Oom Paul's People / A Narrative of the British-Boer Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and Its Institutions

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

The Jameson raid was a mere incident in Mr. Rhodes's career; he would probably call it an accident. Having failed to overthrow the Transvaal Republic by means of an armed revolution, he attempted to accomplish the same object by means of a commercial revolution. Rhodesia, the new country which had a short time previously been taken from the Matabeles and the Mashonas, was proclaimed by Mr. Rhodes to be a paradise for settlers and an Ophir for prospectors. He personally conducted the campaign to rob the Transvaal of its inhabitants and its commerce; but the golden promises, the magnificent farms, the Solomon's mines, the new railways, and the new telegraph lines all failed to attract the coveted prizes to the land which, after all, was found to be void of real merit except as a hunting ground where the so-called British poor-house, the army, might pot negroes.

Mr. Rhodes spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the country which bears his name, and the British South Africa Company added thousands more, but the hand which was wont to turn into gold all that it touched had lost its cunning. To add to Mr. Rhodes's perplexities, the natives who had been conquered by Dr. Jameson learned that their conqueror had been taken prisoner by the Boers, and rose in another rebellion against English authority. Mr. Rhodes and one of his sisters journeyed alone into the enemy's stronghold and made terms with Lobengula, whereby the revolution was practically ended.

After the Rhodesian country had been pacified, and he had placed the routine work of the campaign to secure settlers for the country in the hands of his lieutenants, Mr. Rhodes bent all his energies toward the completion of the transcontinental railway and telegraph lines which had been started under his auspices several years before, but had been allowed to lag on account of the pressure of weightier matters. The Cape Town to Cairo railroad and telegraph are undertakings of such vast proportions and importance that Mr. Rhodes's fame might easily have been secured through them alone had he never been heard of in connection with other great enterprises.

He himself originated the plans by which the Mediterranean and Table Bay will eventually be united by bands of steel and strands of copper, and it is through his own personal efforts that the English financiers are being induced to subscribe the money with which his plans are being carried out. The marvellous faith which the English people have in Mr. Rhodes has been illustrated on several occasions when he was called to London to meet storms of protests from shareholders, who feared that the two great enterprises were gigantic fiascos. He has invariably returned to South Africa with the renewed confidence of the timid ones and many millions of additional capital.

Mr. Rhodes has tasted of the power which is absolute, and he will brook no earthly interference with his plans. The natives may destroy hundreds of miles of the telegraph lines, as they have done on several occasions. He teaches them a lesson by means of the quick-firing gun, and rebuilds the line. White men may fear the deadly fever of Central Africa, but princely salaries and life-insurance policies for a host of relatives will always attract men to take the risk. Shareholders may rebel at the expenditures, but Mr. Rhodes will indicate to them that their other properties will be ruined if they withdraw their support from the railway and telegraph.

A strip of territory belonging to another nation may be an impediment to the line, but an interview with the Emperor of Germany or the King of Portugal will be all-sufficient for the accomplishment of Mr. Rhodes's purpose. Providence may swerve him in his purpose many times, but nations and individuals rarely.

All South Africans agree that Mr. Rhodes is the most remarkable Englishman that ever figured in the history of the African continent. Some will go further and declare that he has done more for the British Empire than any one man in history. No two South Africans will agree on the methods by which Mr. Rhodes attained his position in the affairs of the country. Some say that he owes his success to his great wealth; others declare that his personal magnetism is responsible for all that he ever attained. His enemies intimate that political chicanery is the foundation of his progress, while his friends resent the intimation and laud his sterling honesty as the basis of his successful career.

No one has ever accused him of being the fortunate victim of circumstances which carried him to the pre-eminent rank he occupies among Englishmen, although such an opinion might readily be formed from a personal study of the man. South Africa is the indolent man's paradise, and of that garden of physical inactivity Mr. Rhodes, by virtue of his pre-eminent qualifications, is king. "Almost as lazy as Rhodes" is a South Africanism that has caused lifelong enmities and rivers of blood.

He takes pride in his indolence, and declares that the man who performs more labour than his physical needs demand is a fool. He says he never makes a long speech because he is too lazy to expend the energy necessary for its delivery. He declines to walk more than an eighth of a mile unless it is impossible to secure a vehicle or native hammock-bearers to convey him, and then he proceeds so slowly that his progress is almost imperceptible. His indolence may be the result of the same line of reasoning as that indulged in by the cautious man who carries an umbrella when the sun shines, in which case every one who has travelled in the tropics will agree that Mr. Rhodes is a modern Solomon. The only exercise he indulges in is an hour's canter on horseback in the early morning, before the generous rays of the African sun appear.

Notwithstanding his antipathy to physical exertion, Mr. Rhodes is a great traveller, and is constantly moving from one place to another. One week may find him at Groote Schuur, his Cape Town residence, while the following week he may be planning a new farm in far-away Mashonaland. The third week may have him in the Portuguese possessions on the east coast, and at the end of the month he may be back in Cape Town, prepared for a voyage to England and a fortnight's stay in Paris. He will charter a bullock team or a steamship with like disregard of expense in order that he may reach his destination at a specified time, and in like manner he will be watchful of his comfort by causing houses to be built in unfrequented territory which he may wish to investigate.