Kim | Page 6

out. I am no banker,' laughed Kim.
'Alas! I am an old man. I did not know.' Then, fingering his rosary, he half turned to the
Museum.
'What is your caste? Where is your house? Have you come far?' Kim asked.
'I came by Kulu - from beyond the Kailas - but what know you? From the Hills where' -
he sighed - 'the air and water are fresh and cool.'
'Aha! Khitai [a Chinaman],' said Abdullah proudly. Fook Shing had once chased him out
of his shop for spitting at the joss above the boots.
'Pahari [a hillman],' said little Chota Lal.
'Aye, child - a hillman from hills thou'lt never see. Didst hear of Bhotiyal [Tibet]? I am
no Khitai, but a Bhotiya [Tibetan], since you must know - a lama - or, say, a guru in your
tongue.'
'A guru from Tibet,' said Kim. 'I have not seen such a man. They be Hindus in Tibet,
then?'
'We be followers of the Middle Way, living in peace in our lamasseries, and I go to see
the Four Holy Places before I die. Now do you, who are children, know as much as I do
who am old.' He smiled benignantly on the boys.
'Hast thou eaten?'
He fumbled in his bosom and drew forth a worn, wooden begging- bowl. The boys
nodded. All priests of their acquaintance begged.
'I do not wish to eat yet.' He turned his head like an old tortoise in the sunlight. 'Is it true
that there are many images in the Wonder House of Lahore?' He repeated the last words
as one making sure of an address.
'That is true,' said Abdullah. 'It is full of heathen busts. Thou also art an idolater.'
'Never mind him,' said. Kim. 'That is the Government's house and there is no idolatry in it,
but only a Sahib with a white beard. Come with me and I will show.'
'Strange priests eat boys,' whispered Chota Lal.
'And he is a stranger and a but-parast [idolater],' said Abdullah, the Mohammedan.
Kim laughed. 'He is new. Run to your mothers' laps, and be safe. Come!'
Kim clicked round the self-registering turnstile; the old man followed and halted amazed.
In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done,
savants know how long since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not
unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch. There were hundreds of
pieces, friezes of figures in relief, fragments of statues and slabs crowded with figures
that had encrusted the brick walls of the Buddhist stupas and viharas of the North
Country and now, dug up and labelled, made the pride of the Museum. In open-mouthed
wonder the lama turned to this and that, and finally checked in rapt attention before a
large alto- relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of the Lord Buddha. The Master
was represented seated on a lotus the petals of which were so deeply undercut as to show
almost detached. Round Him was an adoring hierarchy of kings, elders, and old-time
Buddhas. Below were lotus-covered waters with fishes and water- birds. Two

butterfly-winged devas held a wreath over His head; above them another pair supported
an umbrella surmounted by the jewelled headdress of the Bodhisat.
'The Lord! The Lord! It is Sakya Muni himself,' the lama half sobbed; and under his
breath began the wonderful Buddhist invocation:
To Him the Way, the Law, apart, Whom Maya held beneath her heart, Ananda's Lord, the
Bodhisat.
'And He is here! The Most Excellent Law is here also. My pilgrimage is well begun. And
what work! What work!'
'Yonder is the Sahib.' said Kim, and dodged sideways among the cases of the arts and
manufacturers wing. A white-bearded Englishman was looking at the lama, who gravely
turned and saluted him and after some fumbling drew forth a note-book and a scrap of
paper.
'Yes, that is my name,' smiling at the clumsy, childish print.
'One of us who had made pilgrimage to the Holy Places - he is now Abbot of the
Lung-Cho Monastery - gave it me,' stammered the lama. 'He spoke of these.' His lean
hand moved tremulously round.
'Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am here' - he glanced at
the lama's face - 'to gather knowledge. Come to my office awhile.' The old man was
trembling with excitement.
The office was but a little wooden cubicle partitioned off from the sculpture-lined gallery.
Kim laid himself down, his ear against a crack in the heat-split cedar door, and, following
his instinct, stretched out to listen and watch.
Most of the talk was altogether above his head. The lama, haltingly at first, spoke to the
Curator of his own lamassery, the Such-zen, opposite the Painted Rocks,