Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider), 1856-1925 / 2008-07-14 00:00:00

EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST ***


Produced by John Bickers; Dagny


THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST
By H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1894.

DEDICATION
I DEDICATE THIS EFFORT OF
"PRIMEVAL AND TROGLODYTE IMAGINATION"
THIS RECORD OF BAREFACED AND FLAGRANT ADVENTURE
TO MY GODSONS
IN THE HOPE THAT THEREIN THEY MAY FIND
SOME STORE OF HEALTHY AMUSEMENT.
_Ditchingham_, 1894.


AUTHOR'S NOTE
On several previous occasions it has happened to this writer of romance
to be justified of his romances by facts of startling similarity,
subsequently brought to light and to his knowledge. In this tale occurs
an instance of the sort, a "double-barrelled" instance indeed, that to
him seems sufficiently curious to be worthy of telling. The People of
the Mist of his adventure story worship a sacred crocodile to which they
make sacrifice, but in the original draft of the book this crocodile was
a snake--_monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens_. A friend of the writer,
an African explorer of great experience who read that draft, suggested
that the snake was altogether too unprecedented and impossible.
Accordingly, also at his suggestion, a crocodile was substituted.
Scarcely was this change effected, however, when Mr. R. T. Coryndon, the
slayer of almost the last white rhinoceros, published in the _African
Review_ of February 17, 1894, an account of a huge and terrific serpent
said to exist in the Dichwi district of Mashonaland, that in many
particulars resembled the snake of the story, whose prototype, by the
way, really lives and is adored as a divinity by certain natives in the
remote province of Chiapas in Mexico.
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