A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II

Major-general Sir William Henry Sleeman (8 August 1788 – 10 February 1856) was a British soldier and administrator in British India, best known for his work suppressing Thuggee activity. Sleeman wrote about wild children who had been raised by wolves with his notes on six cases. This was first published in the first volume of his Journey through the kingdom of Oude in 1848-1850 (1858) and reprinted in 1852 as An Account of Wolves Nurturing Children in Their Dens, by an Indian Official and in The Zoologist (1888 12(135):87-98).This caught the imagination of many and ultimately inspired Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli character. Sleeman is best known for his work suppressing the Thuggee secret society. In 1835, he captured "Feringhea" (also called Syeed Amir Ali, on whom the novel Confessions of a Thug is based) and got him to turn King's evidence. Sleeman wrote three books about the Thugs: Ramaseeana, or a Vocabulary of the peculiar language used by Thugs; Report on the Depredations Committed by the Thug Gangs of Upper and Central India; and The Thugs or Phansigars of India.