The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Virgin of the Sun, by H. R. Haggard

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Title: The Virgin of the Sun

Author: H. R. Haggard

Release Date: April 5, 2006 [EBook #3153]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN ***

Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN

By H. Rider Haggard

First Published in 1922.

DEDICATION

My Dear Little,

Some five-and-thirty years ago it was our custom to discuss many
matters, among them, I think, the history and romance of the vanished
Empires of Central America.

In memory of those far-off days will you accept a tale that deals with
one of them, that of the marvellous Incas of Peru; with the legend also
that, long before the Spanish Conquerors entered on their mission of
robbery and ruin, there in that undiscovered land lived and died a White
God risen from the sea?

Ever sincerely yours, H. Rider Haggard. Ditchingham, Oct. 24, 1921.

James Stanley Little, Esq.

THE VIRGIN OF THE SUN

INTRODUCTORY

There are some who find great interest, and even consolation, amid the
worries and anxieties of life in the collection of relics of the past,
drift or long-sunk treasures that the sea of time has washed up upon our
modern shore.

The great collectors are not of this class. Having large sums at their
disposal, these acquire any rarity that comes upon the market and add
it to their store which in due course, perhaps immediately upon their
deaths, also will be put upon the market and pass to the possession of
other connoisseurs. Nor are the dealers who buy to sell again and thus
grow wealthy. Nor are the agents of museums in many lands, who purchase
for the national benefit things that are gathered together in certain
great public buildings which perhaps, some day, though the thought
makes one shiver, will be looted or given to the flames by enemies or by
furious, thieving mobs.

Those that this Editor has in mind, from one of whom indeed he obtained
the history printed in these pages, belong to a quite different
category, men of small means often, who collect old things, for the most
part at out-of-the-w