"The People of the Mist" by H. Rider Haggard is a lost race fantasy novel first published in 1894. Leonard Outram, a penniless British adventurer, ventures into the African wilderness seeking fortune to restore his family's lost estates. Alongside his Zulu companion and a rescued Englishwoman, he searches for a legendary civilization rumored to possess vast jewels. What they discover is a hidden race locked in deadly conflict between its king and priests of a monstrous crocodile god. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
These books are free to read. Each is in the public domain in the United States; check your own country's rules before you copy or share one.