little shops on the hill below the church, and glanced at the
conglomeration of grain-sellers, jewellers, confectioners, and dealers
in metal or earthen vessels, every man sitting knee-deep in his wares,
smoking the eternal "hubble-bubble;" we noted the keen eyes of the
buyers and the hawk's glance of the sellers, the long snake-like fingers
eagerly grasping the passing coin, and seemingly convulsed into
serpentine contortion when they relinquished their clutch on a single
"pi;" we marked this busy scene, set down, like a Punch and Judy show,
in the midst of the trackless waste of the Himalayas, as if for the
delectation and pastime of some merry _genius loci_ weary of the solemn
silence in his awful mountains, and we chatted carelessly of the sights
animate and inanimate before us, laughing at the asseverations of the
salesmen, and at the hardened scepticism of the customer, at the
portentous dignity of the superb old messenger, white-bearded and clad
in scarlet and gold, as he bombastically described to the knot of poor
relations and admirers that elbowed him the splendours of the last
entertainment at "Peterhof," where Lord Lytton still reigned. I smiled,
and Isaacs frowned at the ancient and hairy ascetic believer, who
suddenly rose from his lair in a corner, and bustled through the crowd
of Hindoos, shouting at the top of his voice the confession of his
faith--"Beside God there is no God, and Muhammad is his apostle!" The
universality of the Oriental spirit is something amazing. Customs,
dress, thought, and language, are wonderfully alike among all Asiatics
west of Thibet and south of Turkistan. The greatest difference is in
language, and yet no one unacquainted with the dialects could
distinguish by the ear between Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.

So we moved along, and presently found ourselves on the road we had
traversed the previous evening, leading round Jako. On the slope of the
hill, hidden by a dense growth of rhododendrons, lay the bungalow of Mr.