finished_summaries/gradesaver/King Solomon's Mines/section_3_part_2.txt
King Solomon's Mines.chapter 6
chapter 6
{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200804024551/https://www.gradesaver.com/king-solomons-mines/study-guide/summary-chapters-5-and-6", "summary": "Quatermain awakens two hours after falling into his miserable sleep. His body slightly refreshed, his thirst returns to the forefront of his thoughts. He recounts a dream of bathing in a stream surrounded by greenery, only to awaken to his present harsh reality. Already becoming desiccated from the dryness, Quatermain attempts to take his mind off of his suffering by reading, but only manages to frustrate himself further as he reads a passage detailing pure water. The others awaken and as a group assess their situation, as not a drop of water remains among them. In the midst of their collective despair, Ventvogel arises and begins searching the ground with his eyes. He stoops and cries out, pointing at something he sees: \"Springbok spoor\" he explains. Springboks do not go far from water. Heartened by this evidence of nearby water, the party marches in the direction of the alleged oasis on Silvestra's old map. Ventvogel claims he can smell water, but the others put no stock in his senses. As the sun arises, the travelers are able to see for the first time the reality of the Sulemin Mountains, \"Sheba's Breasts\" as described by old Silvestre. Though far away, the sight of the two mountains encourages the party as to the accuracy of Silvestre's account; furthermore, they can see snow atop the mountains and, while it is too far away to do them good at present, it promises a fresh supply of water should they make their way to the peaks. Nonetheless, the members of the expedition return to their burning thirst and call Ventvogel a fool for claiming to smell water nearby. Sir Henry suggests they might find water atop a nearby hill; despite the scorn of the others, Quatermain despairingly suggests they follow up on Sir Henry's hunch. Umbopa leads the way and finds a dirty pool of water atop the hill. The men drink their fill and moisten their dried skin in the pool, then refill their canteens for the journey ahead. They eat some of their rations for the first time in twenty-four hours and relax for a while. After resting all day in the shade of the hill, the expedition continues its terrible trek through the desert. They reach \"Sheba's left breast\" and begin to ascend the mountain. By this time their water supply is again nonexistent, which only adds to their frustration as the walking has become more difficult over the dried lava that covers the base of the dormant volcano. Umbopa discovers a source of temporary relief: a crop of wild melons, ripe and ready to eat. The men feast on the melons, but find them more refreshing to their thirst than to their hungry stomachs. They soon begin to believe they have escaped death by thirst only to die of hunger. Ventvogel spots a flock of birds , and Quatermain expertly shoots one from the sky. The men start a fire with dried melon stems and cook the bird for dinner. The party awaits the rising of the moon to continue their ascent, and does so refreshed but still somewhat hopeless. They see no further game and fewer melons, so food shortage again becomes a concern. They are also unable to determine why, with the snow above them on the volcanic mountain, there are no streams flowing down. Quatermain remarks on his fear of starvation in his journal, dated May 21-23. He resumes his narration of events on the 23rd, when they espy a dark hole in the snow far above them. Heading toward it, they ascertain it is the opening to a cave--the very cave mentioned by Silvestre. The men make for the cave and arrive just as the sun sets and plunges the mountain into darkness. In the cold and dark, the men huddle together in the cave for warmth. During the night Quatermain hears Ventvogel, who is sitting back-to-back with the elephant hunter, give a dismal sigh. He thinks nothing of it until the morning, when he discovers that Ventvogel has died in his sleep. The remaining men are saddened, but wish to leave the company of the dead man. The sun rises, lighting the cave and giving the men a view which terrifies them: at the end of the cave sits another dead man--a dead white man. They flee the cave in fear", "analysis": "The conflict between Quatermain's expectations of Zulu assistants and Umbopa's self-assured nature develops further in this chapter.  When Umbopa addresses Sir Henry familiarly as \"Incubu,\" Quatermain \"asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that familiar way\" .  Umbopa's laugh at Quatermain's rebuke only serves to anger the hunter; this anger is compounded when Umbopa tells Quatermain, \"He  is of a royal house...so, mayhap, am I.  At least I am as great a man\" .  Nonetheless, Quatermain is impressed by Umbopa's demeanor and continues to translate his words to Sir Henry out of curiousity.  Haggard here distances himself from Quatermain's racism by setting the character up to be wrong about Umbopa--his heritage will be revealed as royal indeed--thus calling into question Quatermain's prejudices.  Nonetheless, even Haggard's expression of equanimity is tempered by the requirement that the African treated as equal to a white man be of noble heritage. The author also indulges in some humor at the expense of his protagonist.  When the desert march has become harsh and wearying, all forms of wildlife are gone save for the occasional cobra and the numerous house flies.  Quatermain says, \"They came, 'not as single spies, but in battalsions,' as I think the Old Testament says somewhere\" .  Quatermain is clearly quoting Hamlet, but gets the citation wrong; thus Quatermain is revealed to be a man who has read  more than his aforementioned two works, but who is also somewhat ignorant of his own Bible.  The inadvertent placing of Shakespeare's greatest play on a par with Holy Scripture may also be a subtle dig at English attitudes toward their own culture. Haggard also engages in some convincing verisimilitude by listing the weapons and supplies the party gathers for their expedition--a list which spans several paragraphs .  By giving such detail, and by further keeping account of the items which are used up, destroyed, or go missing, Haggard grounds his tale in solid reality. In her article \"'As Europe is to Africa, So is Man to Woman': Gendering Landscape in Rider Haggard's Nada the Lily,\" Lindy Steibel notes, \"It appears that unconsciously Haggard projected a good deal of his latent sexual desire and that of his age, which was one of determined public prudery, onto his feminized African landscapes\" .  It is difficult to contradict Steibel with Haggard's description of the mountains known as Sheba's Breasts: \"Their bases swelled gently up from the plain, looking, at that distance, perfectly round and smooth; and on the top of each was a vast round hillock covered with snow, exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast\" .  Unconscious or not, Haggard certainly means to evoke the feminine form in his description of this landscape; Sheba's Breasts become the destination for the immediate leg of the journey, and the gateway into the unknown land of the Kukuanas; this latter bespeaks a connection between the feminine and the mysterious and hidden, here positively in contrast to the negative feminine mystique of Gagool later in the novel. Quatermain's insistent pessimism is brought to the fore in this chapter, as he expects to die of exposure long before their journey nears its goal.  When Ventvogel claims to smell water, Quatermain replies, \"No doubt it is in the coulds and about two months hence it will fall and wash our bones\" .  Quatermain's pessimism, here as elsewhere, is misplaced--the men do indeed find water and survive to carry on their expedition. Haggard pares the traveling party down further with the death of Ventvogel.  The Hottentot's death by freezing serves to highlight the dangers in the journey--and to signify that not all dangers come from wild animals--and to deprive the group of their best tracker, thus making their situation more dire.  Compounding this sense of dread is their discovery of the other dead body in the cave, the sight of which frightens all the men into a panic.  To see the remnants of another traveler only heightens the party's fear of failing in their quest."}
Two hours later, that is, about four o'clock, I woke up, for so soon as
the first heavy demand of bodily fatigue had been satisfied, the
torturing thirst from which I was suffering asserted itself. I could
sleep no more. I had been dreaming that I was bathing in a running
stream, with green banks and trees upon them, and I awoke to find
myself in this arid wilderness, and to remember, as Umbopa had said,
that if we did not find water this day we must perish miserably. No
human creature could live long without water in that heat. I sat up and
rubbed my grimy face with my dry and horny hands, as my lips and
eyelids were stuck together, and it was only after some friction and
with an effort that I was able to open them. It was not far from dawn,
but there was none of the bright feel of dawn in the air, which was
thick with a hot murkiness that I cannot describe. The others were
still sleeping.

Presently it began to grow light enough to read, so I drew out a little
pocket copy of the "Ingoldsby Legends" which I had brought with me, and
read "The Jackdaw of Rheims." When I got to where

  "A nice little boy held a golden ewer,
  Embossed, and filled with water as pure
  As any that flows between Rheims and Namur,"

literally I smacked my cracking lips, or rather tried to smack them.
The mere thought of that pure water made me mad. If the Cardinal had
been there with his bell, book, and candle, I would have whipped in and
drunk his water up; yes, even if he had filled it already with the suds
of soap "worthy of washing the hands of the Pope," and I knew that the
whole consecrated curse of the Catholic Church should fall upon me for
so doing. I almost think that I must have been a little light-headed
with thirst, weariness and the want of food; for I fell to thinking how
astonished the Cardinal and his nice little boy and the jackdaw would
have looked to see a burnt up, brown-eyed, grizzly-haired little
elephant hunter suddenly bound between them, put his dirty face into
the basin, and swallow every drop of the precious water. The idea
amused me so much that I laughed or rather cackled aloud, which woke
the others, and they began to rub _their_ dirty faces and drag _their_
gummed-up lips and eyelids apart.

As soon as we were all well awake we began to discuss the situation,
which was serious enough. Not a drop of water was left. We turned the
bottles upside down, and licked their tops, but it was a failure; they
were dry as a bone. Good, who had charge of the flask of brandy, got it
out and looked at it longingly; but Sir Henry promptly took it away
from him, for to drink raw spirit would only have been to precipitate
the end.

"If we do not find water we shall die," he said.

"If we can trust to the old Dom's map there should be some about," I
said; but nobody seemed to derive much satisfaction from this remark.
It was so evident that no great faith could be put in the map. Now it
was gradually growing light, and as we sat staring blankly at each
other, I observed the Hottentot Ventvoegel rise and begin to walk about
with his eyes on the ground. Presently he stopped short, and uttering a
guttural exclamation, pointed to the earth.

"What is it?" we exclaimed; and rising simultaneously we went to where
he was standing staring at the sand.

"Well," I said, "it is fresh Springbok spoor; what of it?"

"Springbucks do not go far from water," he answered in Dutch.

"No," I answered, "I forgot; and thank God for it."

This little discovery put new life into us; for it is wonderful, when a
man is in a desperate position, how he catches at the slightest hope,
and feels almost happy. On a dark night a single star is better than
nothing.

Meanwhile Ventvoegel was lifting his snub nose, and sniffing the hot air
for all the world like an old Impala ram who scents danger. Presently
he spoke again.

"I _smell_ water," he said.

Then we felt quite jubilant, for we knew what a wonderful instinct
these wild-bred men possess.

Just at that moment the sun came up gloriously, and revealed so grand a
sight to our astonished eyes that for a moment or two we even forgot
our thirst.

There, not more than forty or fifty miles from us, glittering like
silver in the early rays of the morning sun, soared Sheba's Breasts;
and stretching away for hundreds of miles on either side of them ran
the great Suliman Berg. Now that, sitting here, I attempt to describe
the extraordinary grandeur and beauty of that sight, language seems to
fail me. I am impotent even before its memory. Straight before us, rose
two enormous mountains, the like of which are not, I believe, to be
seen in Africa, if indeed there are any other such in the world,
measuring each of them at least fifteen thousand feet in height,
standing not more than a dozen miles apart, linked together by a
precipitous cliff of rock, and towering in awful white solemnity
straight into the sky. These mountains placed thus, like the pillars of
a gigantic gateway, are shaped after the fashion of a woman's breasts,
and at times the mists and shadows beneath them take the form of a
recumbent woman, veiled mysteriously in sleep. Their bases swell gently
from the plain, looking at that distance perfectly round and smooth;
and upon the top of each is a vast hillock covered with snow, exactly
corresponding to the nipple on the female breast. The stretch of cliff
that connects them appears to be some thousands of feet in height, and
perfectly precipitous, and on each flank of them, so far as the eye can
reach, extent similar lines of cliff, broken only here and there by
flat table-topped mountains, something like the world-famed one at Cape
Town; a formation, by the way, that is very common in Africa.

To describe the comprehensive grandeur of that view is beyond my
powers. There was something so inexpressibly solemn and overpowering
about those huge volcanoes--for doubtless they are extinct
volcanoes--that it quite awed us. For a while the morning lights played
upon the snow and the brown and swelling masses beneath, and then, as
though to veil the majestic sight from our curious eyes, strange
vapours and clouds gathered and increased around the mountains, till
presently we could only trace their pure and gigantic outlines, showing
ghostlike through the fleecy envelope. Indeed, as we afterwards
discovered, usually they were wrapped in this gauze-like mist, which
doubtless accounted for our not having seen them more clearly before.

Sheba's Breasts had scarcely vanished into cloud-clad privacy, before
our thirst--literally a burning question--reasserted itself.

It was all very well for Ventvoegel to say that he smelt water, but we
could see no signs of it, look which way we would. So far as the eye
might reach there was nothing but arid sweltering sand and karoo scrub.
We walked round the hillock and gazed about anxiously on the other
side, but it was the same story, not a drop of water could be found;
there was no indication of a pan, a pool, or a spring.

"You are a fool," I said angrily to Ventvoegel; "there is no water."

But still he lifted his ugly snub nose and sniffed.

"I smell it, Baas," he answered; "it is somewhere in the air."

"Yes," I said, "no doubt it is in the clouds, and about two months
hence it will fall and wash our bones."

Sir Henry stroked his yellow beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it is on the
top of the hill," he suggested.

"Rot," said Good; "whoever heard of water being found at the top of a
hill!"

"Let us go and look," I put in, and hopelessly enough we scrambled up
the sandy sides of the hillock, Umbopa leading. Presently he stopped as
though he was petrified.

"_Nanzia manzie_!" that is, "Here is water!" he cried with a loud voice.

We rushed up to him, and there, sure enough, in a deep cut or
indentation on the very top of the sand koppie, was an undoubted pool
of water. How it came to be in such a strange place we did not stop to
inquire, nor did we hesitate at its black and unpleasant appearance. It
was water, or a good imitation of it, and that was enough for us. We
gave a bound and a rush, and in another second we were all down on our
stomachs sucking up the uninviting fluid as though it were nectar fit
for the gods. Heavens, how we did drink! Then when we had done drinking
we tore off our clothes and sat down in the pool, absorbing the
moisture through our parched skins. You, Harry, my boy, who have only
to turn on a couple of taps to summon "hot" and "cold" from an unseen,
vasty cistern, can have little idea of the luxury of that muddy wallow
in brackish tepid water.

After a while we rose from it, refreshed indeed, and fell to on our
"biltong," of which we had scarcely been able to touch a mouthful for
twenty-four hours, and ate our fill. Then we smoked a pipe, and lay
down by the side of that blessed pool, under the overhanging shadow of
its bank, and slept till noon.

All that day we rested there by the water, thanking our stars that we
had been lucky enough to find it, bad as it was, and not forgetting to
render a due share of gratitude to the shade of the long-departed da
Silvestra, who had set its position down so accurately on the tail of
his shirt. The wonderful thing to us was that the pan should have
lasted so long, and the only way in which I can account for this is on
the supposition that it is fed by some spring deep down in the sand.

Having filled both ourselves and our water-bottles as full as possible,
in far better spirits we started off again with the moon. That night we
covered nearly five-and-twenty miles; but, needless to say, found no
more water, though we were lucky enough the following day to get a
little shade behind some ant-heaps. When the sun rose, and, for awhile,
cleared away the mysterious mists, Suliman's Berg with the two majestic
Breasts, now only about twenty miles off, seemed to be towering right
above us, and looked grander than ever. At the approach of evening we
marched again, and, to cut a long story short, by daylight next morning
found ourselves upon the lowest slopes of Sheba's left breast, for
which we had been steadily steering. By this time our water was
exhausted once more, and we were suffering severely from thirst, nor
indeed could we see any chance of relieving it till we reached the snow
line far, far above us. After resting an hour or two, driven to it by
our torturing thirst, we went on, toiling painfully in the burning heat
up the lava slopes, for we found that the huge base of the mountain was
composed entirely of lava beds belched from the bowels of the earth in
some far past age.

By eleven o'clock we were utterly exhausted, and, generally speaking,
in a very bad state indeed. The lava clinker, over which we must drag
ourselves, though smooth compared with some clinker I have heard of,
such as that on the Island of Ascension, for instance, was yet rough
enough to make our feet very sore, and this, together with our other
miseries, had pretty well finished us. A few hundred yards above us
were some large lumps of lava, and towards these we steered with the
intention of lying down beneath their shade. We reached them, and to
our surprise, so far as we had a capacity for surprise left in us, on a
little plateau or ridge close by we saw that the clinker was covered
with a dense green growth. Evidently soil formed of decomposed lava had
rested there, and in due course had become the receptacle of seeds
deposited by birds. But we did not take much further interest in the
green growth, for one cannot live on grass like Nebuchadnezzar. That
requires a special dispensation of Providence and peculiar digestive
organs.

So we sat down under the rocks and groaned, and for one I wished
heartily that we had never started on this fool's errand. As we were
sitting there I saw Umbopa get up and hobble towards the patch of
green, and a few minutes afterwards, to my great astonishment, I
perceived that usually very dignified individual dancing and shouting
like a maniac, and waving something green. Off we all scrambled towards
him as fast as our wearied limbs would carry us, hoping that he had
found water.

"What is it, Umbopa, son of a fool?" I shouted in Zulu.

"It is food and water, Macumazahn," and again he waved the green thing.

Then I saw what he had found. It was a melon. We had hit upon a patch
of wild melons, thousands of them, and dead ripe.

"Melons!" I yelled to Good, who was next me; and in another minute his
false teeth were fixed in one of them.

I think we ate about six each before we had done, and poor fruit as
they were, I doubt if I ever thought anything nicer.

But melons are not very nutritious, and when we had satisfied our
thirst with their pulpy substance, and put a stock to cool by the
simple process of cutting them in two and setting them end on in the
hot sun to grow cold by evaporation, we began to feel exceedingly
hungry. We had still some biltong left, but our stomachs turned from
biltong, and besides, we were obliged to be very sparing of it, for we
could not say when we should find more food. Just at this moment a
lucky thing chanced. Looking across the desert I saw a flock of about
ten large birds flying straight towards us.

"_Skit, Baas, skit!_" "Shoot, master, shoot!" whispered the Hottentot,
throwing himself on his face, an example which we all followed.

Then I saw that the birds were a flock of _pauw_ or bustards, and that
they would pass within fifty yards of my head. Taking one of the
repeating Winchesters, I waited till they were nearly over us, and then
jumped to my feet. On seeing me the _pauw_ bunched up together, as I
expected that they would, and I fired two shots straight into the thick
of them, and, as luck would have it, brought one down, a fine fellow,
that weighed about twenty pounds. In half an hour we had a fire made of
dry melon stalks, and he was toasting over it, and we made such a feed
as we had not tasted for a week. We ate that _pauw_; nothing was left
of him but his leg-bones and his beak, and we felt not a little the
better afterwards.

That night we went on again with the moon, carrying as many melons as
we could with us. As we ascended we found the air grew cooler and
cooler, which was a great relief to us, and at dawn, so far as we could
judge, we were not more than about a dozen miles from the snow line.
Here we discovered more melons, and so had no longer any anxiety about
water, for we knew that we should soon get plenty of snow. But the
ascent had now become very precipitous, and we made but slow progress,
not more than a mile an hour. Also that night we ate our last morsel of
biltong. As yet, with the exception of the _pauw_, we had seen no
living thing on the mountain, nor had we come across a single spring or
stream of water, which struck us as very odd, considering the expanse
of snow above us, which must, we thought, melt sometimes. But as we
afterwards discovered, owing to a cause which it is quite beyond my
power to explain, all the streams flowed down upon the north side of
the mountains.

Now we began to grow very anxious about food. We had escaped death by
thirst, but it seemed probable that it was only to die of hunger. The
events of the next three miserable days are best described by copying
the entries made at the time in my note-book.

"21st May.--Started 11 a.m., finding the atmosphere quite cold enough
to travel by day, and carrying some water-melons with us. Struggled on
all day, but found no more melons, having evidently passed out of their
district. Saw no game of any sort. Halted for the night at sundown,
having had no food for many hours. Suffered much during the night from
cold.

"22nd.--Started at sunrise again, feeling very faint and weak. Only
made about five miles all day; found some patches of snow, of which we
ate, but nothing else. Camped at night under the edge of a great
plateau. Cold bitter. Drank a little brandy each, and huddled ourselves
together, each wrapped up in his blanket, to keep ourselves alive. Are
now suffering frightfully from starvation and weariness. Thought that
Ventvoegel would have died during the night.

"23rd.--Struggled forward once more as soon as the sun was well up, and
had thawed our limbs a little. We are now in a dreadful plight, and I
fear that unless we get food this will be our last day's journey. But
little brandy left. Good, Sir Henry, and Umbopa bear up wonderfully,
but Ventvoegel is in a very bad way. Like most Hottentots, he cannot
stand cold. Pangs of hunger not so bad, but have a sort of numb feeling
about the stomach. Others say the same. We are now on a level with the
precipitous chain, or wall of lava, linking the two Breasts, and the
view is glorious. Behind us the glowing desert rolls away to the
horizon, and before us lie mile upon mile of smooth hard snow almost
level, but swelling gently upwards, out of the centre of which the
nipple of the mountain, that appears to be some miles in circumference,
rises about four thousand feet into the sky. Not a living thing is to
be seen. God help us; I fear that our time has come."

And now I will drop the journal, partly because it is not very
interesting reading; also what follows requires telling rather more
fully.

All that day--the 23rd May--we struggled slowly up the incline of snow,
lying down from time to time to rest. A strange gaunt crew we must have
looked, while, laden as we were, we dragged our weary feet over the
dazzling plain, glaring round us with hungry eyes. Not that there was
much use in glaring, for we could see nothing to eat. We did not
accomplish more than seven miles that day. Just before sunset we found
ourselves exactly under the nipple of Sheba's left Breast, which
towered thousands of feet into the air, a vast smooth hillock of frozen
snow. Weak as we were, we could not but appreciate the wonderful scene,
made even more splendid by the flying rays of light from the setting
sun, which here and there stained the snow blood-red, and crowned the
great dome above us with a diadem of glory.

"I say," gasped Good, presently, "we ought to be somewhere near that
cave the old gentleman wrote about."

"Yes," said I, "if there is a cave."

"Come, Quatermain," groaned Sir Henry, "don't talk like that; I have
every faith in the Dom; remember the water! We shall find the place
soon."

"If we don't find it before dark we are dead men, that is all about
it," was my consolatory reply.

For the next ten minutes we trudged in silence, when suddenly Umbopa,
who was marching along beside me, wrapped in his blanket, and with a
leather belt strapped so tightly round his stomach, to "make his hunger
small," as he said, that his waist looked like a girl's, caught me by
the arm.

"Look!" he said, pointing towards the springing slope of the nipple.

I followed his glance, and some two hundred yards from us perceived
what appeared to be a hole in the snow.

"It is the cave," said Umbopa.

We made the best of our way to the spot, and found sure enough that the
hole was the mouth of a cavern, no doubt the same as that of which da
Silvestra wrote. We were not too soon, for just as we reached shelter
the sun went down with startling rapidity, leaving the world nearly
dark, for in these latitudes there is but little twilight. So we crept
into the cave, which did not appear to be very big, and huddling
ourselves together for warmth, swallowed what remained of our
brandy--barely a mouthful each--and tried to forget our miseries in
sleep. But the cold was too intense to allow us to do so, for I am
convinced that at this great altitude the thermometer cannot have
marked less than fourteen or fifteen degrees below freezing point. What
such a temperature meant to us, enervated as we were by hardship, want
of food, and the great heat of the desert, the reader may imagine
better than I can describe. Suffice it to say that it was something as
near death from exposure as I have ever felt. There we sat hour after
hour through the still and bitter night, feeling the frost wander round
and nip us now in the finger, now in the foot, now in the face. In vain
did we huddle up closer and closer; there was no warmth in our
miserable starved carcases. Sometimes one of us would drop into an
uneasy slumber for a few minutes, but we could not sleep much, and
perhaps this was fortunate, for if we had I doubt if we should have
ever woke again. Indeed, I believe that it was only by force of will
that we kept ourselves alive at all.

Not very long before dawn I heard the Hottentot Ventvoegel, whose teeth
had been chattering all night like castanets, give a deep sigh. Then
his teeth stopped chattering. I did not think anything of it at the
time, concluding that he had gone to sleep. His back was resting
against mine, and it seemed to grow colder and colder, till at last it
felt like ice.

At length the air began to grow grey with light, then golden arrows
sped across the snow, and at last the glorious sun peeped above the
lava wall and looked in upon our half-frozen forms. Also it looked upon
Ventvoegel, sitting there amongst us, _stone dead_. No wonder his back
felt cold, poor fellow. He had died when I heard him sigh, and was now
frozen almost stiff. Shocked beyond measure, we dragged ourselves from
the corpse--how strange is that horror we mortals have of the
companionship of a dead body--and left it sitting there, its arms
clasped about its knees.

By this time the sunlight was pouring its cold rays, for here they were
cold, straight into the mouth of the cave. Suddenly I heard an
exclamation of fear from someone, and turned my head.

And this is what I saw: Sitting at the end of the cavern--it was not
more than twenty feet long--was another form, of which the head rested
on its chest and the long arms hung down. I stared at it, and saw that
this too was a _dead man_, and, what was more, a white man.

The others saw also, and the sight proved too much for our shattered
nerves. One and all we scrambled out of the cave as fast as our
half-frozen limbs would carry us.



Chapter 6
Quatermain awakens two hours after falling into his miserable sleep. His body slightly refreshed, his thirst returns to the forefront of his thoughts. He recounts a dream of bathing in a stream surrounded by greenery, only to awaken to his present harsh reality. Already becoming desiccated from the dryness, Quatermain attempts to take his mind off of his suffering by reading, but only manages to frustrate himself further as he reads a passage detailing pure water. The others awaken and as a group assess their situation, as not a drop of water remains among them. In the midst of their collective despair, Ventvogel arises and begins searching the ground with his eyes. He stoops and cries out, pointing at something he sees: "Springbok spoor" he explains. Springboks do not go far from water. Heartened by this evidence of nearby water, the party marches in the direction of the alleged oasis on Silvestra's old map. Ventvogel claims he can smell water, but the others put no stock in his senses. As the sun arises, the travelers are able to see for the first time the reality of the Sulemin Mountains, "Sheba's Breasts" as described by old Silvestre. Though far away, the sight of the two mountains encourages the party as to the accuracy of Silvestre's account; furthermore, they can see snow atop the mountains and, while it is too far away to do them good at present, it promises a fresh supply of water should they make their way to the peaks. Nonetheless, the members of the expedition return to their burning thirst and call Ventvogel a fool for claiming to smell water nearby. Sir Henry suggests they might find water atop a nearby hill; despite the scorn of the others, Quatermain despairingly suggests they follow up on Sir Henry's hunch. Umbopa leads the way and finds a dirty pool of water atop the hill. The men drink their fill and moisten their dried skin in the pool, then refill their canteens for the journey ahead. They eat some of their rations for the first time in twenty-four hours and relax for a while. After resting all day in the shade of the hill, the expedition continues its terrible trek through the desert. They reach "Sheba's left breast" and begin to ascend the mountain. By this time their water supply is again nonexistent, which only adds to their frustration as the walking has become more difficult over the dried lava that covers the base of the dormant volcano. Umbopa discovers a source of temporary relief: a crop of wild melons, ripe and ready to eat. The men feast on the melons, but find them more refreshing to their thirst than to their hungry stomachs. They soon begin to believe they have escaped death by thirst only to die of hunger. Ventvogel spots a flock of birds , and Quatermain expertly shoots one from the sky. The men start a fire with dried melon stems and cook the bird for dinner. The party awaits the rising of the moon to continue their ascent, and does so refreshed but still somewhat hopeless. They see no further game and fewer melons, so food shortage again becomes a concern. They are also unable to determine why, with the snow above them on the volcanic mountain, there are no streams flowing down. Quatermain remarks on his fear of starvation in his journal, dated May 21-23. He resumes his narration of events on the 23rd, when they espy a dark hole in the snow far above them. Heading toward it, they ascertain it is the opening to a cave--the very cave mentioned by Silvestre. The men make for the cave and arrive just as the sun sets and plunges the mountain into darkness. In the cold and dark, the men huddle together in the cave for warmth. During the night Quatermain hears Ventvogel, who is sitting back-to-back with the elephant hunter, give a dismal sigh. He thinks nothing of it until the morning, when he discovers that Ventvogel has died in his sleep. The remaining men are saddened, but wish to leave the company of the dead man. The sun rises, lighting the cave and giving the men a view which terrifies them: at the end of the cave sits another dead man--a dead white man. They flee the cave in fear
The conflict between Quatermain's expectations of Zulu assistants and Umbopa's self-assured nature develops further in this chapter.  When Umbopa addresses Sir Henry familiarly as "Incubu," Quatermain "asked him sharply what he meant by addressing his master in that familiar way" .  Umbopa's laugh at Quatermain's rebuke only serves to anger the hunter; this anger is compounded when Umbopa tells Quatermain, "He  is of a royal house...so, mayhap, am I.  At least I am as great a man" .  Nonetheless, Quatermain is impressed by Umbopa's demeanor and continues to translate his words to Sir Henry out of curiousity.  Haggard here distances himself from Quatermain's racism by setting the character up to be wrong about Umbopa--his heritage will be revealed as royal indeed--thus calling into question Quatermain's prejudices.  Nonetheless, even Haggard's expression of equanimity is tempered by the requirement that the African treated as equal to a white man be of noble heritage. The author also indulges in some humor at the expense of his protagonist.  When the desert march has become harsh and wearying, all forms of wildlife are gone save for the occasional cobra and the numerous house flies.  Quatermain says, "They came, 'not as single spies, but in battalsions,' as I think the Old Testament says somewhere" .  Quatermain is clearly quoting Hamlet, but gets the citation wrong; thus Quatermain is revealed to be a man who has read  more than his aforementioned two works, but who is also somewhat ignorant of his own Bible.  The inadvertent placing of Shakespeare's greatest play on a par with Holy Scripture may also be a subtle dig at English attitudes toward their own culture. Haggard also engages in some convincing verisimilitude by listing the weapons and supplies the party gathers for their expedition--a list which spans several paragraphs .  By giving such detail, and by further keeping account of the items which are used up, destroyed, or go missing, Haggard grounds his tale in solid reality. In her article "'As Europe is to Africa, So is Man to Woman': Gendering Landscape in Rider Haggard's Nada the Lily," Lindy Steibel notes, "It appears that unconsciously Haggard projected a good deal of his latent sexual desire and that of his age, which was one of determined public prudery, onto his feminized African landscapes" .  It is difficult to contradict Steibel with Haggard's description of the mountains known as Sheba's Breasts: "Their bases swelled gently up from the plain, looking, at that distance, perfectly round and smooth; and on the top of each was a vast round hillock covered with snow, exactly corresponding to the nipple on the female breast" .  Unconscious or not, Haggard certainly means to evoke the feminine form in his description of this landscape; Sheba's Breasts become the destination for the immediate leg of the journey, and the gateway into the unknown land of the Kukuanas; this latter bespeaks a connection between the feminine and the mysterious and hidden, here positively in contrast to the negative feminine mystique of Gagool later in the novel. Quatermain's insistent pessimism is brought to the fore in this chapter, as he expects to die of exposure long before their journey nears its goal.  When Ventvogel claims to smell water, Quatermain replies, "No doubt it is in the coulds and about two months hence it will fall and wash our bones" .  Quatermain's pessimism, here as elsewhere, is misplaced--the men do indeed find water and survive to carry on their expedition. Haggard pares the traveling party down further with the death of Ventvogel.  The Hottentot's death by freezing serves to highlight the dangers in the journey--and to signify that not all dangers come from wild animals--and to deprive the group of their best tracker, thus making their situation more dire.  Compounding this sense of dread is their discovery of the other dead body in the cave, the sight of which frightens all the men into a panic.  To see the remnants of another traveler only heightens the party's fear of failing in their quest.