Shamlegh 's summer population is only three families -- four women and eight or nine men . They were all full of tinned meats and mixed drinks , from ammoniated quinine to white vodka , for they had taken their full share in the overnight loot . The neat Continental tents had been cut up and shared long ago , and there were patent aluminium saucepans abroad . But they considered the lama 's presence a perfect safeguard against all consequences , and impenitently brought Kim of their best -- even to a drink of chang -- the barley-beer that comes from Ladakh-way . Then they thawed out in the sun , and sat with their legs hanging over infinite abysses , chattering , laughing , and smoking . They judged India and its Government solely from their experience of wandering Sahibs who had employed them or their friends as shikarris . Kim heard tales of shots missed upon ibex , serow , or markhor , by Sahibs twenty years in their graves -- every detail lighted from behind like twigs on tree-tops seen against lightning . They told him of their little diseases , and , more important , the diseases of their tiny , sure-footed cattle ; of trips as far as Kotgarh , where the strange missionaries live , and beyond even to marvellous Simla , where the streets are paved with silver , and anyone , look you , can get service with the Sahibs , who ride about in two-wheeled carts and spend money with a spade . Presently , grave and aloof , walking very heavily , the lama joined himself to the chatter under the eaves , and they gave him great room . The thin air refreshed him , and he sat on the edge of precipices with the best of them , and , when talk languished , flung pebbles into the void . Thirty miles away , as the eagle flies , lay the next range , seamed and channelled and pitted with little patches of brush -- forests , each a day 's dark march . Behind the village , Shamlegh hill itself cut off all view to southward . It was like sitting in a swallow 's nest under the eaves of the roof of the world . From time to time the lama stretched out his hand , and with a little low-voiced prompting would point out the road to Spiti and north across the Parungla . ` Beyond , where the hills lie thickest , lies De-ch ` en ' -LRB- he meant Han-le ' -RRB- , ` the great Monastery . s ` Tag-stan-ras-ch ` en built it , and of him there runs this tale . ' Whereupon he told it : a fantastic piled narrative of bewitchment and miracles that set Shamlegh a-gasping . Turning west a little , he steered for the green hills of Kulu , and sought Kailung under the glaciers . ` For thither came I in the old , old days . From Leh I came , over the Baralachi . '
` Yes , yes ; we know it , ' said the far-faring people of XXXXX .
Han-le Shamlegh bewitchment day diseases lama overnight precipices saucepans years