His wants were few , because , since the lama had no caste scruples , cooked food from the nearest stall would serve ; but , for luxury 's sake , Kim bought a handful of dung-cakes to build a fire . All about , coming and going round the little flames , men cried for oil , or grain , or sweetmeats , or tobacco , jostling one another while they waited their turn at the well ; and under the men 's voices you heard from halted , shuttered carts the high squeals and giggles of women whose faces should not be seen in public . Nowadays , well-educated natives are of opinion that when their womenfolk travel -- and they visit a good deal -- it is better to take them quickly by rail in a properly screened compartment ; and that custom is spreading . But there are always those of the old rock who hold by the use of their forefathers ; and , above all , there are always the old women -- more conservative than the men -- who toward the end of their days go on a pilgrimage . They , being withered and undesirable , do not , under certain circumstances , object to unveiling . After their long seclusion , during which they have always been in business touch with a thousand outside interests , they love the bustle and stir of the open road , the gatherings at the shrines , and the infinite possibilities of gossip with like-minded dowagers . Very often it suits a longsuffering family that a strong-tongued , iron-willed old lady should disport herself about India in this fashion ; for certainly pilgrimage is grateful to the Gods . So all about India , in the most remote places , as in the most public , you find some knot of grizzled servitors in nominal charge of an old lady who is more or less curtained and hid away in a bullock-cart . Such men are staid and discreet , and when a European or a high-caste native is near will net their charge with most elaborate precautions ; but in the ordinary haphazard chances of pilgrimage the precautions are not taken . The old lady is , after all , intensely human , and lives to look upon life . Kim marked down a gaily ornamented ruth or family bullock-cart , with a broidered canopy of two domes , like a double-humped camel , which had just been drawn into the par . Eight men made its retinue , and two of the eight were armed with rusty sabres -- sure signs that they followed a person of distinction , for the common folk do not bear arms . An increasing cackle of complaints , orders , and jests , and what to a European would have been bad language , came from behind the curtains . Here was evidently a woman used to command . Kim looked over the retinue critically . Half of them were thin-legged , grey-bearded Ooryas from down country . The other half were duffle-clad , felt-hatted hillmen of the North ; and that mixture told its own tale , even if he had not overheard the incessant sparring between the two divisions . The old lady was going south on a visit -- probably to a rich relative , most probably to a son-in-law , who had sent up an escort as a mark of respect . The hillmen would be of her own people -- Kulu or Kangra folk . It was quite clear that she was not taking her daughter down to be wedded , or the curtains would have been laced home and the guard would have allowed no one near the car .
A merry and a high-spirited dame , thought XXXXX , balancing the dung-cake in one hand , the cooked food in the other , and piloting the lama with a nudging shoulder .
European Kim Kulu bullock-cart conservative days dowagers lama tobacco womenfolk