Besides , I did not then need money for sweetmeats . ' ` Allah kerim ! ' said Mahbub Ah . ` Wilt thou some day sell my head for a few sweetmeats if the fit takes thee ? ' Kim will remember till he dies that long , lazy journey from Umballa , through Kalka and the Pinjore Gardens near by , up to Simla . A sudden spate in the Gugger River swept down one horse -LRB- the most valuable , be sure -RRB- , and nearly drowned Kim among the dancing boulders . Farther up the road the horses were stampeded by a Government elephant , and being in high condition of grass food , it cost a day and a half to get them together again . Then they met Sikandar Khan coming down with a few unsaleable screws -- remnants of his string -- and Mahbub , who has more of horse-coping in his little fingernail than Sikandar Khan in all his tents , must needs buy two of the worst , and that meant eight hours ' laborious diplomacy and untold tobacco . But it was all pure delight -- the wandering road , climbing , dipping , and sweeping about the growing spurs ; the flush of the morning laid along the distant snows ; the branched cacti , tier upon tier on the stony hillsides ; the voices of a thousand water-channels ; the chatter of the monkeys ; the solemn deodars , climbing one after another with down-drooped branches ; the vista of the Plains rolled out far beneath them ; the incessant twanging of the tonga-horns and the wild rush of the led horses when a tonga swung round a curve ; the halts for prayers -LRB- Mahbub was very religious in dry-washings and bellowings when time did not press -RRB- ; the evening conferences by the halting-places , when camels and bullocks chewed solemnly together and the stolid drivers told the news of the Road -- all these things lifted Kim 's heart to song within him . ` But , when the singing and dancing is done , ' said Mahbub Ali , ` comes the Colonel Sahib 's , and that is not so sweet . ' ' A fair land -- a most beautiful land is this of Hind -- and the land of the Five Rivers is fairer than all , ' Kim half chanted . ` Into it I will go again if Mahbub Ali or the Colonel lift hand or foot against me . Once gone , who shall find me ? Look , Hajji , is yonder the city of Simla ? Allah , what a city ! ' ` My father 's brother , and he was an old man when Mackerson Sahib 's well was new at Peshawur , could recall when there were but two houses in it . ' He led the horses below the main road into the lower Simla bazar -- the crowded rabbit-warren that climbs up from the valley to the Town Hall at an angle of forty-five . A man who knows his way there can defy all the police of India 's summer capital , so cunningly does veranda communicate with veranda , alley-way with alley-way , and bolt-hole with bolt-hole . Here live those who minister to the wants of the glad city -- jhampanis who pull the pretty ladies ' ` rickshaws by night and gamble till the dawn ; grocers , oil-sellers , curio-vendors , firewood-dealers , priests , pickpockets , and native employees of the Government . Here are discussed by courtesans the things which are supposed to be profoundest secrets of the India Council ; and here gather all the sub-sub-agents of half the Native States .
Here , too , Mahbub XXXXX rented a room , much more securely locked than his bulkhead at Lahore , in the house of a Mohammedan cattle-dealer .
Ali River Sahib alley-way dry-washings jhampanis morning night pickpockets sub-sub-agents