A Fergus Hume Novel's Occult Folklore and the Ancient Continent of Lemuria

Abstract

"[He was] wondering what thought hovered at the hack of his brain about Easter Island. He had visited that lonely and little known spot during his travels in the company of a friend given to occult studies, who insisted that the dismal spot of land was one of the remaining portions of the great Continent of Lemuria, which was said to have stretched from New Zealand to Africa." --Fergus Hume, 'The Sacred Herb' (1908), p. 41. "'This cup', said Horace, raising it aloft, 'is thousands and thousands of years old. It is a remnant of Lemurian civilization.'" --op. cit., p. 319. These quotations come from near the beginning and end, respectively, of one of the more surprising middle-period novels from the prolific Fergus Hume (1859-1932), author of 'The Mystery of a Hansom Cab' (1886), and sometime resident of Melbourne, where his remarkable literary career began. Appropriately both the Victorian and New South Wales State Libraries in Australia hold copies of this rare text, 'The Sacred Herb' which is filled with passing references to: Australia (p. 274); New Zealand (p. 41), and Hokitika (p. 18) in particular; Polynesia (passim and especially p. 294); the South Seas, Samoa, Tahiti and the British Empire and its colonies.