"ABOUT thirty years ago, in the mountains of Candeish dwelt a terrible race of robbers, called Bheels. They lived by plunder, thought nothing of murder, and by their cruelty, their wickedness, and their numbers they were the terror of the whole country round. Sometimes when every one had quietly gone to rest in a poor Indian village, there would be a cry of 'The Bheels! The Bheels!' and soon by the light of their blazing huts, wives would see their husbands killed at their doors, and their children running shrieking from the murderers!"
"The Governor of Bombay, * whose care it was to see that all that country was kept quiet and in order, always looked grave and stern when he thought of the Bheels, and determined to punish and subdue them."
"So he sent his brave troops into the mountains of Candeish, to hunt out the robber tribes. Sometimes they killed a few Bheels, but the rest kept out of their way, for it was as hard to catch them as monkeys. Then the place was so hot, and so very unhealthy, that the soldiers began to droop. One man fell ill and another fell ill, till ever so many fell sick, and the doctors were worked from morning till night, and grave after grave was dug for the dead; and the pale, sickly officers reviewing their troops thought, 'We never shall subdue the Bheels!'"
* Bombay is one of the great divisions of India, and is ruled by a
Governor sent out from England.
"Then the Governor of Bombay was more angry than ever, and it seemed to his mind that there was no better way than to kill every one of this murderous tribe!"
"Another governor * succeeded him, mild and gentle, who loved better to save than to destroy. He thought of a plan to subdue the Bheels; but whom could he find to carry it out?"
* Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone.
"The Bheels hated the soldiers, and hated the English, and hated the Governor of Bombay. They looked at their own wild hills, and they shook their own sharp swords, and resolved that they never would yield!"
"There was one young officer among the English, named James Outram, distinguished for his dauntless courage. He had fought the Bheels and gained successes over them; and if they had taken him in fight, oh! How they would have exulted to have cut him in pieces, or to have hurled him down one of their precipices!"
"How astonished were they when, one sultry day, they saw Outram himself mounting a hill, and fearlessly coming towards them! Do you think that he came at the head of his men, on a fiery steed, with a gun in his hand, and pistols at his saddle-bow? No, he came alone, not a soldier near him, alone in the midst of his bloody foes. He placed himself in the hands of the Bheels, the fierce robbers whom our troops were hunting down, with no defence but his own calm spirit, and God's Providence watching over him!"