The title refers, by way of a pun on 'Plain' as the reverse of 'Hills', to the deceptively simple narrative style; and to the fact that many of the stories are set in the Hill Station of Simla—the 'summer capital of the British Raj' during the hot weather. Not all of the stories are, in fact, about life in 'the Hills': Kipling gives sketches of many aspects of life in British India.