CECIL BHODES'S GRAVE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 155, 29 December 1910, Page 2

CECIL BHODES'S GRAVE.

WORLD'S VIEW HILL. Describing a visit to the grave of Cecil Rhodes, the special correspondent of the Melbourne Age who accompanied Mr. Fisher's party to South Africa writes ; — Climbing to the crest of this wonderfid peak, Rhodes turnod from a long, unhurried contemplation of the landscape to his friend. " [ shall be buried here," he said. His grave rests in the central space between the compass boulders. The tomb has bepn hollowed from tne solid stone; ilB lowly surface is almost level with the granite surface of the mound. No headstone marks the spot, nought but a recumbent sheet of bronze embedded athwart, the rock, and inscribed with these simple words— "Here lie the remains of Cccii John Rhodes." This is a world of diverse views and contrary opinions. To Mr. Fisher the sight of Rhodes's grave brought cynical .reflections, and evoked from him this rather mordant comment: "The vanity of the man!" Others of the party were almost painfully affected with 'the simplicity, the majesty, and the solitary aloofness of spirit which seomed to have inspired the conception ot such a grave, 1 remembered that it had been Rhodes's custom for years before his end, whenever lie was worried by the sordid little things of life 01 whenover he wished to bo alone to give 'freer scope to the workings of his imperial mind, to retire unattended to the witching and mysterious solitude ol the hill, where now he lies in death. On that lonely rock he planned the conquest 'mid acquisition of 'a territory nearly "450,000 squam miles in extent. On that spot he formulated schemes and policies whose fruition subsequently shook the world. On that spot he dreamed dreams as vaßt and romantic as ever fired the imagination of Caesar or an Alexander, and there at last he made his will which gave parks to the people, provinces lo tho nation,, and perpetual education bequests to the whole ' British-speaking race. None other than Rhodes should Bleep on the World's View Hitf. None other ever shall, although he gave it as a cemetery to South Africa, and he did not declare any wish to sleep alone. Happily, the people have decided that question for good and all, and have thus proved beyond dispute their veneration of his greatness. It is, I think, Uie most remotely silent place that I have ever visited, the most seriously thoughtinspiring, the most sombre, forbidding, and desolately grand. While one stands gazing at -the tomb, scores of lizards— blue, green, and grey — troop' from the crevices among the rocks, and steal like brilliant phantom streaks across the tor: They are almost fearles3 of intruders, but they make no sound. Sometimes the distant shrilling of cicadae wounds the stillness with a faint yet piercing dagger thrust of song. But soon aud always the eternal hush returns, and silence reigns supreme again. ! What must Ibis place of isolated gloom be like at night, when in the tropic noontide blaze it spreads a pall of gentle horror on _ the sensibilities— at night, when the lions that teem among these pathless hills roam abroad in search of prey, and bond their prowling steps, perhaps, across the simple, moveless tomb of the maker of a nation? Involuntarily a quatrain of Omar the Persian swims into recollection — They say the lion and the lizard keep Tho .court where Jarvheyd gloried and drank deep. And Balaam, that great hunter— the wild ass Stamps o'er his head, yet cannot break his sleep. Certainly the lion and the lizard keep nightly watch by Cecil Rhodes's grave. The world is full of great tombs, great and awe-inspiring monuments ; but there is no tomb, no monument in all the world which can equal that of Rhodes's sleeping-place in simplicity and majesty. So lar I can agree with Mr. Fisher, in that 1 think its grandeur somewhat overtops the bigness of the man who chose it for his final home. But if ho showed vanity in his selection, he showed courage too, and one must remember that he owned tho Hill. ,, — „, ,.