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Chapter 1 I Meet Sir Henry Curtis

Introduction

Sir Henry held the lamp over the open box. It was almost full of uncut diamonds. We stood and gazed at them.

'Hee! heel heel' laughed old Gagool behind us. 'There are the bright stones that you love. Take them in your fingers. Eat them, hee! hee! Drink them, ha! ha I'

Africa, the early 1880s.Allan Quatermain, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good have travelled a long way over difficult country to the strange, hidden land of the Kukuanas. They have escaped death in many different ways. Now, deep inside a mountain, they are looking at King Solomon's treasure. There are enough diamonds there to make them the richest men in the world.

But Gagool laughs. Gagool, the witch, is older than anybody's living memory and she laughs because she has a plan. The men have the diamonds, but they will not leave the treasure room. Or will they ?

Allan Quatermain has lived in Africa for years, as a hunter, not a writer. But he tells us this story because he thinks that others should know about this terrible adventure.

Quatermain has many qualities that British people of the late nineteenth century admired, but the real hero of the book is Sir Henry Curtis. He has come to South Africa, with his friend Captain John Good, to find his lost brother. Sir Henry is a true gentleman, and a better fighting man than Quatermain. Haggard, the real writer of this book, admired these qualities; strangely, he did not really admire writers. When Sir Henry asks Quatermain to help him, Quatermain does the job for money. He cannot afford to be a true gentleman.

While the real men of that time were outside, killing and dying, weaker men spent their time in the company of women. Rider Haggard did marry, but he was always rather shy with women. This may explain why there are only two female characters in the book — and one of them is Gagool, a horrible old witch. The other, an African woman called Foulata, falls in love with Captain Good. Good is less of a hero than Curtis or even Quatermain, and he also falls in love with her. A mixed-race relationship would, though, be shocking to the outside world.

Haggard's view of African characters and society can be difficult for modern readers. He was a man of his time and so Africans were not equal to Europeans, but one experience did change his ideas a little. In January 1879 Haggard was in Pretoria when news arrived that the Zulus had destroyed a British army of 1600 men at Isandhlwana. This was a great shock, and although the British won the war, they admired the fighting qualities of the Zulus. Haggard's good opinion of these people is shown in the character of Umbopa, the Zulu who joins the three white men on their search.

It is still a fact, though, that the people of the lost country of Kukuanaland in this book seem rather childlike. They are greatly affected by simple things like Captain Good's false teeth and eyeglass, and they have not seen an eclipse before. But in defence of Rider Haggard, he knew his subject better than most men, and his ideas are more modern than many.



When Haggard was in Africa, the old city of Zimbabwe had recently been discovered. He did not visit the area but he certainly read about it. Many people did not believe that Zimbabwe, with its high stone walls, had been built by Africans. They believed that it was part of the old land of Sheba, home of the Queen of Sheba, who brought presents of gold and valuable stones to King Solomon in Jerusalem. Today we think that Sheba was in Yemen, and that Zimbabwe was built by local people between the years 1250 and 1450, a very long time after the death of Solomon.

It is difficult to believe that there could be any contact between southern Africa and Jerusalem. Haggard makes this easier by reducing the distance. He places Kukuanaland a long way to the north of Zimbabwe, in today's southern Zaire. When Quatermain and his friends arrive there, they have travelled a third of the way to Cairo. They are also only three months' walk from the old port areas of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, along routes that were old before Solomon was born. Gold has crossed from Ghana to the Middle East as far back into history as we know. Nobody can be sure that diamonds did not travel from southern Africa.

At the time when King Solomon's Mines was written, most Europeans in Africa lived quite near the coast and nobody knew much about the rest of the continent. Rider Haggard's readers could accept that his story was real. This was his greatest skill, but it is still very exciting now.

Henry Rider Haggard returned to England in 1881 after five years in South Africa. He began to study law, and he wrote when he had time. King Solomon's Mines (1885) was his third work of fiction but his first adventure story. It was a huge success and it was followed in 1887 by She, another African adventure. Later that same year Allan Quatermain appeared. This continues the story of the central character of King Solomon's Mines, and it is named after him.

Although Haggard wrote many more books, most people remember him for these three.

 

 

Chapter 1 I Meet Sir Henry Curtis

It is a strange thing that at the age of fifty-five I am trying to write a history. I wonder what sort of history it will be! I have done many things in my life, which seems a long one because I started so young. At an age when other boys are at school, I was working here in Africa. I have been buying and selling, hunting, fighting or mining since then, but I only started making real money eight months ago. It is a lot of money, but I do not think I would experience the last fifteen or sixteen months again for it. I am not a brave man, I do not like violence, and I am tired of adventure.

I am not a writer either. I am only writing this for two good reasons: Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me to do it; and it may entertain my son Harry, who is studying to be a doctor over there in Liverpool.

It is now about eighteen months since I first met Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good. Before that I was elephant hunting beyond Bamangwato, and I had had bad luck. Everything went wrong on that trip, and then I got a bad fever too. When I was well enough, I travelled down to the Diamond Fields, sold everything, paid my hunters and moved on to the Cape. After a week there, I decided to go back to Durban by ship. So I joined the Dunkeld, which was waiting for passengers from England on another ship. When they arrived, we went to sea.

Two of the new passengers, who seemed to be friends, interested me. One was a man of about thirty, and was one of the largest and strongest-looking men I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a big yellow beard and large grey eyes. I never saw a finer looking man. His face was also familiar, but I could not think why. I learned later that his name was Sir Henry Curtis.

The other man, Sir Henry's friend, was short, rather fat, and dark. He was very tidy, and he always wore an eyeglass in his right eye. It seemed to grow there; it had no string, and he never took it out in daylight except to clean it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it, but I was wrong. He put it in his pocket, with his very fine false teeth, when he went to bed. His name, I discovered from the passenger list, was Good — Captain John Good.

On the first evening there was a high wind. It became very cold and I stood near the engines where it was warm. Captain Good was already there, perhaps for the same reason. We started a conversation and then we joined Sir Henry Curtis at his table for dinner. The captain and I soon started talking about shooting, and I think we discussed most of the animals in Africa. Some time after coffee had been served, he began to ask about elephants.

' Ah, sir,' called somebody behind me,' you are sitting with the right man. Hunter Quatermain will be able to tell you about elephants if any man can.'

Sir Henry Curtis, who had sat quietly listening to our talk, looked surprised. He bent forward and said in a deep voice, ' Excuse me, sir, but is your name Allan Quatermain ?'

I said it was.

Sir Henry smiled suddenly, and Good also looked pleased. 'This is very fortunate,' said Sir Henry, then continued: 'Mr Quatermain, the year before last, I believe you were at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the Transvaal.'

' I was,' I agreed.

' Did you meet a man called Neville there ?'

'Oh, yes. He stopped for a few weeks to rest his cattle. I received a letter about him a few months ago. I answered it as well as I could at the time.'

'Yes,' said Sir Henry, 'I saw your letter. In it you said that Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning of May. He was in a wagon with a driver, and a hunter called Jim, and planned to go to Inyati.There he hoped to sell his wagon and continue on foot. You also said that he did sell his wagon, because six months later you saw another man with it. He told you that he had bought the wagon at Inyati from a white man, and that the white man, with one servant, had gone on a shooting trip.'

'Yes.'

There was a pause.' Mr Quatermain,' Sir Henry said suddenly, 'do you know anything else about the reason for my — for Neville's journey ?'

' I have heard something,' I answered, and stopped.

Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good said,' Tell him.'

' Mr Quatermain,' said Sir Henry, ' I am going to tell you a story, and to ask for your advice, and perhaps for your help. After I got your letter, I asked people about you. They said that you were a good man, and could keep a secret.'

I did not know what to say, so I drank some more coffee.

' Mr Neville was my brother,' Sir Henry continued.

' Oh,' I said. That was why Sir Henry's face looked familiar to me. His brother was a much smaller man and had a dark beard, but his eyes were the same grey colour and his face was in many ways the same.

'He was,' Sir Henry told me, 'my only brother, and we were very close — until something happened about five years ago, and we argued. I was angry, and I behaved badly'

Captain Good showed that he agreed.

' At about the same time,' Sir Henry continued, ' our father died. He had not written anything down, so all his property and money came to me, the eldest son. My brother did not get a penny, and I offered him nothing. I waited for him to come to me, but he did not come. I am sorry to have to tell you all of this, Mr Quatermain, but I must make things clear.'

' I am sure,' said Captain Good,' that Mr Quatermain will keep your story to himself.'

' Of course,' I said.

' Well,' Sir Henry said,' my brother had some money in the bank. He took it out, changed his name to Neville, and came to South Africa. He hoped to make money here. Three years passed and I heard nothing of him, though I wrote several times. I became more and more anxious about him and tried to discover where he was. That is why the letter came to you, and I got your reply. In the end, I decided to come out here and look for him myself, and Captain Good kindly came with me.'

'Yes,' said the captain.' I have nothing else to do, you see. They say I am too old for the sea. And now perhaps, Mr Quatermain, you will tell us what you know about the gentleman called Neville.'

 


Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1442


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