The very day before Janee gave himself up to the political authorities, he performed a sufficiently characteristic feat. In a vain chase against him, twenty-eight horses of the irregular cavalry had been placed hors de combat, and several men severely wounded. The day's work ended, as usual, in the escape of Janee, and the return of our people to their post; but, during the night, four of the sowars, who remembered with grief the loss of the accoutrements belonging to the slain horses, determined to go forth and recover what they could. Janee's knowledge of native character had led him to a conclusion of what their course would be, and, guided by this, he quietly stole back, accompanied by a friend, to lie perdue for the visitors. The doomed sowars arrived; but, while in fearless confidence they proceeded to regain their property, Janee sprang on them; the men were cut to pieces, and, the following morning, his sword and garments covered with the blood of the slain, Janee surrendered himself to our power, triumphantly boasting of his prowess. British generosity saved him from the fate he had so richly earned, and his submission was accepted.

To have captured Janee would, I believe, have been impossible; but he was weary of being hunted over the plains of Cutchee, harassed on every side, and deserted by many friends; knowing, therefore, that he was unable to continue his system of foray, he thought it wiser thus to surrender, and make it a ground of claim for mercy. As our prisoner, he was condemned to labour; but the wild marauder of the desert refused submission to this mandate, and stood on his prison floor, fettered, it is true, but as free in spirit, and as daring in independence,

as ever.

It would never have been difficult for Janee to prove an alibi; for if ever human being seemed to have been gifted with ubiquity, it was he. Frequently would he at night plunder a village, and in the morning he might be seen sixty miles away. This capability he owed to his beautiful mare, who, he boasted, could in one dour (journey) compass the distance between Sindh and Seistan, and yet she always looked starved, hollow-eyed, and gaunt, and although adorned with a gay crimson saddle-cloth, and an abundance of blue bead necklaces, was quite unacquainted with the nature of a curry-comb and brush, and was usually fed on the same food as her master,-coarse grain, a few dates, occasionally a little opium, and now and then a slice of uncooked mutton, when extraordinary exertion was required. Janee owed too much to his mare not to love her as a true companion, who had worked for and with him, and when compelled to yield her up, together with his arms, he lamented her loss more, perhaps, than he would that of the dearest friend who had ever burnt villages or rifled granaries in his company.

Wild and strange were the histories which Janee would sometimes tell of his plans and their success; of the terror of villagers, who would place food for him beneath the trees he required to pass in a nightly foray; of the keenness of the blade that never gave a second blow, and of his skill in driving off camels, by pricking the flying animals

along with his sword, and thus securing thirty at a time. Truly was Ismael cursed as a wild man "whose hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him," and precisely the same character of offence and defence now exists between predatory heroes such as Janee, and the cultivators, their helpless victims.

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There is in all this nothing very strange or novel, except to the mind unaccustomed to consider man in his original, or semi-barbarous state, or otherwise indeed than as a dweller in cities, and governed by social laws; for from the beginning the strong man oppressed the weak, and the armed robber was ever willing to draw a subsistence from the flocks and corn-fields of the cultivator.

Deprived of his mare, his sword, his shield, the wide plain, and the free air, Janee remained for months fettered and guarded; but he was not forgotten by the companions of his evil deeds. Day after day, those of his tribe,—tall, powerful men, armed with sword, shield, and matchlock; their fierce eyes flashing with ill-controlled passions; their matted hair flying loose beneath their ponderous turbans, and their bony tattoos drooping from the long and rapid journey they had made from some distant fastness,‚—came to demand their leader's freedom, not in terms humble and meek, but with a threatening mien and fear-inspiring aspect. "Give us Janee!" was the demand. "You will not? then look to yourselves, for, by the beards of our fathers, we will come and take him! Inshallah! what is this, that the son of the desert should be bound by the Feringees? We have swords and horses, and our brother shall be ours; the world is large, and we are not lame!" and, with a laugh of loud defiance, Rakmut and his friends would mount their tattoos, strike their heels violently into their horses' flanks, and scour like a whirwind across the plain.

These threats made it necessary to remove Janee, and at midnight, guarded by a party of soldiers, the Belooche robber was conveyed to the fortress of Bukkur for better security, and remained there until a political change opened the prison door and offered him terms of friendship and alliance. I was unaware of this arrangement, and was reading one day in my usual sitting-room, when a peon announced "Janee, the Belooche, to make his salaam." He was a morning visitor I was certainly unprepared for, but I conclude that a sort of instantaneous terror which then seized me, as I thought of his fearful deeds of blood and violence, of his merciless character, and of the supposed wrongs he might find reason for repaying, made me unusually courteous in my demeanour, for Janee at once seated himself most sociably, with one foot drawn up on the chair, and his arm around his knee, as much at ease as if he had been counting plunder, or driving off camels by the

score.

I had seen many Belooche swords, captured in various skirmishes, and among them that of Janee, which now hung to a gaily-ornamented belt of Cabool leather across his shoulder, and I had heard him glory in the fact, even while the fetters were on his wrists, that the Feringee had not hunted him down until he had slain his hundredth

victim, which placed him on the pinnacle of admiration among his tribe; but the weapon had appeared always to be so strange of form, so broad and curved, that its manner of exercise puzzled me extremely. No better authority than Janee's, however, could be had, and I therefore, in the course of conversation, begged him to shew me how he used the deadly blade. Leaping up with fierce delight at the request, he snatched it rapidly from its scabbard, whirled it thrice over his head, and then drew it round with a circular sweep, which he intended should include the idea of a victim's head. I inquired if he never gave a second blow, and he smiled deridingly at the question. "If it please you," he said, "to call five men here, Inshallah! with one blow, I will cut off all their heads;" and, as if in sport, he took a sheet of tissue paper from the table, suffered it to fall from his grasp, and severed it in two before it reached the ground. It was a Saladin-like feat, and carried conviction of the keenness of his steel.

And so, as a man of peace, his new-born virtues guaranteed by a comfortable "consideration," Janee went his way, self-constituted guardian of the house of a British officer that stood on the wide desert, which had been the scene of the robber's many forays. Here, he was domestic for a while, and sat, as the bright evening sun went down behind the distant hills, on a prayer-carpet upon the house-top, smoking a kaleoon, in quiet consideration of whether or not honesty were indeed the better policy, and then he would sigh heavily, move restlessly to and fro, and try the priming of his matchlock, as his attention was called to the flocks and herds coming in from feeding among the hills; and when, at times, a fatter sheep or a larger goat than usual would pass by, the converted robber sent down to request it as a present, the name and form of Janee insuring him against refusal.

Once, an officer of ours spent a day with Janee, resting there, as he crossed the desert, and in the spirit of Eastern courtesy, at sunset, Janee proceeded to "bring him on his way;" but, as they journeyed, the party encountered a Parsee dealer, one of those venturous speculatists who guarded pale ale and brandy through the tribes of the Bolan, to sell their goods at a hundred per cent. profit to thirsty souls at Quetta, and Janee saw that the merchant was escorted by some of his own tribe, men who would not fail him when their aid was needed. So, speedily making a salaam aleikoum to his guest, the tempted robber turned, struck his stirrups deeply into the flanks of his restored favourite, and was soon far across the plain. The following day, the poor Parsee was found a mangled corpse upon the desert, his travelling-bags sacked, his camels driven off, and broken champagne bottles scattered about upon the arid soil.

A succession of backslidings into his original habits first caused suspicion, and then accusation, to be fixed on Janee; his salary was stopped; the robber fled, and a price was set upon his head. Again, cavalry pursued his track; spies were paid highly for information on his whereabouts, and the villagers, who had been injured, were bribed to seek revenge. Janee, however, was not to be so trapped; vestiges of

him were to be found, 'tis true;-a heap of smoking ashes, late a peaceful village,—here and there a slaughtered family,-flocks, too numerous to be driven off, lying weltering in their blood upon the plain; such were the horrors that spoke of the hand of Janee; but his track was nowhere to be seen.

On one occasion, such very correct information had been given of Janee's locality, that our cavalry, both regular and irregular, were on the game, and the sound of our horses' hoofs rung on the ears of Janee and his band as they tethered their mares, in readiness to commence the plunder of a village. Janee saw that escape was hopeless, and, as his sole resource, he called the head man of the place, and directed him instantly to conceal him under pain of the most fearful vengeance, Terrified into submission, and well knowing that, if the robber were taken, no protection would be left for the village, which would immediately be sacked and destroyed by Janee's tribe, and the inhabitants slaughtered in the most savage way, the unfortunate villager led the robbers into a field of tall jowarree, and heaped over them the newlycut sheaves of grain. The mares, unsaddled and deprived of their gay Belooche trappings, were turned loose to wander through the village, and when the pursuers came up, their horses harassed, and the men halfdead with following the robber from night till morn, the villager rushed out, apparently breathless with fear and haste, and shrieking forthOn, on! in the name of Allah, on, or he will escape you!" the misled troops galloped furiously through the village, and away to the trees shading the distant well, while Janee, stealing forth, mounted his mare, and ere his pursuers turned, was many miles in their rear.

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On a second occasion, a spy, himself a Belooche, but of another tribe, gave information that, at midnight, Janee with his companions, Rackmut and Itabar, would rest in a certain village which he would point out. The troops soon mounted, and moved swiftly but silently across the moonlit plain, following the wild-looking Belooche and bony tattoo that led them on. The village now in sight, the horsemen draw bridle, and at a foot's pace stealthily surround the huts. All is silent; the moon-beams fall on the broad leaves of the banian and acacia trees, in a flood as rich as it had been of sun-light, so pure and bright is the atmosphere of tropic lands, while the flocks and herds lay amicably together hushed in deep sleep, and, in the little enclosures before the cottage doors, lay on their rude bedsteads, covered face and form with thick goats'-hair cloaks, the shepherds who had tended them. All was still, when suddenly the Belooche turned, and pointed his matchlock at a hut; before its door stood the well-known steeds whose speed and power had so often baffled their pursuers; a curse is on the lips of the foremost horseman, but it is lost in a smile of triumph, as he looks around and sees the disposal of his men. Pistol in hand, he springs from his saddle, and flings back the door of the hut. Reclining by a wood fire, his turban laid aside, his long shaggy hair hanging around his face, his dark keen eyes sparkling with excitement, and his lips parted with a smile of triumph, sits Janee, the Belooche. He is

relating some tale of wild exploit to his companions, who gaze eagerly on his face, interrupting his narrative with exclamations of wild and savage glee. The scene is novel, strange, and picturesque, and the horseman pauses, ere he seizes his prey; but in that moment is loss, discomfiture, dismay. Janee turns towards the door; he springs on his feet, his sword is whirled around his head, in bold defiance, and uttering a loud curse against the Feringees, he dashes past the horseman, and gains the threshold of the hut. Two sowars are wounded, and Janee is in his saddle; he flies across the plain; the horsemen follow fast; but Janee turns, and fires his matchlock against the body of his pursuers the foremost falls. "Fire! fire!" is now the cry; "spare him not! bring down the miscreant at any cost!" echoes on every side; pistols are discharged in rapid succession, and the goaded horses spring madly on; but Janee escapes them all, and a hand-gallop brings him to the fastnesses of the hills, where he knows they dare not follow him.

And Janee, too, like many other reckless spirits, had his admirers among the softer sex; for the fair Belooche maidens love daring and independence, and they are too much accustomed to embroider powderpouches and sword-belts, to load the matchlock, and to hold the stirrup of their brothers in a tribe, to care much whether they depart for a journey or a foray; and as the result of this training, although Janee was, in our eyes, a robber, murderer, and outlaw, in theirs he was the very pink of courage and chivalry, the Bayard of his times and country; and as he was wont at times, even in his most savage humour, to spar the beautiful, and make them the companions of his homeward journeys, no Belooche in the whole land was personally so much adorned with characteristic and warlike ornament, while, Belooche morality not being of a remarkably pure kind, the fair ladies loved him rather the better, I fear, for his reputed gallantries; yet the tendresse of the sex sometimes stands a man in good stead when placed in difficulties, where extrication seems almost impossible, and so it proved to Janee.

It was the eve of a Mohamedan festival, and half the musicians and natch girls in the country were to assemble on the morrow, at a large village separated from the hills by a thick jungle of wild cypress and tamarind trees. Many women were to be there, and crowds of fakirs, warriors, and others. The news went abroad also that Janee would be at the fête; for among some of the fair daughters of the tribes was one who particularly found favour in his sight, and it needed some powerful reason to draw the outlaw from the concealment which our chase of him had rendered necessary.

The day wore on,-a bright, burning day,-while, within the village, and below the spreading trees shading each hut, groups of women might be seen, seated on rude charpois (bedsteads), each with a metal comb and a small mirror, arranging her dark tresses, adorning her nostril and ears with bunches of small turquois, putting in order the long blue cotton garment which forms a Belooche lady's loose and not becoming garb, and chattering incessantly on the most trivial topics, for the less people know, the more they talk; at least, it is so in the East.