Diary of an African Journey

In 1914 Henry Rider Haggard - adventure novelist, public servant, farmer, lawyer, and, above all, renowned author of such classic and influential bestsellers as King Solomon's Mines and She - returned to South Africa, the country that had fired his literary imagination, for the first time in over a quarter century. He barely recognised the Africa of his younger days. The discovery of gold, the destruction of the Zulu kingdom, and the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War had all radically changed the political, cultural, and often physical landscape.
No longer the diehard imperialist of his youth, when conquest and colonisation were the order of the day, Haggard toured southern Africa extensively during this trip, acquiring an impression of black politics and even meeting the first president of the African National Congress, John Dube. This is the chronicle, from Haggard's own hand, of that journey.
This hitherto unpublished manuscript by a man whose work is today considered a prototype of colonial literature, and who helped shape Western perceptions of Africa, is a remarkable literary find. It presents a portrait, both surprising and in some ways familiar, of Africa and of a central figure in the literature of colonialism in Africa.