"What enormous turbans these men wear!" he remarked to a comrade, using their slang term, _aghasee_. The chief man among the strangers thereupon stepped forward, and requested the travellers to sit down with them, adding, at the same time, "My good friends, we are of your fraternity, though our _aghasees_ are not the same." It turned out that these supposed merchants were a gang of Brinjaree Thugs, who, having become wealthy, had given up strangulation, but were not the less glad to welcome those who still laboured at the pious crime. In the beginning, as already stated, the Thugs were invariably followers of the Prophet, but after a time Hindoos were initiated, who inoculated their Mussulmaun teachers with their own superstitions. Thuggee now became a divine institution, ordained by the goddess Kalee. It is curious to observe how the amalgamation of the two religions took place. Captain Sleeman asked a Thug approver, named Sahib, if he thought the English would ever succeed in suppressing Thuggee? The answer was, "How can the hand of man do away with the works of God?" SLEEMAN.--You are a Mussulmaun? SAHIB.--Yes; and the greater part of the Thugs of the south are Mussulmauns. SLEEMAN.--And you still marry, inherit, pray, eat, and drink, according to the Koran? and your Paradise is to be the Paradise promised by Mahommed? SAHIB.--Yes. All, all. SLEEMAN.--Has Bhowanee been anywhere named in the Koran? SAHIB.--Nowhere. It was then explained that Bhowanee was supposed to be another name for Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, and wife of Ali. Sahib acknowledged that Bhowanee had no power to admit her votaries into Paradise, nor any influence over the future state, but maintained that she directed the destinies of Thugs in this world, and that God would never punish any one for obedience to her commands. Sleeman's Mahommedan officers indignantly protested against the idea that Fatima and the Hindoo goddess were identical, and professed an entire disbelief in the divinity of Kalee. But they were somewhat disconcerted when the Thugs asked how they reconciled this want of faith with their presence at Kalee's festivals: they could not say that they were merely spectators, led thither by an idle curiosity. The Thugs then adduced, as a proof of the divine origin of their calling, the fact that they had pursued it with impunity for nearly two centuries. Captain Sleeman having declared that neither he nor his native officers cared one jot for their goddess, and that they were determined to put down her worship in this form, one of them replied, "They may say so, but they all know that no man's family can survive a murder committed in any other way; and yet Thugs have thrived through a long series of generations. We have all children like other men, and we are never visited with any extraordinary affliction."