nges in bags, coloured red for females and white for males. These
bags are considered holy, and are not allowed to touch the ground
upon the way, and during halts in the journey are placed on poles or
triangles. The carriers are regarded with respect as persons engaged
upon a pious duty, and seldom questioned on the road. When a gang
assumed this disguise they proceeded to their place of rendezvous
in small parties, some with red and some with white bags, in which
they carried the bones of animals most resembling those of the human
frame. These were supported on triangles formed of the shafts on which
the spear-heads would be fitted when they reached their destination
and had prepared for action.

6. Countenance and support of landowners.

It would have been impossible for the Badhaks to exist and flourish
as they did without the protection of the landowners on whose estates
they lived; and this they received in full measure in return for a
liberal share of their booty. When the chief of Karauli was called upon
to dislodge a gang within his territory, he expressed apprehension
that the coercion of the Badhaks might cause a revolution in the
State. He was not at all singular, says Colonel Sleeman, in his fear
of exasperating this formidable tribe of robbers. It was common to
all the smaller chiefs and the provincial governors of the larger
ones. They everywhere protected and fostered the Badhaks, as did the
landholders; and the highest of them associated with the leaders of
gangs on terms of equality and confidence. It was very common for a
chief or the governor of a district in times of great difficulty and
personal danger to require from one of the leaders of such gangs a
night-guard or _palang ki chauki_: and no less so to entertain large
bodies of them in the attack and defence of forts and camps whenever
unusual courage and skill were required. The son of the Raja of Charda
exchanged turbans with a Badhak leader, Mangal Singh, as a mark of the
most intimate friendship. This episode recalls an alliance of similar
character in _Lorna Doone_; and indeed it would not be difficult to
find several points of resemblance between the careers of the more
enterprising Badhak leaders and the Doones of Bagworthy; but India
produced no character on the model of John Ridd, and it was reserved
for an Englishman, Colonel Sleeman, to achieve the suppression of the
Badhaks as well as that of the Thugs. After the fortress and te