James P. Smythe

“ 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.... ”

“ 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.... ”

“ When I looked at that single road, and recalled the WARNING of the Lama so solemnly given to my 'prisoner' about the care to be given to his daughters, I REALIZED FULLY THE MEANING OF THE PRYING EYES that followed us everywhere after my encounter with the milk-fed MUSSULMAN disguised as a Hindu mendicant!... ”