There is no place like our Hills,' said the people of Shamlegh.

And they fell to wondering how a man could live in the hot terrible Plains where the cattle run as big as elephants, unfit to plough on a hillside; where village touches village, they had heard, for a hundred miles; where folk went about stealing in gangs, and what the robbers spared the Police carried utterly away.
So the still forenoon wore through, and at the end of it Kim's messenger dropped from the steep pasture as unbreathed as when she had set out.
'I sent a word to the hakim,' Kim explained, while she made reverence.
'He joined himself to the idolaters?
Nay, I remember he did a healing upon one of them.

He has acquired merit, though the healed employed his strength for evil.

Just is the Wheel! What of the hakim ?' 'I feared that thou hadst been bruised and--and I knew he was wise.' Kim took the waxed walnut-shell and read in English on the back of his note: Your favour received.

Cannot get away from present company at present, but shall take them into Simla.