These depredations were greatly facilitated by the prevailing practice of transmitting large amounts of cash and valuables from place to place by hand. Remittances were made in gold and silver to save the rate of exchange, although an admirable system of transfer by bank bills was almost universal in India. Money carriers by profession were to be met with in all parts of India, who were trusted by merchants to convey to distant parts enormous sums in cash and large parcels of jewels; their fidelity, sagacity and poverty-stricken appearance, natural or assumed, were relied upon as a sufficient security, and it was attested by Sleeman that although he had to investigate hundreds of cases in which they had been murdered in the discharge of their duty, he had never heard of one who betrayed his trust. The sums secured by the Thugs, after murdering these faithful but unfortunate servants, were immense, and amounted in the few years between 1826 and 1830 to hundreds of thousands of rupees. They could not escape their fate, being constantly watched and spied upon, and were often brought to light by customs officers in the native states, from whom the lynx-eyed, keen-witted Thug spies gained much information to assist in their robberies. The discovery of this extensive organisation for murder was greatly aided by the fearful disclosures made by some of the captured leaders. The most noted of these informers was a certain Feringhea, who is supposed to have been the original of the character of Ameer Ali, the principal person and narrator in Colonel Meadows-Taylor’s “Confessions of a Thug.” He had fallen into the hands of the famous Captain Sleeman, then the political agent of the provinces bordering on the Nurbudda, by whose untiring energy the whole system of Thuggee as then practised was laid bare. Through his efforts large gangs were apprehended which had assembled in Rajputana to pursue their operations in that country, and among the great numbers committed to safe custody in the various gaols, especially that of Jubbulpore, precise information was obtained leading to the breaking up of the diabolical conspiracy. It was then found that Thuggee was actively practised throughout India. The circle, which seemed at first centred about Jubbulpore, gradually widened until it included the whole continent, from the foot of the Himalayas to the waters that wash Cape Comorin. From the Gulf of Cutch to the tea plantations of Assam, every province was implicated, and the revelations of the informers were substantiated by the disinterment of the dead.