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wayside shrines - sometimes Hindu, sometimes Mussalman - which the
low-caste of both creeds share with beautiful impartiality. A solid
line of blue, rising and falling like the back of a caterpillar in
haste, would swing up through the quivering dust and trot past to a
chorus of quick cackling. That was a gang of changars - the women
who have taken all the embankments of all the Northern railways
under their charge - a flat-footed, big-bosomed, strong-limbed,
blue-petticoated clan of earth-carriers, hurrying north on news of
a job, and wasting no time by the road. They belong to the caste
whose 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.

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