"01 - Tarzan of the Apes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

for the balance of the strange tale.

When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so
much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride
assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he
unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript,
and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support
many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.

I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the
happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling
of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal
characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own
belief that it MAY be true.

The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and
the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the
narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as
I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.

If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one
with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and
interesting.

From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead
man's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman,
whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was
commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of
conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose
simple native inhabitants another European power was
known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it
used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory
from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi.
The natives of the British Colony complained that many of
their young men were enticed away through the medium of
fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned
to their families.

The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that
these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after
their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed
upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had
yet several years to serve.

And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new
post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions
centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment
of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly
European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment
to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor,