And in the evenings he wrote charms on parchment -- elaborate pentagrams crowned with the names of devils -- Murra , and Awan the Companion of Kings -- all fantastically written in the corners . More to the point , he advised Kim as to the care of his own body , the cure of fever-fits , and simple remedies of the Road . A week before it was time to go down , Colonel Creighton Sahib -- this was unfair -- sent Kim a written examination paper that concerned itself solely with rods and chains and links and angles . Next holidays he was out with Mahbub , and here , by the way , he nearly died of thirst , plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikanir , where the wells are four hundred feet deep , and lined throughout with camel-bone . It was not an amusing trip from Kim 's point of view , because -- in defiance of the contract -- the Colonel ordered him to make a map of that wild , walled city ; and since Mohammedan horse-boys and pipe-tenders are not expected to drag Survey-chains round the capital of an independent Native State , Kim was forced to pace all his distances by means of a bead rosary . He used the compass for bearings as occasion served -- after dark chiefly , when the camels had been fed -- and by the help of his little Survey paint-box of six colour-cakes and three brushes , he achieved something not remotely unlike the city of Jeysulmir . Mahbub laughed a great deal , and advised him to make up a written report as well ; and in the back of the big account-book that lay under the flap of Mahbub 's pet saddle Kim fell to work . . ` It must hold everything that thou hast seen or touched or considered . Write as though the Jung-i-Lat Sahib himself had come by stealth with a vast army outsetting to war . ' ` How great an army ? ' ` Oh , half a lakh of men . ' ` Folly ! Remember how few and bad were the wells in the sand . Not a thousand thirsty men could come near by here . ' ` Then write that down -- also all the old breaches in the walls and whence the firewood is cut -- and what is the temper and disposition of the King . I stay here till all my horses are sold . I will hire a room by the gateway , and thou shalt be my accountant . There is a good lock to the door . ' The report in its unmistakable St Xavier 's running script , and the brown , yellow , and lake-daubed map , was on hand a few years ago -LRB- a careless clerk filed it with the rough notes of E 's second Seistan survey -RRB- , but by now the pencil characters must be almost illegible .
Kim translated it , sweating under the light of an oil-lamp , to XXXXX , the second day of their return-journey .
Kim Kings Mahbub Xavier account-book fever-fits horse-boys pentagrams rosary war