do possess, at any rate in certain instances, some share of occult power. Certainly I have known them do the strangest things, especially in the way of discovering lost cattle or other property."

It is not very profitable, and it is rather painful, to dwell long on the shocking story of British policy in South Africa at that moment. In Haggard's opinion it would seem that the annexation of the Transvaal to the British Crown saved the Boers from a devastating attack by the "impis " of the Zulus; but it did not therefore commend itself to those most stubborn Dutchmen. Evidently Haggard was very highly thought of by those under whom he served on their respective staffs, and he was now, barely twenty-one years of age, appointed Master of the High Court in the Transvaal. The situation was threatening; the Boers were very ready to revolt if they saw a chance of success; the black cloud of Cetewayo's hosts lay on the horizon. Within eighteen months, or scarcely more, of the annexation, the black cloud burst, with the calamitous disaster of Isandhlwana. In consequence the Pretoria Horse was enrolled, and Haggard at once exchanged his chair as Master of the High Court for the saddle.

After much agony that black cloud was effectively dealt with. The Pretoria Horse was disbanded. The Boers waited while the British army, collected for the sharp struggle against the Zulus, was sent home, with the easy optimism of the Home Government.. Then their revolt came, ending in Great Britain's shame at Majuba Hill and the handing back of the country to the Boers.

In the interval, Haggard, after the disbandment of the mounted force, had come home and had very happily married a Miss Louisa Margitson," the only surviving child of Major Margitson, of the 19th Regiment and of Ditchingham House in this county where we now live."

But still it appears that Haggard was looking forward to making his home in Natal. He had bought a large tract of land there, in partnership with a Mr. Arthur Cochrane. Before leaving the Transvaal he had bought a flock of ostriches to stock it, and towards the end of 1880 he went out with his wife to enter into possession as ostrich farmer. The Boers were in revolt, the farm was at Newcastle, near the Natal-Transvaal boundary. It was a situation full of peril, especially for Mrs. Haggard, who was expecting the birth of a child. But very bravely she insisted that they should go there, and her courage was justified, for they

suffered no harm, although Natal was invaded and the danger was very menacing. The child, a son, was safely born.

And before that happened the Transvaal had been retroceded to the Boers. Haggard's bitterness allows him to write little about it, but he does give the following description of the reception of the news in Newcastle :

Never shall I forget the scene on the market square of Newcastleit must have been about the 21st or 22nd of March-when it became known that peace had been declared as a corollary of our defeats, and that the restoration of the Transvaal was practically guaranteed within six months. Some thousands of people were gathered there, many of them refugees, among whom were a number of loyal Boers, and with these soldiers, townsfolk, and natives. I saw strong men weeping like children, and heard English-born people crying aloud that they were “by Englishmen " no more. Soldiers were raging and cursing, and no one tried to stop them; natives stood stupefied, staring before them, their arms folded on their breasts; women wrung their hands.

Then an idea struck the crowd: they made a rude effigy of Mr. Gladstone and, as was done in most of the other loyal parts of South Africa, burnt it with contempt and curses. It was a futile and perhaps a foolish act, but excuses must be made for the ruined and the shamed. They could not believe their ears, in which still echoed the vehement declaration of Sir Garnet Wolseley that no Government would dare under any circumstances to give back the Transvaal, and the statements, in the House of Lords, by telegram, and in other ways of various members of the Administration to the same effect.

And now I have done and am glad to have done with the matter of this great betrayal, the bitterness of which no lapse of time ever can solace or even alleviate, and will return to its results upon my own life.

In the end, Mrs. Haggard, with their baby, returned to England in 1881, accompanied by Mr. Cochrane, and an agent was left in charge of the ostriches. By Christmas of that year the Haggards had settled in Norwood. He was called to the bar, and wrote his first book, " Cetewayo and his White Neighbours."

Briefs did not come, and he had the usual experience of young writers. He could not find a publisher; when he did find a publisher he had difficulty in finding a public, and with more than one publisher he made a bad bargain. Perhaps the public at the moment had heard more than it cared to hear of South Africa. It was a land not of promise, but of promises shamefully broken.

But he had it in him to go on writing. Whether he had aptitude for the bar is more than doubtful, and indeed, as we read this, his own story, we are driven to question whether he

had more than common ability for that dull work which is called practical. He essayed it; he was drawn to it, both by that strong sense of duty which he had inherited, and also by a strange weariness of romance writing which came upon him. We must think it strange, because a man seldom wearies of that which he has proved himself able to do supremely well.

In a fortunate hour, one of Haggard's earliest efforts, "Angela" or" There Remaineth a Rest," was read by Mr. Cordy Jeaffreson, who recognized at once its immaturity and its promise, and gave the young writer invaluable advice which he had the wisdom to act on. At length " Dawn " was published; then " The Witch's Head"; and he had also published" a history." The history,' he tells us," cost me £50 to publish, and for the two novels I had received exactly the same sum in all; in short the net returns were at that time nothing." "Had it not been," he writes, "for a curious chance, my literary efforts would have ended with the publication of The Witch's Head.' . . . But, as it happened, I read in one of the weekly papers a notice of Stevenson's' Treasure Island,' so laudatory that I procured and studied that work, and was impelled by its perusal to try to write a book for boys result," King Solomon's Mines," a book read eagerly by old, as well as young, boys, and by girls of all ages also! As a further result, Rider Haggard's feet were firmly set on the road to fame, fortune, and some delightful friendships. By this time he had three children, of whom two were daughters, younger than the boy. He was "twenty-eight or thereabout," and was living in West Kensington. There "I wrote 'King Solomon's Mines.' I think the task occupied me about six weeks."

He did it in six weeks, writing only in the evenings, after days at the Temple, not so much days of hard work as weary days of enforced idleness for lack of work. We may guess that some of the thought which he was supposed to devote to the law cases of Sir Henry Bargrave Deane, his leader, may have strayed to the gold mines of the wise king.

And yet again: "When the tale was finished I hawked it round to sundry publishers, none of whom thought it worth bringing out." At length, by some happy, unrecorded, accident the MS. came, via W. E. Henley, into the hands of Andrew Lang, and from that moment all went well. Andrew was the fairy godmother. "Seldom have I read a book with so much pleasure,"

Lang wrote to him. "I think it perfectly delightful. . . . There
is so much invention and imaginative power and knowledge of
African character in your book that I almost prefer it to 'Treasure
Island.'"

This was the beginning, or almost the beginning, of the devoted friendship between Lang and Haggard, which endured till the former's most lamented death. Andrew Lang, Arthur Cochrane (Haggard's partner in the ostrich-farming venture), and the publisher C. J. Longman, to whom Lang now made him known, were the three whom Rider Haggard, himself with a genius for friendship, regarded as his best friends. To the last, although the senior man, Haggard confided the sad privilege of seeing the autobiography through the press after his death. Mr. Longman, in his introductory chapter, says: "I hope I have not bungled or failed in this labour of love." He may rest very contented that Haggard's many surviving friends will be unfeignedly grateful to the editor for his care and appreciation of the subject. Of Lang, Haggard writes:

Take him all in all, I think him one of the sweetest-natured and highest-minded men whom it has ever been my privilege to know, although a certain obtrusive honesty which will out, and an indifferent off-handedness of manner, has prevented him from becoming generally popular. Moreover, he has always been supposed to be somewhat of a mocker and farceur, as is exemplified in his press nickname of "Merry Andrew." Yet the truth is that his laughter is often enough of the sort that is summoned to the lips to hide tears in the eyes. This may be seen by attentive students of his poems, and, in truth, few are more easily or more deeply moved by anything that appeals to the heart, be it national, or personal.

Haggard had every opportunity of judging the character of the friend whom he so very highly estimated, not only through their close acquaintance lasting over many years, but also from that very intimate exchange of thought and sentiment inseparable from collaboration in literature. The chief fruit of their collaboration is the book called "The World's Desire."

I had the happiness to see much of Lang at the time when he was helping to launch Haggard full sail out on the sea of fame, and can testify that the feeling of Haggard for Lang was reciprocated very warmly. On the intellectual side what Lang, of course, most admired in Haggard was his great imagination-only Lang, with his preference for the short, vivid and easy phrase, called it "his quick fancy."

I have very little doubt that it was Lang, with his love of the Sagas, who inspired Haggard to write "Eric Bright-Eyes." It is, in my own humble judgment, as a literary achievement, Haggard's best book. He has caught the spirit of the saga so well. I remember Lang saying to me that no man save Haggard could have written it, and this by-the-way comment is endorsed in the following extracts from notes to Haggard (Lang's letters were seldom more than notes, though the writing was so cryptic that they took longer than most full-grown letters to decipher) : "I don't want to flatter, but it literally surprises me that anyone should write such a story nowadays. Charles Kingsley would have spoiled it by maundering or philosophising." And again: The more I consider Eric' the more I think that except 'Cleopatra,' which you can't keep back, I'd publish no novel before Eric.'" Finally: "It is chockful of things nobody else could have done; indeed, nobody else could have done any of it."

Lang hits the mark of the reason why "Eric " is so great a performance on the "Saga " lines, when he writes that Kingsley would have "spoiled it by maundering and philosophising." So would anybody else. It is the stark austerity of the "Sagas," their simple recording of the facts and leaving them to speak for themselves, that Haggard so wonderfully achieved.

But this, of the North, is a later story. After the publication and immediate success of "King Solomon's Mines" its author still had a great field to reap and treasures to dig in South Africa. After this first he wrote its sequel, "Allan Quatermain," though Allan's" publication was deferred awhile; then "Jess" and She." Of the last he says that "the whole romance was completed in a little over six weeks" (the same time as "King Solomon's Mines "had occupied). "Moreover it (that is 'She') was never re-written, and the manuscript carries but few corrections. The fact is that it was written at white heat, almost without rest, and that is the best way to compose." Well, yes : for Rider Haggard to compose, shall we say? Other men, other methods, perhaps.

Again he notes that "between January, 1885 and March 18, 1886, with my own hand and unassisted by any secretary, I wrote 'King Solomon's Mines,' 'Allan Quatermain,' 'Jess,' and 'She.' Also I followed my profession, spending many hours of each