King Solomon's Mines, H. Rider Haggard [read me like a book TXT] 📗

novel. I suppose they--the flights and flourishes--are desirable, and I regret not being able to supply them; but at the same time I cannot help thinking that simple things are always the most impressive, and that books are easier to understand when they are written in plain language, though perhaps I have no right to set up an opinion on such a matter. "A sharp spear," runs the Kukuana saying, "needs no polish"; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words.

Allan Quatermain.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES

CHAPTER I

I MEET SIR HENRY CURTIS

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