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very ferocious, he felt afraid to approach him until
he had had recourse to hashish or ganja.
As examples of endurance under influence of the
drug, I might mention the following few instances
out of a large number :—
An artillery sepoy of one of the Contingent
batteries, whom I knew very well, as he was my
father's orderly for a number of years, and after-
wards rose to be a superior native officer, retiring
as such, was a confirmed smoker of ganja, and
drank bhang also. He did this from a spirit of
economy of time and money, to save the expense
of provisions, and the two or more hours per diem
which he had to spend in the culinary and cere-
monial functions he had, as a Pardeshi Brahmin,
to go through daily in the preparation of his food.
He ate only twice a week, on Sundays and
Thursdays, military holidays, supporting himself
d u r i n g t h e i n t e r v a l u p o n s ma l l h a n d f u l s o f c h a b i n a
(parched gram) and other grains, and several
smokes a day of ganja. He drank bhang as an
appetiser and digestive on the two days set apart
for cooked food. He was none the worse for this,
and discontinued his fasts only after having, like
most Pardeshis in Berar, acquired a certain com-
petency. He, however, kept to the ganja and
bhang even after the alleged necessity for indul-
gence had ceased.
The case of a railway porter, and a sepoy of the
Hyderabad Contingent Infantry, and of several
Tapaswis (Hindu ascetics practising austerities)
who were under a vow to eat no solid food, cooked
or uncooked, for various terms of years, seven to
fourteen, and had the reputation of having kept to
their vows on cow's milk and fresh fruit and
ganja.
The railway porter, after nearly completing the
period of his vow, became temporarily mad during
a hot weather. His insanity was, however, of
short duration, and he was re-employed as a " gate-
man," and is still, I believe, on the railway.
The sepoy, I was credibly informed, completed his
seven years' abstinence. I saw him when he was in
his fifth year, and he looked somewhat pale and
reduced, but otherwise strong and healthy. He
lived on only four quarts of fresh milk, with sugar,
bhang, and several smokes a day of ganja.
I shall refer to the case of only one of the
Tapaswis—a man in the "Khaki-baha Math " at
Hingoli, who was under vow of standing upright,
night and day, for fourteen years, on milk and
fruit, assisted by ganja. I saw him when he had
done ten or twelve years. He was pale, but plump
and healthy on the enormous quantities of fresh
fruit, milk and sugar which he consumed daily.
A medical friend who accompanied me to the
Math examined the Tapaswi and found that he
had completly lost the power of flecting the knees,
ossification of the joints having supervened through
long disuse. The man assured us that the torture
at first was horribly intense. , and he was enabled
to endure it only by consuming large quantities
of bhang and ganja, etc. His mode of spending
the night—in the day he shuffled painfully
about without bending the knees—was by
suspending the upper portion of his body from the
arms upwards on a rude grass pillow which was
placed between the pendant ends of the roots of a
large Budd tree under which he had taken up his
residence, night and day, fair weather or foul. I
saw him repeatedly, once during the heart of a
severe monsoon. Exposure and bad circulation had
produced a great swelling of the legs, which a
hadjam had attemped to relieve by deep scarifica-
tions from knees to toes with his razor. There
were scores of these cuts, which had festered into
deep, irritant, painful sores. The Tapaswi, how-
ever, only smiled with a look of good-tempered
indifference; but kept applying himself vigorously
to his ganja chillum or Iota of bhang, of which
he consumed astonishingly large quantities.
55. Preparations of hemp are sometimes used
by pickpockets and thieves during periods of large
gatherings of the people at fairs and places of pil-
grimage, also by bhamptas in railway trains and
waiting rooms to stupefy their victims, whom they
are thus enabled to rob all the more easily. The
juice extracted from the green roots of the jawari
plant is said to be sometimes added to give the drug
greater effect. The preparation of ganja known
as majum is sold in large quantities during Dassera,
Holi, Muharram, etc. The ordinary quality is
not very powerful, and is pretty freely partaken
of by the people. A stronger quality is usually
kept by such badmash, sweetmeat vendors as are
in league with the pickpockets and thieves. This
strong majum is sold by the vendors to suitable
victims, usually unprotected females or young lads
with ornaments on their person, of which they are
stripped by the accomplices when stupefied or
semi-stupefied by the effects of the drug. A case
of this kind came under my notice many years
ago. The victim was a young woman with an
infant in her arms. She was a spectator of the
" Rain Lila" tamasha and fireworks at Ellichpur
during the Dassera and walked Past
m e t o p u r - c h a s e s o m e s w e e t s . I n o t i c e d t h a t s h e h a d a
number of ornaments on her person ; but an hour
or so later, I found her huddled up under a tree,
her ornaments taken from her, and she only half
conscious of the fact. Complete stupefaction did
not seem to have taken place. The woman moved
about very much as usual, but appeared as if
doing so in a somnambulistic state. Majum had
been given her.
I myself once partook of a small piece of majum,
which made me feel dull and stupid, with rushing
sounds in the head. If I had taken more, it would
have, I fear, completely stupefied me.
7. Evidence of KRISHNARA0 HARI, Officiatiny Extra Assistant Commissioner,
Buldana.
1. I had been a tahsildar for some eight years,
during which time I had often to visit the opium
and ganja shops in my taluk. It was then that I
had to come across some information about the
hemp drugs. As regards Buldana district, I have
obtained information as much as I could.
2. In the Buldana district as well as in the
Amraoti and Akola taluks, where I had served as
tahsildar, only two narcotic articles are obtained
naturally from hemp plant, viz., ganja and bhang.
Charas, which is the resinous exudation from the
hemp plant, is not collected nor is it imported into
and sold within the above district or taluks.
The definitions given in question 2 as to ganja
and bhang may be accepted. for the Buldana dis-
trict. These products are locally known as ganja
and bhang.
3. I am not aware of any taluk or district in