Transcribed from South Africa Magazine 5 April 1902

THE LATE MR. RHODES

WORLD-WIDE TRIBUTES AND APPRECIATIONS

THE OBSEQUIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

THE RIGHT HON. CECIL JOHN RHODES.

BY AN OLD FRIEND

The pathetic words in which Mr. Rhodes bade farewell to his friends and the world fitly represents the strenuous temper of his life, “So little done, so much to do.” All his thoughts of work and life were ever expanding. No achievement satisfied him.

His schemes and plans grew in his mind like seeds struggling for room. There was a touch of romance in all he did—not the romance of fictitious imaginings, but of the truths and events stranger than fiction. When yet a solitary digger, and when the walls of the diamond claims became thin and dangerous, he was dreaming of companies who would abolish the claims and mine with shafts and aerial gear in huge excavations. When the companies were formed he dreamed of amalgamation, and carried it out with masterful skill and energy, building up the great De Beers interest. This achieved, he resolved to add diamond cutting to diamond mining, and to make Kimberley the great centre of both. He would certainly have achieved this, but that grander schemes claimed his attention.

The writer was present in the Cape Parliament when Mr. Rhodes made his great speech on opening up a great highway in Africa which should be linked to the Cape Colony. Running through the Dark Continent he said “there were highlands, healthy and breezy and fertile,” the backbone of the country, as far at least as to the equatorial lakes. “Get hold of these highlands,” he was wont to say, “and let who will have the swamps.” This was long before the Chartered Company was born or thought of. Every member of the Legislature listened in silent wonder, but not a human being sympathized. His voice was as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.” Stellaland, then peopled by a few emigrant farmers, was the immediate object of his attention, and on the further side of Stellaland the “beyond and the beyond.”

Such was his dream; and when the grey dawn broke he set to work to realize it, with what toiling steps how few know. Stellaland was settled, with Rhodes as Commissioner, and under the protection of the British flag. The idea of a great Company to settle and develop the interior came to him as a sudden thought while on a journey, and he wired off the resolve to a friend as simply as if he had determined to buy a farm. Under his inspiration, the Chartered Company was formed, and pushed its enterprise to the Zambesi and beyond. Mr. Rhodes, indeed, soon outstripped their operations; for late one evening, while in the bay window of his bedroom looking westward to the heights of Table Mountain, “from Cape to Cairo” was added to his vast programme. He would construct a telegraph wire through the almost unknown lands where Livingstone had only a few years before wandered like a lonely pilgrim, and he further resolved that a railway should follow.

Before he died his clear vision had swept the Continent from south to north, and working parties were toiling through tropical heats and fever swamps straight north to the goal. They are working still. When he died the telegraph was beyond Blantyre and the railway had been constructed more than a third of the distance, while the Railway Surveyors were already beyond the Victoria Falls.

About a year ago the writer met with one of these Surveyors at Mr. Rhodes’s table. He had come down to recruit, but was restless to get back. He found it lonely, he said, in Cape Town. He had drunk in the veld air, and the spirit of his master was upon him. Mr. Rhodes asked him if the spray of the Falls would touch the trains as they passed. “Yes,” said the Surveyor, “if the wind is the right way.” “That will do,” said Mr. Rhodes, his face beaming like a boy’s.

There was not the same scope in politics for these expansive efforts, but Mr. Rhodes, conservative as he was supposed to be, when he was courting the Dutch Alliance, always seemed to plan out something larger and better in front. When Prime Minister, he was ever anxious to unite the races of South Africa by a common interest in the affairs of the country, and to avoid party divisions on race lines.

A long time before he died a Federated South Africa had been kept steadily in view; it was the dream of his later life to see such federation accomplished, and to be its first Premier. He often talked with delight of Rhodesia being admitted into the federal fold, and sharing in the new political life destined for South Africa.

It was the passionate feeling that Krugerism, as he was wont to call it, or, in other words, the narrow and corrupt provincialism of Transvaal administration, stood in the way of the welfare of South Africa and the consummation of his hopes that led Mr. Rhodes to the great mistake of his life, viz., his association with the raid. Its originator he was not.

It was characteristic of Mr. Rhodes that he seized the principles of the new movement and gave it a watchword. He opposed to the restricted franchise and the political and social tyrannies of the Transvaal the motto—equal political rights for all civilized men south of the Zambesi. These noble words included in a new enfranchisement all races and nationalities. In other words, Mr. Rhodes insisted that the principles of constitutional liberty enjoyed in the Cape Colony under the British Crown should extend throughout South Africa. The Cape Constitution had received citizens of Dutch extraction with open arms. Paul Kruger in the north had received Englishmen with a closed fist. It was Mr. Rhodes’s policy to abolish all political restrictions and unite all classes in a new political brotherhood. Alas, he did not live to see his dreams realized. South Africa will be federated, but other hands will reap the harvest.

Mr. Rhodes was large-hearted in his sympathies and friendships, and had great and noble thoughts of men and things. He hated scandal, and always listened impatiently to gossipy detractions of men or women. Entirely simple in his manner and speech, he had no liking for what is called Society, although he loved the social gatherings at Groot-Schuur. These gatherings were of singular interest. At lunch or dinner almost any day of the week you might meet the pioneers of civilization and commerce from the interior. Missionaries of all creeds, sportsmen, travelers, surveyors, soldiers dropped in for a “talk with Rhodes.” At the head of his table on such occasions Mr. Rhodes was at his best. His personality was never more charming or mesmeric. Brilliant, trenchant, and often amusing, he took as much interest in his guests as they in him. Full of inquiries about the experiences and views of others, he never bored his company with his own opinions and feelings, although they were freely expressed and eagerly listened to.

But not only was Cecil Rhodes charming at the head of his table with his friends, but outside of the house, on the stoep or verandah, with the mountain full in view, he was equally delightful under another order of impression. He never tired of the landscape, never ceased to be inspired by it as constantly viewed through the marble columns which supported the verandah roof or through the large bay window of his bedroom. Immediately in front were a series of terraces richly flowered, and in the springtime blazing with colour; beyond these a sweep of rough green sward, dotted with clumps of fir and silver trees, and still higher tiers of solid rock cut into bold ravines which crowned the mountain slopes. It is not too much to say that Mr. Rhodes was literally possessed with this glorious outlook. He grew impatient if a visitor turned his chair where he could not see it. On one occasion, when he was laying the foundation stone of a new Presbyterian Church, he carried his enthusiasm so far as to tell his audience that he found his church on the slopes of the mountain.

Much as Mr. Rhodes enjoyed converse with friends, he was never happier than in an evening by himself with his books. He had a choice classical and general library, and read strong books in preference to fiction. After the discovery of the ruins of Zimbabye, he interested himself greatly in African antiquities from Egypt downwards, and, without professing to be a student of human thought on the problems of life and destiny, he was fond of books on such themes. He was a great admirer of Marcus Aurelius, and often carried a small and much-prized edition in his pocket. Holding it up to the writer one day soon after the fire at Groot-Schuur, he said: “I was delighted to find this safe.” He had marked a passage amongst others in the book on the enduring character of true work compared with the transitoriness of human life.

Of Mr. Rhodes’s personal generosity a volume might be written. Perhaps it was less exercised during the last two or three years of his life when he was more absorbed in his great northern enterprises, and seemed almost to grudge expenditure that did not go that way. But he was always a munificent giver, especially in a quiet way to those in need. It is within the writer’s knowledge that he gave away several thousand pounds to the pioneers who had pitched their tents in Mashonaland when the native rising stopped their work. The curious cheques he wrote on any odd pieces of paper were difficult to decipher, and as difficult to collect. It may be said of most of his benefactions “that his left hand hardly knew what his right hand did,” at all events they were out of sight of the world and relieved real need.

The generous impulses of Mr. Rhodes were well illustrated by an incident the truth of which can be vouched for by the writer. He was dining one stormy evening with Mr. Fuller, who resided about a mile from Groot-Schuur, when a telegram was received by that gentleman to the effect that some lighters with men on board had been driven out to sea from their moorings in Table Bay, and were already beyond Cape Point, drifting eastward. The telegram begged Mr. Fuller to communicate somehow with the Admiral at Simon’s Town and induce him to get upstream in one of the gun boats and go to the rescue of the men. It was past ten o’clock in the evening, the telegraph was closed, and there was no train to Simon’s Town, which was distant twenty miles. The guests were conferring with Mr. Fuller as to what could be done when Mr. Rhodes jumped from his seat and exclaimed, “I will go myself.” His carriage had just come to fetch him, and after getting instructions from his host he jumped into it, telling the astonished coachman to drive to the Admiral’s house at Simon’s Town. Without any message to his people at Groot-Schuur, who sat up all night wondering what had become of him, he went on his journey, arriving a little after midnight. There he found the Port Captain in a small tug with steam up, just starting in search of the lighters. It was a wild, dark night, with heavy seas rolling just outside; without a word to his coachman, Mr. Rhodes went on board the tug to join in the search. For ten hours he remained on board while the tug made for “Danger point,” struggling with heavy south-west seas. It was a fearful night, but Mr. Rhodes, continually drenched to the skin, kept the watch with the captain. The search was not successful, but the lighters and men were picked up twelve hours afterwards by a steamer coming from Mossel Bay, which had been advised of the disaster by Mr. Fuller, and instructed to search the shore. The story got abroad in Cape Town early in the morning, and every one was anxiously enquiring for Mr. Rhodes, who turned up at the meeting of Parliament at two o’clock none the worse for his adventure; he often declared, however, that it was the most terrible night he had ever passed.

It will be found, I believe, when Mr. Rhodes’s bequests come to be known, that they display the same greatness of intent as the leading actions of his life. There need be no fear that his work will be stopped. Beloved friends, his companions in many a glorious enterprise, will carry it to completion. It was a favourite and oft uttered idea with Mr. Rhodes that no man, however useful, was indispensable. His work, he said, if it were true, would remain as a living force after he had left it. He gave utterance to this sentiment and repeated it with impressive emphasis on his recent visit to England, as if the shadow of coming trouble were already upon him.

Cecil Rhodes had many failings, but they were for the most part the failings of greatness, of the haste to achieve; limitations he had, though his vision was large and his work great. Moreover, the choice of means was not always justified by “ends.” His judgments were sometimes clouded by temper or prejudice. But spite of all these defects, he was a great and strong man, with great ideals, supported by strenuous endeavours, mostly of a noble type.

Mr. Rhodes is to be buried in the Matoppos—in the land he won for England. It is a fitting resting place. The winds of the desert will make wild music over his grave and the African sun shine down on the last remains of the most Imperial figure of the century.

THE PASSING OF RHODES

SOME PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

LUXOR, March 26

Five hundred miles up the Nile I have just heard of the death of the great Rhodes. A month or two back he was here; a few weeks since he was characteristically quizzing the Arab who acts as my dragoman. The native is a young Egyptian of pure race, and even he has been stunned by the news of the passing away of the foremost South African. He stands silently beside me with features set in sadness. We have somber reflections in common with the Empire whose hum is hushed here; we have talked much about Mr. Rhodes since the sinister intelligence we hardly dared to read began to tick along the cable, and now with the fatal telegraph form lying just opened beside me we bow our heads as we try to realize that in bitter truth “the last great Englishman is low.” Why do I mention this dark-skinned representative of a reviving civilization? The reason is a simple one. It happens that he was very closely associated with some of Mr. Rhodes’s last thoughts and schemes. The other day Hadji Hamed Mohammed was employed by Mr. Rhodes to select for South Africa many fine specimens of arboriculture, and a number of specially good breeding asses, and these are now on their way to the Cape. When Mr. Rhodes visited the stupendous and marvelous Tombs of the Kings of Egypt, among the hot rocks away across the Nile yonder, he conceived the notion that it was in some such sepulcher that Alan Wilson and the gallant men who died at Shangani should finally rest. Accordingly, an architect was commissioned to come here and take drawings of these imperishable graves, and Hadji accompanied him for several days as he did so. But a day ago also, the Chairman of the Chartered Company, His Grace the Duke of Abercorn, was here, and visited the great monuments of antiquity in the neighbourhood which recently interested Mr. Rhodes so much. Hadji tells me that when Mr. Rhodes and his party went into a particular hillside tomb, where the coloured pictures on the walls of four thousand years ago look as fresh as the day they were painted, the lamented South African took him aside and said gravely, but with the twinkle in the eye many of us will long remember well, “Now, Hadji, tell me the truth. I won’t give you away to the others, but you had this tomb all nicely painted up for me yesterday, hadn’t you?” And Hadji smiles through his tears at the recollection. So the great Rhodes made himself beloved from the Cape to Cairo—among the educated Arabs striving to learn the secrets of the Pharaohs as among the Matabeles on the Matoppos.

Cecil Rhodes est mort. So runs the public telegram which has arrived as I am writing. It is not easy to imagine the new South Africa without the guiding genius whose grand work for the Empire will only be quite understood as the years roll on, and it continues to develop and fructify. It is vain to speculate as to what “might have been”; but it is by no means vain, and will never be vain, for South Africans to endeavour to realize the lofty ideals Cecil Rhodes constantly set before himself. Rhodes’s poor harassed body has disappeared, but the light of his patriotic spirit is unquenchable. Rhodes is dead, but the principles of public policy which he enunciated are as eternal as Truth itself, and must prevail. “Equal rights for all white men in South Africa” was his political creed long before the wretched Paul Kruger rushed on his miserable fate, and we may be profoundly grateful that greatly by the means of the Master Prophet of South Africa, the blessed dawn of liberty for all is at hand. Cecil Rhodes can scarcely be said to have died before his time, if we may reckon his time as that he allowed himself. He did not expect to live much beyond the age at which he has died. And this is, perhaps, the secret of the success of much of his colossal and daring work. When he had made up his mind that any scheme was practicable, he was always in a hurry to see it carried out, so that he might have the more time to ponder others. He was impatient of all restraint, but a truer friend never breathed. I mourn him as that, but in no other way. It is right rather to rejoice that such a man has lived so long and been able to carve his identity so deeply into the South African fabric. But my pen goes beyond its present object, viz., to show before the post leaves how at this wayside village on the Cape to Cairo railway—his great monument!—the natives pause to think of the man whose name will be honoured for ages among the head roll of British statesmen.

Not long ago I listened to a lecture on Roman history by Professor Sanday, and was struck by his remark that the eminent Romans had the strong jaws of Empire builders. For the third time I went into the Naples Museum the other day to gaze once more on the big busts of the Roman Emperors, and again was impressed by the fact that several of them might well be said to be meant for the head of Cecil Rhodes. Especially is this the case with Vespasian. When that Emperor died his last words were, “And now I join the Gods.” Certainly Cecil Rhodes has gone to a high place in the British Pantheon. One is tempted to linger on his full life, but it is impossible to give an epitome of Rhodes’s life in one issue of South Africa. It is set forth in 53 volumes of the paper for all who wish to read it. And this is, perhaps, a convenient opportunity to reply to the taunts which have sometimes been leveled at the paper by those who could not appreciate Cecil Rhodes, viz.—that South Africa was his paid organ. The insinuation is absolutely baseless. He had no more to do with the paper than the King of England, but I have felt it to be my duty to be as loyal to the one as to the other. Its back numbers testify that in his darkest hours the support of South Africa was the strongest, and neither he nor any other living man besides myself had any voice in the control of that support. These matters are largely personal, but the reference to them now may not be amiss. I could dwell on my attachment to the great man who has left us. The memory of his private hospitality will never be effaced, neither will that of the hours of quiet converse when the cares of the day had silently stolen away. He would sometimes touch on his early days when cotton planting in Natal, and jokingly say that he could always be sure of a square meal when he rode over to the adjoining farm of my father-in-law. So we had much in common that may be some excuse for these hasty reminiscences. Just one other. In the early days of Rhodesia, Mr. Rhodes said to me, “When they put me below the ground in a box they will find plenty of gold in Rhodesia.” Fortunately Mr. Rhodes lived to see something of the resources of the great country he saved for the Empire. But his remark makes me wonder now how he will be buried. Surely in some way worthy of his life and aims. I have said he gave directions for the sepulchre of the Shangani heroes at Zimbabwe to be modeled on the lines of the great Tombs of the old Egyptian Kings. Should he not be placed there also? Should the creator and defenders of Rhodesia not lie in one burial blent? And should not a colossal towering statue of the man be erected outside the tomb with outstretched finger pointing to Cairo, and having below the words which may be supposed to have inspired his great career:--

I hear the tread of Pioneers

Of nations yet to be:

The first low wash of human waves

Where soon shall roll a sea?

E.P.M.

IN MEMORIAM—CECIL RHODES

Behold his work is done,

The night comes darkly down,

With morning and the rising sun

We speak of his renown.

He wrought in steadfast hope

Through many an anxious hour,

Who shall recast the horoscope?

Who shall cement the power?

He taught us how the man

Is greater than mankind,

Where, in majestic channel, ran

The currents of his mind.

Hush! If his lips could speak

What would their message be?

“Be strong, ‘tis baseness to be weak,

Rule, and in rule be free.”

We lay him in the earth

In this last parting hour,

Not in the land that gave him birth,

But that which gave him power,

Peace be to him and rest,

In desert or in street;

Within his brave and manly breast

The heart of England beat.

Among the eternal hills,

Beneath the changing sky,

Where the wind wanders as it wills,

The Great White Chief shall lie.

But still in death he lives

For those he leaves behind,

And with an open hand still gives

His bounty to his kind.

Let his good deeds be known,

Nor his failings hid;

But base the hands that cast a stone—

The hands that nothing did.

And let this whisper run,

Our history through and through;

Behold, so little yet is done,

So much is left to do.

So much for life and light!

Speeding from shore to shore,

Ere on the world descends the night,

And man can work no more.

BENJAMIN GEORGE AMBLER

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES

MR. RHODES AND THE BOERS

Sir G. D. Taubman Goldie writes to the Times:--It is difficult to realize that Cecil Rhodes is dead. Just a month ago he and I were flying in his motor-car round the roads of the Wynberg district—he, outspoken as usual, full of his plans for the future, passing judgments on men and things with his customary frankness. His appetite was good, and he transacted business and responded to telegrams with the decision and promptness that must always have distinguished him from weak and vacillating minds.

His first greeting to me had been, “Well! They’ve squeezed you out; but they won’t squeeze me out,” and when I advised him to arrange for the transfer of Rhodesia—as I had the transfer of Nigeria—while he had health and vigour to see some justice done to his shareholders, he touched his heart significantly, and, of course, I said no more. But, later on, he spoke of his great railway scheme and the projected bridge across the Zambesi in a tone that convinced me that he had no premonition of any immediate evil.

My object in writing this letter, however, is to put on record the surprising fact that all the Boers to whom I spoke of him expressed their respect and liking for him.

One expected that fervent loyalists in South Africa should look to him as the one necessary man; but that their admiration should be shared by the other side is, to me, convincing proof of the greatness of his character.

Like most strong men, he had many enemies; but Britons do not carry animosity beyond the grave; and if, as I hope, the authorities of Westminster Abbey admit his monument to the precinct where the memories of other great Englishmen are preserved, few, if any, voices would be raised against their decision.

Another well-informed correspondent, “Home Returned,” writes:--“I am speaking from positive knowledge when I say that even the educated Boers reverenced his intellect, and looked hopefully to him to find a way out of the tangle of South African affairs, and now the strong man is gone, and there is no one to fill his place. Mr. Rhodes has a singular popularity among the South African Dutch, who love a strong man. I was talking with a leading Boer general once, and a young officer who joined in the conversation remarked, ‘I suppose that if you had taken Kimberley you would have shot Rhodes?’ ‘Shot him! No!’ was the half-jocular reply, ‘we would have sent him to Pretoria and made him President instead of old Kruger.’ I may add that the Boer leader was an anti-Krugerite before the war. Another very intelligent Boer expressed an opinion which is not likely to meet with acceptance on this side, ‘Cecil Rhodes is the only strong man you English have got.’”

A HISTORIC MEETING IN LONDON

To the Daily Graphic Sir Harry Johnston contributes a deeply-interesting article, in the main descriptive of a historic meeting with Mr. Rhodes in London in May, 1889, at which the distinguished Central African Governor maintains that “the fate of South Central Africa was decided.”

“Events in Africa were moving too fast, and forced our hand. A month or two would decide the fate of Trans-Zambesia. If Great Britain made no move, the lands between the Congo and Lake Nyassa, between Tanganyika and the Zambesi, would be divided between Portugal, Germany, and Belgium. Yet our Government had no monetary resources, as the Treasury refused its concurrence—whether wisely or unwisely it is far too soon to decide. At this juncture the present writer heard from a friend that a Cape politician named Cecil Rhodes had arrived in London to secure a charter for a great South African undertaking, which should develop and perhaps govern South Africa between British Bechuanaland and the Zambesi. The name was not unfamiliar, since a few years before Cecil Rhodes had been much quoted (as a Cape Colonial Commissioner), and sometimes a good deal scolded, by the Rev. John Mackenzie, who, as missionary and administrator, did so much to make Bechuanaland British.

“Cecil Rhodes came to dine in Queen Anne’s Mansions, accompanied by his introducer. During the soup I thought him sulky and reserved. In the fish course a word or two about the Zambesi aroused life in those eyes, which could look so unsympathetically dull. The rest of the dinner I remember nothing about. I think we left it to be eaten by the amused friend-in-common, who was but little interested (then) in African affairs. Rhodes and I retired to a window seat, looking out over all South London. The glow of the late May evening changed into purple darkness; the neglected friend departed silently; we never stopped talking to note his withdrawal or to turn up the lights; the eager conversation went on till the face of Big Ben marked one o’clock. Then Rhodes left me, with my promise that I would come to breakfast eight hours afterwards at the Westminster Palace Hotel, and resume the discussion of plans.

“It was the idea of extending British South Africa, not only to the Zambesi, but to Tanganyika, and starting off again from Tanganyika to Khartoum and Cairo, which had fired his brain. I do not think it is exaggeration to say that in the hours between eight in the evening and ten in the morning of May 20, 1889, the fate of South Central Africa was decided. Rhodes had promised to find the money to support that Protectorate when the Government should declare it, and had furnished me with the necessary assurances to lay before the Foreign Office, with Lord Rothschild as his guarantor.”

“In 1893,” Sir Harry Johnston continues, “began the parting of the ways. Rhodes was bent on creating an immense Cape Colony—a State which should extend its rule over Nyassa and Tanganyika. The present writer was always in favour of a great South African Confederation under the British flag, but would have limited its rule to the regions south of the Zambesi, where the white man can colonise, and must predominate. Rhodes wanted to bring the millions of Central Africa negroes under the control of the Cape Ministry. Having regard to the former mismanagement of Basuto affairs by the Cape Parliament, the present writer could not agree, and so began a divergence of opinion which slowly widened as other points of difference in policy arose. Nevertheless, we heartily agreed on some points, such as the Trans-Continental telegraph and railway extension across the Zambesi.

“This divergence of opinion on the native question with the Administrator of British Central Africa was a trivial matter, however, compared with what also commenced in the same year—1893—the definite assumption of conflicting policies by Rhodes and Kruger. Kruger and Leyds—let us brush syllogisms aside—had resolved to make the Transvaal and Orange Free State the nucleus of an African Confederation, which should secede from the British Empire. Rhodes had set his heart on a great British State between Tanganyika, Cape Town, and Durban, over which, no doubt, his personal influence should predominate, either officially or unofficially, but which, at any rate, should be the fourth (he ranked it with India and Canada above, as the third) greatest division of the British Empire. The means he took to attain this end may have been technically immoral, unwise, or incomplete, but no one can describe the goal aimed at as a petty one, or even as unlikely to redound to the future welfare of the human race.

“Rhodes had splendid visions—ideals that made the heart glow—but he hated details; and painstaking attempts to make him realize small points which might affect great results often caused the conscientious Administrator to be rudely snubbed. But he was a very great man, and possessed of extraordinary personal fascination. His premature death must make the hearts ache even of those who, knowing him, differed from him on matters of detail or general policy.”

MR. R. WILLIAMS’S TRIBUTE

The Aberdeen Daily Journal has an interesting communication from Mr. Robert Williams, who writes: “My mind is filled with reminiscences of Rhodes extending over 20 years or so, but perhaps none of them fill me with greater depression than the last voyage I made to Madeira with him to arrange a little railway matter. The evening before reaching Madeira we had walked the deck for a full hour together discussing South Africa—past, present and future. Rhodes stopped suddenly, and we both leaned on the rail and looked out towards the setting sun which probably suggested the end—the sun half buried in the watery horizon and the chill of that moment passing over us—he looked out over the sea with a sad fixed gaze and said, ‘What a pity we can’t live on for ever and see the end of things.’ Poor fellow, he probably knew it was not to be possible for him to live to see the dream of his life—a Federated South Africa, for which he had laboured incessantly—accomplished.”

Next day, says Mr. Williams, he was out riding with Mr. Rhodes, when “a Portuguese peasant woman, playing with her child at the roadside, struck his fancy, and empires and everything were forgotten. Out came the best of him, and out came the schoolboy face and his charming dimples! ‘Look, Williams, isn’t this nice?’ Then, addressing the woman in a language she did not know, ‘You like your baby! Umph! Quite right! You love your baby!’ He pulled up his horse, and took a handful of coins from his pocket, and, throwing them to her, away we went, leaving the woman on the road in amazement at her sudden fortune, calling down all the blessings of the saints, and Rhodes flying as if he had committed some crime.”

A NOTEWORTHY EXTRACT

Mr. E. P. Mathers, in his book “Zambesia” published in 1890, referring in the closing chapter to the mighty mission of the Chartered Company, and to Mr. Cecil Rhodes, says: What is Mr. Rhodes’s policy? It is a question that I had thought had been answered long ago, but it appeared as if there were those in doubt on the subject when Mr. Rhodes, not long ago, added to his many cares those of the office of Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. It is now some years since Mr. Rhodes one day, pointing to a map of South Africa, and indicating what is now Zambesia, said to a friend, “All that British! That is my dream.” How soon the dream has been fulfilled, we have just been watching. In a conversation with this remarkable man not long ago on the subject, and recalling earlier talks on the same theme, he said to me, with a wave of the hand towards the wall, “Yes, it is all like a picture that was at one time very dim, but has now become more and more distinct.” But another dream has been dreamed, and Mr. Rhodes—a veritable modern Alexander—is sighing for other worlds to conquer. I passed the remark, “I want to see you take Colonial England through to Cairo.” “Well, I have got to Tanganyika,” was the slow, measured, reflecting reply. Mr. Rhodes’s policy! It should be well enough known, if only by the name of the Company for which Mr. Cawston and he got a Royal Charter. It is to realize in Africa the destiny of the British race to one day colonise the Globe. He saw the Boer intriguing with the German to bar the progress of English-speaking people to the Zambesi and beyond, and he pondered deeply and successfully as to how the intrigues might be defeated; he has defined his policy as a South African policy, but that carries with it what Sir Hercules Robinson once called “the ultimate establishment of the Federal dominion of South Africa under the British Flag.”

RHODES THE MAN

In his personal habits, says a correspondent, Rhodes was simple, but not Spartan-like. He ate and drank heartily, but was no epicure. Ordinarily a somewhat silent man, he was subject—as many silent men are—to fits of extreme talkativeness, and on these occasions his ideas came tumbling out with a rush and a hurry which made them difficult to follow. He was altogether indifferent to appearances, especially in former years, was by no means a drawing-room man, and his language was frequently rough if vigorous. As an orator he was brief and pithy, indulged in little rhetoric, but, speaking only on subjects with which he was dealing and on which he felt strongly, he generally managed to stamp his own ideas on the minds of his audience. The most interesting side of this man of action was his love of books and his extraordinary powers of assimilating them. He could, like John Richard Green, suck the heart out of a book in a very short time, but, unlike the author of the “Shorter History,” he was incapable of reproducing in writing what he had read. The shortest letter was a trouble to him, and, indeed, he seldom, if ever, could be induced to write one. It must be said, however, that this extreme reticence on paper was not due merely to a dislike for writing or to a feeling of incapacity, but to a caution which grew more and more marked. He was averse from committing anything to the compromising evidence of black and white. His literary studies did not take him into the region of intellectual subtleties, but were all connected with living facts. History, ancient and modern, was particularly congenial to him, and he devoured anything which would tell him of new countries or new peoples.

The cost of anything Mr. Rhodes was interested in never counted with him, says the writer of the Daily News memoir. As it has already been said, he had no love of money except in so far as it enabled him to carry out his own ideas. He was as lavish very often in his generosity to others as he was in his own affairs, and innumerable tales are current of the open-hearted generosity of the man whenever his interest could be stirred, which was not always. One very striking illustration of many excellent characteristics of the man is afforded in the fact that after the fall of Lo Bengula he had three of his sons taken to Cape Town and educated at his expense. Altogether, he was a remarkable man who played a remarkable part. As a speaker his chief characteristics were naturalness and outspoken bluntness. He had a knack of turning phrases in an easy colloquialism, and he had an easy, straightforward style that was easy to follow, and was calculated to inspire a conviction of honesty. It was not easy to get familiar with him, but to friends with whom he was familiar he had the reputation of being very staunch and true.

MR. RHODES IN THE CAPE HOUSE

Men will remember him in the House of Assembly, says a writer in the Express, in the dark days of Opposition, when Mr. Schreiner sat at the Treasury bench on Speaker Berry’s right. Prayers were over and business was going, as a rule, before Mr. Rhodes “loafed” (no other word will do) to his seat alongside Sir Gordon Sprigg. There was nothing heroic in his attitude; it was mostly sprawl, with frequent running of fingers through an already tousled head of hair; then impassiveness. But the House and the galleries felt that a new atmosphere had been created.

Watch the loose-jointed figure gather itself together as if to spring; let a man on the other side trip in his facts in regard to native legislation or the sequence of events interrupted by Mauser fire. The listlessness goes like a flicker of a bioscope, and the lounger is on his feet, hands locked at his back, eyes glued on Mr. Speaker.

“I beg the hon. Member’s pardon,” is heard in that curious strained voice, with a catch at every tenth word when emotion rises high, “I never did nor said so-and-so. Unless memory fails me—“

“Order, order!” shout the small fry of the Bond party. They always do this, vainly raging, if their bete noire asks fair play.

Their jeers and girdings are useful as peas shot at elephants. The explanation goes on to its end, with offerings of wise “thoughts” and modern instances—of Afrikander duplicities.

“I can’t quite understand why,” said the great man one day, “whenever I address the House these gentlemen opposite all bark at me like so many baboons. Am I so dangerous to them?” This drove the whole Ministerial-Bond majority (bar Mr. Schreiner and Mr. Solomon) to clamorous frenzy. They didn’t like to the comparison to the gaunt, grey-jowled “baviaan” of their mountain gorges, suspect by Mr. Schreiner of placing rocks on the railway with intent to wreck troop trains.

CECIL RHODES IN KIMBERLEY

Mr. H. F. Prevost Battersby, who arrived in Kimberley shortly after the relief, writes, in the course of an article in the Morning Post:--“There was an interesting company at those dinners in the Sanatorium—a company of men very diverse in personality. Lord Methuen, just arrived from the Modder with the bitterness of defeat still on him; Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, ubiquitous and undauntable; Prince Francis of Teck, vivacious and energetic, breathing remounts; Mr. Smartt, the present Commissioner of Public Works at the Cape, kindly and serious, and Mr. Rochfort Maguire, whose wife, looking none the worse for the long investment, was the only lady at the board. With such varied elements there was an ample diversity of talk, and Cecil Rhodes loved, when in the mood, to tilt at the peculiarities of each, breaking from jest to bitter earnest, unmasking opinions with a lawyer’s shrewdness, or insisting on a point with almost childish petulance; fond of a phrase, sometimes too fond of it, hammering down an axiom with Carlylean vigour and persistence, the curious, brittle, high-pitched voice running up into falsetto or sinking into vibrating grunts, playing with a subject, wrangling with a subject, and often flinging it from him with an abrupt violence, like the dashing of a plate against the wall. Very prominent was his contempt for the methods and ability of the Army. He made some show of restraining its volubility when he spoke before soldiers, but not much. He had sat watching for too many impatient months that impotent force on the Modder to have any respect for its achievements or make allowances for its defects. To his directness the ways of routine and circumlocution were a willful folly. He said he could have raised a force of farmers and relieved Kimberley three times over while the soldiers were doing nothing but discussing how it oughtn’t to be done. And he believed what he said. He declined altogether to admit the numbers which the enemy was reported to have put into the field. Thirty-five thousand was his outside estimate, which he must have since seen cause to revise. ‘Where could they get them from?’ he used to expostulate, ‘You can’t make men as you make trousers.’ That was among his favourite phrases, and he applied it in more ways than one.”

HIS FASCINATING PRESENCE

There was, says a correspondent of the Standard, undoubtedly something extraordinarily impressive and fascinating about Mr. Rhodes which even the casual acquaintance found it difficult to resist. It was not exactly what is called charm of manner, for his bearing was rough, his voice curiously thin and high for his broad chest and big throat, his address by no means polished. But the leonine head, with its hedge of tumbled hair, and his height and size (which somehow always seemed greater than they were), made him a commanding figure. One of his attractions was the smile of singular and appealing sweetness, which now and again would break over the stern, brick-red face, and go straight to your heart. But he was also a talker of extraordinary plausibility. He spoke in abrupt, rather jerky sentences, but his conversation carried conviction. You might approach him full of skepticism and opposition, but you were apt to be carried away in spite of your better judgment. I remember my own first interview with him. It was in the early days of the Chartered Company, and I knew nothing of Mr. Rhodes, except his financial methods, of which I had expressed a somewhat unfavourable opinion. For reasons of his own it suited him to modify my sentiments if he could. He asked me to call on him at the Burlington Hotel, which I did. After passing through the usual levee in the ante-chamber, I was admitted to the Presence. A big man, untidily dressed in a crumpled tweed suit, lounged heavily by the fire. I sat down in one armchair; Mr. Rhodes sat in another, twisting his left ankle over his right, and talked. For an hour and ten minutes he ran on in his strange uneven tones, pouring out his thoughts with astonishing candour. I left him conquered if not convinced, and perfectly impregnated with the belief (for which I should have found it quite impossible to supply definite reasons) that I had been talking with one of the half-dozen most remarkable men whom it has been my lot to encounter.

A FORGOTTEN ACCOUNT

Mr. W. Lipscomb, Orpwood, writes to us from Oxford: “It was somewhere in the seventies that Mr. Cecil Rhodes was up at Oxford as an undergraduate, and at that period of his career, like many undergraduates, he was unable to give a cheque for very large amounts. The writer is partner in an old Oxford concern, which possesses a ledger in which is recorded the following pleasing incident: ‘When Mr. C. J. Rhodes left Oxford, he was indebted to this firm for something under £50. At the end of six years this still remained unsettled, and eventually the auditor inscribed “bad debt” across the page. Eleven years later a cheque was received from the late right hon. gentleman from South Africa in full payment with interest per annum at the rate of 5 per cent.’”

FROM THE BRITISH PRESS

On the morrow of his death, the Times devoted to Mr. Rhodes and his career nearly two pages of its daily issue, from which we quote the following:--

THE END

The utmost that has been hoped by his friends for some time past was that with care and freedom from worry his life might have been preserved for three or four years and the opportunity gained for him to take a part in the federation of South Africa, which would have been to him the crown and completion of his Imperial work. But already in the later months of last year he was himself aware of the precarious condition of his health. He wrote from Egypt to a confidential friend that his heart was pressing upon his lungs, that he was suffering acute and constant pain, and that no political combination should be formed on the assumption of his continued existence. Notwithstanding this indication of his own opinion, a movement was set on foot amongst his old Dutch following at the Cape to induce him to return to political life. It was felt that in the present shattered condition of parties the situation called urgently for one who in his best days was known as the “great amalgamator,” and it was thought in some influential Dutch quarters that if Mr. Rhodes cared to undertake the task a party might be formed which should unite all that was ablest and most moderate in Cape Colonial public life. In the beginning of January a cable was sent to him to this effect, and he was assured on the part of a considerable section of the Dutch that if he would return to active politics “bygones should be bygones.” His health rendered the acceptance of the proposal impossible. He returned to the Cape, drawn there unfortunately for himself by other business, and landed on February 4, having suffered severely from heat during the passage through the tropics. It was at once evident that he was wholly unfit for public work. Dr. Jameson, who as his friend and medical attendant had of late accompanied him in his travels, took him at once to Muizenberg, that he might get the benefit of cooler air; but all that the care of friends could do was unavailing. His strength failed rapidly, and within a few days it was apparent that he had only returned to South Africa to die. It had been his wish to be buried in those Matoppo Hills where he had passed through scenes which made life worth living, and it is understood that if it is practicable it will be in those solitudes that his body will be laid to rest. His own views of death were very simple. The thought of it gave him little or no emotion. “When I am dead,” he once said, “let there be no fuss! Lay me in the grave. Tread down the earth and pass on; I shall have done my work.” There is a certain dramatic fitness in the end now as it comes—he has done his work and died.

A REMARKABLE CAREER

It has been said that it is the invalids who do the work of the world. In one sense Mr. Rhodes’s remarkable career may be taken as a striking exemplification of the truth of the saying. Never, perhaps, has a man repeatedly condemned by his doctors to early death carried to completion in his lifetime a larger portion of the ideals of his youth. At an age when the ambition of many boys has hardly ranged beyond the efficient leading of a football team, he set before himself the conception of winning a great territory for the future settlement of the British race. Foreign rivals desired to obtain the land. He foresaw their designs. Almost single-handed he checked and outwitted them. His money, his time, his ability were constantly devoted to an object of which the full conception, expanding with each partial success, ripened in his riper age and absorbed him wholly as a man. The fruit of every personal success was given to it without reserve. Mr. Rhodes never married. He had practically no private life. His friends and associates, not always wisely chosen, were the men brought to him by work and fate. His every act was public, known to any one who chose to inquire. He made no confidences, for he had no secrets. Life for him meant public action. Happiness, so far as he allowed himself to think of it, consisted in the accomplishment of his public aims. First, to open the healthy uplands of South Africa to British colonization; then, to carry the British flag to the Zambesi; then, to cross the Zambesi and boldly to stretch the influence of Great Britain to Uganda and the Nile; finally, Africa British in one unbroken line from Cairo to the Cape, represented the first steps of his scheme. And when these things were almost done, when Bechuanaland was annexed at one end and Uganda at the other, and the territories of the British South Africa Company spread over an area as great as three-quarters of British India, it seemed to him little to have won the territory unless telegraphs and roads and railways could connect the whole and the benefits of British administration be at least initially introduced. It has been said by an able Arab administrator, “One man can do little in a new country, but he can open the door and civilization must do the rest.” Mr. Rhodes fully comprehended the importance of opening the door. To open the door from one end of Africa to the other was the work of his lifetime. We may rest assured that he has died in full confidence that British influence will do the rest. To him British influence, with its instincts in favour of liberty, order, and justice, represented the highest ideal of practical civilization which history has yet produced. He gave his whole life to its service, and he did more to extend the area of its operation than has perhaps been done by any other single individual of his generation. He had many faults—faults which he was ever amongst the first to own. His character had also some serious limitations. But, such as he was, he spent himself absolutely in the service of his country, and his countrymen will gratefully and proudly add his name to the distinguished roll of those who have made the British Empire what it is.

A GENUINE AFRIKANDER

Mr. Rhodes, says the Times in its leading article, was a genuine Afrikander, but, unlike his obstinate old enemy at Pretoria, he was a statesman, and a world-statesman. He saw South Africa in its relation to the world-wide Empire to which it owed allegiance; and if, in the days before the war, it was his ambition to weld the British and the Dutch from Cape Town to the Zambesi into one powerful federation of self-governing communities, he knew well that the only safeguard for the wellbeing of such a federation lay in the British connection. He dreamed, as others had dreamed, of an even greater federation—namely, that of the whole Empire; he allowed this dream to lead him to encourage the fatal heresy of Home Rule for Ireland; but meantime his personal love and attachment were given to South Africa, to the veld over which he had wandered as a young man, to his house at Groot-Schuur, to the wide prospect which it commands, to the climate, the air, the vegetation. “South Africa gets into your blood,” he used to say, and it is small wonder that he loved a climate which had saved and prolonged his life and a country which had been, for him, the scene of so wonderful a career. Personally, though he had little charm, he had a great deal of magnetism. It is enough to name three very eminent men on whom at different epochs he exercised this with much success—the German Emperor, Lord Rosebery, and General Gordon. What he cordially disliked was the purely Parliamentary type of man—a feeling shared by half the great administrators who rule the British Empire. Life for him was too short to waste in conventional forms. It represented a great opportunity, to be used, or, it might be, misused, but on no account to be thrown away. “When I am dead tread me into my grave and pass on. I shall have done my work.”

THE PERSONIFICATION OF GREATER BRITAIN

From the Standard:--It is not too much to say that the impulse of Empire, which has been for some years the dominant sentiment of Englishmen, owes as much to Mr. Rhodes as to any man now living. He showed his stay-at-home countrymen that the days of expansion and colonization were not yet at an end. He plunged them into the heart of what might almost be called a new Continent, and proved that the work of the Elizabethans, of Clive and Hastings, of the founders of New England and Canada, was not yet exhausted. There were still realms to be founded, great tracts of the earth’s surface to be explored, vast populations of savages to be added to the White Man’s Burden. The settlement of Rhodesia struck across the closing period of the Nineteenth Century like a breath from the gallant world of the past. It fired and stimulated that revival of Imperial sentiment which other causes had tended to produce, and caused Mr. Rhodes to be regarded, not without some justification, as the man of the new era—the type and personification of Greater Britain.

THE WORK TO BE COMPLETED

From the Daily Mail:--The further we recede from the times in which he lived and moved, the clearer will be the appreciation of his services. He died, indeed, before his work was accomplished, leaving a stormy career half-fulfilled. And for that reason his loss is the greater. It yet remains to be seen how, bereft of the guiding and masterful hand, those to whom his task has fallen will complete the work which he had begun in Rhodesia. His was the magnetic influence which tamed the Matabili and the Kafir tribes of that distant territory. It yet remains to be seen how the statesmen of the Cape, now that the greatest and incomparably the ablest is gone from among them, will succeed in reconciling Briton and Dutchman, as he always believed he could. With a feeling of profound sorrow will the nation lay upon the bier of this its servant its last tribute of regret to one who has added to the Empire a territory as large as Europe, and who leaves as his posterity only the fame of his services and his devotion.

RHODES AND THE EMPIRE

From the Morning Post:--The importance of pegging out claims for posterity in the African Continent has now for many years been the accepted doctrine of men of all parties outside the numerically unimportant, but somewhat noisy, faction which is, perhaps, most readily recognized as “Little Englanders.” But it is part of Mr. Rhodes’s claim to the gratitude of his countrymen that he recognized and preached this doctrine in the days when statesmen and politicians alike were under the spell of the ancient heresy that the British Empire had reached the limits of its capacity for expansion, and that political wisdom consisted in loosening the bands that united us to our colonies and in preparing for the day when the colonies would follow, by peaceful methods, the example of the United States of America, and establish themselves as independent States owing no allegiance to the British Crown. Against this doctrine Mr. Rhodes’s whole being protested. He was, from the moment he began to take an interest in political affairs, a convinced Imperialist. To him the British Empire was the most beneficent instrument in the world for the amelioration of the condition of the human race.

A CHARACTER SKETCH

The death of Cecil Rhodes, says the World, removes perhaps the most heroic figure of our times and race. To say a heroic figure is not, of course, to say a faultless figure. Between the saint and the hero there is often a wide gulf fixed, and the two characters seldom run into one. The hero lives in this world, and must take the tincture of it. The saint lives in and for the next world. The effort to combine the two characters ends too often in the deterioration of both….The growth of hypocrisy in characters originally noble has its origin very often in the propensity to dress up a seductive fault in the colours of virtue rather than to see it as it is and to avoid it. From this insidious temptation Mr. Rhodes was free. If a fault had to be committed, he committed it with his eyes open. He said with Luther: Pecca fortiter. He never excused the great error of his life—his cognizance of, and his participation as an accessory before the fact in, the Jameson raid. He did not seek to shelter himself behind his sincere but hopeless belated attempts to stop the enterprise when it had put itself in motion. He admitted that his conduct was utterly indefensible, and declined to listen to the pleas in mitigation which complacent friends submitted to him. Perhaps the failure had a good deal to do with the clearing of his moral vision on this matter. Napoleon recognized only one merit in his marshals, and that was success. A failure explained was still a failure, and had to be expiated. If it was inevitable, then so was the penalty. So possibly with Cecil Rhodes. A scheme which had failed deserved to fail. It was not only a mistake, but a crime. Looking back on the course of events, he may have felt that the failure contained in it the germs of a future and complete success. If the Jameson raid had succeeded it would necessarily have been followed by a compromise which would have left things in a state of unstable equilibrium. The race animosity would have been embittered, and would have been extended over an area wider than that which it now inflames. The irrepressible conflict would have broken out under conditions even more favourable to the long-meditated and carefully prepared enterprise of the Boers than those which Mr. Kruger thought opportune. The question whether South Africa should be English or Dutch had to be fought out. It is a fight for empire; and between antagonists equally obstinate and incapable of yielding to anything but sheer force, it can only end when the beaten combatant is brought to straits which leave him no alternative but unconditional surrender…Cecil Rhodes exhibits a type of character more commonly associated with the Elizabethan than with the Victorian age, with the sixteenth than with the nineteenth century—the merchant adventurers, the buccaneer explorers whom America and the Indies tempted as South Africa tempted him….The only careers familiar to modern history which can be compared with his are those of Pitt and Napoleon---Pitt, who led the House of Commons at twenty-two, and at twenty-four was Prime Minister of England, which he ruled for eighteen continuous years. Napoleon, who at forty-three had practically annexed Europe to France, had not done things intrinsically greater than those which Rhodes had accomplished at about the same age. He has added to the British Empire a dominion more extensive, and destined to be much more durable, than that which Napoleon ruled. He has died, as Pitt did, before his work was completed, but he laid the foundations of it. Napoleon survived his work. He saw it crumble away. The manly fortitude with which Rhodes bore his fall from power and influence, and devoted himself to such tasks as it was still open to him to undertake, shows him in favourable contrast with the two other great Empire builders of the century. The petulant irritation which Napoleon displayed in St. Helena, on provocations for the greater part purely imaginary, and the petty complaints and noisy accusations and malignant insinuations into which Bismarck allowed himself to be betrayed at Friedrichsruh, show how very little in the inmost recesses of their being some great men may be. Rhodes in his retirement exhibited a dignified reticence which entitles him to honour….Rhodes was probably not free from ambition, but it was an ambition in which the work to be done took precedence of the worker….Cecil Rhodes kindled a spirit which will survive him and which will ensure the completion of his work.

AN OPPONENT’S TRIBUTE

Mr. Labouchere writes in Truth:--I had heard a very bad account of Mr. Rhodes’s health when he was lately in Egypt; indeed, those able to judge were of opinion that he had not long to live. But his death comes as a shock nevertheless, for he has long played a prominent part in the making of history. When I see a man of strongly marked individuality taking a course which is mischievous to the country, I may be moved to oppose him, but I cannot help a secret admiration and liking for him. I always had that feeling for Mr. Rhodes. His ideas were sometimes more grandiose than practical, but he achieved great things in a very short time, and wrote his name big on the history of South Africa. I do not suppose that he cared for money except for the power that it gave, and though in the making of it he had to associate himself with a crew of financial adventurers, he was head and shoulders above them all. When he said that the flag of the Empire was a commercial asset, he no doubt expressed his real opinion of it. Having made South Africa his home, he regarded that land as his country, and recognized no other. To make it great and powerful was his dream. He was prepared to ally himself with Dutch or English to attain this object, and he would have brooked no interference from us. He had little rancour against his opponents, and not very strong affection for his friends. It is always so with such men. They are dominated by an idea, and human beings become pawns in the game that they are playing. When in Egypt he was talking to a friend about the war, and the negotiations that were advocated by the Liberals at home. “They are wrong,” he said, “and the Boers will never accept anything less than their independence.” He had, however, no sympathy with the Chamberlain “surrender at discretion” policy, with its certain permanent alienation of the Dutch population in South Africa. What would have been his course, had he lived, it is impossible to say. But if he could have made up his feud with the Dutch, it is probable that he would eventually have united all South Africans in a South African policy, for he never would have tolerated for long a British Army of occupation, nor would he ever have been content to act as a subservient tool of Downing Street like Sir Gordon Sprigg.

EUROPEAN IMPRESSIONS

THE FRENCH PRESS

Writing the day after Mr. Rhodes’s death, the Paris correspondent of the Standard said: Upon no occasion since the death of Bismarck has the French Press spoken in such strong language of a deceased statesman, but it is remarkable to note that, notwithstanding the horror with which the majority of the writers profess to regard his methods and his acts, the most violent of them cannot at the same time help expressing a feeling of admiration for the man’s ambitions, and for the task he accomplished on behalf of his country. The majority of this morning’s journals devote long obituary notices, in some cases extending to five columns, to the life and work of Cecil Rhodes. The Echo de Paris says that financiers termed him the Napoleon of South Africa, whilst the man in the street called him a filibuster. There was some truth in the former statement, it adds, for there was something of a Napoleon about this man who built up an Empire larger than Europe; and the audacity of whose conceptions were as surprising as their success. He has been called a patriot, and that, says this journal, he certainly was; for he desired to see his country greater.

Having reviewed Mr. Rhodes’s career, the Echo de Paris says: “Such was the life of one of the greatest men in the history of England. His adventure appears less miraculous to us because we have been eye-witnesses of it. This man, nevertheless, has accomplished one of the most colossal tasks any individual has ever carried to an issue.” There is, in this journal’s opinion, no doubt that, from the point of view of morality and right, his work is to be condemned, and, like most French newspapers, it professes to believe in the final triumph of the Boers in South Africa. The Journal says that, by the death of Mr. Rhodes, one of the most curious figures of our period has disappeared, at the same time as the most characteristic personification of the contemporaneous colonizing genius of Great Britain. Had he lived, he was the man who was to have done the stitching up after the Generals had finished the cutting out; but he succumbed without seeing the end of the War, for which he more than anyone else was responsible. Mr. Rhodes did not fulfil his destiny, though his name, more than that of anybody else, is connected with the recent history of Africa. Writing in the Journal des Debats, M. Robert de Caix says that twenty years ago there was a certain number of apparent possibilities in South Africa, their chances of some day becoming realities being about equal. The probability of a march of the British from the South to the North seemed the less likely scheme, because the British did not apparently take great interest in it. It is this scheme, however, which was subsequently realized, thanks in a large degree to the man who has just died, after one of the most prodigious careers of modern times. M. de Caix traces the career of Mr. Rhodes, and attributes to him the chief responsibility for the South African War. Nevertheless, for the opinion which the British nation will retain of Mr. Rhodes, this writer thinks it was not a bad thing that he should have run up against the Transvaal and have had to call England to his help. Until then the Napoleon of the Cape seemed very independent. He termed himself at every moment an Afrikander, and if he had not met with an obstacle, it would, M. de Caix says, perhaps, have been to his own profit rather than to that of British Imperialism, that he would have sought to create a united South Africa.

His history, says the Temps, is that of the gradual grabbing of the national riches, and subsequently of the political power, in South Africa. His will was stronger than all obstacles. Mr. Rhodes became rich to become powerful, and in order to arrive at the head of the Cape Government. He only governed the Cape to secure the incorporation of the Chartered Company, and to create an immense empire bordered by the Zambesi. He had only created this empire and dreamed of unifying it under the British flag, and of annexing or federating the Boer States, in order to achieve his great work and throw around the whole of Africa the steel ring of his railway and his telegraph. All that, proceeds the Temps, was great, and Cecil Rhodes would not admit that the indomitable resistance of the Boers should cause this gigantic enterprise to fail. He did not recognize, or rather he did not know, of moral force. For him the Flag was a mere commercial asset.

Referring to the report as to Mr. Rhodes’s will, the Temps says: “It is vain to say that the Transvaal war will result in a militarized England more confident than ever in the virtue of gold and of force, with all her Colonies fastened round her by a powerful financial, naval and military league, a race brutalized by the worship of gold and the sword, a monster danger for the peace of the world and the future of mankind. We believe nothing of the sort. Mr. Rhodes’s will, whatever the ultimate operation of it, is a homage to the majesty of ideas and of intelligence. England will continue to be the mother of a race of lions, but she will have learnt that liberty and magnanimity are instruments as powerful in the world as gold and force.” This, says the Paris correspondent of the Times, is an unusual tone for the Temps, which, however, ends with a rather ambiguous sentence which seems to imply that the Afrikanders, like the Americans, will eventually command the admiration of the English by having extorted their rights, whatever this may mean.

GERMAN VIEWS

The news of Mr. Rhodes’s death, says the Berlin correspondent of the Standard, telegraphing on Thursday of last week, reached Berlin shortly after ten yesterday evening, and caused a great sensation, although it was not unexpected, owing to his protracted illness. Many and quite opposite conjectures are being made as to the possible results of his death, especially as to whether, and how far, it will exercise any influence on the future development of South Africa. There are but few people in Germany who do not fully appreciate the great services which he rendered to the British Empire in South Africa. It will be remembered that Mr. Rhodes came to Berlin in March, 1899, to discuss the Central Africa Railway and Telegraph questions, regarding which the present Imperial Chancellor Count von Bulow, then Foreign Secretary, answered a question put by the Radical Herr Eugen Richter in the Reichstag on March 21. It will further be remembered that the German Emperor had a very high opinion of Mr. Rhodes, as the result of the audience he gave him, in which he conversed with him with the greatest amiability, and told him, among other things, that he (the Emperor) was willing to co-operate with England in those matters. At the same time a meeting took place in the Old Palace, over which the Emperor presided, and at which Count von Bulow and the late Dr. von Miguel and Herr George von Siemens, among others were present. It was at this meeting that Herr von Siemens, in the name of the Deutsche Bank, absolutely refused to provide the three hundred million marks deemed necessary for the carrying out of the African projects under discussion unless large land and mining concessions were given. Mr. Rhodes answered that if Germany would promise that sum he would have the guarantee signed in England within twenty-four hours. His proposal, however, could not be accepted, because the Guarantee Bill had not passed the Reichstag at that time. The matter was then dropped, and continued at a deadlock owing to the attitude of the Reichstag.

The German papers, continues the correspondent, are filled with articles on Mr. Rhodes. I subjoin the following sentences from the Vossische Zeitung:--“With him has passed away one of the most interesting but also most unsympathetic of contemporary characters—a man who has achieved immense success, owing to extraordinary gifts and iron will, but who incurred the maledictions of millions by his lack of moral principles and his cold-blooded egotism, trampling on mountains of corpses and wading through streams of blood. Through and through a man of reason and calculation, and, at least in public life, inaccessible to any tender feeling, Cecil Rhodes crushed innumerable lives and entire peoples. Like the angel of death he strode through the land of the Matabele, and he brought death and destruction to the free Boer Republics, the existence of which formed an obstacle to his thirst for gold and power. He was the man who, in 1895, egged on Jameson and his horde of robbers. It was his influence which, by the use of all sorts of means, corrupted the public conception of justice in England, poisoning and embittering the differences in South Africa until the war became unavoidable….Nevertheless, it must be said that this demoniacal man, who was a modern Cortez or Pizarro, and, like them, a prominent figure of the times of the Conquistadores, lacked nothing but noble morality to be placed side by side with the really great men of heroism and civilization.”

The Kolnische Zeitung concludes its article thus: “He was a man of action and very popular with the majority of his countrymen, who transferred their favour to him from Henry Stanley, many of whose qualities he shared. Many Englishmen may think that he rather belonged to the Sixteenth or Seventeenth Century than to our own age, but they are not permitted to say so aloud, for he was the intellectual descendant of the Hawkins or the Francis Drake of Queen Elizabeth’s day, and of the patriotic pirates of the Seventeenth Century, who, not to their own detriment, contributed to England’s prestige, waging war on all oceans against all the ships of other nations, against Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch, and especially the latter, and who provoked by their action in West Africa the great naval war which destroyed Holland’s sea power.”

The German papers are practically unanimous in saying that he was inspired and animated only by one great love—that of his country. The English nation is, therefore, fully entitled to mourn in him the great patriot, and to place him on the same high level as the former conquerors of India.

ITALIAN COMMENT

The papers here (says a Rome correspondent) devote long articles to the late Mr. Rhodes. The Tribuna says: “Mr. Rhodes represented in the highest degree the adventurous spirit and the tenacity of the Anglo-Saxon race.” The Giornale d’Italia dwells upon the great qualities of the deceased, and says that posterity will pronounce judgment upon him. The Patria says: “Mr. Rhodes was one of the representative men who symbolize a moment or epoch in history.” The Journal d’Italie remarks: “Mr. Rhodes was a marvelous instance of a worker served by an intelligence of no common order. He has left behind him a work which was accomplished by toil, activity, and intelligence.” The Avanti (Socialist) considers that Mr. Rhodes was a man rather of instinct than of intelligence. He had an iron will and unequalled ability. The Capitan Fracassa declares that with the death of Mr. Rhodes has disappeared one of the most remarkable figures of our time. The Fanfulla says: “Mr. Rhodes was a man of indomitable will, by which he reached the height of fortune.”

FROM HOLLAND AND BELGIUM

All the leading Dutch journals devoted special articles to Mr. Rhodes. They agreed in the opinion that he was a man of genius, to whom England and the cause of Imperialism are much indebted. He has, says a correspondent of the Times, never been the object of much sympathy in this country, and is still regarded as one of the chief instigators of the Boer war. Hence the misery which has resulted is largely attributed to him, and Dutchmen can hardly be expected to look back to his memory with any warmth of feeling. Still, Press opinion abstains from bitterness in alluding to his death, and it is generally conceded that his ideals were great and his methods straightforward, if unscrupulous in execution. His death a year earlier would have caused more impression, because his personality has been somewhat overshadowed by those of Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Milner.

“The Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant thinks that Mr. Rhodes cannot be regarded as the sole author of the war. On the one hand, his enterprising spirit and the creation of the Chartered Company largely contributed to the British policy of expansion in South Africa; but, on the other hand, events would have worked in the same direction, as the policy which aims at the subjugation of the Boers is much older than Mr. Rhodes himself. The Jameson Raid, continues the Courant, in which Mr. Rhodes figures so largely, threw many obstacles in the way of the policy which Great Britain was silently prosecuting, a policy which threatened the independence of the Boers but was necessarily abandoned for a time. The Raid gave the Boers valuable assistance, because it not only engendered the alliance between the two Republics and evoked a world-wide feeling of sympathy for the Boers, but it also brought about an estrangement between Mr. Rhodes and the Afrikanders, who had hitherto trusted him.”

The Kruger Press at Amsterdam is reported to have been moderate and charitable in its comments on the career of Mr. Rhodes, limiting itself to colourless reviews of his life and his part in South African polemics. The worst that was said of the South African “Colossus” was that his was a “great, but ignoble career.” Report says that the ex-President, when told of Mr. Rhodes’s death, had piously exclaimed: “God is his judge as He is mine. Let him rest in peace!” The Journal de Bruxelles refers to Mr. Rhodes as a giant of genius, to whom history alone will do justice.

OTHER APPRECIATIONS

Nothing strikes public opinion here, says a Vienna correspondent, as more characteristically English than Mr. Rhodes’s mixture of energy, practical ability, and appreciation of a culture a thousand years old, as demonstrated by his going to Oxford from South Africa. It is felt that it is to this that the seafaring and trading nation owes it that its ways have become the model for the Continent, that Britons are in the first line among the thinkers and scientists who have composed the scientific picture of these last centuries, and that the chain of English intellects of the first rank never breaks. British savants are not divorced from practical life, and Rhodes the gold-digger has a longing for studying at Oxford, which done, he returns to public life. As a man, not of the study, but of action, he made the new idea of Greater Britain the ruling one in his country, and when he conquered he did it, not to acquire land, or riches, or fame, but to bless the conquered territory with civilization, opening it up to the enterprise of the whole world. He was an Englishman through and through, but his England was identical with civilization and humanity, and he evidently did not understand the resistance of the stubborn Dutch Republics, which he meant to benefit by drawing them into the sphere of English supremacy. His plans were only wrecked by Kruger’s distrust. He organized the Raid, but he did it not for gold and diamonds, but to conquer a new Continent for his country and for civilization, and to do a work which should survive the centuries. History would not be worth reading did it not tell us of men who risked everything for everything, and England’s greatness and power are based on her being rich in men like Rhodes, whose virtues and faults can also be appreciated to the full only in England. Whatever may be said of him elsewhere, his nation, for the greatness of which he risked his reputation on the principle of “right or wrong, my country,” will preserve a memory of him in which admiration will not be wanting. His death is an irreparable loss for the British Imperium, and Mr. Chamberlain loses in him his best co-operator.

Referring to the death of Mr. Rhodes, some of the Lisbon newspapers narrated the various schemes and diplomatic negotiations with which he was connected during the last twenty years, and agreed that he was a truly great man, to whom England owes most of her supremacy in South Africa.

SOUTH AFRICAN NEWSPAPER COMMENTS

Commenting on the death of Mr. Rhodes, the Cape Times says: “Today even political and racial antagonism are merged in a common sorrow. Both English and Dutch and even the native races are united in a communion of grief and sympathy. In every district of the Colony the death will be felt as an event which transcends all divisions of race and politics. A united South Africa, merging all antagonisms in common interest and patriotism, was the dominant impulse of Mr. Rhodes’s life. The lesson to be learnt from it is that every son of South Africa, every Africander, in the best sense of the word, has to devote his energies, regardless of race and political difference, to the great work of civilization and development for which the races on this continent are responsible….His death is in many respects a tragedy. No man had accumulated such incomparable claims to take up the position, one day, of Premier of United South Africa under the British flag.” The journal points out that underneath all the material and commercial schemes of Mr. Rhodes lay a great moral principle. He valued wealth as a means to further the great moral ideas which he had at heart. The principles underlying his life and work were fidelity to great and inspiring ideals, sacrifice of self to those ideas, and the sinking of all minor racial and political duties and differences, in the sense that there are duties and responsibilities which transcend them.

The Cape Argus says: “The world loses one of the greatest men of modern times, the Empire loses one of her many devoted servants, and South Africa loses her only really great man. The blank which Mr. Rhodes’s death causes in Cape Colony will be most terribly felt; it leaves the Cape Parliament without a man of commanding ability.”

The Diamond Fields Advertiser, commenting on Mr. Rhodes’s death says: “His loss is felt at Kimberley with greater intensity and with keener poignancy and personal sorrow than can possibly be felt by any other community, for his death creates a blank in the diamond fields which will be felt by every living soul and which is beyond the power of the pen to describe.”

From the Bulawayo Chronicle: “The people mourn, not only for the genius that saved a large empire for the home land, but for the man who ever had an open heart and a generous hand. It is not too much to say that, but for the fervent encouragement given by Mr. Rhodes to settlers in Rhodesia, the white population would long ago have dwindled to next to nothing. It was a great achievement to obtain the territory; it was a still greater achievement to have kept the people in the country.”

The Johannesburg Star, in a leading article referring to Mr. Rhodes’s death, mourns the loss of a friend and also a leader of all South Africans. “His work,” it adds, “endures, and his large ideals will continue to influence the whole life of the country. He takes his place among the greatest on the roll of Empire-builders. No doubt, if he had lived, he would have played a great part in the reconstruction upon which South Africa is entering. He would have been a powerful factor in moulding the future of South Africa and the British Empire. He showed his loyalty by standing aside with fine magnanimity when he realized that Lord Milner was grappling with difficulties which he, himself, had failed to overcome.”

The Transvaal Advertiser says: “Death has removed the one man to whom all eyes were turned as the master mind of the sub-continent. His work will live after him, and his name will be preserved in the great works to which he devoted his life. He possessed, besides the proud title of Empire-builder, the genuine affection and esteem of many who benefited from his princely generosity and his amiable qualities.

AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS

The New York evening papers published longer obituary notices of Mr. Rhodes than of anyone who has died since Queen Victoria, excepting Mr. McKinley. The Evening Post said: “Cecil Rhodes will always have a prominent place in the front rank of self-made men. He owed his prosperity partly to good fortune, but mainly to his capacity for seeing his opportunity, his boldness in seizing it, and his tenacity in retaining any advantage he had once possessed himself of.” The Commercial Advertiser said: “Cecil Rhodes was the originator and apostle of the modern imperialistic idea. Whatever criticism may be passed upon his methods, he used his fortune as a self-imposed trust for the benefit of others.” The Mail and Express said: “It was the lust of personal power that largely dominated him, mingled with the commercial spirit. Yet the English spirit of bulldog patriotism, if not always logical and sometimes not quite honourable in its manifestations, influenced him, too.”

Mr. Rhodes, says the correspondent of the Washington Times, fills a great space in American journals and American thoughts. His character and achievements are on the whole adequately understood. If they are belittled in some of the lesser papers that is but one more evidence of the strange ignorance of the real political conditions in South Africa, which finds its habitual expression in sympathy with the Boers. The best American opinion is in the New York Tribune. In an article, of which the note throughout is statesmanlike, it acknowledges the full measure of Mr. Rhodes’s greatness, saying: “Not for half a century and more has Great Britain or any nation produced a more powerful and successful empire-builder, nor has there been in that time a man who has done more towards filling up the blank spaces upon the map of the world and towards giving them their distinctive colour.” It puts aside the clamour of Boer partisans, truly observing: “Men have lately seemed to think of Mr. Rhodes chiefly as the aggressor against the two Boer States. He was not. He played for vastly larger stakes and won them. His march of empire strode past their petty borders, almost careless of their fate.” Then, discussing and dismissing sundry censures upon Mr. Rhodes’s policy, aims, and political schemes the Tribune concludes: “They who most criticize him are those who complacently condone the savage conquests of Central Asia, of Finland, of Madagascar, of more that one other land, and who remember without compunction, but rather with a certain exultation, our own conquest of Mexico. Neither such criticism nor glamoured adulation will be the final judgment with serenity than can that of Cecil Rhodes.” Of other tributes the most notable is Earl Grey’s who gave the Press, before he sailed for England, a vivid character portrait of Mr. Rhodes. He tells Americans also how Mr. Rhodes admired American ideas and American systems and how firm was his faith in Anglo-Saxon rule. What is felt most deeply here by those who have studied South Africa is that the one man who, after the war is over, could best have brought Boers and British together is gone.

A correspondent has kindly sent us the following additional extracts from the American Press: “Mr. Rhodes was a typical captain of industry, a man of great energy, large conceptions, and little scruple; not for half a century has Great Britain, or any nation produced a more successful or powerful empire builder, he was not the aggressor against the Boer States, his march of empire strode past their petty borders. Some men, with a fortune like Rhodes, and more ambition for official pomp, would have mounted the throne of South Africa and have established a wealthy and powerful kingdom there, without much disturbance to the affairs of nations. He preferred to wield a power of business and money, leaving to others the tawdry honours of office, though always furthering British prestige. South Africa has been the grave of many reputations, and some of them great ones, but there is no one who will occupy a more prominent place in history than Rhodes, not so much because he was great in what he accomplished, but because of the greatness of his ambitions and calibre, and the methods he relied on for their realization.” Truly, “he shall,” as Lowell says, “reap such harvests as all master-spirits reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less because the sheaves are bound by other hands than his.”

THE SAD NEWS OF THE DEATH

IMPRESSION IN LONDON

Last week’s South Africa went to press a few hours after the sad news of Mr. Rhodes’s death had been received in London. We are now able to supplement the information contained in the cablegrams published in our last issue.

The news of Mr. Rhodes’s death was received at the London Offices of the British South Africa Company shortly before six on Wednesday evening last week, in the form of an “urgent” cablegram. Although not, of course, unexpected, the intimation caused profound sorrow to the whole of the staff, who were devoted to their chief. The news was not generally known in London until seven o’clock. Its probable effect upon the political and financial situation both in England and South Africa was eagerly discussed at the various Clubs, and there was a consensus of opinion that the event had been thoroughly discounted by the markets, while politically its results would be of no practical importance in the existing state of affairs caused by the continuance of the war.

A member of City friends of Mr. Rhodes telegraphed: “London Stock Exchange members unite with South Africa in deploring the loss to Greater Britain occasioned by sad death. Rhodes cannot be replaced.”

At a meeting of the Transvaal Gold Fields Company, Mr. John Seear moved, and Mr. Loftus Fitz Wygram seconded, a vote of regret at the loss sustained by the nation in Mr. Rhodes’s death. The resolution was unanimously passed amid tokens of deep sympathy and regret.

Mr. E. G. Mocatta, presiding at the meeting of the Anglo-French Exploration Company, said he desired to express for himself, his colleagues, and the shareholders, very deep regret at the death of Mr. Cecil Rhodes. Mr. G. Farrar, who seconded the adoption of the report and accounts, said he thought all eyes were turned that day to South Africa, where had been removed by the hand of death a pioneer and patriot and friend of all South Africa. Mr. Rhodes’s aims had always been of the purest and most unselfish nature; the advancement of the welfare of South Africa. It was through his instrumentality and foresight that, in spite of years of misgovernment and mismanagement, the road over territory from Cape Town to the Congo Free State lay open today for Imperial administration. He felt sure that they would all join with the Chairman in expressing the deepest and most profound regret at the sad news of Mr. Rhodes’s death, high appreciation of his very great services, and their sense of the loss which South Africa had suffered.

There are many signs of mourning at the Colonial Exhibition at the Royal Exchange for the death of Mr. Rhodes. The Rhodesian section is draped in black, and a large portrait draped in crape bears a card of tribute to the dead.

We have received a copy of the following circular issued by the British South Africa Company:--

15, St. Swithin’s Lane, London, E.C.

27^th March, 1902

To the Shareholders of the British South Africa Company,

You will have received the news of the death of the Right Hon. Cecil John Rhodes with deep sorrow. His loss is a national calamity. It will be felt throughout the British Empire, but it falls with peculiar weight upon South Africa. It has been no small part of the life work of Mr. Rhodes to found this Company, and to add Rhodesia to the denominations of the British Crown. All who have had the privilege of being associated with him in that work will have understood the lofty and unselfish patriotism of his aims; will have valued the wisdom of his counsel; will have appreciated his many rare and great qualities; and will realize the magnitude of the loss which the Company has sustained.

It is not the least result of the work of Mr. Rhodes that the destinies of Rhodesia and of the Company have ceased to depend upon the life of any individual. The organization which was due to his genius has been established upon a permanent basis. The development of the natural resources of Rhodesia will continue, and the finances of the Company are today equal to any strain that is likely to be cast upon them. Through his efforts the foundations have been securely laid, and your Directors rely with confidence upon the support of the Shareholders in their endeavours to continue the work of the Company upon the lines which its great Founder has initiated.

By order of the Board,

J. F. JONES, Joint Manager and Secretary

MEMORIAL SERVICE AT ST. PAUL’S

A Memorial Service for Mr. Rhodes will be held at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Thursday, April 10, at half-past two p.m. It was found impossible to hold such a service in Westminster Abbey, where the alterations for the Coronation Service have been commenced. Arrangements concerning the service are in the hands of the family and the executors of the late Mr. Rhodes, and any communication in regard to it should be addressed to Douglas E. Brodie, Esq., 15, St. Swithin’s Lane, E.C. The Dean of St. Paul’s has explained to a Press representative that the general public will be admitted as at any ordinary service, with the exception of a small corner of the Cathedral which was to be reserved for relatives and friends of the late Mr. Rhodes. The Dean further explained that the service, which is timed to begin at half-past two, will be a short one of an unpretentious character, without either sermon or address. Dean Gregory himself and the Canon in residence (Canon Newbolt) are likely to take part, and the lessons will probably be read by one of the minor canons. Those who attend will be provided with a black-bordered leaflet, such as was used at the memorial service on the anniversary of Queen Victoria’s death, giving particulars as to the psalms and prayers to be used. The Dead March may be rendered at the close of the service.

HOW THE END CAME

After a short illness, entailing sufferings which were sometimes very great, but which were borne with the utmost patience and fortitude, Mr. Rhodes died at Muizenberg shortly before six o’clock on Wednesday evening (March 26.)

The end, says the Cape Town correspondent of the Daily Mail was not unexpected. Yet to all who have watched the culmination of a deeply-seated malady it came with tragic rapidity. Less than three weeks ago Mr. Rhodes was out and about, transacting his business as usual. He appeared by no means an invalid. Anyone could see him rushing up from Muizenberg, the Cape Brighton, on his motor car, at forty miles an hour to Groot-Schuur, which is five miles from the city. He went there in preference to Cape Town because it was cool and the city was very hot. He worked there, had his head officials out from town, and in the evening drove back to Muizenberg. Of course, he was far from well, and no one knew what might happen at any time from his heart trouble, but nothing serious was anticipated.

His illness began and continued quietly. With the exception of the bulletins, considerable reticence was observed by his personal circle, who refrained from alarmist reports, hoping that the patient’s vitality would prevail sufficiently to enable him to proceed to England. The little cottage where he died was ill fitted to be a sick chamber. It was small, and only divided from the railway by a narrow roadway. The accommodation it afforded was exceedingly scanty, simply a seaside cabin, but it had been altered considerable during the past few weeks for ventilation purposes. Ever since Mr. Rhodes took to his bed three weeks ago, Dr. Stevenson had slept by him nightly, the patient’s condition necessitating during the hotter weather the frequent administration of oxygen, which practically kept him alive. Special trains were, moreover, kept constantly in readiness between Cape Town and Muizenberg for purposes of conveying messages. For days the patient had been growing gradually weaker and weaker, and an occasional rally really deceived no one. Since Sunday week he had practically ceased to take interest in anything, and he stopped discussing matters which had always keenly interested him. He mostly dozed the hours away, while the continually increasing dropsy working upwards indicated that the end was approaching.

THE LAST FATAL CRISIS

On the Tuesday came the first serious crisis; he surmounted it, but at midnight he was very, very weak. As day dawned he fell into a short slumber, but as the afternoon drew on he was manifestly not so well. Another crisis was at noon clearly approaching, and very soon hope was abandoned even by those who had hitherto tenaciously clung to the belief which the sick man had cherished with such pathetic longing, that he would be able to once again see the Old Country, even if it were only to round the bedside as life ebbed away. His brother Elmhurst had joined the little group, which consisted of Dr. Jameson, Sir Charles Metcalfe, Mr. Smartt, Mr. Walton, the member for Port Elizabeth, Mr. Stevens, the Secretary of the Chartered Company, and Mr. Grimmer, his private secretary, but Dr. Stevenson was absent. No others had for days past been permitted to enter the sick man’s room. So the hours slipped by and death came at last. The death was peaceful. Mr. Rhodes retained consciousness almost till the last, and as he lapsed into insensibility he uttered something that those around him failed to hear. His body was removed the same night to his home in Groot-Schuur, preparatory to being taken to Matabeleland and buried among the Matoppo Hills.

SICK ROOM ARRANGEMENTS

During the illness of Mr. Rhodes a great number of communications reached the British South Africa Company from friends suggesting arrangements which should be made for Mr. Rhodes’s comfort in the direction of counteracting the effects of the great heat in the patient’s room. It will, says Reuter’s Agency, be a satisfaction to these friends to know that Dr. Jameson and Dr. Stevenson had done everything possible in this respect. Boxes of ice had been let into the roof of the cottage at Muizenberg, punkahs were continually kept going, and even special windows had been cut in the walls in order to catch every breath of air.

A post mortem examination revealed an extensive aneurism of the heart.

STORY OF THE ILLNESS

It is stated that the first serious warning of the disease which terminated in death, was conveyed to Mr. Rhodes when he was visiting a remote district of Rhodesia in 1897. He then had a sharp attack, which prevented him from attending the inauguration of the direct railway line to Bulawayo. From time to time subsequently, the disease caused trouble, and the inroads which it was making upon Mr. Rhodes’s splendid physique were painfully apparent to the friends who met him at Southampton in the summer of last year. After consulting an eminent London specialist as was his custom when in this country, Mr. Rhodes proceeded to Scotland, where he remained until early in October. He then went to Italy and made a brief stay at Salsomaggiori, the new health resort on the slopes of the Apennines. Here he imprudently indulged in fast motor car runs, with the result that he had a severe attack of his old trouble. From this, however, he quickly recovered, and continued his journey to Egypt. He had set his heart upon visiting Khartoum, but, becoming prostrated by the heat of an unusually hot season, he turned back at Wadj Halfa, and returned to England by easy stages via Marseilles.

After transacting some necessary business in London, Mr. Rhodes sailed for Cape Town, where he arrived on February 3 in fairly good health. His presence in South Africa was required in connection with a law suit. It was not expected that this would detain him for more than a few weeks, and, as a matter of fact, Mr. Rhodes, before leaving England on what has unhappily proved to be his last voyage, informed his friends that he would be back within two months. Mr. Rhodes took up his residence at his famous old Dutch mansion, Groot-Schuur, near Cape Town, and soon afterwards he had a severe attack. He recovered sufficiently to give evidence in the Radziwell case at his house, but with the approach of very hot weather, his health again gave way, and by the advice of Dr. Stevenson, in which Dr. Jameson concurred, he removed to his seaside cottage at Muizenberg, 13 miles from Cape Town, where he passed away peacefully at six o’clock last evening, in the presence of his devoted friend and constant medical attendant, Dr. Jameson. It is understood that Mr. Rhodes was under no illusion as to the probability of his early death, and that weeks ago he made all necessary business arrangements in prevision of his demise.

SORROW IN SOUTH AFRICA

AT CAPE TOWN

Mr. Rhodes’s death, said the Cape Town correspondent of the Mail, cabling on the 26^th ult., has caused profound grief, and practically the whole population is in mourning, for not only the British, but many Dutch, admired and loved him. There are no places of amusement open tonight. The city lies under the shadow of a great sorrow.

Although anticipated, said the Standard correspondent, the actual news of Mr. Rhodes’s death was hardly believed here at first, and the streets were crowded with people discussing the matter. Inquiries are pouring in from all parts of the country, and a profound gloom is felt in the city. Sympathetic resolutions were passed by the City Council and other public bodies, all of which adjourned. Flags were flying at half mast, and a number of shops were draped. A united memorial service was held in the Good Hope Hall on the 30^th ult. The building was crowded, and many persons failed to gain admission. The service was very impressive. Special references were made in the churches. The “Dead March” was played, and there were many impressive scenes. Telegrams received from all parts of South Africa testify to the grief with which the news of the death of Mr. Rhodes has been received. Nowhere, says a correspondent, is more sympathy expressed than among the Dutch. A prominent Afrikander, a keen political opponent of the deceased statesman, said today, “From the heart of an Afrikander, I am deeply sorry. No man could have brought about the reconciliation of the races like Mr. Rhodes.” All public business is suspended.

A great combined memorial service of all denominations except the Anglican was held on Sunday afternoon, and was attended by thousands.

MOURNING AT KIMBERLEY

A Kimberley telegram of March 27 said: The whole town is in mourning for Mr. Rhodes. The shops which opened before the news of his death was fully known immediately closed again. The offices of the De Beers Company were draped in black, and the Directors stopped all work in the mines. Arrangements will probably be made for a memorial service to be held on Saturday. The Borough Council has held a special meeting, at which a resolution was passed giving expression to the profound sorrow of the community. A strong deputation consisting of representatives of the De Beers Company and well-known Kimberley public men will proceed to Cape Town to attend the funeral.

RHODESIAN SYMPATHY

The British South Africa Company received the following telegram from Mr. W. H. Milton, Administrator of Rhodesia:--

“Salisbury, March 27.—The members of the Council join me in an expression of deepest sympathy with the Directors in the irreparable loss which they have suffered in common with all Rhodesia in the death of our beloved leader and friend.—W. H. Milton.”

To this the following reply was sent:--

“Milton, Salisbury.

“The Board desires to convey to the members of the Council and to the people of Rhodesia their heartfelt thanks for the sympathy extended to them in the great personal loss which they, in common with Rhodesia, have suffered. They are deeply sensible of the extent to which their work has been lightened in the past by the tie of affection for Mr. Rhodes which has bound together all connected with Rhodesia, and they sincerely trust that tie will be strengthened in the future through the common sorrow which all are now experiencing.”

A Bulawayo telegram reads: “Poignant grief is felt here at the death of Mr. Rhodes. All meetings have been postponed and all places of business are closed.”

FEELING IN NATAL

Before the news of Mr. Rhodes’s death had arrived, the Natal Parliament passed resolutions expressing deep sympathy with him in his illness. On the Thursday, the Legislative Council, which was the only one of the two Houses to meet, the Assembly having adjourned for the Easter recess, passed a resolution expressing its regret “at the irreparable loss sustained by the death of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, whose magnificent services to South Africa have been of incalculable benefit to the Empire.” It is, says Reuter’s correspondent, felt here that the death of Mr. Cecil Rhodes has created a great void in South African history, particularly at this juncture, when the potentialities of expansion and development, in which his aid would have been so powerful, are opening out.

The Legislative Assembly, on Tuesday, passed a motion recording its sense of the great loss sustained by the Empire in the death of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and its high appreciation of the distinguished and invaluable services rendered to South Africa by the late statesman.

At a special session of the Supreme Court of Natal called for the purpose of honouring Mr. Rhodes’s memory, the Chief Justice paid an eloquent tribute to the deceased statesman, and deplored the irreparable loss to South Africa and the Empire.

IN THE TRANSVAAL

All flags, says a Pretoria telegram, are half-mast. The death of Mr. Rhodes has created a profound feeling of regret throughout all sections of the community here. Though he had many bitter opponents among the Boers, the latter had a genuine admiration for his great abilities and recognized the unselfishness of his policy.

Replying to a request from the editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser for an expression of feeling on the occasion of the death of Mr. Rhodes, Lord Milner telegraphed that there was nothing he could say which had not already been said many times and better by others to the Kimberley people. “Above all,” continued Lord Milner, “it would be idle to dwell upon Mr. Rhodes’s greatness or the extent of his services to South Africa. I share to the full the general sorrow and the general sense of the irreparable loss.”

The announcement of Mr. Rhodes’s death has, says the Johannesburg correspondent of the Times, caused general and profound sorrow in Johannesburg, where, in spite of the raid fiasco and its disastrous consequences to the town, the public had a genuine admiration of his great career. The Stock Exchange immediately closed and business generally was suspended. It is understood that had he lived, Mr. Rhodes intended to come up, and in other ways to identify himself with the place which is destined to be the centre of British influence in South Africa. Though his previous connection with the town was, perhaps, the least happy episode in a great career, it is recognized that his intention was good and that he has otherwise done splendid work for the Empire; but though his death at an early age is profoundly regretted, it is felt that his special and characteristic work was finished, and that the leadership of loyal South Africa has now passed to Lord