"The Real King Solomon's Mines"
This is a short non-faction account of how the author's description of the legendary mines of King Solomon in "King Solomon's Mines" was based, not on contemporary historical accounts, but upon his imagination. The novel was written some twenty years before, when Haggard himself hadn't heard of any actual mines in this region, or of the presence of Phoenicians. He didn't know of any diamonds on the continent except those recently discovered at Kimberley. More recently both mines and ancient ruins - Zimbabwe - were found in the region. He believed that the mine were made by Semitic people, possible Phoenicians, though this view hasn't been the prevailing one in more recent years (especially in post-colonial Africa, where the notion of non-black builders is anathema, whether correct or not). Though Haggard might have been mistaken as to the identity of the ruins, the coincidences found in "King Solomon's Mines" are remarkable.
He also tells us that the Kukuanas people of "King Solomon's Mines" were the Matabele, and that his servants Khiva and Ventvogel, who were killed with Captain Patterson and J Sergeaunt on a mission to King Lobengula of Matabele in 1877, were commemorated in characters of these names in his books. .