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…Along their track lay the villages of the hill folk – mud and earth huts, timbers now and then rudely carved with an axe – clinging like swallows’ nests against the steeps, huddled on tiny flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot glissade; jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled and focused every wandering blast .. and the people, the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux – would flock out and adore… |
This is from Kim, arguably Rudyard Kipling’s greatest work. Kim and the lama are walking higher and higher into the hills, the lama on his quest for enlightenment, and Kim on the trail of some Russian agents. Later they catch up with them, there is a scuffle in which the lama is injured, and Kim succeeds in capturing all the records of their intelligence work. He treks back down to the plains, burdened by the need to look after the lama, and secure the precious bundle of papers. But both quests have been successful. |
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