"I am not at all mistaken in my estimate of that Hindu with the pail
of defiled milk.... He is one of the renegade SPIES that hang on the
brow of civilization and infest these retreats and mountain gorges in
search of easy prey.... There are other POWERS above them that lounge
in gilded palaces and seem always interested in the charms of lovely
women who may suddenly DISAPPEAR.... I know the brood of vultures from
Stamboul to the red lights of New York and the dens of Singapore!...
The quicker we get down out of these mountains and into the populated
valley on our way to Seranagur the SAFER I will feel.... It is all
very pleasant to take a look at this silver ring that encircles the
plateau with its eternal snows, to watch the sparkling waterfalls, the
gardens and the dimpling lake with its little islands with cottages
resting on them and to imagine one's self in the fairyland we used to
read about as children,--BUT for a full-grown man, in my position
and _charged with an important mission_, I prefer to be on my way....
There are too many places where one may be accounted for as
having fallen down the mountain side in the event of some sudden
DISAPPEARANCE!"