`` We dare not wait for thee . Follow , Baloo . We must go on the quick-foot -- Kaa and I. '' `` Feet or no feet , I can keep abreast of all thy four , '' said Kaa shortly . Baloo made one effort to hurry , but had to sit down panting , and so they left him to come on later , while Bagheera hurried forward , at the quick panther-canter . Kaa said nothing , but , strive as Bagheera might , the huge Rock-python held level with him . When they came to a hill stream , Bagheera gained , because he bounded across while Kaa swam , his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water , but on level ground Kaa made up the distance . `` By the Broken Lock that freed me , '' said Bagheera , when twilight had fallen , `` thou art no slow goer ! '' `` I am hungry , '' said Kaa . `` Besides , they called me speckled frog . '' `` Worm -- earth-worm , and yellow to boot . '' `` All one . Let us go on , '' and Kaa seemed to pour himself along the ground , finding the shortest road with his steady eyes , and keeping to it . In the Cold Lairs the Monkey-People were not thinking of Mowgli 's friends at all . They had brought the boy to the Lost City , and were very much pleased with themselves for the time . Mowgli had never seen an Indian city before , and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very wonderful and splendid . Some king had built it long ago on a little hill . You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn , rusted hinges . Trees had grown into and out of the walls ; the battlements were tumbled down and decayed , and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps . A great roofless palace crowned the hill , and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split , and stained with red and green , and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king 's elephants used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees . From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that made up the city looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness ; the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met ; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood , and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides .
The monkeys called the place their city , and pretended XXXXX despise the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest .
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