The face and the bearing that indicate a surly spirit and a bad heart seemed to me to be so rare among Indians--so nearly non-existent, in fact--that I sometimes wondered if Thuggee wasn't a dream, and not a reality.

The bad hearts are there, but I believe that they are in a small, poor minority.

One thing is sure: They are much the most interesting people in the world--and the nearest to being incomprehensible.

At any rate, the hardest to account for.

Their character and their history, their customs and their religion, confront you with riddles at every turn-riddles which are a trifle more perplexing after they are explained than they were before.