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 . Kim felt these things , though he could not give tongue to his feelings , and so contented himself with buying peeled sugar-cane and spitting the pith generously about his path . From time to time the lama took snuff , and at last Kim could endure the silence no longer . ` This is a good land -- the land of the South ! ' said he . ` The air is good ; the water is good . Eh ? ' ` And they are all bound upon the Wheel , ' said the lama . ` Bound from life after life . To none of these has the Way been shown . ' He shook himself back to this world .
` And now we have walked a weary way , ' XXXXX Kim .
behold danced give growing guard looked note said turning wishing