“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo” (uncaptioned, 1896) by Maurice Greiffenhagen, 1862-1931

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[“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo”]

Maurice Greiffenhagen

Lithograph

10.8 cm high by 5.6 cm wide (4 ¼ by 2 ¼ inches), mid-page 308, framed

Final illustration for H. Rider Haggard's SHE: A History of Adventure in the Longman's British-American edition (1896).

And then [Billali] turned and went, and with him went the tall and sullen-looking bearers, and that was the last that we saw of the Amahagger. We watched them winding away with the empty litters like a procession bearing dead men from a battle, till the mists from the marsh gathered round them and hid them, and then, left utterly desolate in the vast wilderness, we turned and gazed round us and at each other. [Passage illustrated continues below.]

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Realised: Epilogue, or The Transition Scene — Returning to England via Steamer

Three weeks or so before four men had entered the marshes of Kôr, and now two of us were dead, and the other two had gone through adventures and experiences so strange and terrible that death himself hath not a more fearful countenance. Three weeks — and only three weeks! Truly time should be measured by events, and not by the lapse of hours. It seemed like thirty years since we saw the last of our whale-boat.

“We must strike out for the Zambesi, Leo,” I said, “but God knows if we shall ever get there.”

Leo nodded. He had become very silent of late, and we started with nothing but the clothes we stood in, a compass, our revolvers and express rifles, and about two hundred rounds of ammunition, and so ended the history of our visit to the ancient ruins of mighty and imperial Kôr. [Chapter XXVIII, "Over the Mountain," pp. 307-308]

Commentary: The Transition from the Improbable to the Prosaic

Since this final, small-scale illustration dropped into the text is uncaptioned, the reader must determine what is happening as Leo (blonde-haired) and Holly scan the the straight horizon of the Central African plain, apparently watching three white objects recede across it. Are those distant objects the empty litters carried by the Amahagger? Is the picture as a whole obscured by "the mists of the marsh" (307)? Certainly, the fact that the explorers now have nothing but their clothing and revolvers (Greiffenhagen has emphasized the gun-cases on their hips) suggests that the moment realised is immediately before Holly expresses his determination to reach the Zambesi River, as the first significant leg of their return journey from South Africa to England.

Bibliography

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 4 June 2025