` 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 Kim , 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 . The hills sweated the ghi and sugar suet off his bones ; the dry air , taken sobbingly at the head of cruel passes , firmed and built out his upper ribs ; and the tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf and thigh . They meditated often on the Wheel of Life -- the more so since , as the lama said , they were freed from its visible temptations . Except the grey eagle and an occasional far-seen bear grubbing and rooting on the hillside ; a vision of a furious painted leopard met at dawn in a still valley devouring a goat ; and now and again a bright-coloured bird , they were alone with the winds and the grass singing under the wind . The women of the smoky huts over whose roofs the two walked as they descended the mountains , were unlovely and unclean , wives of many husbands , and afflicted with goitre . The men were woodcutters when they were not farmers -- meek , and of an incredible simplicity . But that suitable discourse might not fail , Fate sent them , overtaking and overtaken upon the road , the courteous Dacca physician , who paid for his food in ointments good for goitre and counsels that restore peace between men and women .
He seemed to know these hills as well as he knew the hill dialects , and gave the XXXXX the lie of the land towards Ladakh and Tibet .
Buddhism Chinese Esquimaux Kim Xavier day lama leopard mountain-road saddle-back