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My first business at Calcutta was to learn Hindustani and Balti, in order to be an efficient 
interpreter on the expedition to Chogo Ri. As regards the latter, I had to content myself with the 
grammar and filed to learn much. Fortunately, we managed without it; but it was easy to get a 
munshi to teach me Hindustani and I spent most of my time in acquiring that 
language. 
The "native telegraph" now reappeared in a different form. Somehow or other my munshi got it into 
his head that I was a Magician. This was very curious, as I had done practically no Magick since 
landing in Ceylon and certainly had not talked about it at all. The Sword of song bears witness to 
the completeness with which I had abandoned Magick. I had not in the least lost my faith in its 
efficacy: I regarded it very much as I regarded rock climbing. I could not doubt that I was the best 
rock climber of my generation, but I knew that my abilities in that respect would not help me to 
climb Chogo Ri any more than my ability at billiards would help me to understand Dostoyevsky. 
Similarly, my magical attainment had no bearing on my Quest. Of course I was wrong. I had simply 
failed to understand the possibilities of Magick. I had not realized that it was the practical side of 
spiritual progress. 
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Ultimately, my Magick proved more far-reaching in importance than my mysticism, as will appear in 
due course. 
My munshi must have possessed some secret source of information about me. His attitude towards 
me expressed not merely the servility of the conquered race; it added the childlike timidity of 
primitive people in presence of occult omnipotence. Having ingratiated himself by all the arts of the 
courtier, he plucked up courage to request me to kill his aunt. I am ashamed to say that I dissolved 
in laughter. I no longer remember how I kept my face; how I broke it to him gently that I killed 
strangers on on such considerations as the uninitiated could not possibly comprehend. I still laugh to 
remember the shamefaced shyness of his request and the pained humiliation with which he received 
my refusal. He had the courage (a week or so later) to ask me to soften the hearts of the examiners 
towards his brother, who was entered for the B. A. examination; when I refused, he asked me to 
prophesy the result. I told him that his brother would fail, which he did. I claim no credit for second 
sight; I had based my judgment on the reflection that if his brother required magical assistance in 
order to pass, he knew that his intellectual attainments were inadequate. 
When I wasn't working I went racing. I had never been to a race course in England. I cannot force 
myself to pretend interest in a game of which I do not know the rules. Like all commercialized 
amusements, racing is essentially crooked. But in Calcutta it was less trouble to go than to stay 
away. I took advantage of the circumstances to test my theories. One particular horse had arrived in 
Calcutta with a great reputation. Everybody backed it and it lost race after race. I waited till it had 
become so discredited that I could get long odds against it in an important race, and then backed it 
to win, which it did. It was merely a question of following the psychology of the swindlers. They had 
pulled it till it was worth while to let it win. 
I had little real pleasure in rattling the rupees in my pocket. My cynical disgust with the corrupt 
pettiness of humanity, far from being assuaged by the consciousness of my ability to outmanoeuvre 
it, saddened me. I loved mankind; I wanted everybody to be an enthusiastic aspirant to the 
absolute. I expected everybody to be as sensitive about honour as I was myself. My disillusionment 
drove me more and more to determine that the only thing worth doing was to save humanity from 
the horror of its own ignorant heartlessness. But I was still innocent to the point of imbecility. I had 
not analysed human conduct: I did not understand in the least the springs of human action. Its blind 
bestiality was a puzzle which appalled me, yet I could not even begin to estimate its elements. 
Allan Bennett had made up his mind to take the Yellow Robe --- not in Ceylon, where the sodden 
corruption of the Sangha sickened his sincerity, but in Burma, where the bhikkhus could at least 
boast fidelity to the principles 
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