Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-03-23
By H. RIDER HAGGARD.

The story which is narrated in the fol- |
lowing pages came to me from the lips |
of my old friend, Allan Quatermain, or |
Hunter Quatermain, as we used to call
him in South Africa He told it to me |
one evening when was stopping with
him at the place he bought in York
shire. Shortly after that the death Of
his only son SO unsettled him that he
Immediately left England, accompanied
by two companions, who were fellow
voyagers of his, Sir Henry Curtis and
Captain Good, and has now utterly van
ished into the dark heart Of Africa. He
is persuaded that q white people, Of
whom he has heard ruIpors all his life,
exists somewhere on the highlands in
the vast, still unexplored interior, and
his great ambition is to find them before
he dies.
This is the wild quest upon which he
and his companions have departed, and
from which | shrewdly suspect they
never will return, One letter only have
] Ireceived from the old gentleman, dated
from mission station high up the Tana,
river on the east coast, about three
hundred miles north of Zanzibar. In it
he says they have gone through many
hardships and adventures, but are alive
and we'll, and have found traces which
go far toward making him hope that the
results of their wild quest may be a
magnificent and unexampled discov-
cry" l greatly fear, however, that all
he has discovered is death, for this letter
came long while ago, and nobody has
heard single word of the party since.
They have totally vanished.
1t was on the last evening of my stay
at his house that he told the ensuing
story to me and Captain Good, who was
dining with him. He had eaten his
dinner and drunk two or three glasses
of old port just to help Good and my
self to the end of the second bottle. 1t
was an unusual thing for him to do, for
he was most abstemious man, having
conceived, & he used to say, o great
horror of drink from observing its eff
fects upon the class of men-hunters,
transport riders and others-among
whom he had passed so many years of
his life. Consequently the good wine
took more effect on him than it would
have done on most men, sending little
flush into his wrinkled cheeks and max
ing him talk more freely than usual.
Dear old man! lean see him now as
he went limping up and down the YES
tibule, with his gray hair sticking up in
scrubbing brush fashion, his shriveled,
yellow face and his large dark eyes that
were as keen as any, hawks and yet soft
as bucks. The whole room was hung
with trophies Of his numerous hunting
expeditions, and he had some story
about every one of them, If only you
could get him to tell them. Generally
he would not, for he was not very fond oi
narrating his own adventures, but to
night the port wine made him more
communicative.
'tAh, you brutel" he said, stopping be
meath an usually large skull of lion
which was fixed just over the mantel
piece beneath long row Of guns, itl
jaws distended to their utmost width
"Ah, you brute, you have given me a lo
of trouble for the last dozen years, ani
will, suppose, to my dying day."
"Tell us the yarn, Quatermain," sait
Good. "You have often promised to tel
me, and you never have"
"You had better not ask me to" he an
swered, 'for it is q longish one."
"All right" I said; ''the evening il
young, and there is some more port"
Thus adjured, he filed his pipe from ,
jar of coarse cut Boer tobacco that wa
always standing on the mantelpiece, ant
still walking up and down the room be
gan:
cit was, Think, in the March of 1856
that was up in Sikukuni's country. /
was Just after old Sequati's time, ant
Sikukuni had got into power--I forge
how. Anyway was there. had hear'
that the Bapedi people had got down al
enormous quantity Of ivory from the in
terror, and so / started with a wagol
load Of goods and came straight ava,
from Middelburg to try and trade som
Of it. It was risky thing to go into tn
country SO early on account Of the fever
but knew that there were one or tw
others after that lot Of ivory, SO I de
termined to have try for it and tax
my chance Of fever. had got SO toug
from continual knocking about that
did not set it down at much. Well,
got on all right for awhile.
sit is wonderfully beautiful piece Q
bush veldt, with great ranges Of noun
tains running through it and roun
granite koppies starting up here an
there, looking out like sentinels over tn
rolling waste of bush. But it is yer
hot-hot as stewpan-and when wa
there that March, which Of course
autumn in that part of Africa, the Who'll
place reeked of fever. Every mornin
as I trekked along down by the Oliphan
river I used to creep out of the WACO
at dawn and look out. But there wa
noriver to be seen only a long line Q
pillows Of what looked like the fines
cotton wool tossed up lightly with
pitchfork.
t.It was the fever mist. Out fror
among the scrub, too. came little spiral
Of vapor, as though there were huI
dreds of tiny fires alight in it-reek Ri
ing from thousands of tons Of rottin
vegetation. It was beautiful plac'
but the beauty was the beauty of deatl
and oil those lines and blots of vapc
wrote one great word across the gu
face Of the country, and that word WI
fever
II had trekked from dawn till eleve
o'clock--a long trek but wanted
get on, and then had the oxen turne
ont to craze. sending the yoorlooper