The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1839-08-06 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DISCOVERY OF TRAVELLERS 13.URDERED I3Y THE THUGS. —When Feringeea, a Thug leader of some note, for whose arrest government paid five hundred rupees, was brought to me at Sangir, in December, 1830; he told me, that if his life were spared he could secure the arrest of several large gangs who were in February to rendezvous at Jeypore, and proceed into Guzerat and Candeish. Seeing nie disposed to doubt his authority upon a point of so much importance, he requested me to put him to the proof,—to take him through the village of Selohda, which lay two stages from Saner, on the road to Seronage, and through which I was about to pass in my tour of the district of which I had received the civil charge, and he would show me his ability and inclination to give me correct information. I did so, and my tents were pitched, where tents usually are, in the small mango grove. I reached them in the evening, and when I got up in the morning, he pointed out three places, in which he and his gang deposited, at different intervals, the bodies of three parties of travellers. A Pundit and six attendants, murdered in 1818, lay among the ropes of my sleeping-tent ; a Havildar and four Sipahaes, murdered in 1824, lay under my horses ; and four Brahman carriers of Ganges water, and a woman murdered soon after the Pundit, lay within my sleeping-tent. The sward had grown over the whole, and not the slightest sign of its ever having been broken was to be seen. The thing seemed to me incredible, but, after examining attentively a small brick terrace close by, and the different trees around, he declared himself prepared to stake his life upon the accuracy of his information. 'My wife was still sleeping over the grave of the water-carriers, unconscious of what was doing or to be done. I assembled the people of the sstrrounding villagers, and the Thanadar and his police, who resided in the village of Korae, close by, and put the people to work over the grave of the Havildar. They dug down five feet without perceiving the slightest signs of the bodies or of the grave. All the people assembled seemed delighted to think that I was become weary, like themselves, and satisfied that the man was deranged ; but there was a calm and quiet confidence about him that made me insist on their going on, and at last we came upon the bodies of the whole five, laid out precisely as he had described. My wife, still unconscious of our object in digging, had repaired to the breakfast-tent, which was pitched at some distance from the grove ; and I now had the ropes of the tent removed, and the Pundit and his six companions, in a much greater state of decay, .exhinned -from about the same' depth. and from the exact spot pointed out. The Caivl",,utties wereafterwards disinterred, and he offered to point out others- in the neighbouring groves, but I was sick of the horrid work, and satisfied with what he had already done. The gangs which were concentrating upon Jeypore were pursued, and the greater part of them taken, and Faringeea's life was spared for his services,—Ramtweana, b i 41faior Sleensan,  g9b tpp mg Enttlifyint.