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"The Squall" — Portrait of the Arab Helmsman, Mahomed
Maurice Greiffenhagen
1896
Lithograph
6.5 cm high by 5.2 cm wide (2 ⅛ by 2 inches), page 46, framed
Final illustration for H. Rider Haggard's SHE: A History of Adventure in the Longman's British edition (1888), p. 47.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
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How different is the scene that I have now to tell from that which has just been told! Gone are the quiet college rooms, gone the wind-swayed English elms, the cawing rooks, and the familiar volumes on the shelves, and in their place there rises a vision of the great calm ocean gleaming in shaded silver lights beneath the beams of the full African moon. A gentle breeze fills the huge sail of our dhow, and draws us through the water that ripples musically against her sides. Most of the men are sleeping forward, for it is near midnight, but a stout swarthy Arab, Mahomed by name, stands at the tiller, lazily steering by the stars. Three miles or more to our starboard is a low dim line. It is the Eastern shore of Central Africa. We are running to the southward, before the North East Monsoon, between the mainland and the reef that for hundreds of miles fringes this perilous coast. The night is quiet, so quiet that a whisper can be heard fore and aft the dhow; so quiet that a faint booming sound rolls across the water to us from the distant land.
The Arab at the tiller holds up his hand, and says one word: — “Simba (lion)!”
We all sit up and listen. Then it comes again, a slow, majestic sound, that thrills us to the marrow. [Chapter IV, "The Squall," pp. 47-48]
Brantlinger, Patrick. Introduction. She: A History of Adventure. By H. Rider Haggard. London: Penguin, 2004. vii-xxviii.
Ellis, P. B. H. Rider Haggard: A Voice from the Infinite. London: Routledge, 1978.
Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.
Haggard. H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888, rpt. 1927.
Haggard, H. Rider. She. Project Gutenberg EBook #3155 produced by John Bickers; Dagny; William Kyngesburye; David Kyngesburye; David Widger. 2016. Web. Accessed 9 May 2025.
Created 3 June 2025