the Eternal. Human nature is God's kaleidoscope, and the little
bits of coloured glass which represent our passions, hopes, fears,
joys, aspirations towards good and evil and what not, are turned
in His
mighty hand as surely and as certainly as it turns the
stars, and
continually fall into new patterns and combinations.
But the composing elements remain the same, nor will there be
one more bit of coloured glass nor one less for ever and ever.
This being so, supposing for the sake of
argument we divide ourselves
into twenty parts, nineteen
savage and one
civilized, we must
look to the nineteen
savage portions of our nature, if we would
really understand ourselves, and not to the twentieth, which,
though so
insignificant in
reality, is spread all over the other
nineteen, making them appear quite different from what they really
are, as the blacking does a boot, or the veneer a table. It
is on the nineteen rough serviceable
savage portions that we
fall back on emergencies, not on the polished but unsubstantial
twentieth. Civilization should wipe away our tears, and yet
we weep and cannot be comforted. Warfare is abhorrent to her,
and yet we strike out for
hearth and home, for honour and fair
fame, and can glory in the blow. And so on, through everything.
So, when the heart is
stricken, and the head is humbled in the
dust,
civilization fails us utterly. Back, back, we creep, and
lay us like little children on the great breast of Nature, she
that
perchance may
soothe us and make us forget, or at least
rid
remembrance of its sting. Who has not in his great grief
felt a
longing to look upon the
outward features of the universal
Mother; to lie on the mountains and watch the clouds drive across
the sky and hear the rollers break in
thunder on the shore, to
let his poor struggling life
mingle for a while in her life;
to feel the slow beat of her
eternal heart, and to forget his
woes, and let his
identity be swallowed in the vast imperceptibly
moving
energy of her of whom we are, from whom we came, and with
whom we shall again be
mingled, who gave us birth, and will in
a day to come give us our burial also.
And so in my trouble, as I walked up and down the oak-panelled
vestibule of my house there in Yorkshire, I longed once more
to throw myself into the arms of Nature. Not the Nature which
you know, the Nature that waves in well-kept woods and smiles
out in corn-fields, but Nature as she was in the age when creation
was complete, undefiled as yet by any human sinks of sweltering
humanity. I would go again where the wild game was, back to
the land
whereof none know the history, back to the
savages,
whom I love, although some of them are almost as
merciless as
Political Economy. There, perhaps, I should be able to learn
to think of poor Harry lying in the
churchyard, without feeling
as though my heart would break in two.
And now there is an end of this egotistical talk, and there shall
be no more of it. But if you whose eyes may
perchance one day
fall upon my written thoughts have got so far as this, I ask
you to persevere, since what I have to tell you is not without
its interest, and it has never been told before, nor will again.
CHAPTER I
THE CONSUL'S YARN
A week had passed since the
funeral of my poor boy Harry, and
one evening I was in my room walking up and down and thinking,
when there was a ring at the outer door. Going down the steps
I opened it myself, and in came my old friends Sir Henry Curtis
and Captain John Good, RN. They entered the vestibule and sat
themselves down before the wide
hearth, where, I remember, a
particularly good fire of logs was burning.
'It is very kind of you to come round,' I said by way of making
a remark; 'it must have been heavy walking in the snow.'
They said nothing, but Sir Henry slowly filled his pipe and lit
it with a burning ember. As he leant forward to do so the fire
got hold of a gassy bit of pine and flared up
brightly, throwing
the whole scene into strong
relief, and I thought, What a splendid-looking
man he is! Calm, powerful face, clear-cut features, large grey
eyes, yellow beard and hair --
altogether a
magnificent specimen
of the higher type of
humanity. Nor did his form belie his face.
I have never seen wider shoulders or a deeper chest. Indeed,
Sir Henry's girth is so great that, though he is six feet two
high, he does not strike one as a tall man. As I looked at him
I could not help thinking what a curious
contrast my little dried-up
self presented to his grand face and form. Imagine to yourself
a small, withered, yellow-faced man of sixty-three, with thin
hands, large brown eyes, a head of grizzled hair cut short and
standing up like a half-worn scrubbing-brush -- total weight
in my clothes, nine stone six -- and you will get a very fair
idea of Allan Quatermain,
commonly called Hunter Quatermain,
or by the natives 'Macumazahn' -- Anglic/CHAR: e grave/, he who
keeps a bright look-out at night, or, in
vulgar English, a sharp
fellow who is not to be taken in.
Then there was Good, who is not like either of us, being short,
dark, stout -- very stout -- with twinkling black eyes, in one
of which an eyeglass is everlastingly fixed. I say stout, but
it is a mild term; I regret to state that of late years Good
has been
running to fat in a most
disgraceful way. Sir Henry
tells him that it comes from
idleness and over-feeding, and
Good does not like it at all, though he cannot deny it.
We sat for a while, and then I got a match and lit the lamp that
stood ready on the table, for the half-light began to grow dreary,
as it is apt to do when one has a short week ago buried the hope
of one's life. Next, I opened a
cupboard in the wainscoting
and got a bottle of whisky and some tumblers and water. I always
like to do these things for myself: it is irritating to me to
have somebody
continually at my elbow, as though I were an
eighteen-month-old baby. All this while Curtis and Good had
been silent, feeling, I suppose, that they had nothing to say
that could do me any good, and content to give me the comfort
of their presence and unspoken
sympathy; for it was only their
second visit since the
funeral. And it is, by the way, from
the presence of others that we really
derive support in our dark
hours of grief, and not from their talk, which often only serves
to
irritate us. Before a bad storm the game always herd together,
but they cease their calling.
They sat and smoked and drank whisky and water, and I stood by
the fire also smoking and looking at them.
At last I spoke. 'Old friends,' I said, 'how long is it since
we got back from Kukuanaland?'
'Three years,' said Good. 'Why do you ask?'
'I ask because I think that I have had a long enough spell of
civilization. I am going back to the veldt.'
Sir Henry laid his head back in his arm-chair and laughed one
of his deep laughs. 'How very odd,' he said, 'eh, Good?'
Good beamed at me
mysteriously through his eyeglass and murmured,
'Yes, odd -- very odd.'
'I don't quite understand,' said I, looking from one to the other,
for I
dislike mysteries.
'Don't you, old fellow?' said Sir Henry; 'then I will explain.
As Good and I were walking up here we had a talk.'
'If Good was there you probably did,' I put in sarcastically,
for Good is a great hand at talking. 'And what may it have been about?'
'What do you think?' asked Sir Henry.
I shook my head. It was not likely that I should know what Good
might be talking about. He talks about so many things.
'Well, it was about a little plan that I have formed -- namely,
that if you were
willing we should pack up our traps and go off
to Africa on another expedition.'
I fairly jumped at his words. 'You don't say so!' I said.
'Yes I do, though, and so does Good; don't you, Good?'
'Rather,' said that gentleman.
'Listen, old fellow,' went on Sir Henry, with
considerable animation
of manner. 'I'm tired of it too, dead-tired of doing nothing
more except play the
squire in a country that is sick of
squires.
For a year or more I have been getting as
restless as an old
elephant who scents danger. I am always dreaming of Kukuanaland
and Gagool and King Solomon's Mines. I can assure you I have
become the
victim of an almost unaccountable
craving. I am sick
of shooting pheasants and partridges, and want to have a go at
some large game again. There, you know the feeling -- when one
has once tasted
brandy and water, milk becomes insipid to the
palate. That year we spent together up in Kukuanaland seems
to me worth all the other years of my life put together. I dare
say that I am a fool for my pains, but I can't help it; I long
to go, and, what is more, I mean to go.' He paused, and then
went on again. 'And, after all, why should I not go? I have
no wife or parent, no chick or child to keep me. If anything
happens to me the baronetcy will go to my brother George and
his boy, as it would
ultimately do in any case. I am of no importance
to any one.'
'Ah!' I said, 'I thought you would come to that sooner or later.
And now, Good, what is your reason for
wanting to trek; have
you got one?'
'I have,' said Good,
solemnly. 'I never do anything without
a reason; and it isn't a lady -- at least, if it is, it's several.'
I looked at him again. Good is so overpoweringly frivolous.
'What is it?' I said.
'Well, if you really want to know, though I'd rather not speak
of a
delicate and
strictly personal matter, I'll tell you: I'm
getting too fat.'
'Shut up, Good!' said Sir Henry. 'And now, Quatermain, tell
us, where do you propose going to?'
I lit my pipe, which had gone out, before answering.
'Have you people ever heard of Mt Kenia?' I asked.
'Don't know the place,' said Good.
'Did you ever hear of the Island of Lamu?' I asked again.
'No. Stop, though -- isn't it a place about 300 miles north of Zanzibar?'
'Yes. Now listen. What I have to propose is this. That we
go to Lamu and
thence make our way about 250 miles
inland to
Mt Kenia; from Mt Kenia on
inland to Mt Lekakisera, another 200
miles, or thereabouts, beyond which no white man has to the best
of my
belief ever been; and then, if we get so far, right on
into the unknown
interior. What do you say to that, my hearties?'
'It's a big order,' said Sir Henry, reflectively.
'You are right,' I answered, 'it is; but I take it that we are
all three of us in search of a big order. We want a change of
scene, and we are likely to get one -- a
thorough change. All
my life I have longed to visit those parts, and I mean to do
it before I die. My poor boy's death has broken the last link
between me and
civilization, and I'm off to my native wilds.
And now I'll tell you another thing, and that is, that for years
and years I have heard rumours of a great white race which is
supposed to have its home somewhere up in this direction, and
I have a mind to see if there is any truth in them. If you fellows
like to come, well and good; if not, I'll go alone.'
'I'm your man, though I don't believe in your white race,' said
Sir Henry Curtis, rising and placing his arm upon my shoulder.
'Ditto,' remarked Good. 'I'll go into training at once. By
all means let's go to Mt Kenia and the other place with an
unpronounceable name, and look for a white race that does not exist.
It's all one to me.'
'When do you propose to start?' asked Sir Henry.
'This day month,' I answered, 'by the British India steamboat;
and don't you be so certain that things have no
existence because
you do not happen to have heard of them. Remember King Solomon's mines!'
Some fourteen weeks or so had passed since the date of this conversation,
and this history goes on its way in very different surroundings.
After much
deliberation and
inquiry we came to the
conclusionthat our best starting-point for Mt Kenia would be from the neighbourhood
of the mouth of the Tana River, and not from Mombassa, a place
over 100 miles nearer Zanzibar. This
conclusion we arrived at