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    She
    She
    She
    Ebook378 pages12 hours

    She

    By H. Rider Haggard

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    She is the story of Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey, and their journey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family. Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOzymandias Press
    Release dateJan 30, 2018
    ISBN9781531284008
    Author

    H. Rider Haggard

    Sir Henry Rider Haggard, (1856-1925) commonly known as H. Rider Haggard was an English author active during the Victorian era. Considered a pioneer of the lost world genre, Haggard was known for his adventure fiction. His work often depicted African settings inspired by the seven years he lived in South Africa with his family. In 1880, Haggard married Marianna Louisa Margitson and together they had four children, one of which followed her father’s footsteps and became an author. Haggard is still widely read today, and is celebrated for his imaginative wit and impact on 19th century adventure literature.

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    • 4/5
      Six months back if someone had asked me “What’s your opinion on the works of Henry Rider Haggard?”, my reply would have been another question – “Henry Rider who?” Then, things changed. For nearly fifty years, I was interested in reading “King Solomon’s Mines”. When I picked by the book, I found the author was Sir Henry Rider Haggard. and after reading I was hooked to his style of adventure narrative WOW!

      Last November, I read a booklet “The Origin of Tarzan” by Sarkis Atamian, wherein it was reported that Edgar Rice Burroughs had been accused of plagiarizing Tarzan – a clone of Mowgli, the orphan brought up by a she wolf in Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”. None cared that Mowgli itself was a clone of the ancient legend of the founders of Rome – Romulus and Remus, who were suckled by a she wolf.

      Again Edgar Rice Burroughs claimed that the adventures of Tarzan was plagiarized from other writers – especially his “Jewels of Opar” with a mysterious white queen ruling over the city of Opar, living in caves was plagiarized and copied from Henry Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines” and “She”. And thus in the next few months I have read “King Solomon’s Mines” and have now completed “She”. I shall take up the perusal of “Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar”, now for a comparative study of the two tales.

      “She” is an interesting adventure story with elements of supernatural, mystery and plain components of a safari. Holly, Leo and their servant Job set out on an exploration of the east coast of Africa, where there is a peak shaped like an Ethiopian’s head. Below this peak following and the rivers inland, one passes through swampland, beyond which lie the ruins of a mysterious city Kor, presently ruled over by a beautiful white queen known only as ‘She’ or more fully as ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed’.

      Twenty one years earlier, in Cambridge where Holly is pursuing his course for Fellowship (which he achieves), probably his only friend in the college M.L.Vincey visits him late one night. He has brought a trunk with him and he narrates a strange tale to Holly, requesting him to take up the guardianship of his five year old son Leo, till he attains twenty five years and on that day to hand over the trunk to him. If Leo wishes to pursue the instructions therein, Vincey has made adequate provision for the expenses likely to be incurred. He also leaves one thousand pounds annually to Holly as his recompense and expenses for guardianship of Leo.

      On Leo’s twenty-fifth birthday the iron box is opened and therefrom emerges the potsherd of the Egyptian Princess Amerantas, wife of Kallikrates and a very ancient ancestress of Leo. There are two parchments written in Greek and Latin along with a cartouche. The potsherd and parchments detail M.L.Vincey’s tale in greater detail, with Amerantas instructions to her son and if he fails to his successors to avenge the foul murder of her husband Kallikrates. Sixty five generations follow through Athens, Rome, Lombardy and finally England – no one has succeeded in reaching the caves of the white queen of savages in Africa.

      Holly, Leo and Job set sail for Zanzibar, from where they rent a dhow owned by an Arab Mahomad and set off to reach the peak shaped like an Ethiopians head which Mahomad says he knows. They also equip a whaleboat and take it along. On the way, a squall overtakes them, and swamps the dhow. Barring the three Englishmen and Mahomad who get onto the whaleboat and cast off, the Dhow and its passengers are swamped by the high seas and drown.

      After some difficult days of travelling, these four voyagers are captured by the native Amahagger people. Their queen a white woman had ordered that the white strangers were her guests, must be treated properly and brought to her.

      The queen named Ayesha was a lovely thirty year old woman endowed with celestial beauty. As Holly describes her – she was beautiful, exquisite, each part of her body was perfect. She was in full bloom of her young womanhood, but her face reflected the struggle of ages. Later they learnt she was potentially immortal and had been waiting for more than twenty two hundred years for her Kallikrates to return to her – in other words, she was the same queen of savages whom Amerantas had described in her potsherd.

      When Ayesha sees Leo’s face for the first time, she staggers back shocked and stunned. Leo’s face was Kallikrates’s - her Kallikrates whose body she had preserved for more than two thousand two hundred years and for whom she was waiting. She knew one day her Kallikrates would come back to her.

      And so the sorceress of celestial beauty ‘She’ – Ayesha wins Leo’s heart with her will power and beauty, even though she has murdered his wife Ustane in front of his eyes to own him. And the tale then moves on to its climax – Leo has to bathe in the Fire of Life to attain potential immortality like Ayesha and so they journey through difficult mountain passes to reach the underground cave where the Fire of Life comes and goes continuously in its daily rotation.

      Leo is afraid, but Ayesha says that she will bathe in the Fire to show no harm will befall. Would he then enter the Fire. Leo agrees. When the Pillar of Fire comes back again Ayesha steps into it with her naked body. At first the Fire energises her body making it younger and more beautiful, but as it completes the round and starts to move away a great change overcomes Ayesha. Smaller she grew, and smaller yet, till she was no larger than a monkey. Now the skin was puckered into a million wrinkles, and on the shapeless face was the stamp of unutterable age. I never saw anything like it; nobody ever saw anything like the frightful age that was graven on that fearful countenance, no bigger now than that of a two-months’ child, though the skull remained the same size, or nearly so.

      On the very spot where more than twenty centuries before she had slain Kallikrates the priest, she herself fell down and died.”

      Amerantas is avenged by her descendant sixty-six generations later, Leo with whom Ayesha falls in love, knowing it is Kallikrates reincarnated, and is killed by the Fire of Life. Was it her karma - her previous actions catching up with her or was it the dire curses Amerantas had invoked on her calling on her Egyptian Gods twenty two centuries earlier coming to fruit.

      A very interesting book combining elements of adventure, mystery and mysticism in equal parts. Recommended for every reader of adventure stories.

    Book preview

    She - H. Rider Haggard

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