Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 2.djvu/126

which has rendered such eminent service to the people of India in the discovery and suppression of hitherto concealed and unknown crime. The dacoities of the Bhats were always directed against the houses of wealthy sahonkars or bankers, and their mode of proceeding was thus. The Bhats had no settled habitations; they carried small tents of goat's hair cloth about with them, and travelled from place to place as singers and reciters of plays and genealogical legends and histories. In these journeys they could discern where the leading bankers or money dealers of the district resided, and the most intelligent members of the gang were sent to gain a knowledge of the locality. This having been effected, and the treasure room in the banker's house ascertained, the gang assembled at a place fifty or a hundred miles distant, and met at a rendezvous near the place to be attacked, on a certain day decided according to astrology or lucky omens. The attack took place at twilight, as an invariable custom. It is at that hour that people are returning to villages, and bodies of men are hardly remarked. The persons who carry the sacred axe or axes, are told off to the most important duty. The torch bearers are next, and the rest armed with spears, assist the axe bearers or guard the approaches to the house. Stations are taken up immediately by the watchmen, who place the spear-heads on the bamboos they cany. The axe-men put the helves into the axe-heads, which are very heavy and faced with steel; with these they break in doors or hew padlocks from chests or cupboards, and the treasure found is secured. Any one who opposes is struck down by the axe or speared; and the whole operation is so sudden and so violent, that many instances are on record of large amounts of plunder in coin and valuables being carried off by gangs without any alarm in the town or village until it was too late for pursuit. Once out of the town or village where the crime was committed, the Bhats mounted their hardy ponies which had been concealed, and rode till morning, perhaps fifty miles, reaching their camp the second day. They had left no trace, and there was no clue to their detection. Hundreds of such cases are detailed by the approvers, and the adventures of Kankia Jemadar, or Bhow, are as full of romance as those of the most celebrated Thugs, The Bhats do not, however, commit indiscriminate or predetermined murder; it is only during opposition that any one is stricken down, and as they would say, in fair fight and with steel, not like the Thugs, by treachery and deceit. The Bhats and their allies or connexions the Sanseas or Sausseas of Hindostan are, however, nearly extinct as dacoits, and all their famous leaders, have, like those of the Thugs, been apprehended, tried and hanged, or transported, or have become approvers; few notorious or experienced Bhat dacoits are now at large.