“When the lamps were held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-house.” from H. Rider Haggard's "'SHE:' A History of Adventure" by Edward Killingworth Johnson, A. W. S., for "The Graphic" (20 November 1886)

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“When the lamps were held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-house.”

Edward Killingworth Johnson, A. W. S.

composite woodblock engraving

20 November 1886

Framed, 9 inches high by 7 inches wide; 22.9 cm high by 17.3 cm wide; top, page 469.

Eighth illustration for H. Rider Haggard's "SHE:" A History of Adventure in The Graphic, No. 887, Vol. XXXIV.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Ayesha Confides in the Narrator-Protagonist about the Origin of the Caves of Kôr

But come, I will show thee the great pit beneath the cave whereof the writing speaks. Never shall thine eyes witness such another sight.”

Accordingly I followed her to a side passage opening out of the main cave, then down a great number of steps, and along an underground shaft which cannot have been less than sixty feet beneath the surface of the rock, and was ventilated by curious borings that ran upward, I know not where. Suddenly the passage ended, and she halted and bade the mutes hold up the lamps, and, as she had prophesied, I saw a scene such as I was not likely to see again. We were standing in an enormous pit, or rather on the brink of it, for it went down deeper — I do not know how much — than the level on which we stood, and was edged in with a low wall of rock. So far as I could judge, this pit was about the size of the space beneath the dome of St. Paul’s in London, and when the lamps were held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-house, being literally full of thousands of human skeletons, which lay piled up in an enormous gleaming pyramid, formed by the slipping down of the bodies at the apex as fresh ones were dropped in from above. [Chapter XVI, “The Tombs of Kôr,” 552]

Commentary

The inscription that Ayesha translates aloud for Holly indicates that, when the city of Kôr was nearly four thousand years old, its citizens were struck by the bubonic plague. The huge numbers of dead had to be hurled into the great pit beneath the main cave, where she has just pronounced judgment on the Amahagger cannibals, who disobeyed her commands regarding safeguarding the European travellers.

Bibliography

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.

"Johnson, Edward Killingworth." Haynes Fine Art. Web. Accessed 8 April 2025. https://www.haynesfineart.com/artists/edward-killingworth-johnson-uk

Royal Mummies recently Unbandaged at the Boulak Museum, Egypt. The Graphic Magazine, No. 870, Vol. XXXIV. 31 July 1886, p. 102 and 109.

Created 12 May 2025