Sequel to "King Solomon's Mines", this adventure story is about three men and their guide, who trek into remote Africa in search of a lost white race. Their perilous journey takes them to Zu-Vendis, a kingdom ruled by the beautiful twin sisters, Nyleptha and Sorais.

On the third day he asked Zweete how it was that his left hand was white and shriveled and who were Umslopogaas and Nada, of whom he had let fall some words. Then the old man told him the tale that is set out here. Day by day he told some of it till it was finished. It was the past that spoke to his listener, telling of deeds long forgotten, of deeds that are no more known. And because the history of Nada the Lily and of those with whom her life was intertwined moved him strangely, and in many ways, he has done more, he has printed it that others may judge of it.

"I believe it was the old Egyptians – a very wise people, probably indeed much wiser than we know for in the leisure of their ample centuries they had time to think out things – who declared that each individual personality is made up of six or seven different elements, although the Bible only allows us three, namely body soul and spirit..." Wanting to learn if he can communicate with deceased loved ones, adventurer and trader Allan Quatermain seeks a meeting with the feared Zulu witch-doctor Zikali. He tells Allan he must seek out a great white sorceress who rules a hidden kingdom far to the north, and he charges Allan to take a message to her. En route, Quatermain encounters emigrant Scotsmen, cannibals, witch doctors, the beautiful Inez, and of course the mysterious She, or Ayesha. Although third in order of publication, this book is first in the chronology of the adventures of She.