They had passed beyond the belt of market-gardens round hungry Umballa, and were among the mile-wide green of the staple crops.
He was a white-bearded and affable elder, used to entertaining strangers.

He dragged out a string bedstead for the lama, set warm cooked food before him, prepared him a pipe, and, the evening ceremonies being finished in the village temple, sent for the village priest.
Kim told the older children tales of the size and beauty of Lahore, of railway travel, and such-like city things, while the men talked, slowly as their cattle chew the cud.
'I cannot fathom it,' said the headman at last to the priest.

'How readest thou this talk ?' The lama, his tale told, was silently telling his beads.
'He is a Seeker.' the priest answered.

'The land is full of such.
Remember him who came only last, month--the fakir with the tortoise ?' 'Ay, but that man had right and reason, for Krishna Himself appeared in a vision promising him Paradise without the burning-pyre if he journeyed to Prayag.

This man seeks no God who is within my knowledge.' 'Peace, he is old: he comes from far off, and he is mad,' the smooth-shaven priest replied.