hose men do not count, and
they walked with squared elbows, swinging hips, and heads on high, as
suits women who carry heavy weights. A little later a marriage
procession would strike into the Grand Trunk with music and shoutings,
and a smell of marigold and jasmine stronger even than the reek of the
dust. One could see the bride's litter, a blur of red and tinsel,
staggering through the haze, while the bridegroom's bewreathed pony
turned aside to snatch a mouthful from a passing fodder-cart. Then Kim
would join the Kentish-fire of good wishes and bad jokes, wishing the
couple a hundred sons and no daughters, as the saying is. Still more
interesting and more to be shouted over it was when a strolling juggler
with some half-trained monkeys, or a panting, feeble bear, or a woman
who tied goats' horns to her feet, and with these danced on a
slack-rope, set the horses to shying and the women to shrill,
long-drawn quavers of amazement.

The lama never raised his eyes. He did not note the money-lender on
his goose-rumped pony, hastening along to collect the cruel interest;
or the long-shouting, deep-voiced little mob--still in military
formation--of native soldiers on leave, rejoicing to be rid of their
breeches and puttees, and saying the most outrageous things to the most
respectable women in sight. Even the seller of Ganges-water he did not
see, and Kim expected that he would at least buy a bottle of that
precious stuff. He looked steadily at the ground, and strode as
steadily hour after hour, his soul busied elsewhere. But Kim was in
the seventh heaven of joy. The Grand Trunk at this point was built on
an embankment to guard against winter floods from the foothills, so
that one walked, as it were, a little above the country, along a
stately corridor, seeing all India spread out to left and right. It
was beautiful to behold the many-yoked grain and cotton wagons crawling
over the country roads: one could hear their axles, complaining a mile
away, coming nearer, till with shouts and yells and bad words they
climbed up the steep incline and plunged on to the hard main road,
carter reviling carter. It was equally beautiful to watch the people,
little clumps of red and blue and pink and white and saffron, turning
aside to go to their own villages, dispersing and growing small by twos
and threes across the level plain. Kim felt these things, though he
could not give tongue to his feelings, and so contented himself w