How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #10
Then did Kim, aching in every fibre, dizzy with looking down, footsore with cramping desperate toes into inadequate crannies, take joy in the day's march—such joy as a boy of St Xavier's who had won the quarter-mile on the flat might take in the praises of his friends. The hills sweated the ghi and sugar suet off his bones; the dry air, taken sobbingly at the head of cruel passes, firmed and built out his upper ribs; and the tilted levels put new hard muscles into calf and thigh. (13.10)
Kim's journey through the Himalayas with the lama does not only "de-Englishise" (10.132) him (a term the Babu uses to mean that Kim has to lose some of the discipline that St. Xavier's has taught him), but also physically makes a man of him. All of this climbing is like boot camp: suddenly, as Kim is getting ready for regular field work as a Secret Service agent, he is also putting on new muscle and generally getting stronger.
Kipling makes the process of learning to become a spy sound incredibly attractive, since it turns you into this sure-footed, muscular, handsome, Kim-like guy. This novel sometimes reads like a recruitment pitch for the Secret Service, frankly.