FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>   >|  
Project Gutenberg's Benita, An African Romance, by H. Rider Haggard This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Benita, An African Romance Author: H. Rider Haggard Release Date: March 28, 2006 [EBook #2761] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENITA, AN AFRICAN ROMANCE *** Produced by John Bickers; Emma Dudding; Dagny BENITA--AN AFRICAN ROMANCE By H. Rider Haggard NOTES It may interest readers of this story to know that its author believes it to have a certain foundation in fact. It was said about five-and-twenty or thirty years ago that an adventurous trader, hearing from some natives in the territory that lies at the back of Quilimane, the legend of a great treasure buried in or about the sixteenth century by a party of Portuguese who were afterwards massacred, as a last resource attempted its discovery by the help of a mesmerist. According to this history the child who was used as a subject in the experiment, when in a state of trance, detailed the adventures and death of the unhappy Portuguese men and women, two of whom leapt from the point of a high rock into the Zambesi. Although he knew no tongue but English, this clairvoyant child is declared to have repeated in Portuguese the prayers these unfortunates offered up, and even to have sung the very hymns they sang. Moreover, with much other detail, he described the burial of the great treasure and its exact situation so accurately that the white man and the mesmerist were able to dig for and find the place where _it had been_--for the bags were gone, swept out by the floods of the river. Some gold coins remained, however, one of them a ducat of Aloysius Mocenigo, Doge of Venice. Afterwards the boy was again thrown into a trance (in all he was mesmerized eight times), and revealed where the sacks still lay; but before the white trader could renew his search for them, the party was hunted out of the country by natives whose superstitious fears were aroused, barely escaping with their lives. It should be added that,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25  
26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Portuguese

 

Haggard

 

English

 

BENITA

 

AFRICAN

 

ROMANCE

 

natives

 

treasure

 
trader
 

mesmerist


trance

 

African

 

Project

 
Benita
 

Romance

 
Gutenberg
 
Moreover
 
detail
 

burial

 
situation

accurately

 

Zambesi

 

Although

 

tongue

 

clairvoyant

 

offered

 

unfortunates

 

declared

 

repeated

 
prayers

search
 
hunted
 
revealed
 

country

 

escaping

 

superstitious

 
aroused
 
barely
 
mesmerized
 

remained


floods
 

thrown

 

Afterwards

 

Venice

 

Aloysius

 

Mocenigo

 

online

 

interest

 

readers

 

Bickers