,
and let them off. There is not', continued Jangbar, 'a village, or a
single family, without its witch in that part of the country; indeed,
no man will give his daughter in marriage to a family without one,
saying, "If my daughter has children, what will become of them
without a witch to protect them from the witches of other families in
the neighbourhood?" It is a fearful country, though the cheapest and
most fertile in India.'

We can easily understand how a man, impressed with the idea that his
blood had all been drawn from him by a sorceress, should become
faint, and remain many days in a languid state; but how the people
around should believe that they saw the blood flowing from both parts
of the cane at the place cut through, it is not so easy to conceive.

I am satisfied that old Jangbar believed the whole story to be true,
and that at the time he thought the juice of the cane red; but the
little pool of blood grew, no doubt, by degrees, as years rolled on
and he related this tale of the fearful powers of the Khilauti
witches.

Notes:

1. _Ante_, Chapter 9.

2. An orderly, or official messenger, who wears a 'chapras', or badge
of office.

3. On the Nerbudda, fifty miles south-east of Jubbulpore.

4. Of the supposed powers and dispositions of witches among the
Romans we have horrible pictures in the 5th Ode of the 6th Book of
Horace, and in the 6th Book of Lucan's _Pharsalia_. [W. H. S.] The
reference to Horace should be to the 5th Epode. The passage in the
_Pharsalia_, Book VI, lines 420-830, describes the proceedings of
Thessalian witches.

5. Such awkward incidents of medical practice are not heard of
nowadays.

6. The population of Jabalpur (including cantonments) has increased
steadily, and in 1911 was 100,651, as compared with 84,556 in 1891,
and 76,023 in 1881.

7. Katak, or Cuttack, a district, with town of same name, in Orissa.

8. In the Bilaspur district of the Central Provinces. The distance in
a direct line between Mandla and Katak is about 400 miles.

9. Shahgarh was formerly a petty native state, with town of same
name. The chief joined the rebels in 1857, with the result that his
dominions were confiscated, and distributed between the districts of
Sagar and Damoh in the Central Provinces, and Jhansi (formerly
Lalitpur) in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. The town of
Shahgarh is in the Sagar district.

10. Raipur is the chief town of the district of the same name in the
Central Provinces, which was not finally annexed to the British
dominions until 1854, when the Nagpur State lapsed.

CHAPTER 12

The Silver Tree, or 'Kalpa Briksha'--The Singhara or _Trapa
bispinosa_, and the Guinea-Worm.

Poor old Salamat Ali wept bitterly at the last meeting in my tent,
and his two nice boys, without exactly knowing why, began to do the
same; and my little son Henry[1] caught the infection, and wept
louder than any of them. I was obliged to hurry over the interview
lest I should feel disposed to do the same. The poor old Rani,[2]
too, suffered a good deal in parting from my wife, whom, she says,
she can never hope to see again. Her fine large eyes shed many a tear
as she was getting into her palankeen to return.

Between Jabera and Hardua, the next stage, we find a great many of
those large forest trees called 'kalap', or 'Kalpa Briksha' (the same
which in the paradise of Indra grants what is desired), with a soft,
silvery bark, and scarcely any leaves. We are told that the name of
the god Ram (Rama) and his consort Sita will be found written by the
hand of God upon all.[3]

I had the curiosity to examine a good many in the forest on both
sides of the road, and found the name of this incarnation of Vishnu
written on everyone in Sanskrit characters, apparently by some
supernatural hand; that is, there was a softness in the impression,
as if the finger of some supernatural being had traced the
characters. Nathu, one of our belted attendants[4] told me that we
might search as deeply as we would in the forest, but we should
certainly find the name of God upon every one; 'for', said he, 'it is
God himself who writes it'. I tried to argue him out of this notion;
but, unfortunately, could find no tree without these characters--some
high up, and some lower down in the trunk--some large and others
small--but still to be found on every tree. I was almost in despair
when we came to a part of the wood where we found one of these trees
down in a hollow, under the road, and another upon the precipice
above. I was ready to stake my credit upon the probability that no
traveller would take the trouble to go up to the tree above, or down
to the tree below, merely to write the name of the god upon them; and
at once pledged myself to Nathu that he should find neither the god's
name nor that of his wife. I sent one man up, and another man down,
and they found no letters on the trees; but this did not alter their
opinion on the point. 'God', said one, 'had no doubt put his name on
these trees, but they had somehow or other got rubbed off. He would
in good time renew them, that men's eyes might be blessed with the
sight of His holy name, even in the deepest forest, and on the most
leafless tree.'[5] 'But', said Nathu, 'he might not have thought it
worth while to write his name upon those trees which no travellers go
to see.' 'Cannot you see', said I, 'that these letters have been
engraved by man? Are they not all to be found on the trunk within
reach of a man's hand?' 'Of course they are', replied he, 'because
people would not be able conveniently to distinguish them if God were
to write them higher up.'

Shaikh Sadi has a very pretty couplet, 'Every leaf of the foliage of
a green tree is, in the eye of a wise man, a library to teach him the
wisdom of his Creator.'[6] I may remark that, where an Englishman
would write his own name, a Hindoo would write that of his god, his
parent, or his benefactor. This difference is traceable, of course,
to the difference in their governments and institutions. If a Hindoo
built a town, he called it after his local governor; if a local
governor built it, he called it after the favourite son of the
Emperor. In well regulated Hindoo families, one cannot ask a younger
brother after his children in presence of the elder brother who
happens to be the head of the family; it would be disrespectful for
him even to speak of his children as his own in such presence--the
elder brother relieves his embarrassment by answering for him.

On the 27th[7] we reached Damoh,[8] where our friends, the Browns,
were to leave us on their return to Jubbulpore. Damoh is a pretty
place. The town contains some five or six thousand people, and has
some very handsome Hindoo temples. On a hill immediately above it is
the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, which has a very picturesque
appearance.

There are no manufactures at Damoh, except such as supply the wants
of the immediate neighbourhood; and the town is supported by the
residence of a few merchants, a few landholders, and agricultural
capitalists, and the establishment of a native collector. The people
here suffer much from the guinea-worm, and consider it to arise from
drinking the water of the old tank, which is now very dirty and full
of weeds. I have no doubt that it is occasioned either by drinking
the water of this tank, or by wading in it: for I have known European
gentlemen get the worm in their legs from wading in similar lakes or
swamps after snipes, and the servants who followed them with their
ammunition experience the same effect.[9] Here, as in most other
parts of India, the tanks get spoiled by the water-chestnut,
'singhara' (_Trapa bispinosa_), which is everywhere as regularly
planted and cultivated _in fields_ under a large surface of water, as
wheat or barley is on the dry plains. It is cultivated by a class of
men called Dhimars, who are everywhere fishermen and palankeen
bearers; and they keep boats for the planting, weeding, and gathering
the 'singhara'.[10] The holdings or tenements of each cultivator are
marked out carefully on the surface of the water by long bamboos
stuck up in it; and they pay so much the acre for the portion they
till. The long straws of the plants reach up to the surface of the
waters, upon which float their green leaves; and their pure white
flowers expand beautifully among them in the latter part of the
afternoon. The nut grows under the water after the flowers decay, and
is of a triangular shape, and covered with a tough brown integument
adhering strongly to the kernel, which is white, esculent, and of a
fine cartilaginous texture. The people are very fond of these nuts,
and they are carried often upon bullocks' backs two or three hundred
miles to market. They ripen in the latter end of the rains, or in
September, and are eatable till the end of November. The rent paid
for an ordinary tank by the cultivator is about one hundred rupees a
year. I have known two hundred rupees to be paid for a very large
one, and even three hundred, or thirty pounds a year.[11] But the mud
increases so rapidly from this cultivation that it soon destroys all
reservoirs in which it is permitted; and, where it is thought
desirable to keep up the tank for the sake of the water, it should be
carefully prohibited. This is done by stipulating with the renter of
the village, at the renewal of the lease, that no 'singhara' shall be
planted in the tank; otherwise, he will never forgo the advantage to
himself of the rent for the sake of the convenience, and that only
prospective, of the village community in general.

Notes:

1. Afterwards Captain H. A. Sleeman, He died in 1905.

2. Of Garha, see _ante_, Chapter 9, prior to note 10.

3. The real 'kalpa', which now stands in the garden of the god Indra
in the first heaven, was one of the fourteen varieties found at the
churning of the ocean by the gods and demons. It fell to the share of
Indra. [W. H. S.] The tree referred to in the text perhaps may be the
_Erythrina arborescens_, or coral-tree, which sheds its leaves after
the hot weather.

4. That is to say, orderlies, or 'chaprasis'.

5. Every Hindoo is thoroughly convinced that the names of Ram and his
consort Sita are written on this tree by the hand of God, and nine-
tenths of the Musalmans believe the same.

Happy the man who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that chequer life,
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will
And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

COWPER. [W. H. S.]

The quotation is from _The Task_, Book II, line 161.

6. Sadi (Sa'di) is the poetic name, or _nom de plume_, of the
celebrated Persian poet, whose proper name is said to have been
Shaikh Maslah-ud-din, or, according to other authorities, Sharf-ud-
din Mislah. He was born about A.D. 1194, and is supposed to have
lived for more than a hundred years. Some writers say that he died in
A.D. 1292. His best known works are the _Gulistan_ and _Bustan_. The
editor has failed to trace in either of these works the couplet
quoted. Sadi says in the _Gulistan_, ii. 26, 'That heart which has an
ear is full of the divine mystery. It is not the nightingale that
alone serenades his rose; for every thorn on the rose-bush is a
tongue in his or God's praise' (Ross's translation).

7. November, 1835.

8. Spelled Dhamow in the author's text. The town, the head-quarters
of the district of the same name, is forty-five miles east of Sagar,
and fifty-five miles north-west of Jabalpur. The _C. P. Gazetteer_
(1870) states the population to be 8,563. In 1901 it had grown to
13,335; and the town is still increasing in importance (_I. G._,
1908). Inscriptions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at
Damoh are noticed in _A. S. R._, vol. xxi, p. 168.

9. The guinea-worm (_Filaria medinensis_) is a very troublesome
parasite, which sometimes grows to a length of three feet. It occurs
in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and Turkistan, as well as in India.

10. The Dhimars (Sanskrit _dhivara_, 'fisherman') are the same caste
as the Kahars, or 'bearers'. The boats used by them are commonly
'dugout' canoes, exactly like those used in prehistoric Europe, and
now treasured in museums.

11. In the author's time the rupee was worth two shillings, or more,
that is to say, the ninth or tenth part of a sovereign. After 1873
the gold value of the rupee fell, so that at times it was worth
little more than a shilling. Since 1899 special legislation has
succeeded in keeping the rupee practically steady at 1s. 4d. In other
words, fifteen rupees are the legal equivalent of a sovereign, and a
hundred rupees are worth 6 pounds 13s. 4d.

CHAPTER 13

Thugs and Poisoners.

Lieutenant Brown had come on to Damoh chiefly with a view to
investigate a case of murder, which had taken place at the village of
Sujaina, about ten miles from Damoh, on the road to Hatta.[1] A gang
of two hundred Thugs were encamped in the grove at Hindoria in the
cold season of 1814, when, early in the morning, seven men well armed
with swords and matchlocks passed them, bearing treasure from the
bank of Moti Kochia at Jubbulpore to their correspondents at
Banda,[2] to the value of four thousand five hundred rupees.[3] The
value of their burden was immediately perceived by these _keen-eyed_
sportsmen, and Kosari, Drigpal, and Faringia, three of the leaders,
with forty of their fleetest and stoutest followers, were immediately
selected for the pursuit. They followed seven miles unperceived; and,
coming up with the treasure-bearers in a watercourse half a mile from
the village of Sujaina, they rushed in upon them and put them all to
death with their swords.[4] While they were doing so a tanner from
Sujaina approached with his buffalo, and to prevent him giving the
alarm they put him to death also, and made off with the treasure,
leaving the bodies unburied. A heavy shower of rain fell, and none of
the village people came to the place till the next morning early;
when some females, passing it on their way to Hatta, saw the bodies,
and returning to Sujaina, reported the circumstance to their friends.
The whole village thereupon flocked to the spot, and the body of the
tanner was burned by his relations with the usual ceremonies, while
all the rest were left to be eaten by jackals, dogs and vultures, who
make short work of such things in India.[5]

We had occasion to examine a very respectable old gentleman at Damoh
upon the case, Gobind Das, a revenue officer under the former
Government,[6] and now about seventy years of age. He told us that he
had no knowledge whatever of the murder of the eight men at Sujaina;
but he well remembered another which took place seven years before
the time we mentioned at Abhana, a stage or two back, on the road to
Jubbulpore. Seventeen treasure-bearers lodged in the grove near that
town on their way from Jubbulpore to Sagar. At night they were set
upon by a large gang of Thugs, and sixteen of them strangled; but the
seventeenth laid hold of the noose before it could be brought to bear
upon his throat, pulled down the villain who held it, and made his
way good to the town. The Raja, Dharak Singh, went to the spot with
all the followers he could collect; but he found there nothing but
the sixteen naked bodies lying in the grove, with their eyes
apparently starting out of their sockets. The Thugs had all gone off
with the treasure and their clothes, and the Raja searched for them
in vain.

A native commissioned officer of a regiment of native infantry one
day told me that, while he was on duty over some Thugs at Lucknow,
one of them related with great seeming pleasure the following case,
which seemed to him one of the most remarkable that he had heard them
speak of during the time they were under his charge.

'A stout Mogul[7] officer of noble bearing and singularly handsome
countenance, on his way from the Punjab to Oudh, crossed the Ganges
at Garhmuktesar Ghat, near Meerut, to pass through Muradabad and
Bareilly.[8] He was mounted on a fine Turki horse, and attended by
his "khidmatgar" (butler) and groom. Soon after crossing the river,
he fell in with a small party of well-dressed and modest-looking men
going the same road. They accosted him in a respectful manner, and
attempted to enter into conversation with him. He had heard of Thugs,
and told them to be off. They smiled at his idle suspicions, and
tried to remove them, but in vain. The Mogul was determined; they saw
his nostrils swelling with indignation, took their leave, and
followed slowly. The next morning he overtook the same number of men,
but of a different appearance, all Musalmans. They accosted him in
the same respectful manner; talked of the danger of the road, and the
necessity of their keeping together, and taking advantage of the
protection of any mounted gentleman that happened to be going the
same way. The Mogul officer said not a word in reply, resolved to
have no companions on the road. They persisted--his nostrils began
again to swell, and putting his hand to his sword, he bid them all be
off, or he would have their heads from their shoulders. He had a bow
and quiver full of arrows over his shoulders,[9] a brace of loaded
pistols in his waist-belt, and a sword by his side, and was
altogether a very formidable-looking cavalier. In the evening another
party that lodged in the same "sarai"[10] became very intimate with
the butler and groom. They were going the same road; and, as the
Mogul overtook them in the morning, they made their bows
respectfully, and began to enter into conversation with their two
friends, the groom and butler, who were coming up behind. The Mogul's
nostrils began again to swell, and he bid the strangers be off. The
groom and butler interceded, for their master was a grave, sedate
man, and they wanted companions. All would not do, and the strangers
fell in the rear. The next day, when they had got to the middle of an
extensive and uninhabited plain, the Mogul in advance, and his two
servants a few hundred yards behind, he came up to a party of six
poor Musalmans, sitting weeping by the side of a dead companion. They
were soldiers from Lahore,[11] on their way to Lucknow, worn down by
fatigue in their anxiety to see their wives and children once more,
after a long and painful service. Their companion, the hope and prop
of his family, had sunk under the fatigue, and they had made a grave
for him; but they were poor unlettered men, and unable to repeat the
funeral service from the holy Koran-would his Highness but perform
this last office for them, he would, no doubt, find his reward in
this world and the next. The Mogul dismounted--the body had been
placed in its proper position, with its head towards Mecca. A carpet
was spread--the Mogul took off his bow and quiver, then his pistols
and sword, and placed them on the ground near the body--called for
water, and washed his feet, hands, and face, that he might not
pronounce the holy words in an unclean state. He then knelt down and
began to repeat the funeral service, in a clear, loud voice. Two of
the poor soldiers knelt by him, one on each side in silence. The
other four went off a few paces to beg that the butler and groom
would not come so near as to interrupt the good Samaritan at his
devotions.

'All being ready, one of the four, in a low undertone, gave the
"jhirni" (signal),[12] the handkerchiefs were thrown over their
necks, and in a few minutes all three--the Mogul and his servants--
were dead, and lying in the grave in the usual manner, the head of
one at the feet of the one below him. All the parties they had met on
the road belonged to a gang of Jamaldehi Thugs, of the kingdom of
Oudh.[13] In despair of being able to win the Mogul's confidence in
the usual way, and determined to have the money and jewels, which
they knew he carried with him, they had adopted this plan of
disarming him; dug the grave by the side of the road, in the open
plain, and made a handsome young Musalman of the party the dead
soldier. The Mogul, being a very stout man, died almost without a
struggle, as is usually the case with such; and his two servants made
no resistance.'

People of great sensibility, with hearts overcharged with sorrow,
often appear cold and callous to those who seem to them to feel no
interest in their afflictions. An instance of this kind I will here
mention; it is one of thousands that I have met with in my Indian
rambles. It was mentioned to me one day that an old 'fakir',[14] who
lived in a small hut close by a little shrine on the side of the road
near the town of Moradabad, had lately lost his son, poisoned by a
party of 'daturias', or professional poisoners,[15] that now infest
every road throughout India. I sent for him, and requested him to
tell me his story, as I might perhaps be able to trace the murderers.
He did so, and a Persian writer took it down while I listened with
all the coldness of a magistrate who wanted merely to learn facts and
have nothing whatever to do with feelings. This is his story
literally: