But Kim’s father told him long ago that he would be saved by a red bull on a green field, so when he sees a regimental flag flying the device, he goes nearer to look and is suspected of being a thief. The description of the journey of Kim and the lama is very colorful and interesting, reflecting Kim’s joy in the bustle of the road and a love of the country on the part of the author.
Mahbub gives him a dispatch to take to a British Colonel Creighton. Before leaving Lahore, though, Kim goes to see Mahbub Ali, an Afghani horse dealer for whom he has run some errands. Kim decides that he will go with the lama as his chela, his disciple who begs for him and takes care of him. The lama explains that he is searching for a holy river that will wash clean all his sins. Kim sees that he is a truly guileless man with no one to help him in a foreign country. One day he is playing outside the Lahore museum when a holy old lama comes to look at the wonders inside. He knows everyone in Lahore, and they call him Friend of All the World. But he keeps some native clothing hidden away, and when he is wearing it, he cannot be discerned from any other street urchin. He has been brought up by a Eurasian woman who leaves him to himself most of the time, only insisting that he wear European clothing.
Kim is the son of an Irish soldier in India, but both of his parents died impoverished when he was young.
I always assumed that Kim was a children’s book, too, or at most a boy’s adventure story, but I don’t think I would describe it that way. Up until now, the only book I read by Rudyard Kipling was Puck of Pook’s Hill, which is definitely a children’s book.
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