But what can an Englishman be doing in a place like this?
If it had been a trek-Boer I should not have been surprised." Then I began to give directions about out-spanning.
We had just got the oxen out of the yokes, when a big, raw-boned, red-bearded, blue-eyed, roughly-clad man of about fifty years of age appeared from the house, yawning.

I threw my eye over him as he advanced with a peculiar rolling gait, and formed certain conclusions.

A drunkard who has once been a gentleman, I reflected to myself, for there was something peculiarly dissolute in his appearance, also one who has had to do with the sea, a diagnosis which proved very accurate.
"How do you do, Mr.Allan Quatermain, which I think my daughter said is your name, unless I dreamed it, for it is one that I seem to have heard before," he exclaimed with a broad Scotch accent which I do not attempt to reproduce.

"What in the name of blazes brings you here where no real white man has been for years?
Well, I am glad enough to see you any way, for I am sick of half-breed Portuguese and niggers, and snuff-and-butter girls, and gin and bad whisky.

Leave your people to attend to those oxen and come in and have a drink." "Thank you, Mr.Robertson----" "Captain Robertson," he interrupted.