She: A History of Adventure

by H. Rider Haggard

  4 the Zulu people, I think, for I had just returned from the Cape at the time: Starting at the age of nineteen, Haggard worked in southern Africa for six years, first as the unpaid secretary to the lieutenant governor of the English colony in Natal. During his years in Africa, Haggard absorbed much of the information, including an intimate knowledge of the Zulu people, that was to figure in his African-set novels. The cape at the southern tip of Africa is the Cape of Good Hope.

  5 recently read with much interest a book of yours describing a Central African adventure: This is clearly a reference to Haggard’s earlier book King Solomon’s Mines, published in 1885.

  6 Central Asia: the location of Ayesha: The Return of She, Haggard’s 1905 sequel, in which Leo and Holly travel to a lost city in Tibet.

  7 the maintenance of the bona fides: bona fides is Latin for “good faith.”

  8 when I came to look at the MS.: “MS.” is the abbreviation for the word “manuscript.”

  9 THE EDITOR: In order to support the idea that this story is true, Haggard does not take direct responsibility for the content of the narrative that follows. As he says in the first paragraph of the Introduction, “I am not the narrator but only the editor of this extraordinary history.” Throughout the story, Holly speaks in the first person while Haggard makes appearances only in the footnotes that he as “EDITOR” inserts to explain elements of Holly’s story.

  I. MY VISITOR

  1 go up for my fellowship: Fellowships were lifetime memberships in a college (see note on “college,” below) that ensured the fellow’s right to study and live at the college and that provided room and board at the college’s expense.

  2 expected by my tutor: The Oxford and Cambridge university systems assign a tutor to each student seeking a degree; the tutor oversees the students’ studies and reading as they prepare to sit for final exams at the end of their course of study.

  3 and my college: Oxford and Cambridge are composed of many individual colleges that operate as essentially independent schools. The university as a whole administers shared facilities, such as libraries, but the academic and social lives of the students and faculty are entirely centered on their own particular college.

  4 Like Cain, I was branded: Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, was physically marked for murdering his brother Abel. “And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him” (Genesis 4:15).

  5 the monkey theory: a mocking name for the theory of evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species, published in 1859. Darwin’s publication was one of the most controversial scientific theories in history, and as his theory was published only twenty-seven years before the appearance of She, it was still very much in the minds of Haggard’s readers.

  6 “if I am Beauty, who are you?”: This is a clear allusion to the “Beauty and the Beast” fairy story; perhaps more notably, this entire episode, climaxing in this line, bears a striking resemblance to a romantic disappointment suffered by Haggard in his twenties.

  7 my sixty-fifth or sixty-sixth lineal ancestor: Since the date given for the death of Kallikrates is roughly 339 B.C., about 2,200 years pass until the day Vincey (Leo’s father, that is) visits Holly and gives him his charge. This equates to roughly thirty-three years per generation, which makes Haggard’s calculus generally believable.

  8 an Egyptian priest of Isis: The most important of the ancient Egyptian goddesses, Isis was the sister and wife of the god Osiris and was revered by the Egyptians as the divinity of fertility and the source of humankind’s agricultural knowledge.

  9 Hak-Hor, a Mendesian Pharaoh: Otherwise known as Achoris, Hakor (as it’s more commonly spelled nowadays) was a pharaoh of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty (399–380 B.C.), also known as the Mendesian Dynasty because its pharaohs came from the powerful Egyptian city of Mendes. Hakor ruled for thirteen years, from 393 to 380, dates that fit nicely with the supposed service of Kallikrates’ father in Hakor’s army.

  10 mentioned by Herodotus: Herodotus, who lived in the fifth century B.C., was the first historian of the ancient world; his great subject, in nine books, was the Greco-Persian wars.

  11 Delagoa Bay: Now known as Maputo Bay, it is an inlet off the Indian Ocean in southern Mozambique and the harbor of Maputo, the chief port and capital of Mozambique.

  12 The Strong and Beautiful, or, more accurately, the Beautiful in strength: The name Kallikrates does, in fact, mean “Beautiful in strength.” The name derives from the Greek words , meaning “beautiful,” and , meaning “strength.” Such apotropaic (meant to ward off evil) names were not uncommon in classical Greece; the name was to impart its qualities to the name-holder, like the name of Nicias (victory), an Athenian general in the Peloponnesian War.

  13 buried among the (young commanders): This subject is in fact treated by Herodotus (ix.85:1–2).

  14 assumed the cognomen: The cognomen was the third of a Roman man’s three names. The first, the praenomen, was a given name, like Gaius or Quintus. The second, the nomen, was the name of his gens, his clan, like Julius or Horatius. The last, the cognomen, was the name of the branch of the family to which he belonged, like Caesar or Flaccus. Cognomen were sometimes taken from the name of the town from which a man’s family came, but they were often derived like nicknames, making special reference to an attribute of the family—such as Caesar, which means “having fine hair,” or Felix, which means “lucky.”

  15 Charlemagne invaded Lombardy: Charlemagne (A.D. 742–841), Frankish king and eventually “the Emperor of the West,” invaded Lombardy in 771, marching on the capital, Pavia, in order to defend Pope Adrian I, who was being pressured to anoint Charlemagne’s repudiated nephews as Frankish kings.

  16 Edward the Confessor: Edward III reigned from 1042 to 1066.

  17 William the Conqueror: ruler of England from 1066 to 1087.

  18 the time of Charles II: ruler of Great Britain from 1660 to 1685.

  19 two thousand two hundred a year: Since Vincey’s money is, as we later find out, all in the form of consols, treasury bonds with no maturity that paid out roughly 3 percent a year, we can assume that his principle is roughly seventy or eighty thousand pounds, a considerable amount of money in the 1880s.

  20 a ward of Chancery: The Courts of Chancery, under the aegis of the Lord High Chancellor, had the authority to assume the guardianship of orphans.

  21 my despatch-box: A despatch (in American English, dispatch) box would be used for carrying papers and documents when traveling.

  22 a large portmanteau: A portmanteau is a suitcase of stiff leather, opening into two separate compartments, for carrying large articles of clothing.

  23 the gyp who waited on Vincey and myself: “Gyp” is a slang term, particular to Cambridge, for a college servant.

  II. THE YEARS ROLL BY

  1 the 9th instant: “Instant” is a term meaning the current month.

  2 in——College Cambridge: It was a common convention in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels to exclude specific information in a narrative, especially names of people, names of places, and dates. (The concealment of specific or private information is meant to further the illusion that the events portrayed actually occurred.) This convention is also reflected in the Introduction, when Haggard is reluctant to commit to the location of his first meeting with Holly and simply says, “a certain University, which for the purposes of this history we will call Cambridge.”

  3 invested in Consols: See the note for p. 14, l. 26 on Vincey’s income.

  4 to find a nurse: not a medical nurse, but a nursemaid or nanny.

  5 Job—that was the young man’s name: The servant’s name is obviously an allusion to the long-suffering and selfless servant of God in the Bible.

  6 brandy-balls: a brandy-flavored candy popular in England, scarcely intoxicating but perhaps inappropriate for a youngster.

  7 It was the chaff: “Chaff” is a sl
ang term for good-natured teasing.

  8 read for the Bar: To “read” is to study. Leo is going to study to become a barrister, a lawyer.

  9 going to London to eat his dinners: Since law was not taught at universities in Haggard’s day, the only way to become a lawyer was to apprentice at one of the legal firms at London’s Inns of Court.

  III. THE SHERD OF AMENARTAS

  1 my Sèvres china: Porcelain of outstanding quality was produced in the factories in Sèvres, France.

  2 Marat had used just before he was stabbed in his bath: Jean-Paul Marat (1743–93) was a French politician, journalist, and radical revolutionary. He suffered from a discomfiting skin disease and spent a considerable amount of time soaking in a medicinal bath; it was in his bath that he was assassinated by Charlotte Corday, a moderate Republican.

  3 into the wards: Wards are the ridges in a lock mechanism that serve to exclude any but the correct key from operating it; they’re also, by association, the notches cut into a key that fit these ridges.

  4 formed of Sphinxes: A sphinx is a mythological creature with the head of a man (sometimes a woman) and the body of a lion. Sphinxes are almost invariably portrayed as the hostile guardians of secrets and, as perhaps most famously in the story of Oedipus, the asker of mysterious riddles.

  5 Uncial Greek Writing: “Uncial” refers to a style of writing both the Roman and Greek alphabets characterized by rounded capital letters.

  6 black-letter Latin: a style of writing, later referred to by Haggard as Old English, similar to the typeface known as Gothic, in which the letters have thick black bodies and are elaborately decorated.

  7 an ordinary amphora: An amphora is a long ceramic container with two handles used by the Greeks and Romans to store and carry liquids like wine.

  8 scarabæus: The scarabaeus was a beetle held sacred by the Egyptians; the word is also used for any depiction of the beetle when it serves, as in this case, as a talisman or charm.

  9 Rā or the Sun: Ra was the greatest of the Egyptian gods. He was associated with the sun and depicted as a man with the head of a hawk.

  10 the time of Elizabeth: Elizabeth I was the ruler of England from 1558 to 1603.

  11 the Zambesi: more commonly now “Zambezi”: a major river of southern Africa flowing from Zambia southwest to Mozambique.

  12 brought me to Aden: Aden is the capital of Yemen, on the southwest tip of the Arabian peninsula, across a very narrow body of water from Ethiopia and Somalia on the African continent.

  13 Omnia vincit amor: Latin for “Love conquers all.”

  14 “thus far shalt thou go, and thus much shalt thou learn”: This is not a direct quotation from any particular source so much as a description of what God meant in his admonition to Adam and Eve to stay away from the Tree of Knowledge. Vincey is saying that God may perhaps wish to have certain subjects remain unknown and unexplored by people.

  15 footnote Nekht-nebf, or Nectanebo II: Haggard is conflating Nectanebo I (Nekhtnebf), the founder of the 30th Dynasty, who died in 363 B.C., with Nectanebo II (Nekhthareb), the last pharaoh of that dynasty, whose fate after his departure for Nubia (Ethiopia) is unknown.

  16 the cartouche already mentioned: A cartouche is a figure in Egyptian hieroglyphics that encircles the name of a member of royalty or a divinity.

  17 HOC FECIT DOROTHEA VINCEY: Latin for “Dorothea Vincey made this.”

  18 Ætate sua 17: Latin for “His age is seventeen.”

  19 A.U.C.: An abbreviation of the Latin phrase ab urbe conditia, “from the founding of the city.”

  20 (cvi): simply, the Roman numeral for 106.

  21 Armoryke which ys to seien Britaine ye Lesse: mock Middle English meaning “Armoric, which is to say Britain the Lesser.” The British Isles were, at the time of Roman occupation, ethnically Celtic. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, though, repeated influxes of German peoples from the north and east began to drive the Celts to the fringes of the British Isles, to places like Cornwall and Wales. A group of Celts known as the Bretons, however, crossed the English Channel around the sixth century and established themselves in what is now known as Brittany, in northwestern France—“Armorica” is the ancient name for this area.

  The story of the sherd as it’s presented in this section is one of Haggard’s attempts to make believable the progress from Kallikrates to the Vinceys, from ancient Greece to modern England. This affinity between Brittany and England allows for a seemingly natural progression for the potsherd and the family in moving from the continent to England.

  “Armorica” is a largely literary name that appears, among other places, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. One of several uses of “Armorica” is in the Franklin’s Tale: “In Armorik, that called is Britayne, / Ther was a knyght that loved and dide his payne / To serve a lady in his beste wise” (Franklin’s Tale, l. 21–23).

  Finally, Haggard’s description of the writing as being “Old English Black-Letter” again refers to the style of writing (see the note for p. 27, l. 28 on this subject) rather than to the language, which is clearly Middle English, not Old English (also known as Anglo-Saxon).

  22 Sathanas hym selfe: Satan himself.

  23 Lorenzo Marquez: the original name given to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, when it was founded. The city was named after the Portuguese explorer who visited the area in 1544. Since the entry on the sherd is dated 1564 and as the city that came to be named Lorenzo Marquez was only widely settled in the eighteenth century, this points to a probable anachronism on Haggard’s part—it is unlikely that the name would have been used as early as the sixteenth century.

  24 duxerunt autem nos ad reginam advenaslasaniscoronantium: They took us, moreover, to the queen of the people who crown strangers with pots.

  25 bound for Zanzibar: Zanzibar is an island off the coast of what is now Tanzania; historically, it was ruled variously by Arabs, by the Portuguese, by the German East Africa Company, and by the British.

  IV. THE SQUALL

  1 the huge sail of our dhow: A dhow is a single-masted ship used for trade and transportation throughout the Indian Ocean and along the African coast.

  2 monsoon: A monsoon is a pattern of winds that prevail in one direction during one season, and prevail in the opposite direction in another. At this point in the story, the winds are in the right direction to allow Holly and Leo’s expedition to proceed easily, “running,” southward along the African coast.

  3 centre-board: A center-board is a retractable board that is inserted through a boat’s hull and vertically into the water; it is necessary to sailing because it allows the horizontally applied force of the wind to be transferred into forward motion.

  4 beat back against it: To beat back is to sail into the wind.

  5 the sight of these blackamoors: A blackamoor is any person with dark skin, regardless of race, from North Africa. It is not, as Job’s use of the term makes brutally clear, a complimentary term.

  6 let go the halyards: A halyard is a line used to raise or lower a sail.

  7 the parrel jammed and the yard would not come down: A parrel is a loop of rope used to raise and lower a yard or spar (a piece of wood or metal that supports rigging) attached to a mast.

  8 We were pooped: That is to say, the poop deck (the stern) of the ship was momentarily submerged.

  9 pulled a tub upon the homely Cam: that is, rowed a boat on the Cam River, which flows through Cambridge.

  10 to back water: to row in the direction that is the opposite of the boat’s motion in order to slow it down or stop it.

  V. THE HEAD OF THE ETHIOPIAN

  1 the Old Gentleman: a polite slang phrase for the Devil.

  2 “You are an unbelieving Jew, Uncle Horace,” he said. “Those who live will see.”: a reference to Acts 14:2 (“But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren”), in which the Jews turn the Gentiles against the apostles.

  3 an excellent potted tongue: Potting is a method
of preserving meat by cooking it, seasoning it, and sealing it in a pot.

  4 footnote Sikkim: formerly a kingdom, now an Indian state, in the Himalayas, near Nepal.

  5 65, footnote, line 5 Sir John Kirk: Sir John Kirk (1832–1922) was a companion of David Livingstone, the missionary explorer of Africa, and a colonial administrator of Zanzibar from 1863 to 1887.

  6 a “sport”: a joke; that is, a freak of nature.

  7 doses of quinine: Quinine was a well-established anti-malarial at the time of Haggard’s writing, when little was known about malaria’s transmission by mosquitoes. Haggard reflects the common understanding of the day that it was the fetid air of the swamp, not the mosquito-borne parasite, that can cause fever.

  9 a beautiful waterbuck: Waterbuck are a breed of antelope from central Africa.

  10 Express rifle: Express rifles were primarily sporting rifles—as opposed to military rifles—and characteristically fired small, light bullets with very high velocities, which allowed hunting at long distances.

  11 “heat us,” he added nervously, picking up an “h” in his agitation: Haggard depicts Job as having the vestiges of a lower-class accent that shows itself in a moment of panic. One of the characteristics of his accent, which is similar to Cockney, is that the initial h is dropped on most words (e.g., “orse” for “horse”), and that, as here, words starting with a vowel sometimes gain an h.

  VI. AN EARLY CHRISTIAN CEREMONY

  1 the alligator: Haggard means “crocodile” (the term he properly used in the previous chapter). Alligators are native only to the Americas.

  2 “biltong,” as, I believe, the South African Dutch call flesh thus prepared: This is one of many pieces of trivia Haggard gained while working in Natal that he incorporates into his novel.

  3 purgatives that we swallowed: In Haggard’s day, one of the common—and quite unhealthy—treatments to prevent malaria was to combine the use of emetics and purgatives along with regular doses of quinine.