rritory
of Garhakota in Saugor had been taken by the Maharaja Sindhia, Zalim
Singh, a cousin of the dispossessed Bundela chief, collected a force
of Bundelas and Pindaris and ravaged the country round Garhakota
in 1813. In the course of his raid he sacked and burnt the town
of Deori, and 15,000 persons perished in the flames. Colonel Jean
Baptiste, Sindhia's general, obtained a number of picked Badhaks from
Rajputana and offered them a rich reward for the head of Zalim Singh;
and after watching his camp for three months they managed to come on
him asleep in the tent of a dancing-girl, who was following his camp,
and stabbed him to the heart. For this deed they received Rs. 20,000
from Baptiste with other valuable presents. Their reputation was
indeed such that they were frequently employed at this period both by
chiefs who desired to take the lives of others and by those who were
anxious for the preservation of their own. When it happened that a
gang was caught after a robbery in a native State, the custom was
not infrequently to make them over to the merchant whose property
they had taken, with permission to keep them in confinement until
they should refund his money; and in this manner by giving up the
whole or a part of the proceeds of their robbery they were enabled
to regain their liberty. Even if they were sent before the courts,
justice was at that time so corrupt as to permit of easy avenues of
escape for those who could afford to pay; and Colonel Sleeman records
the deposition of a Badhak describing their methods of bribery:
"When police officers arrest Badhaks their old women get round them
and give them large sums of money; and they either release them or
get their depositions so written that their release shall be ordered
by the magistrates. If they are brought to court, their old women,
dressed in rags, follow them at a distance of three or four miles
with a thousand or two thousand rupees upon ponies; and these rupees
they distribute among the native officers of the court and get the
Badhaks released. These old women first ascertain from the people of
the villages who are the Nazirs and Munshis of influence, and wait
upon them at their houses and make their bargains. If the officials
cannot effect their release, they take money from the old women and
send them off to the Sadar Court, with letters of introduction to their
friends, and advice as to the rate they shall pay to each according
to his supposed in