N.

BY H. RIDER HAGGARD.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY G. AND B. HUTCHINSON.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MESSRS. FRADELLE AND YOUNG.

I think that it was in an article by a fellow-scribe, where, doubtless
more in sorrow than in anger, that gentleman exposed the worthlessness
of the productions of sundry of his brother authors, in which I read
that whatever success I had met with as a writer of fiction was due to
my literary friends and "nepotic criticism." This is scarcely the case,
since when I began to write I do not think that I knew a single creature
who had published books--blue books alone excepted. Nobody was ever more
outside the ring, or less acquainted with the art of "rolling logs,"
than the humble individual who pens these lines. But the reader shall
judge for himself.

[Illustration: THE FRONT GARDEN.]

To begin at the beginning: My very first attempt at imaginative writing
was made while I was a boy at school. One of the masters promised a
prize to that youth who should best describe on paper any incident, real
or imaginary. I entered the lists, and selected the scene at an
operation in a hospital as my subject. The fact that I had never seen an
operation, nor crossed the doors of a hospital, did not deter me from
this bold endeavour, which, however, was justified by its success. I was
declared to have won in the competition, though, probably through the
forgetfulness of the master, I remember that I never received the
promised prize. My next literary effort, written in 1876, was an account
of a Zulu war dance, which I witnessed when I was on the staff of the
Governor of Natal. It was published in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and
very kindly noticed in various papers. A year later I wrote another
article, entitled "A Visit to the Chief Secocoeni," which appeared in
_Macmillan_, and very nearly got me into trouble. I was then serving on
the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and the article, signed with my
initials, reached South Africa in its printed form shortly after the
annexation of the Transvaal. Young men with a pen in their hands are
proverbially indiscreet, and in this instance I was no exception. In the
course of my article I had described the Transvaal Boer at home with a
fidelity that should be avoided by members of a diplomatic mission, and
had even gone the length of saying that most of the Dutch women were
"fat." Needless to say, my remarks were translated into the Africander
papers, and somewhat extensively