to any one attempting it."

I told him I was quite determined to go.

The poor doctor was dumfounded. He knew that it was quite useless to try
to dissuade me. I went into the tent to rearrange my baggage, making
the load I intended to carry on my back as light as possible. My
scientific instruments, money, and cartridges already made a good weight
to carry on my person.

While I was making preparations for my journey Kachi Ram entered the
tent. He looked perplexed.

"What are you doing, sir?" he inquired. "The doctor says you are going
to leave alone to-night, cross the mountain range, and go to Lhassa by
yourself."

"Yes; that is true."

"Oh, sir, the perils and dangers are too great! You cannot go."

"I know; but I am going to try."

"Oh, sir, then I will come with you."

"No, Kachi. You will suffer too much. Go back to your father and mother,
now that you have the opportunity."

"No, sir; where you go, I will go. Small men never suffer. If they do,
it does not matter. Only great men's sufferings are worth noticing. If
you suffer, I will suffer. I will come."

Kachi's philosophy touched me. He meant what he said. I decided to take
him.

This was a piece of luck. Kachi Ram had five bosom friends among the
young Shoka coolies. In the evenings in camp they often joined in weird
love-songs, in memory of the fair maids of their hearts whom they had
left behind, on the other side of the Himahlyas.

Kachi hurried away in a state of great excitement. He was back in a few
minutes.

"How many coolies will you take, sir?"

"None will come."

"Oh, I will get them," said he, with assurance. "Will five do?"

"Yes," I murmured, incredulously.

My doubt sustained a shock when Kachi returned, buoyant, saying, in his
peculiar English:

"Five Shokas come, sir. Then you, sir, I, sir, five coolies, sir, start
night-time. What clock?"

"By Jove, Kachi," I could not help exclaiming, "you are a smart lad!"

"'Smart,' sir?" inquired he, sharply, hearing a new word. He was most
anxious to learn English, and he had a mania for spelling. "'Smart!'
What is meaning? How spell?"

"S-m-a-r-t. It means 'quick, intelligent.'"

"Smart," he repeated, solemnly, as he wrote the newly acquired word into
a book which I had given him for the purpose. Kachi was undoubtedly, in
spite of small faults, a great character. He was a most intelligent,
sharp, well-meaning fellow. His never-failing good-humor and his earnest
desire to