finished_summaries/gradesaver/King Solomon's Mines/section_0_part_1.txt
King Solomon's Mines.chapter 1
chapter 1
{"name": "Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200804024551/https://www.gradesaver.com/king-solomons-mines/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-and-2", "summary": "Allan Quatermain opens his account by giving his reasons for recording it: first, because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good have asked him; second, because he is recuperating from a lion attack which has injured his leg, and has nothing else to do; third, to entertain his son Harry, who is studying medicine in London; and fourth, because it is a strange tale and deserves to be told. After some minor digressions, Quatermain explains how he was aboard the Dunkeld and met Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good. The two men know of Quatermain from his reputation as an elephant hunter. Sir Henry inquires as to Quatermain's knowledge of the legendary mines of King Solomon and of a man named Neville, whom Sir Henry reveals is his brother", "analysis": "Allan Quatermain presents himself as a man of experience, \"fifty-five last birthday,\" who has only now begun an attempt at writing down his personal history.  Haggard thereby establishes Quatermain as the first-person narrator, but one who is uncouth with the pen.  In contrast to the prevalent novels of the time, Haggard's narrator is unschooled: \"At an age when other boys are at school, I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony\" .  This fact signals the reader that the tale which follows will not be a drawing-room romance, but the account of a man's own wild adventures.  Haggard himself had lived in South Africa, and it is his detail concerning the setting which lends more credence to Quatermain's account.  The \"untutored narrator\" is also a convention that allows Haggard to make mistakes in his rush to write  while blaming any stylistic errors on the narrator's unlettered past.  At times throughout the narrative, and especially here in the first chapter, Quatermain rambles and meanders off-topic briefly in his account, lending a more friendly tone to the narrative than could be found in many of the novels of manners available to readers of the time. In addition, Quatermain mentions the only two literary works he has spent any time reading, the Ingoldsby Legends and the Old Testament, thereby foreshadowing both his frequent allusions to both works, and his own adventures in a world lost to a distant past. Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good are also introduced in this first chapter.  Sir Henry at first seems familiar to Quatermain, a fact borne out by Quatermain's earlier acquaintance with Sir Henry's brother.  Sir Henry is described in heroic terms by Quatermain as \"one of the biggest-chested and longest-armed men I eve saw\" .  He goes on to say that Sir Henry \"reminded me of an ancient Dane\" .  Captain Good is also described in glowing terms, but is set up as a foil for Quatermain.  Whereas Quatermain is a rough product of the hunting and trading life, Good is a \"gentleman,\" a Royal Navy officer.  To Quatermain, Naval officers are of a higher caliber than ordinary men, and Good is a proper officer.  Good's fastidiousness, which will play a larger  part in their later adventures, is hinted at by Quatermain: \"He was so very neat and so very clean shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye\" . In telling the legend of King Solomon's diamond mines, Haggard makes several uses of creative verisimilitude to firmly entrench the reader in the reality of this amazing tale.  Quatermain tells the legend of the Mines rather than Good or Sir Henry, thus leading the reader into an automatic acceptance of the tale. Quatermain recounts the tale as he has heard it from others, lending a sense of history to the account, while various editorial details support the reality of the story, such as a Spanish-language \"original\" of Jose da Silvestra's letter and the footnote that \"Suliman\" is Arabic for \"Solomon.\" Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good offer Quatermain the traditional \"call to adventure\" of many heroic quest stories.  Curtis draws out of Quatermain his acquaintance with Neville, Curtis' brother, and the desperate plight the older brother must be in.  Good evokes Quatermain's sense of honor and adventure in focusing on the need to rescue a fellow man  or aid a fellow man , but also by bringing the riches of King Solomon's Mines to the fore.  Quatermain, in true heroic tradition, is reluctant to join the quest immediately, but sets some conditions evocative of Odysseus  before he will consider the matter."}
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 Ventvoegel'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 known 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
hair hung down their backs. As I looked at my friend standing there by
the companion-ladder, I thought that if he only let his grow a little,
put one of those chain shirts on to his great shoulders, and took hold
of a battle-axe and a horn mug, he might have sat as a model for that
picture. And by the way it is a curious thing, and just shows how the
blood will out, I discovered afterwards that Sir Henry Curtis, for that
was the big man's name, is of Danish blood.[1] He also reminded me
strongly of somebody else, but at the time I could not remember who it
was.

The other man, who stood talking to Sir Henry, was stout and dark, and
of quite a different cut. I suspected at once that he was a naval
officer; I don't know why, but it is difficult to mistake a navy man. I
have gone shooting trips with several of them in the course of my life,
and they have always proved themselves the best and bravest and nicest
fellows I ever met, though sadly given, some of them, to the use of
profane language. I asked a page or two back, what is a gentleman? I'll
answer the question now: A Royal Naval officer is, in a general sort of
way, though of course there may be a black sheep among them here and
there. I fancy it is just the wide seas and the breath of God's winds
that wash their hearts and blow the bitterness out of their minds and
make them what men ought to be.

Well, to return, I proved right again; I ascertained that the dark man
_was_ a naval officer, a lieutenant of thirty-one, who, after seventeen
years' service, had been turned out of her Majesty's employ with the
barren honour of a commander's rank, because it was impossible that he
should be promoted. This is what people who serve the Queen have to
expect: to be shot out into the cold world to find a living just when
they are beginning really to understand their work, and to reach the
prime of life. I suppose they don't mind it, but for my own part I had
rather earn my bread as a hunter. One's halfpence are as scarce
perhaps, but you do not get so many kicks.

The officer's name I found out--by referring to the passengers'
lists--was Good--Captain John Good. He was broad, of medium height,
dark, stout, and rather a curious man to look at. He was so very neat
and so very clean-shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right
eye. It seemed to grow there, for it had no string, and he never took
it out except to wipe it. At first I thought he used to sleep in it,
but afterwards I found that this was a mistake. He put it in his
trousers pocket when he went to bed, together with his false teeth, of
which he had two beautiful sets that, my own being none of the best,
have often caused me to break the tenth commandment. But I am
anticipating.

Soon after we had got under way evening closed in, and brought with it
very dirty weather. A keen breeze sprung up off land, and a kind of
aggravated Scotch mist soon drove everybody from the deck. As for the
_Dunkeld_, she is a flat-bottomed punt, and going up light as she was,
she rolled very heavily. It almost seemed as though she would go right
over, but she never did. It was quite impossible to walk about, so I
stood near the engines where it was warm, and amused myself with
watching the pendulum, which was fixed opposite to me, swinging slowly
backwards and forwards as the vessel rolled, and marking the angle she
touched at each lurch.

"That pendulum's wrong; it is not properly weighted," suddenly said a
somewhat testy voice at my shoulder. Looking round I saw the naval
officer whom I had noticed when the passengers came aboard.

"Indeed, now what makes you think so?" I asked.

"Think so. I don't think at all. Why there"--as she righted herself
after a roll--"if the ship had really rolled to the degree that thing
pointed to, then she would never have rolled again, that's all. But it
is just like these merchant skippers, they are always so confoundedly
careless."

Just then the dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a
dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when
he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to
hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of officers of the
Royal Navy.

Captain Good and I went down to dinner together, and there we found Sir
Henry Curtis already seated. He and Captain Good were placed together,
and I sat opposite to them. The captain and I soon fell into talk about
shooting and what not; he asking me many questions, for he is very
inquisitive about all sorts of things, and I answering them as well as
I could. Presently he got on to elephants.

"Ah, sir," called out somebody who was sitting near me, "you've reached
the right man for that; Hunter Quatermain should be able to tell you
about elephants if anybody can."

Sir Henry, who had been sitting quite quiet listening to our talk,
started visibly.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, leaning forward across the table, and
speaking in a low deep voice, a very suitable voice, it seemed to me,
to come out of those great lungs. "Excuse me, sir, but is your name
Allan Quatermain?"

I said that it was.

The big man made no further remark, but I heard him mutter "fortunate"
into his beard.

Presently dinner came to an end, and as we were leaving the saloon Sir
Henry strolled up and asked me if I would come into his cabin to smoke
a pipe. I accepted, and he led the way to the _Dunkeld_ deck cabin, and
a very good cabin it is. It had been two cabins, but when Sir Garnet
Wolseley or one of those big swells went down the coast in the
_Dunkeld_, they knocked away the partition and have never put it up
again. There was a sofa in the cabin, and a little table in front of
it. Sir Henry sent the steward for a bottle of whisky, and the three of
us sat down and lit our pipes.

"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry Curtis, when the man had brought the
whisky and lit the lamp, "the year before last about this time, you
were, I believe, at a place called Bamangwato, to the north of the
Transvaal."

"I was," I answered, rather surprised that this gentleman should be so
well acquainted with my movements, which were not, so far as I was
aware, considered of general interest.

"You were trading there, were you not?" put in Captain Good, in his
quick way.

"I was. I took up a wagon-load of goods, made a camp outside the
settlement, and stopped till I had sold them."

Sir Henry was sitting opposite to me in a Madeira chair, his arms
leaning on the table. He now looked up, fixing his large grey eyes full
upon my face. There was a curious anxiety in them, I thought.

"Did you happen to meet a man called Neville there?"

"Oh, yes; he outspanned alongside of me for a fortnight to rest his
oxen before going on to the interior. I had a letter from a lawyer a
few months back, asking me if I knew what had become of him, which I
answered to the best of my ability at the time."

"Yes," said Sir Henry, "your letter was forwarded to me. You said in it
that the gentleman called Neville left Bamangwato at the beginning of
May in a wagon with a driver, a voorlooper, and a Kafir hunter called
Jim, announcing his intention of trekking if possible as far as Inyati,
the extreme trading post in the Matabele country, where he would sell
his wagon and proceed on foot. You also said that he did sell his
wagon, for six months afterwards you saw the wagon in the possession of
a Portuguese trader, who told you that he had bought it at Inyati from
a white man whose name he had forgotten, and that he believed the white
man with the native servant had started off for the interior on a
shooting trip."

"Yes."

Then came a pause.

"Mr. Quatermain," said Sir Henry suddenly, "I suppose you know or can
guess nothing more of the reasons of my--of Mr. Neville's journey to
the northward, or as to what point that journey was directed?"

"I heard something," I answered, and stopped. The subject was one which
I did not care to discuss.

Sir Henry and Captain Good looked at each other, and Captain Good
nodded.

"Mr. Quatermain," went on the former, "I am going to tell you a story,
and ask your advice, and perhaps your assistance. The agent who
forwarded me your letter told me that I might rely on it implicitly, as
you were," he said, "well known and universally respected in Natal, and
especially noted for your discretion."

I bowed and drank some whisky and water to hide my confusion, for I am
a modest man--and Sir Henry went on.

"Mr. Neville was my brother."

"Oh," I said, starting, for now I knew of whom Sir Henry had reminded
me when first I saw him. His brother was a much smaller man and had a
dark beard, but now that I thought of it, he possessed eyes of the same
shade of grey and with the same keen look in them: the features too
were not unlike.

"He was," went on Sir Henry, "my only and younger brother, and till
five years ago I do not suppose that we were ever a month away from
each other. But just about five years ago a misfortune befell us, as
sometimes does happen in families. We quarrelled bitterly, and I
behaved unjustly to my brother in my anger."

Here Captain Good nodded his head vigorously to himself. The ship gave
a big roll just then, so that the looking-glass, which was fixed
opposite us to starboard, was for a moment nearly over our heads, and
as I was sitting with my hands in my pockets and staring upwards, I
could see him nodding like anything.

"As I daresay you know," went on Sir Henry, "if a man dies intestate,
and has no property but land, real property it is called in England, it
all descends to his eldest son. It so happened that just at the time
when we quarrelled our father died intestate. He had put off making his
will until it was too late. The result was that my brother, who had not
been brought up to any profession, was left without a penny. Of course
it would have been my duty to provide for him, but at the time the
quarrel between us was so bitter that I did not--to my shame I say it
(and he sighed deeply)--offer to do anything. It was not that I grudged
him justice, but I waited for him to make advances, and he made none. I
am sorry to trouble you with all this, Mr. Quatermain, but I must to
make things clear, eh, Good?"

"Quite so, quite so," said the captain. "Mr. Quatermain will, I am
sure, keep this history to himself."

"Of course," said I, for I rather pride myself on my discretion, for
which, as Sir Henry had heard, I have some repute.

"Well," went on Sir Henry, "my brother had a few hundred pounds to his
account at the time. Without saying anything to me he drew out this
paltry sum, and, having adopted the name of Neville, started off for
South Africa in the wild hope of making a fortune. This I learned
afterwards. Some three years passed, and I heard nothing of my brother,
though I wrote several times. Doubtless the letters never reached him.
But as time went on I grew more and more troubled about him. I found
out, Mr. Quatermain, that blood is thicker than water."

"That's true," said I, thinking of my boy Harry.

"I found out, Mr. Quatermain, that I would have given half my fortune
to know that my brother George, the only relation I possess, was safe
and well, and that I should see him again."

"But you never did, Curtis," jerked out Captain Good, glancing at the
big man's face.

"Well, Mr. Quatermain, as time went on I became more and more anxious
to find out if my brother was alive or dead, and if alive to get him
home again. I set enquiries on foot, and your letter was one of the
results. So far as it went it was satisfactory, for it showed that till
lately George was alive, but it did not go far enough. So, to cut a
long story short, I made up my mind to come out and look for him
myself, and Captain Good was so kind as to come with me."

"Yes," said the captain; "nothing else to do, you see. Turned out by my
Lords of the Admiralty to starve on half pay. And now perhaps, sir, you
will tell us what you know or have heard of the gentleman called
Neville."


[1] Mr. Quatermain's ideas about ancient Danes seem to be rather
confused; we have always understood that they were dark-haired people.
Probably he was thinking of Saxons.--Editor.



Chapter 1
Allan Quatermain opens his account by giving his reasons for recording it: first, because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good have asked him; second, because he is recuperating from a lion attack which has injured his leg, and has nothing else to do; third, to entertain his son Harry, who is studying medicine in London; and fourth, because it is a strange tale and deserves to be told. After some minor digressions, Quatermain explains how he was aboard the Dunkeld and met Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good. The two men know of Quatermain from his reputation as an elephant hunter. Sir Henry inquires as to Quatermain's knowledge of the legendary mines of King Solomon and of a man named Neville, whom Sir Henry reveals is his brother
Allan Quatermain presents himself as a man of experience, "fifty-five last birthday," who has only now begun an attempt at writing down his personal history.  Haggard thereby establishes Quatermain as the first-person narrator, but one who is uncouth with the pen.  In contrast to the prevalent novels of the time, Haggard's narrator is unschooled: "At an age when other boys are at school, I was earning my living as a trader in the old Colony" .  This fact signals the reader that the tale which follows will not be a drawing-room romance, but the account of a man's own wild adventures.  Haggard himself had lived in South Africa, and it is his detail concerning the setting which lends more credence to Quatermain's account.  The "untutored narrator" is also a convention that allows Haggard to make mistakes in his rush to write  while blaming any stylistic errors on the narrator's unlettered past.  At times throughout the narrative, and especially here in the first chapter, Quatermain rambles and meanders off-topic briefly in his account, lending a more friendly tone to the narrative than could be found in many of the novels of manners available to readers of the time. In addition, Quatermain mentions the only two literary works he has spent any time reading, the Ingoldsby Legends and the Old Testament, thereby foreshadowing both his frequent allusions to both works, and his own adventures in a world lost to a distant past. Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good are also introduced in this first chapter.  Sir Henry at first seems familiar to Quatermain, a fact borne out by Quatermain's earlier acquaintance with Sir Henry's brother.  Sir Henry is described in heroic terms by Quatermain as "one of the biggest-chested and longest-armed men I eve saw" .  He goes on to say that Sir Henry "reminded me of an ancient Dane" .  Captain Good is also described in glowing terms, but is set up as a foil for Quatermain.  Whereas Quatermain is a rough product of the hunting and trading life, Good is a "gentleman," a Royal Navy officer.  To Quatermain, Naval officers are of a higher caliber than ordinary men, and Good is a proper officer.  Good's fastidiousness, which will play a larger  part in their later adventures, is hinted at by Quatermain: "He was so very neat and so very clean shaved, and he always wore an eye-glass in his right eye" . In telling the legend of King Solomon's diamond mines, Haggard makes several uses of creative verisimilitude to firmly entrench the reader in the reality of this amazing tale.  Quatermain tells the legend of the Mines rather than Good or Sir Henry, thus leading the reader into an automatic acceptance of the tale. Quatermain recounts the tale as he has heard it from others, lending a sense of history to the account, while various editorial details support the reality of the story, such as a Spanish-language "original" of Jose da Silvestra's letter and the footnote that "Suliman" is Arabic for "Solomon." Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good offer Quatermain the traditional "call to adventure" of many heroic quest stories.  Curtis draws out of Quatermain his acquaintance with Neville, Curtis' brother, and the desperate plight the older brother must be in.  Good evokes Quatermain's sense of honor and adventure in focusing on the need to rescue a fellow man  or aid a fellow man , but also by bringing the riches of King Solomon's Mines to the fore.  Quatermain, in true heroic tradition, is reluctant to join the quest immediately, but sets some conditions evocative of Odysseus  before he will consider the matter.