a misnomer, for they had none of the observances of that ancient fraternity, nor did they lay any claim to religious motives. They were simply organized bands of vagrants of the most worthless characters, who preferred fraud to labour and murder to industry. Their detection would have taken place at a much earlier period, had not the police been bribed to connive at their proceedings. It is almost superfluous to remark that their practices were no sooner discovered by the European magistrates than their occupation was gone, and themselves severely punished. Dacoits, or Gang-Robbers of India. In India, under its native rulers, murder and robbery were hereditary professions. The Thugs, or hereditary murderers, have been completely put down; but the work of suppression has not yet been equally successful with regard to the hereditary robbers, as they ever found a ready harbour of refuge in the waste lands of the late kingdom of Oude, and, indeed, in every independent state. They usually lived in colonies, in the midst of wild jungles, difficult of access. With incredible rapidity they would sweep down on some distant town or village, plunder some house previously selected for the purpose, and before any pursuit could be organized they were far advanced on their homeward journey. To avert suspicion they assumed various disguises with admirable adaptability. North of the Jumna they generally travelled as holy-water carriers, because long files of that class of men were continually traversing the roads of that district. But to the south of the Jumna they appeared as Brinjaras, or drivers of laden bullocks, or as pilgrims journeying to some sacred shrine, or as sorrowing relatives conveying the bones of the departed to the banks of the Ganges; or as the friends of a bridegroom going to fetch home his bride. In the funeral processions to the "holy Gunga," men's bones were borne in red, those of women in white bags, neither of which were ever allowed to touch the earth, but at their halting grounds were suspended from the apex of a triangle formed by three short poles or staves. These were afterwards useful to the Dacoits as handles for the spear-heads which they carried in their waist-bands. Instead of the bones of their parents they contented themselves with those of inferior animals, wild or domestic. The chief advantage of this disguise was that such mourners were every where treated with the utmost respect, and never subjected to inconvenient inquiries as to whence they came or whither they were going. In Central India a more successful mummery was to assume the garb and appearance of Alukramies, a peculiar class of pilgrims, who travelled in small parties accompanying a high-priest--personated by the leader of the gang. "They had four or five tents, some of white and some of dyed cloth, and two or three pairs of Nakaras, or kettle-drums, and trumpets, with a great number of buffaloes, cows, goats, sheep, and ponies. Some were clothed, but