ty years, but Futty Khan's average
was two men and a little of another man per month during his twenty years
of usefulness.

There is one very striking thing which I wish to call attention to. You
have surmised from the listed callings followed by the victims of the
Thugs that nobody could travel the Indian roads unprotected and live to
get through; that the Thugs respected no quality, no vocation, no
religion, nobody; that they killed every unarmed man that came in their
way. That is wholly true--with one reservation. In all the long file of
Thug confessions an English traveler is mentioned but once--and this is
what the Thug says of the circumstance:

"He was on his way from Mhow to Bombay. We studiously avoided him.
He proceeded next morning with a number of travelers who had sought
his protection, and they took the road to Baroda."

We do not know who he was; he flits across the page of this rusty old
book and disappears in the obscurity beyond; but he is an impressive
figure, moving through that valley of death serene and unafraid, clothed
in the might of the English name.

We have now followed the big official book through, and we understand
what Thuggee was, what a bloody terror it was, what a desolating scourge
it was. In 1830 the English found this cancerous organization imbedded
in the vitals of the empire, doing its devastating work in secrecy, and
assisted, protected, sheltered, and hidden by innumerable confederates
--big and little native chiefs, customs officers, village officials, and
native police, all ready to lie for it, and the mass of the people,
through fear, persistently pretending to know nothing about its doings;
and this condition of things had existed for generations, and was
formidable with the sanctions of age and old custom. If ever there was
an unpromising task, if ever there was a hopeless task in the world,
surely it was offered here--the task of conquering Thuggee. But that
little handful of English officials in India set their sturdy and
confident grip upon it, and ripped it out, root and branch! How modest
do Captain Vallancey's words sound now, when we read them again, knowing
what we know:

"The day that sees this far-spread evil completely eradicated from
India, and known only in name, will greatly tend to immortalize
British rule in the East."

It would be hard to word a claim more modestly than that for this most
noble work.

C