The lama was mildly surprised that anyone should object to the knife-edged breezes which had cut the years off his shoulders . ` These are but the lower hills , chela . There is no cold till we come to the true Hills . ' ` Air and water are good , and the people are devout enough , but the food is very bad , ' Kim growled ; ` and we walk as though we were mad -- or English . It freezes at night , too . ' ' A little , maybe ; but only enough to make old bones rejoice in the sun . We must not always delight in soft beds and rich food . ' ` We might at least keep to the road . ' Kim had all a plainsman 's affection for the well-trodden track , not six feet wide , that snaked among the mountains ; but the lama , being Tibetan , could not refrain from short cuts over spurs and the rims of gravel-strewn slopes . As he explained to his limping disciple , a man bred among mountains can prophesy the course of a mountain-road , and though low-lying clouds might be a hindrance to a short-cutting stranger , they made no earthly difference to a thoughtful man . Thus , after long hours of what would be reckoned very fair mountaineering in civilized countries , they would pant over a saddle-back , sidle past a few landslips , and drop through forest at an angle of forty-five onto the road again . Along their track lay the villages of the hillfolk -- mud and earth huts , timbers now and then rudely carved with an axe -- clinging like swallows ' nests against the steeps , huddled on tiny flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot glissade ; jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled and focused every wandering blast ; or , for the sake of summer pasture , cowering down on a neck that in winter would be ten feet deep in snow . And the people -- the sallow , greasy , duffle-clad people , with short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux -- would flock out and adore . The Plains -- kindly and gentle -- had treated the lama as a holy man among holy men . But the Hills worshipped him as one in the confidence of all their devils . Theirs was an almost obliterated Buddhism , overlaid with a nature-worship fantastic as their own landscapes , elaborate as the terracing of their tiny fields ; but they recognized the big hat , the clicking rosary , and the rare Chinese texts for great authority ; and they respected the man beneath the hat . ` We saw thee come down over the black Breasts of Eua , ' said a Betah who gave them cheese , sour milk , and stone-hard bread one evening . ` We do not use that often -- except when calving cows stray in summer . There is a sudden wind among those stones that casts men down on the stillest day . But what should such folk care for the Devil of Eua ! '
Then did XXXXX , aching in every fibre , dizzy with looking down , footsore with cramping desperate toes into inadequate crannies , take joy in the day 's march -- such joy as a boy of St Xavier 's who had won the quarter-mile on the flat might take in the praises of his friends .
English Esquimaux Hills Kim hours landslips mountain-road nature-worship plainsman terracing