The Story of Cecil Rhodes

Bruce Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2862, 15 June 1897, Page 1

The Story of Cecil Rhodes

Messrs Chapman and H»ll have ju-^t published " Cecil Bhodes : A Biography and Appreciation," by Imperialist, with personal recollections by Dr Jameson. '• Imperialist's " portion of the work is an out-and-out defence of Mr Rhodes. His career is traced from the time when he first went out to South Africa in 1871 down to the conclusion of his evidence tho other day before the Parliamentary Committee. Mr Bhodes, who was born 46 years ago, went out to Africa firat in 1871, to join an elder brother who wae cotton growing in Natal. A year later he returned home and entered at Oriel. He caught a bad chill after rowing. This fastened on his lungs, and he went out again to Africa, in search — of fame and foitune, if so it might be, but primarily — of life and health. " I have aiways been a very lucky man," he said in a speech tbe other day ;.and he found in the land of his choice all tbe four things he sought — splendid health, a life worth living, aa enormous fortune, and fame as the greatest man, for good or evil, in South Africa. But the secret of his success was no' luck ; it lay in prudence, determination, energy and imagination. He lived, to begin with, an out-door life. In 1873 he followed bis elder brother, Herbert, from Natal to the diamond fields at Colesbfrg Knpje, where the town of Kimberley now Btands. That was the time of individual enterprise, and of rough and ready methods of surfacework. The young diamond seekers, the two brothers, Herbert and Cecil, sat at a table in the open air, superintending the Kaffirs as they broke up the yellow ground : — Herbert's claim turned out well, and it was not very long before the roving disposition of the elder Bhodes led him to hand over the management of his some- what dreamy but hardworking and persevering younger brother. Cecil had a share in his brother's claim, and ultimately took over the working, and left Herbert free to follow the more congenial life of gold seeker, hunter arjd explorer in the far North, an adventurous life, which came to an untimely end, owing to the accidental burning of the hut in which he was sleeping when elephant hunting near tbe Shire. The more tenacious younger btother, Cecil, persevered at the diggings and prospered amazingly, and here it was that he became acquainted with Mr C. D. Budd, who has had a considerable part in all his great enterprises. To determination and energy, the young Bhodes added imagination. He was noted among bis fellows as a dreamer of large, and, as they seemed at the time, impossible dreams. Dr Jameson, who contributes a few interesting reminiscences to the book, met Mr Bhodes at Kimberley in 1878, " Even at that early period," he says " Bhodes, then a man of 26 or 27, had mapped out his whole policy, just as it has since developed. '* He had two great dreams, tbe realisation of one of them being tbe prelim* iaary and the means of the realisation of the other. The first was the amalgamation of the diamond mines. The Becond was the occupation of what is now'Bhodeßia. Twenty years ago he was talking with a man at Kimberley. He unrolled a map of Africa, and moving his hand as a pointer up to the Zambesi, he said, "That's my dream — all this English." That dream has been realised, except that on the map the red of Bhodesia extends far beyond the Zambesi. "