The Ivory Child | Page 3

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Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] Emma Dudding,
[email protected] and Dagny, [email protected]

The Ivory Child
by H. Rider Haggard
CHAPTER I
ALLAN GIVES A SHOOTING LESSON
Now I, Allan Quatermain, come to the story of what was, perhaps, one
of the strangest of all the adventures which have befallen me in the
course of a life that so far can scarcely be called tame or humdrum.
Amongst many other things it tells of the war against the Black Kendah
people and the dead of Jana, their elephant god. Often since then I have
wondered if this creature was or was not anything more than a mere
gigantic beast of the forest. It seems improbable, even impossible, but
the reader of future days may judge of this matter for himself.
Also he can form his opinion as to the religion of the White Kendah

and their pretensions to a certain degree of magical skill. Of this magic
I will make only one remark: If it existed at all, it was by no means
infallible. To take a single instance, Harût and Marût were convinced
by divination that I, and I only, could kill Jana, which was why they
invited me to Kendahland. Yet in the end it was Hans who killed him.
Jana nearly killed me!
Now to my tale.

In another history, called "The Holy Flower," I have told how I came to
England with a young gentleman of the name of Scroope, partly to see
him safely home after a hunting accident, and partly to try to dispose of
a unique orchid for a friend of mine called Brother John by the white
people, and Dogeetah by the natives, who was popularly supposed to
be mad, but, in fact, was very sane indeed. So sane was he that he
pursued what seemed to be an absolutely desperate quest for over
twenty years, until, with some humble assistance on my part, he
brought it to a curiously successful issue. But all this tale is told in "The
Holy Flower," and I only allude to it here, that is at present, to explain
how I came to be in England.
While in this country I stayed for a few days with Scroope, or, rather,
with his fiancée and her people, at a fine house in Essex. (I called it
Essex to avoid the place being identified, but really it was one of the
neighbouring counties.) During my visit I was