Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Dick Maitland A Tale of Unknown Africa By Harry Collingwood ________________________________________________________________________ Dick Maitland is working as a doctor's apprentice in the East End of London, at that time a place of great poverty. The doctor with whom he is studying is rather a philanthropist for, instead of setting up trade for the wealthy, in Harley Street, he is curing the poor for practically nothing. Dick's family circumstances take a turn for the worse, and he goes down to the docks to work his passage to South Africa. He has no idea how he will proceed when he gets there, having no money, but he meets a rich young man called Grosvenor on the ship, and, striking up a friendship, they decide upon going together on a voyage of exploration. After meeting a tribe whom this author, Collingwood, had written about in a previous book, and sorting out various problems there, they proceed on their way. They had heard rumours of a mysterious white race living not too far away, and they decide to investigate. These turn out to be one of the lost tribes of Israel. They are eventually accepted there as friends, after initially being taken prisoners. Here again they are able to sort out various problems. Grosvenor marries the Queen, and Dick, who in the course of these travels has managed to find some very valuable jewels, eventually returns home with them. He converts them to cash, and is able to provide his poor old mother, whom he had left in abject poverty, with a luxurious style of life. He also puts lots of money in the account of the doctor with whom he had been working before these adventures began. ________________________________________________________________________ DICK MAITLAND A TALE OF UNKNOWN AFRICA BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD CHAPTER ONE. THE CATASTROPHE. Doctor Julian Humphreys was spoken of by those who believed that they knew him best as an eccentric; because, being a physician and surgeon of quite unusual ability, he chose--possessing a small independence amounting to a bare three hundred pounds per annum--to establish himself in the East-End of London, and there devote himself with zeal and enthusiasm to the amelioration of the sufferings of the very poor, instead of capitalising his income and setting up in Harley Street, where his exceptional qualifications would speedily and inevitably have brought him a handsome fortune.