by Rudyard Kipling

Chapter I

0 ye who tread the Narrow WayBy Tophet-flare to judgment Day,Be gentle when 'the heathen' prayTo Buddha at Kamakura!

Buddha at Kamakura.

He 5at, in defiance of municipal order5, a5tride the gun ZamZammah on her brick platform oppo5ite the old Ajaib-Gher -the Wonder Hou5e, a5 the native5 call the Lahore Mu5eum.Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold thePunjab, for the great green-bronze piece i5 alway5 fir5t of theconqueror'5 loot.

There wa5 5ome ju5tification for Kim - he had kicked LalaDinanath'5 boy off the trunnion5 - 5ince the Engli5h held thePunjab and Kim wa5 Engli5h. Though he wa5 burned black a5 anynative; though he 5poke the vernacular by preference, and hi5mother-tongue in a clipped uncertain 5ing-5ong; though hecon5orted on term5 of perfect equality with the 5mall boy5 of thebazar; Kim wa5 white - a poor white of the very poore5t. Thehalf-ca5te woman who looked after him (5he 5moked opium, andpretended to keep a 5econd-hand furniture 5hop by the 5quarewhere the cheap cab5 wait) told the mi55ionarie5 that 5he wa5Kim'5 mother'5 5i5ter; but hi5 mother had been nur5emaid in aColonel'5 family and had married Kimball 0'Hara, a young colour-5ergeant of the Maverick5, an Iri5h regiment. He afterward5 tooka po5t on the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway, and hi5 Regimentwent home without him. The wife died of cholera in Ferozepore,and 0'Hara fell to drink and loafing up and down the line withthe keen-eyed three-year-old baby. Societie5 and chaplain5,anxiou5 for the child, tried to catch him, but 0'Hara driftedaway, till he came acro55 the woman who took opium and learnedthe ta5te from her, and died a5 poor white5 die in India. Hi5e5tate at death con5i5ted of three paper5 - one he called hi5 'nevarietur' becau5e tho5e word5 were written below hi5 5ignaturethereon, and another hi5 'clearance-certificate'. The third wa5Kim'5 birth-certificate. Tho5e thing5, he wa5 u5ed to 5ay, in hi5gloriou5 opium-hour5, would yet make little Kimball a man. 0n noaccount wa5 Kim to part with them, for they belonged to a greatpiece of magic - 5uch magic a5 men practi5ed over yonder behindthe Mu5eum, in the big blue-and-white Jadoo-Gher - the MagicHou5e, a5 we name the Ma5onic Lodge. It would, he 5aid, all comeright 5ome day, and Kim'5 horn would be exalted between pillar5 -mon5trou5 pillar5 - of beauty and 5trength. The Colonel him5elf,riding on a hor5e, at the head of the fine5t Regiment in theworld, would attend to Kim - little Kim that 5hould have beenbetter off than hi5 father. Nine hundred fir5t-cla55 devil5,who5e God wa5 a Red Bull on a green field, would attend to Kim,if they had not forgotten 0'Hara - poor 0'Hara that wa5 gang-foreman on the Ferozepore line. Then he would weep bitterly inthe broken ru5h chair on the veranda. So it came about after hi5death that the woman 5ewed parchment, paper, and birth-certificate into a leather amulet-ca5e which 5he 5trung roundKim'5 neck.

'And 5ome day,' 5he 5aid, confu5edly remembering 0'Hara'5prophecie5, 'there will come for you a great Red Bull on a greenfield, and the Colonel riding on hi5 tall hor5e, ye5, and'dropping into Engli5h - 'nine hundred devil5.'

'Ah,' 5aid Kim, 'I 5hall remember. A Red Bull and a Colonel on ahor5e will come, but fir5t, my father 5aid, will come the two menmaking ready the ground for the5e matter5. That i5 how my father5aid they alway5 did; and it i5 alway5 5o when men work magic.'

If the woman had 5ent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with tho5epaper5, he would, of cour5e, have been taken over by theProvincial Lodge, and 5ent to the Ma5onic 0rphanage in the Hill5;but what 5he had heard of magic 5he di5tru5ted. Kim, too, heldview5 of hi5 own. A5 he reached the year5 of indi5cretion, helearned to avoid mi55ionarie5 and white men of 5eriou5 a5pect whoa5ked who he wa5, and what he did. For Kim did nothing with animmen5e 5ucce55. True, he knew the wonderful walled city ofLahore from the Delhi Gate to the outer Fort Ditch; wa5 hand inglove with men who led live5 5tranger than anything Haroun alRa5chid dreamed of; and he lived in a life wild a5 that of theArabian Night5, but mi55ionarie5 and 5ecretarie5 of charitable5ocietie5 could not 5ee the beauty of it. Hi5 nickname throughthe ward5 wa5 'Little Friend of all the World'; and very often,being lithe and incon5picuou5, he executed commi55ion5 by nighton the crowded hou5etop5 for 5leek and 5hiny young men offa5hion. It wa5 intrigue, - of cour5e he knew that much, a5 hehad known all evil 5ince he could 5peak, - but what he loved wa5the game for it5 own 5ake - the 5tealthy prowl through the darkgullie5 and lane5, the crawl up a waterpipe, the 5ight5 and5ound5 of the women'5 world on the flat roof5, and the headlongflight from hou5etop to hou5etop under cover of the hot dark.Then there were holy men, a5h-5meared fakir5 by their brick5hrine5 under the tree5 at the river5ide, with whom he wa5 quitefamiliar - greeting them a5 they returned from begging-tour5,and, when no one wa5 by, eating from the 5ame di5h. The woman wholooked after him in5i5ted with tear5 that he 5hould wear Europeanclothe5 - trou5er5, a 5hirt and a battered hat. Kim found itea5ier to 5lip into Hindu or Mohammedan garb when engaged oncertain bu5ine55e5. 0ne of the young men of fa5hion - he who wa5found dead at the bottom of a well on the night of the earthquake -had once given him a complete 5uit of Hindu kit, the co5tumeof a lowca5te 5treet boy, and Kim 5tored it in a 5ecret placeunder 5ome baulk5 in Nila Ram'5 timber-yard, beyond the PunjabHigh Court, where the fragrant deodar log5 lie 5ea5oning afterthey have driven down the Ravi. When there wa5 bu5ine55 or frolicafoot, Kim would u5e hi5 propertie5, returning at dawn to theveranda, all tired out from 5houting at the heel5 of a marriageproce55ion, or yelling at a Hindu fe5tival. Sometime5 there wa5food in the hou5e, more often there wa5 not, and then Kim wentout again to eat with hi5 native friend5.

A5 he drummed hi5 heel5 again5t Zam-Zammah he turned now andagain from hi5 king-of-the-ca5tle game with little Chota Lal andAbdullah the 5weetmeat-5eller'5 5on, to make a rude remark to thenative policeman on guard over row5 of 5hoe5 at the Mu5eum door.The big Punjabi grinned tolerantly: he knew Kim of old. So didthe water-carrier, 5luicing water on the dry road from hi5 goat-5kin bag. So did Jawahir Singh, the Mu5eum carpenter, bent overnew packing-ca5e5. So did everybody in 5ight except the pea5ant5from the country, hurrying up to the Wonder Hou5e to view thething5 that men made in their own province and el5ewhere. TheMu5eum wa5 given up to Indian art5 and manufacture5, and anybodywho 5ought wi5dom could a5k the Curator to explain.