Surely I will come again . The lama watched the ticca-gharri rumble into the compound , and strode off , snuffing between each long stride . ` The Gates of Learning ' shut with a clang . The country born and bred boy has his own manners and customs , which do not resemble those of any other land ; and his teachers approach him by roads which an English master would not understand . Therefore , you would scarcely be interested in Kim 's experiences as a St Xavier 's boy among two or three hundred precocious youths , most of whom had never seen the sea . He suffered the usual penalties for breaking out of bounds when there was cholera in the city . This was before he had learned to write fair English , and so was obliged to find a bazar letter-writer . He was , of course , indicted for smoking and for the use of abuse more full-flavoured than even St Xavier 's had ever heard . He learned to wash himself with the Levitical scrupulosity of the native-born , who in his heart considers the Englishman rather dirty . He played the usual tricks on the patient coolies pulling the punkahs in the sleeping-rooms where the boys threshed through the hot nights telling tales till the dawn ; and quietly he measured himself against his self-reliant mates . They were sons of subordinate officials in the Railway , Telegraph , and Canal Services ; of warrant-officers , sometimes retired and sometimes acting as commanders-in-chief to a feudatory Rajah 's army ; of captains of the Indian Marine Government pensioners , planters , Presidency shopkeepers , and missionaries . A few were cadets of the old Eurasian houses that have taken strong root in Dhurrumtollah -- Pereiras , De Souzas , and D'Silvas . Their parents could well have educated them in England , but they loved the school that had served their own youth , and generation followed sallow-hued generation at St Xavier 's . Their homes ranged from Howrah of the railway people to abandoned cantonments like Monghyr and Chunar ; lost tea-gardens Shillong-way ; villages where their fathers were large landholders in Oudh or the Deccan ; Mission-stations a week from the nearest railway line ; seaports a thousand miles south , facing the brazen Indian surf ; and cinchona-plantations south of all . The mere story of their adventures , which to them were no adventures , on their road to and from school would have crisped a Western boy 's hair . They were used to jogging off alone through a hundred miles of jungle , where there was always the delightful chance of being delayed by tigers ; but they would no more have bathed in the English Channel in an English August than their brothers across the world would have lain still while a leopard snuffed at their palanquin . There were boys of fifteen who had spent a day and a half on an islet in the middle of a flooded river , taking charge , as by right , of a camp of frantic pilgrims returning from a shrine . There were seniors who had requisitioned a chance-met Rajah 's elephant , in the name of St Francis Xavier , when the Rains once blotted out the cart-track that led to their father 's estate , and had all but lost the huge beast in a quicksand . There was a boy who , he said , and none doubted , had helped his father to beat off with rifles from the veranda a rush of Akas in the days when those head-hunters were bold against lonely plantations . And every tale was told in the even , passionless voice of the native-born , mixed with quaint reflections , borrowed unconsciously from native foster-mothers , and turns of speech that showed they had been that instant translated from the vernacular .
XXXXX watched , listened , and approved .
Chunar D'Silvas Dhurrumtollah Indian Kim Telegraph coolies days nights quicksand