(who is since dead) with him, and that Harry
was then about fourteen. And now for the story, which I will repeat, as
nearly as I can, in the words in which Hunter Quatermain told it to me
one night in the old oak-panelled vestibule of his house in Yorkshire.
We were talking about gold-mining--

"Gold-mining!" he broke in; "ah! yes, I once went gold-mining at
Pilgrims' Rest in the Transvaal, and it was after that that we had the
business about Jim-Jim and the lions. Do you know Pilgrim's Rest? Well,
it is, or was, one of the queerest little places you ever saw. The town
itself was pitched in a stony valley, with mountains all about it, and
in the middle of such scenery as one does not often get the chance of
seeing. Many and many is the time that I have thrown down my pick and
shovel in disgust, clambered out of my claim, and walked a couple of
miles or so to the top of some hill. Then I would lie down in the grass
and look out over the glorious stretch of country--the smiling valleys,
the great mountains touched with gold--real gold of the sunset, and
clothed in sweeping robes of bush, and stare into the depths of the
perfect sky above; yes, and thank Heaven I had got away from the cursing
and the coarse jokes of the miners, and the voices of those Basutu
Kaffirs as they toiled in the sun, the memory of which is with me yet.

"Well, for some months I dug away patiently at my claim, till the very
sight of a pick or of a washing-trough became hateful to me. A hundred
times a day I lamented my own folly in having invested eight hundred
pounds, which was about all that I was worth at the time, in this
gold-mining. But like other better people before me, I had been bitten
by the gold bug, and now was forced to take the consequences. I bought a
claim out of which a man had made a fortune--five or six thousand pounds
at least--as I thought, very cheap; that is, I gave him five hundred
pounds down for it. It was all that I had made by a very rough
year's elephant-hunting beyond the Zambesi, and I sighed deeply and
prophetically when I saw my successful friend, who was a Yankee, sweep
up the roll of Standard Bank notes with the lordly air of the man who
has made his fortune, and cram them into his breeches pockets. 'Well,' I
said to him--the happy vendor--'it is a magnificent property, and I only
hope that my luck will be as good as yours has been.'

"He smiled; to my excited nerves it seemed that he smiled ominously,
as he an