The sequel to King Solomon’s Mines gets off to a melancholy start with the death of Quartermain’s son (via disease) at the beginning. Quartermain decides to go off an expedition to the African interior to find a rumoured white race; Good and Curtis agree to come along because they’re bored – not as strong a motivation as trying to find a missing brother.
But once it gets going it’s great, with a terrific new character in Umpslogaas (bloodthirsty, humorous - a lot more interesting than the exiled king in King Solomon’s Mines) and a highly suspenseful sequence involving the Masai and an isolated missionary outpost (masses die to save the honour of a white girl - As usual for Haggard the death toll of servants for the white heroes is very high). There’s also a decent comic relief character in the form of a cowardly French cook and a classic sequence where they come upon the lost land via canoe.
It’s a white kingdom, well predominantly white (the whiter they are the higher they are up the social scale) where women wear garments that leave one of their breasts bare. Quartermain and his mates aren’t very good guests - when they arrive in the civilisation they blow away hippos to impress people, causing an incident; they also help provoke a civil war when Sir Henry Curtis falls in love with one of the twin queens. This is in contrast to King Solomon’s Mines where they were involved in overthrowing a tyrant to restore the rightful king. But there is some decent action, and a really moving and exciting finale in which both Umpslogaas and Quartermain die – not that that stopped Haggard from returning to both characters in prequels.
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