As well as there are tons of ancient kingdoms, cities............mounds............ruins............just about everywhere u look on earth.............it seems El Dorado is more a mystery b/c people have disappeared.................and no one has found it.............and what constitutes "immense" wealth.........and it should differ from person to person...........is a million dollars "a lot of money",.........or is a billion ???

Haggard knew Africa well, having travelled deep within the continent as a 19-year-old during the Anglo-Zulu War and the First Boer War, where he had been impressed by South Africa's vast mineral wealth and by the ruins of ancient lost cities being uncovered, such as Great Zimbabwe. His original Allan Quatermain character was based in large part on Frederick Courtney Selous, the famous British white hunter and explorer of Colonial Africa.^[7][8] Selous's real-life experiences provided Haggard with the background and inspiration for this and many later stories.

Haggard also owed a considerable debt to Joseph Thomson, the Scottish explorer whose book Through Masai Land was a hit in January 1885.^{[citation needed]} Thomson had terrified warriors in Kenya by taking out his false teeth and claiming to be a magician, just as Captain Good does in King Solomon's Mines. Contemporary James Runciman wrote an article entitled King Plagiarism and His Court,^[9] interpreted as accusing Haggard of plagiarism for this.^[10][11] Thomson was so outraged at Haggard's alleged plagiarism that he published a novel of his own, Ulu: an African Romance, which, however, failed to sell.