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<title>Various Styles</title>
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<h1>King Solomon's Mines</h1>
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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.
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First reason: Because Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good
asked me.
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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.
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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.
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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
<span class="emph">petticoat</span> in th e whole history.
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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,
“<span class="foreign">sutjes, sutjes</span>,” 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.
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