h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm reading a fascinating little book right now. It is called 'Die Koningin van Skeba' ('The Queen of Sheba') and it is the first published Afrikaans novel. It was written by Stephanus Jacobus du Toit (see more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanus_Jacobus_du_Toit ). Now the story itself is nothing special but it has considerable novelty value for being the first of its kind. It started out in serial form in the magazine 'Ons Klyntji' ('Our Little'un') in 1896-1898 and was published in book form in 1898.

As I've said the story itself is nothing special. It is an imaginative 're-living' of the history of the Queen of Sheba, connecting her with the continent of Africa, and it draws from many different sources for ideas. The story ends up being quite entertaining to me for these ideas and what they imply. I'd like to discuss these a bit ... no worry about 'spoilers' since the story isn't as I said really much plot-wise and you likely won't find the original to read anyways.

The story starts out in what is now Zimbabwe. At the time whites were first entering the country and had found the Zimbabwe ruins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe_ruins . The story starts with the Boers finding the grave of the British commander who had died during an altercation; they themselves are intrigued by the ruins. They send their interpreter to the captain of a tribe living on a fortified hill to ask about the origin of the ruins. But after nightfall the answer comes to them: a witch doctor who had been falsely blamed for the death of the chief's child flees to them and asks for their protection. This they give, in return for information about the ruins. The witch doctor at first protests that the chief will slay him if he divulges the information, but then the Boers threaten him, and having seen their vastly superior firepower he gives in.

The witch doctor's name, 'Umsalomi', of course makes one think of Solomon.

He then tells them a wonderful story of a white queen who lived there very long ago, who had the palace built of which those were the ruins. Her people enslaved the Africans, but at last they fought back, reinforced by other peoples, and drove them out and brought an end to their reign. Many years passed, and the Arabs came, and then the Matabeles, and the tribe retreated up the fortified hill. But, the witchdoctor said, the white queen still remained and lived with her serving maidens under that very hill. He tells of a secret passage and of a sacrifice that is made to her at every full moon. The queen then blesses the tribe. But if the sacrifice is not made, the tribe is cursed with drought and locusts and raids by the Matebeles.

The Boers finally persuade the witch doctor with their threats and he shows them the secret passage. With a lot of digging they open it up and find a deep passage, opening up into a room with the remains of the sacrifices of many years.

Interestingly the Boers are quite comfortable with the 'superstitions' of the Witch Doctor. When he again quails they let him cast his animal bones, which show him that the spirits of the ancestors live in the white people and that he can trust them. He leads them further; they find a subterranean river and a veritable maze of passages. At last they find a door covered in figures ... mathematical or maybe astrological symbols. There's also a record of all the chiefs that had reigned ... several hundred, meaning the ruins were amazingly old. Umsalomi warns that lightning will strike them all dead if they open the door, and they think of the story of the Romans seeking the Ark of the Covenant being deterred by fumes that caught fire. But they open the door and there's no fire or lightning. Instead they find cool, refreshing air coming down shafts built into the vaulted chamber. All in all the evidence is that the builders had impressive architectural ability. They find a stone chest similar in dimensions, according to the narrator, to the Ark of the Covenant and also to a chest found in the Pyramid of Gizah. They open the chest and find inside a sacrificial bowl, three golden eggs and three golden phalluses. They also find a roll containing a parchment. The narrator recognizes the writing as being ancient Hebrew. The other men want to take the golden objects but the narrator says that the British have commanded that nobody should make excavations or remove anything from the site. They leave everything except the parchment, which the narrator takes to a nearby mission - he makes an offer of taking photographs of the mission family. With them he finds a couple of Hebrew grammars and dictionaries and spends the night translating the parchment.

So much for Chapter One. This book was published right before the second Boer War and we find the Boers at peace with the British and also amicably disposed to the native people - except that they are quite willing to use threats of violence against the witch doctor to get the information they're interested in! When they demonstrate the power of their revolvers, firing off a few shots and mentioning that every single one of them has a device like that, they instantly impress him with their superiority. Even his bone dice confirms this.

The ruins are found to have been built by an ancient white people. Today of course it is recognized that the Zimbabwe ruins were built by native Africans, a thousand years or so ago. (There are related ruins made by the same people close to where I live, at Mapungubwehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapungubwe .) But of course the story puts their origin about two thousand years further in the past and so becomes a romantic story with Biblical links similar to the 'King Solomon's Mines' stories. This also makes me think of how the Boers trekking northward into Africa, expected to find ruins and ancient sites mentioned in the Bible, and also upon finding a river, believed they had found the source of the Nile. They were only a few thousands of kilometres off.

It is also interesting how the narrator, though a Boer and with all the boers calling each other 'cousin', was still a very learned man, having been to Egypt and Israel and having enough a knowledge of Hebrew to translate an ancient text, although he had a bit of help. Also, having photographic equipment in that time and place he was quite cutting edge. S. J. du Toit himself was a very well educated Afrikaner, so the hero of this story is a bit of an 'author avatar'. Tropes go way back in Afrikaans as well! I do wonder if he had ever read the works of H. Rider Haggard. It would not at all be unlikely.

All right, quite an interesting start! Next chapter coming up ...

Pretty interesting story, Willem. Sounds like fun.

Does each chapter start with "In which thus-and-such happens" like some English books of the period? (All that, and it's just one chapter? )

Hi Dmitri and Amy! No, Amy, the chapters are quite plainly named. The first chapter is called 'The White Queen and the Black Witch Doctor'. The next chapter is 'The Discovererd Roll of Parchment'.

In the second chapter the scroll, translated, turns out to have been written by Elihoref, scribe of King Solomon and consort of the Queen of Sheba! Imagine if this happened for real. It would be the archaeological discovery of the century - not just the nineteenth, it would pretty much beat anything discovered in the twentieth and (so far) the twenty-first also! The scroll reveals some further extremely exciting and fascinating facts. He sknows that humanity originated on the continent of Africa. The four main rivers of the world, flowing to the four cardinal compass points, are said to originate on the 'fertile highland of Africa'. He reveals that the chronicles of the kingdom of Sheba have been buried under the mountain of Afur in the 'far northwest', along with mummies of the queens of the realm, and great treasures.

The narrator returns to his friends and wonder where the mount Afur might be - it is in no books and on no maps they know. Umsalomi also has no idea. They debate whether to try and find the mountain although having no idea where ... and they already come out of the 'far west' (which to them means Buluwayo). At last they ask the witch doctor to divine with his bones again. He says they must go to the great spirit of the Matopo hills. The narrator remembers reading of an oracle of the Matabeles and concludes the witch doctor means this. He casts his bones again and declares that the oracle still lives in a cave in the hills.

The Boers trust everything the witch doctor says, and then the narration handily jumps over the entire journey over te Selukwe gold fields to the Matopo Hills and what do you know, they find the oracle, and he tells them where Mount Afur is! They follow his directions and find Mount Afur. This is just stated like that - no clue is given as to where this mountain might actually be! But it seems clear that it cannot be very far away, for these Boers with their horses, oxen and wagons easily reach it. Also it turns out to be just one of the many small hills ('koppe') that dot the Bushveld of Southern Africa.

The real kingdom of Sheba was probably either in Ethiopia or in what is today Yemen. So our boers would be over ten thousand kilometres from the right spot under the best of circumstances.