CONTENTS. Recounts the initiation of Ameer Ali in Thuggee, and the com- . How Ameer Ali conducted himself in his début as a Pindharee, and CONFESSIONS OF A THUG. CHAPTER I. THE THUG'S INTRODUCTION TO THE READER, AND AN EVENT IN HIS HISTORY WHICH DETERMINES HIS FUTURE CAREER. You ask me, sahib, * for an account of my life; my relation of it will be understood by you, as you are acquainted with the peculiar habits of my countrymen; and if, as you say, you intend it for the information of your own, I have no hesitation in relating the whole ; for though I have accepted the service of Europeans, in my case one of bondage, I cannot help looking back with pride and exultation on the many daring feats I have performed. Often indeed does my spirit rise at the recollection of them, and often do I again wish myself the leader of a band of gallant spirits, such as once obeyed me, to roam with them wherever my inclination or the hope of booty prompted. But the time is past. Life, sahib, is dear to every one; to preserve mine, which was forfeited to your laws, I have bound myself to your service, by the fearful tenure of denouncing all my old confederates, and you well know how that service is performed by me. Of all the members of my band, and of those with whom chance has even casually connected me, but few now remain at large; many have been sacrificed at the shrine of justice, and of those who now wander broken, and pursued from haunt to haunt, you have such intelligence as will lead to their speedy apprehension. Yet Thuggee, capable of exciting the mind so strongly, will not, cannot be annihilated! Look at the hundreds, I might say thousands, who have suffered for its profession; does the number of your prisoners decrease? No! on the contrary, they increase; and from every Thug who accepts the alternative of perpetual imprisonment to dying on a gallows, you learn of others whom even I knew not of, and of Thuggee being carried on in parts of the country where it is least suspected, and has never been discovered till lately. It is indeed too true, Ameer Ali, said I; your old vocation seems to be as flourishing as ever, but it cannot last. Men will get tired of exposing themselves to the chance of being hunted down like wild beasts and hung when they are caught, or, what is perhaps worse to many, of being sent over the kala-panee; and so heartily *For explanations of Oriential words see Glossary. B |