"After we had all drunk our fill I took the half-filled pail, approached the grinning rascal and deliberately dashed the contents in his face!... My 'prisoner' was horrified, but Maria enjoyed it very much.... 'I had one experience in Japan,' my 'prisoner' confided, 'that has taught me never to oppose the local customs of a country no matter how absurd they may seem to others.... At that time one of my party poked fun at the peculiar art displayed in the statue of a Buddha.... The priest became enraged and attempted to split my head open when I was not looking.... Had it not been for my cousin I'm sure I would not be with you today!... You will please me much if you respect the ancient practices of these people.'... "Then going to the dripping figure he laid a gold louis on the fellow's upturned palm,--HE SEEMED TO KNOW WHAT WAS COMING--which was proof to my mind that there is more in Yogi philosophy than has ever been let out.... "... Frankly, however, I suspect that my 'prisoner's' kindness has only whetted the appetite of that knave.... The way he looks at us would convict him in any court of justice that he meditates our murder...." 44. Then we have this entry: "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!" 45. By the initiated the following entry will not be misunderstood: