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 represent