H. Rider Haggard founded a whole school of fantasy writing which eventually came to be known as “the lost race novel.”
So says the back cover of my 1973 Ballantine Books edition of The People of the Mist. This long-forgotten adventure novel isn’t quite on par with King Solomon’s Mines, but it’s nevertheless an exciting book filled with treasure, romance, false gods, human sacrifices, daring rescues, and narrow escapes. It was fun book for me to read slowly over the course of this past month.
I had recommended this title for our Siblings’ Book Club this year, but it didn’t make it to our final list—though it was a runner-up! We had read King Solomon’s Mines in 2021, so it was nice to see Haggard come close again. I’ll break this little review down into the following sections: Book Summary, The Book’s Time Period, The Character of Otter, and Extra Quotations.
Book Summary
The story opens with Leonard and Tom Outram shamed out of house and home after their high-society father was exposed as a sham and committed suicide. The men form pact that they will head to Africa either to reclaim their family’s wealth and honor or to die trying. After burying his brother seven years later, Leonard finds opportunity to secure the valuable gemstones of a lost race of people, if only he can first rescue a maiden in distress from a vile slave-trader. With his African sidekick, Otter, in tow, Leonard risks everything on this adventure—and even finds some love along the way.
The Book’s Time Period
The African slave trade of the late 19th century was organized (according to Haggard) by Portuguese and Arab traders. Haggard is quick to point out the inhumanity of it all, and through Otter voices the irony of men involving themselves in a such a horrid business, all the while claiming fidelity to their religions. When viewing the slave camp where Juanna is held captive, Otter says to Leonard: “Wow! who do these things? Is it not the white men, your brothers, and do they not say many prayers to the Great Man up in the sky while they do them?” (72)
As Leonard, Otter, and Soa enter the land of The People of the Mist, Haggard explains a bit about the people’s religion (heavy on human sacrifices) and their god (a centuries-old crocodile). These discussions of sacrifice, worship, and the structure of their gods reminded me a great deal of Don Richardson’s books Lords of the Earth and Peace Child. Every people group needs an object of worship, it’s true, and if they don’t know “the unknown God” of Acts 17:22-31, then they’re bound to create something that provides an outlet for confession, appeasement and the possibility of forgiveness and atonement. If only they could hear the Truth!
The Character of Otter
This was a great character, though perhaps some readers would disagree. He spoke English and thus served as Leonard’s translator, but he also served his “Baas” as protector and advocate. He was a powerfully built African dwarf, ugly in the face with a massive nose. When the adventurers arrived among The People of the Mist, they realized that Otter’s shape matched that of the people’s prophesied deity—something that appeared convenient but actually didn’t turn out too well.
I was so intrigued by Otter’s physical description that I did something I’ve never tried before: I plugged his information into an AI program, which spat out the image you see here. Not an identical rendering, but close enough to what I’d pictured in my brain. Pretty cool!
Extra Quotations
About First Love: There’s a whole subplot of romance in this book, and this passage speaks of Leonard’s attachment to his fiancé, Jane Beach:
It was a common little romance enough, but like everything else with which youth and love are concerned, it had its elements of beauty. Such affairs gain much from being the first in the series. Who is there among us that does not adore his first love and his first poem? And yet when we see them 20 years after! (4)
About The Dangers of Adventure – Hopefully this isn’t true of all adventures, though it seemed to be for those entering the heart of 19th Century Africa:
Kill till you are killed—that is the law of life. (24)
About Worthy Pursuits – This line emphasizes the importance of family over fortune:
The blood is the blood. The wealth is nothing; that comes and goes, but the blood is always the blood.” (33)
About Treasure Hunting – I actually shared this whole passage with my Facebook Metal Detecting group, because it’s a fitting (albeit romantic) declaration of how we feel when we’re out there in the mud:
Whatever the event, he would strive to meet it with patience, dignity and resignation. It was not his part to ask questions or to reason why; it was his part to struggle on and take such guerdon [reward] as it pleased Providence to send him. Thus thought Leonard, and this is the right spirit for an adventurer to cultivate. It is the right spirit in which to meet the good and ill of life—that greatest of adventures which every one of us must dare. He who meets them thus and holds his heart pure and his hands clean will lay himself down to sleep without a sigh or regret when mountain, swamp, river and forests are all traveled, and the unknown innumerable treasure, buried from the olden time far out of reach of man’s sight and knowledge, at last is opened to his gaze. (55)
This was an enjoyable book to read this Winter. It’s my third Rider book following King Solomon’s Mines and She. I don’t have any others on the docket, but we’ll see. Perhaps next year he’ll make the Sibling’s Book list again.
©2024 E.T.