Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/8

 fill the vases. Near the window—looking out on a stretch of lawn strewn with the fallen leaves from the trees—on an easel, is a picture of Mr. Haggard's mother, a photograph of Barrington Foote, and a charming oil colour by Leon Little—"Dawn on the Thames."

The study is a perfect treasure-house of curios. An important resident of the working room is Jack, a tame rat, who is liberally supplied with nuts, which he readily cracks. Just by the fireplace is the gun cupboard, designed by its owner. The drawer contains a thousand cartridges. A number of fishing-rods also find a convenient corner in it. It is impossible to chronicle every curio—the Greek vases and ancient pottery, strings of beads from the necks of mummies, and Zulu battle-axes and assegais. A marvellous piece of embroidery lies on the table; it is of Mexican workmanship, some two hundred years old, evidently from a priest's cope. Here is a bronze jar from the tomb of an Etruscan monarch. Over the door is a Mexican idol in green jade; it once had eyes and teeth of emeralds—alas! now extracted. It weighs thirty pounds, and its possessor, who declares it to be the best that ever came out of Mexico, owns to having smuggled it to England wrapped up in a dress. The tobacco-jar is a huge one; the pipes—a good score of them—are neatly arranged in a rack.

"These little things were picked up on the battlefield of Isandlwana," said Mr. Haggard, taking a small bowl from the mantel-board. One by one we exam-