Western Argus (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1916 - 1938), Tuesday 21 March 1922, page 2


THE INCA'8 RING INSPIRATION 'OF SIR RIDER HAGGARD'S ROMANCES. A thick gold ring equal in weight to eight or ten wedding rings and covered with curious devices, has just' been presented to the British Museum by Sir Rider Haggard, the novelist. It was his ring thea first -turned • his mind to writing romances. Rider told the story of the ring to a "Daily Mail" reporter. "When I was a boy of about nine," be said, "I had: a private tutor who used to wear this ring. It had been given to him by an old college friend and its story greatly excited my curiosity. This was 55 years' ago. It. appears that this.friend had brought the ring from Central America--I think it was Peru, but the place is vague-and it -was called the Inca's. ring. "He found it in a cave at aplace called Mount Sepulchre, and 'inside the ca?,e was the mummified figure of a king seated at the head of a stone table and wearing this ring. Round the - table were twelve others, men and women, who, it seems,. had been sacrificed to die with the king. They were Incas, or probably pre-Incas. 'When this man onened the tomb, all of them crumdled to dust. but he brought this ring back and gave it to his friend. "This: ring affected my imagination very much, and 1 think it turned my mind to write romances. I reproduced the scene of the stone 'table in King iSolomon's Mines. "A little white ago I wrote another story called 'The Virgin of the .Sun,' which will be published' next week, and this ring figures largely in it. I had not seen it, however, for 55 years. When I had finished the story I met a relative of my tutor (who is' now dead), and I 'enquired after the ring.Eventually it was found and given to me, and I found that after this long lapse of years I 'had described 'it accurately in my last story.. "I wore it for a week or two, but I thought that in view f -its own. interests--jt is a great curiosity in itself-the nation should have it." The ring is to be fouqd in the ethnographical department of the British Museum.