And they fared out from the gloom of the mango tope, the old man's
high, shrill voice ringing across the field, as wail by long-drawn
wail he unfolded the story of Nikal Seyn [Nicholson] - the song
that men sing in the Punjab to this day. Kim was delighted, and the
lama listened with deep interest.

'Ahi! Nikal Seyn is dead - he died before Delhi! Lances of the
North, take vengeance for Nikal Seyn.' He quavered it out to the
end, marking the trills with the flat of his sword on the pony's
rump.

'And now we come to the Big Road,' said he, after receiving the
compliments of Kim; for the lama was markedly silent. 'It is long
since I have ridden this way, but thy boy's talk stirred me. See,
Holy One - the Great Road which is the backbone of all Hind. For
the most part it is shaded, as here, with four lines of trees; the
middle road - all hard - takes the quick traffic. In the days before
rail-carriages the Sahibs travelled up and down here in hundreds.
Now there are only country-carts and such like. Left and right is
the rougher road for the heavy carts - grain and cotton and timber,
fodder, lime and hides. A man goes in safety here for at every few
koss is a police-station. The police are thieves and extortioners
(I myself would patrol it with cavalry - young recruits under a
strong captain), but at least they do not suffer any rivals. All
castes and kinds of men move here.

'Look! Brahmins and chumars, bankers and tinkers, barbers and
bunnias, pilgrims
and potters - all the world going and coming. It