A novelist is not usually asked, like a historian, for his ‘Quellen’. As I have, however, judging from certain experiences in the past, some reason to anticipate such a demand, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr Thomson’s admirable history of travel ‘Through Masai Land’ for much information as to the habits and customs of the tribes inhabiting that portion of the East Coast, and the country where they live; also to my brother, John G. Haggard, RN, HBM’s at Madagascar, and consul at Lamu, for many details furnished by him of the mode of life and war of those engaging people the Masai; also to my sister-in-law, Mrs John Haggard, who put the lines of p. 183 into rhyme for me; also to an extract in a review from some book of travel of which I cannot the name, to which I owe the idea of the great in the valley of the river. {Endnote 23} But if I remember right, the crabs in the book when irritated projected their eyes quite out of their heads. I regret that I was not able to ‘plagiarize’ this effect, but I felt that, although crabs may, and doubtless do, behave thus in real life, in romance they ‘will not do so.’  
There is an underground river in ‘Peter Wilkins’, but at the time of writing the foregoing pages I had not read that but entertaining work.
 
It has been out to me that there exists a similarity between the scene of Umslopogaas frightening Alphonse with his and a scene in Far from the Madding Crowd. I regret this coincidence, and believe that the talented author of that work will not be inclined to accuse me of literary on its account.
 
Finally, I may say that Mr Quatermain’s little Frenchman appears to belong to the same class of beings as those English ladies whose long yellow teeth and feet of enormous size excite our amusement in the pages of the Gallic press.
 
The Writer of ‘Allan Quatermain’
 
Endnote 1
 
Among the Zulus a man assumes the ring, which is made of a species of black gum twisted in with the hair, and polished a brilliant black, when he has reached a certain dignity and age, or is the husband of a sufficient number of wives. Till he is in a position to wear a ring he is looked on as a boy, though he may be thirty-five years of age, or even more.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 2
 
One of the fleetest of the African .—A. Q.
 
Endnote 3
 
to the Zulu custom of opening the stomach of a dead . They have a that, if this is not done, as the body of their enemy up so will the bodies of those who killed him up.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 4
 
No doubt this was a wingless bird. I afterwards learnt that the of an owl is a favourite signal among the Masai tribes.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 5
 
Since I saw the above I have examined hundreds of these swords, but have never been able to discover how the gold plates were inlaid in the fretwork. The armourers who make them in Zu-vendis themselves by oath not to reveal the secret.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 6
 
The Masai Elmoran or young can own no property, so all the booty they may win in battle belongs to their fathers alone.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 7
 
As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas’s Zulu names was the ‘Woodpecker’. I could never make out why he was called so until I saw him in action with Inkosi-kaas, when I at once recognized the resemblance.—A. Q.
 
Endnote 8
 
By a sad coincidence, since the above............