King Solomons Mines | Page 3

from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, [2]
alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"

You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by disk, book
or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all
other references to Project Gutenberg, or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that
you do not remove, alter or modify the etext or this "small print!"
statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this etext in
machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- cessing or
hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*:
[*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not*
contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work,
although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (i) characters may be used
to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters
may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into
plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays
the etext (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional
cost, fee or expense, a copy of the etext in its original plain ASCII form
(or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this "Small
Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg
Association/Carnegie-Mellon University" within the 60 days following
each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual
(or equivalent periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Carnegie-Mellon
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

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

KING SOLOMON'S MINES
by H. RIDER HAGGARD

DEDICATION
This faithful but unpretending record of a remarkable adventure is
hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator,
ALLAN QUATERMAIN,
to all the big and little boys who read it.

PREPARER'S NOTE
This was typed from a 1907 edition published by Cassell and Company,
Limited.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The author ventures to take this opportunity to thank his readers for the
kind reception they have accorded to the successive editions of this tale
during the last twelve years. He hopes that in its present form it will fall
into the hands of an even wider public, and that in years to come it may
continue to afford amusement to those who are still young enough at
heart to love a story of treasure, war, and wild adventure.
Ditchingham, 11 March, 1898.

POST SCRIPTUM
Now, in 1907, on the occasion of the issue of this edition, I can only
add how glad I am that my romance should continue to please so many
readers. Imagination has been verified by fact; the King Solomon's
Mines I dreamed of have been discovered, and are putting out their
gold once more, and, according to the latest reports, their diamonds
also; the Kukuanas or, rather, the Matabele, have been tamed by the
white man's bullets, but still there seem to be many who find pleasure
in these simple pages. That they may continue so to do, even to the
third and fourth generation, or perhaps longer still, would, I am sure, be
the hope of our old and departed friend, Allan Quatermain.
H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham, 1907.
INTRODUCTION
Now that this book is printed, and about to be given to the world, a
sense of its shortcomings both in style and contents, weighs very
heavily upon me. As regards the latter, I can only say that it does not
pretend to be a full account of everything we did and saw. There are
many things connected with our journey into Kukuanaland that I should
have liked to dwell upon at length, which, as it is, have been scarcely
alluded to. Amongst these are the curious legends which I collected
about the chain armour that saved us from destruction in the great battle
of Loo, and also about the "Silent Ones" or Colossi at the mouth of the
stalactite cave. Again, if I had given