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[Page 328, verse heading] This is the second verse of “The Sea and the Hills”, which appeared as a poem of three verses, with some alterations later.
[Page 328, main text, line 10] great ramp Mussoorie is a steep uphill climb from Dehra Dun.
[Page 329, line 5] ilex the evergreen holm oak.
[Page 329, line 18/19] Kedarnath and Badrinath places sacred to Hindus; the former is a 22,000 feet mountain peak; the latter, sited on the Alaknanda river, is also a mountain peak, nearly 1.500 ft higher than Kedarnath..
[Page 331, line 1] Esquimaux Alternative spelling ‘Eskimo’.
[Page 331, line 13] the black breasts of Eua A fictional name.
[Page 331, line 14] a Betah Kipling must mean betah which means ‘son’, and is generally applied to any young boy of the same village clan.
[Page 332, line 9] wives of many husbands Polyandry is common among hill tribes in India, where one husband’s pair of shoes left outside the hut keeps the others away.
[Page 332, line 26] cows grazing on the house tops Homes built into the slope of a hillside enable cattle to graze on higher slopes and the roof-tops too.
[Page 333, line 3] cadastral survey a survey which maps land for taxation purposes. Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG adds that Hurree “does not mean this to be taken seriously.”
[Page 333, line 9] Kara Koram the Karakoram range of mountains is north of the Himalayas.
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[Page 335, line 27] wandering wullie-wa “a wisp of blown snow in a squall”; a term, according to Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG, used in the American continent.
[Page 336, line 17] Ziglaur a small hamlet en route, but the name may be fictional.
[Page 337, line 8] shikarris or shikaris; professional hunters, famed abroad.
[Page 338, line 14] kilta a large basket, carried on the back, and held by a strap tied against the forehead.
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[Page 341, line3] thar “a reddish goat with a black face and short horns of triangular section, usually found in groups of two or three on scrub-covered slopes.” [Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG]
[Page 341, line 4] markhor Himalayan goat, with long, dark brown, spirally twisted horns.
bears by Elisha’s allowance [cf. 2 Kings 2,24] Two bears.
[Page 341, line 12] in petto by secret appointment; in later editions changed to “in little”.
[Page 342, line 7] Puss-in-Boots The children’s story of this clever resourceful cat, translated from Italian [1530] and into French [1585], and reached England at the end of the 17th Century. [cf. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable]
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[Page 344, line 11] beegar coolies coolies pressed into service: beegar or begaar means ‘forced labour’; and coolies are porters.
[Page 345, line 17] Spiti men from Spiti in the north-eastern corner of Punjab.
[Page 346. Line 7] Ao-chung A fictitious place-name.
[Page 346, line 22] murasla “a Persian word for a diplomatic dispatch.” [Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG]
[Page 347, line 8] country-bred local and without pedigree.
[Page 347, line 14] Shamlegh-under-the-Snow another fictitious place-name.
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[Page 349, lines 8 & 33] Yankling Sahib, Fostum Sahib Kipling is aware of the difficulties non-English speakers have with the pronunciation of some English vowels and consonants, and acutely reproduces their idiosyncrasies. In these instances, ‘Yanklin’ could be Franklin, and ‘Fostum’, Foster.
[Page 350, line 32] Day and Martin where the boy Charles Dickens worked.
[Page 351, line 5] kobolds goblins and dwarfs in German mines. “Kipling is recalling George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (1872) which he read as a child, and mentions in “Wee Willie Winkie”. [Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG]
[Page 351, line 27] musk-pods musk deer glands, valued for the scent extracted.[Brigadier Alec Mason in ORG]
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[Page 353, line 10] serow a goat-like antelope.
[S.K.]