They infested the public roads disguised as merchants, travelers, and Fakirs, but always in gangs, each man knowing his part of the service when the moment came for action.
If any thing further were possible to add a more damning character to these deeds of blood it is found in the fact that Hindoo Thuggeeism has dared to add a divine acquiescence to these practices; for their abominable creed has furnished a suitable patron to accept and delight in the groans and dying agonies of their wretched victims.
The consort of Shiva—the third member of the Hindoo Trimurti—the female Moloch, to whose horrid appetite for blood, and hunger for the human lives on which she is represented as feeding, with a desire that is insatiate, is the being to appease and gratify whom the benighted mothers of India have for ages sacrificed their daughters' lives, and her adorers, these Thugs, have strangled the thousands whom they have immolated. Her name is Kalee. She is the most popular deity of Bengal—the etymology of the name of the metropolis of India being derived from her designation and shrine—Kalee, and Ghat, a place of ablution—Kalee's-ghat—hence Calcutta.
Of this abominable idol the Kalika Purana declares, in describing her appetite for blood and carnage: “If a devotee should scorch some member of his body by applying a burning lamp, the act would be very acceptable to the goddess; if he should draw some of his blood and present it, it would be still more delectable; if he should cut off some portion of his own flesh and present it as a burnt-offering, that would be most grateful of all. But if the worshiper should present her a whole burnt-offering, it would prove acceptable to her in proportion to the supposed importance of the animated beings thus immolated—that, for instance, by the blood of fishes or tortoises, the goddess is gratified for a whole month after; a crocodile's blood will please her three months; that of certain wild animals nine months; a guana's, a year; an antelope's, twelve years; a rhinoceros's, or tiger's blood, for a hundred years; but the blood of a lion, or a man, will delight her appetite for a
