NOVELS.
MARIE.* THorrox he has already some fifty-odd volumes to his credit, there is no sign of weariness or declining energy in Sir H. Rider Ha,ggard's latest venture. On the contrary, we are disposed to regard Marie as one of the most exciting and interesting of all that cycle of romances which are con- cerned with that mighty bunter, Allan Quatermain. It has, moreover, two distinguishing features which separate it from the other Quatermain romances : it introduces us to that redoubtable and intrepid hero in his early youth, and it is more closely related to the history of South Africa than any other of the tales of adventure in which he is the central figure. For Sir H. Rider Haggard has here given us in the form of an historical romance the story of the Great Trek in the "forties," when, to quote his own words, "owing to the freeing of the slaves and mutual misunderstandings, the Cape Colony was in tumult, almost in rebellion, and the Boers by thousands sought new homes in the unknown savage-peopled North." On this tragic episode, including the sufferings of the trek- Boers who wandered into the fever-veld and perished in the neighbourhood of Delagoa Bay, and the massacre of the gallant Retief and his companions at the hands of Dingattn, the Zulu King, Sir H. Rider Haggard has engrafted a spirited and engrossing romance. Of his equipment as a writer who adds to extensive local knowledge a vivid invention and a bold narrative style, it is unnecessary to speak. But one may note his assurance that the story in its main outlines is founded on such brief contemporary records as still exist, and that it was a common belief among the Boers of that generation that the misfortunes and death of Retief and his companions were due to the treacherous plottings of an Englishman, or of English- men, with the despot Dingattn.
The scene opens in Cape Colony in the middle of the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. There, in the Oradook dis- trict, we find young Allan Quatermain, already a fearless rider and a renowned shot, living with his father, a Church of England clergyman. Henri Marais, a Boer farmer of French Huguenot descent, a widower with an only daughter, lives a few miles off, and an arrangement is made by which Allan and Marie shall learn French from a French pensioner on Marais' bounty, one Leblanc, a bibulous and quarrelsome person whose provocative treatment of the natives—to use no harsher term—brings about a Kaffir raid on Maraisfontein. Allan, getting wind of the attack, rides off to the rescue, and with the aid of the faithful natives beats off the attack after performing prodigies of valour. But, though Henri Marais is grate3ful to his daughter's rescuer, he refuses to hear of an engagement, because he hates the English and wishes Marie to wed his nephew, Hernando Pereira, a handsome but black-hearted scoundrel, who fills the role of villain with unswerving consistency from first to last. As a relief to the stern realities of the siege we have a shoot- ing match in which Porcine tries to defeat Allan by foul play and is ignominiously exposed. Then comes the • Marie. By If. Bider Haggard. London : Canon and Co. Pe.]
Great Trek, in which Marais joins, and the parting of the lovers. After an interval a half-breed trader brings a letter from Marie telling of their sufferings in Natal. Allan starts off at a moment's notice, rides for thirteen hours at a stretch to the coast, catches a coasting brig in the nick of time, lands at Delagoa Bay, charters wagons and natives, and comes up with Marais and his famine-stricken party on the banks of the Crocodile River. The perfidious Pereira has deserted them, and they are perishing of starvation and fever when Allan arrives. His next exploit is to rescue Pereira, who repays the service by trying to shoot him. But Marais, a moody fanatic, persists in his refusal to consent to his daughter's marriage to Allan, and. a compromise is effected by which the decision is delayed until she is of age. The marriage ultimately takes place, but Allan is summoned immediately to join Retief in his mission to Dingaan. On his arrival at Dingaan's camp he finds that the Zulu King's mind has been poisoned against him by Pereira. Allan escapes miraculously from the slaughter of Retief and his party, but on rejoining Marais and the other trek-Boers he is tried by court-martial for betraying Retief—on the evidence of the unspeakable. Pereira—and condemned to be shot, escaping by the self-sacrifice of his wife, who changes clothes with him when he is under a drug, and falls by the hand of yereira.
The book, however, must not be judged merely by the author's capacity for packing incident and excitement into the smallest possible compass. Where action predominates to such an extent there is no room for much development of character. But some of the portraits, notably those of the genial Retief, the brooding, morose Marais, the kindly Vrouw Prinsloo, and Hans the Hottentot, are excellently done. Pereira is too grotesquely vile in his irredeemable villainy to be con- vincing, and Allan Quatermain's suicidal magnanimity hardly fits in with the temper of the times or with his own uncompromising attitude in other respects. In his general view of the two races Sir H. Rider Haggard holds the balance fairly. Not only is there no hostility towards the Boers, but rather a friendly appreciation of their fine qualities and a just estimate of their grievances.
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