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 Kim , balancing the dung-cake in one hand , the cooked food in the other , and piloting the lama with a nudging shoulder . Something might be made out of the meeting . The lama would give him no help , but , as a conscientious chela , Kim was delighted to beg for two . He built his fire as close to the cart as he dared , waiting for one of the escort to order him away .
The XXXXX dropped wearily to the ground , much as a heavy fruit-eating bat cowers , and returned to his rosary .
European Kangra cackle dung-cake fire hillmen jests lama sabres unveiling