This time Kim thought in the vernacular as he waxed down the oilskin edges of the packets . ` How can a man follow the Way or the Great Game when he is so -- always pestered by women ? There was that girl at Akrola of the Ford ; and there was the scullion 's wife behind the dovecot -- not counting the others -- and now comes this one ! When I was a child it was well enough , but now I am a man and they will not regard me as a man . Walnuts , indeed ! Ho ! ho ! It is almonds in the Plains ! ' He went out to levy on the village -- not with a begging-bowl , which might do for down-country , but in the manner of a prince . 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 , XXXXX hill itself cut off all view to southward .
Akrola India Kim Shamlegh Simla begging-bowl chang lama precipices vodka