King Solomon’s Mines
by H. Rider Haggard
Contents
INTRODUCTION
I. I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
II. THE LEGEND OF SOLOMON’S MINES
III. UMBOPA ENTERS OUR SERVICE
IV. AN ELEPHANT HUNT
V. OUR MARCH INTO THE DESERT
VI. WATER! WATER!
VII. SOLOMON’S ROAD
VIII. WE ENTER KUKUANALAND
IX. TWALA THE KING
X. THE WITCH-HUNT
XI. WE GIVE A SIGN
XII. BEFORE THE BATTLE
XIII. THE ATTACK
XIV. THE LAST STAND OF THE GREYS
XV. GOOD FALLS SICK
XVI. THE PLACE OF DEATH
XVII. SOLOMON’S TREASURE CHAMBER
XVIII. WE ABANDON HOPE
XIX. IGNOSI’S FAREWELL
XX. FOUND
PREPARER’S NOTE
This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and Company,
Limited.
DEDICATION
This faithful but unpretending record
of a remarkable adventure
is hereby respectfully dedicated
by the narrator,
ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
to all the big and little boys
who read it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for
the kind reception they have accorded to the successive editions of
this tale during the last twelve years. He hopes that in its present
form it will fall into the hands of an even wider public, and that in
years to come it may continue to afford amusement to those who are
still young enough at heart to love a story of treasure, war, and wild
adventure.
Ditchingham,
11 March, 1898.
POST SCRIPTUM
Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can only
add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please so many
readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King Solomon’s
Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting out their gold
once more, and, according to the latest reports, their diamonds also;
the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have been tamed by the white
man’s bullets, but still there seem to be many who find pleasure in
these simple pages. That they may continue so to do, even to the third
and fourth generation, or perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be
the hope of our old and departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
H. Rider Haggard.
Ditchingham, 1907.
INTRODUCTION
Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not
pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There are
many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should
have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely
alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected
about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great
battle of Loo, and also about the “Silent Ones” or Colossi at the mouth
of the stalactite cave. Again, if I had given way to my own impulses, I
should have wished to go into the differences, some of which are to my
mind very suggestive, between the Zulu and Kukuana dialects. Also a few
pages might have been given up profitably to the consideration of the
indigenous flora and fauna of Kukuanaland.[1] Then there remains the
most interesting subject—that, as it is, has only been touched on
incidentally—of the magnificent system of military organisation in
force in that country, which, in my opinion, is much superior to that
inaugurated by Chaka in Zululand, inasmuch as it permits of even more
rapid mobilisation, and does not necessitate the employment of the
pernicious system of enforced celibacy. Lastly, I have scarcely spoken
of the domestic and family customs of the Kukuanas, many of which are
exceedingly quaint, or of their proficiency in the art of smelting and
welding metals. This science they carry to considerable perfection, of
which a good example is to be seen in their “tollas,” or heavy throwing
knives, the backs of these weapons being made of hammered iron, and the
edges of beautiful steel welded with great skill on to the iron frames.
The fact of the matter is, I thought, with Sir Henry Curtis and Captain
Good, that the best plan would be to tell my story in a plain,
straightforward manner, and to leave these matters to be dealt with
subsequently in whatever way ultimately may appear to be desirable. In
the meanwhile I shall, of course, be delighted to give all information
in my power to anybody interested in such things.
And now it only remains for me to offer apologies for my blunt way of
writing. I can but say in excuse of it that I am more accustomed to
handle a rifle than a pen, and cannot make any pretence to the grand
literary flights and flourishes which I see in novels—for sometimes I
like to read a novel. I suppose they—the flights and flourishes—are
desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same
time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most
impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are
written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an
opinion on such a matter. “A sharp spear,” runs the Kukuana saying,
“needs no polish”; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a
true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked
out in fine words.
ALLAN QUATERMAIN.
[1] I discovered eight varieties of antelope, with which I was
previously totally unacquainted, and many new species of plants, for
the most part of the bulbous tribe.—A.Q.
KING SOLOMON’S MINES
CHAPTER I.
I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS
It is a curious thing that at my age—fifty-five last birthday—I should
find myself taking up a pen to try to write a history. I wonder what
sort of a history it will be when I have finished it, if ever I come to
the end of the trip! I have done a good many things in my life, which
seems a long one to me, owing to my having begun work so young,
perhaps. At an age when other boys are at school I was earning my
living as a trader in the old Colony. I have been trading, hunting,
fighting, or mining ever since. And yet it is only eight months ago
that I made my pile. It is a big pile now that I have got it—I don’t
yet know how big—but I do not think I would go through the last fifteen
or sixteen months again for it; no, not if I knew that I should come
out safe at the end, pile and all. But then I am a timid man, and
dislike violence; moreover, I am almost sick of adventure. I wonder why
I am going to write this book: it is not in my line. I am not a
literary man, though very devoted to the Old Testament and also to the
“Ingoldsby Legends.” Let me try to set down my reasons, just to see if
I have any.
First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good asked me.
Second reason: Because I am laid up here at Durban with the pain in my
left leg. Ever since that confounded lion got hold of me I have been
liable to this trouble, and being rather bad just now, it makes me limp
more than ever. There must be some poison in a lion’s teeth, otherwise
how is it that when your wounds are healed they break out again,
generally, mark you, at the same time of year that you got your
mauling? It is a hard thing when one has shot sixty-five lions or more,
as I have in the course of my life, that the sixty-sixth should chew
your leg like a quid of tobacco. It breaks the routine of the thing,
and putting other considerations aside, I am an orderly man and don’t
like that. This is by the way.
Third reason: Because I want my boy Harry, who is over there at the
hospital in London studying to become a doctor, to have something to
amuse him and keep him out of mischief for a week or so. Hospital work
must sometimes pall and grow rather dull, for even of cutting up dead
bodies there may come satiety, and as this history will not be dull,
whatever else it may be, it will put a little life into things for a
day or two while Harry is reading of our adventures.
Fourth reason and last: Because I am going to tell the strangest story
that I remember. It may seem a queer thing to say, especially
considering that there is no woman in it—except Foulata. Stop, though!
there is Gagaoola, if she was a woman, and not a fiend. But she was a
hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don’t count her.
At any rate, I can safely say that there is not a _petticoat_ in the
whole history.
Well, I had better come to the yoke. It is a stiff place, and I feel as
though I were bogged up to the axle. But, “_sutjes, sutjes_,” as the
Boers say—I am sure I don’t know how they spell it—softly does it. A
strong team will come through at last, that is, if they are not too
poor. You can never do anything with poor oxen. Now to make a start.
I, Allan Quatermain, of Durban, Natal, Gentleman, make oath and
say—That’s how I headed my deposition before the magistrate about poor
Khiva’s and Ventvögel’s sad deaths; but somehow it doesn’t seem quite
the right way to begin a book. And, besides, am I a gentleman? What is
a gentleman? I don’t quite know, and yet I have had to do with
niggers—no, I will scratch out that word “niggers,” for I do not like
it. I’ve known natives who _are_, and so you will say, Harry, my boy,
before you have done with this tale, and I have known mean whites with
lots of money and fresh out from home, too, who _are not_.
At any rate, I was born a gentleman, though I have been nothing but a
poor travelling trader and hunter all my life. Whether I have remained
so I know not, you must judge of that. Heaven knows I’ve tried. I have
killed many men in my time, yet I have never slain wantonly or stained
my hand in innocent blood, but only in self-defence. The Almighty gave
us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have
always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me
when my clock strikes. There, there, it is a cruel and a wicked world,
and for a timid man I have been mixed up in a great deal of fighting. I
cannot tell the rights of it, but at any rate I have never stolen,
though once I cheated a Kafir out of a herd of cattle. But then he had
done me a dirty turn, and it has troubled me ever since into the
bargain.
Well, it is eighteen months or so ago since first I met Sir Henry
Curtis and Captain Good. It was in this way. I had been up elephant
hunting beyond Bamangwato, and had met with bad luck. Everything went
wrong that trip, and to top up with I got the fever badly. So soon as I
was well enough I trekked down to the Diamond Fields, sold such ivory
as I had, together with my wagon and oxen, discharged my hunters, and
took the post-cart to the Cape. After spending a week in Cape Town,
finding that they overcharged me at the hotel, and having seen
everything there was to see, including the botanical gardens, which
seem to me likely to confer a great benefit on the country, and the new
Houses of Parliament, which I expect will do nothing of the sort, I
determined to go back to Natal by the _Dunkeld_, then lying at the
docks waiting for the _Edinburgh Castle_ due in from England. I took my
berth and went aboard, and that afternoon the Natal passengers from the
_Edinburgh Castle_ transhipped, and we weighed and put to sea.
Among these passengers who came on board were two who excited my
curiosity. One, a gentleman of about thirty, was perhaps the
biggest-chested and longest-armed man I ever saw. He had yellow hair, a
thick yellow beard, clear-cut features, and large grey eyes set deep in
his head. I never saw a finer-looking man, and somehow he reminded me
of an ancient Dane. Not that I know much of ancient Danes, though I
knew a modern Dane who did me out of ten pounds; but I remember once
seeing a picture of some of those gentry, who, I take it, were a kind
of white Zulus. They were drinking out of big horns, and their long