Chapter 30

But it is time to return to the development of the north, the greatest of his schemes and the one dearest to his heart. The year 1885 had secured Bechuanaland to the river Molopo as British territory, while a large stretch farther north was under a British protectorate. One danger had been avoided. The neck of the bottle was not corked up: a way to the interior was now open. The next factor to reckon with was the Matabele nation and its chief, Lobengula. They were a Bantu tribe, fond of fighting and hunting, an offshoot of the Zulus who fought us in 1881. They had a very large country surrounding the Matoppo hills, and Lobengula ruled the various districts through 'indunas' or chiefs, who had 'impis' or armies of fighting men at their disposal. To the north-east of them lay the weaker tribe of the Mashona, who paid tribute to Lobengula and whose country was a common hunting-ground for the Matabele braves. Over the latter, so long as he did not check too much their love of fighting, Lobengula exercised a fairly effective control. He himself was a remarkable man, strong in body and mind. Sir Lewis Michell describes him as he appeared to English visitors: 'A somewhat grotesque costume of four yards of blue calico over his shoulders and a string of tigers' tails round his waist could not make his imposing figure ridiculous. In early days he was an athlete and a fine shot; and though, as years went on, his voracious appetite rendered him conspicuously obese, he was every inch a ruler.... Visitors were much struck by his capacity for government: very little went on in his wide dominions of which he was not instantly and accurately informed.' He was an arbitrary ruler, but not cruel to Europeans, of whom a few, like the famous hunter Selous, visited his capital from time to time. He clearly held the keys to the north, and it was with him that Rhodes had now to deal.

The first step was the mission sent out by Rhodes and Beit early in 1888, headed by their old associate Rudd. He and his two fellow-envoys stayed some months with Lobengula watching for favourable moments and trying to win his favour. They shifted their quarters when the king did so, touring from village to village, plied the king and his indunas with offers and arguments, and finally in October they obtained his signature to a treaty giving full and unqualified rights to the envoys for working minerals in his country. In return they covenanted to give him money, rifles, ammunition, and an armed steamboat.

The next step was to get the support of the British authorities in London for that political extension which was dearer to Rhodes than the richest mines and the biggest dividends. In this he was greatly helped by his consistent supporter, Sir Hercules Robinson, who held office in Africa for many years, studied men and matters at first hand, and had a juster estimate of Rhodes and his value to the Empire than the officials in Whitehall. The method of proceeding was by chartered company, the old Elizabethan method, which still has its value to-day, as it relieves the home Government of the expense of developing new countries, yet reserves to it the right to control policy and to enter into the harvest. The Company was to build railways and telegraphs, encourage colonization and spread trade; the Government was to escape from the diplomatic difficulties which might arise with neighbours if it were acting under its own name.

The third step was to make a way into the country and to start actual work. Lobengula's consent was given conditionally: the first expedition was to avoid his capital, Bulawayo, and to go by the south-east to Mashonaland. The chief knew how difficult it might prove to hold in his impis when, instead of a solitary Selous, some hundreds of Europeans began to cross their hunting-grounds. And so it proved. Lobengula had to pretend later that he had not consented to their passage, and the expedition had to slip through the dangerous zone before they could be recalled authoritatively. By May 1890 a column of nearly one thousand men was ready to start from Khama's country; and in June their equipment was approved by a British officer. On September 11, after a march of four hundred miles through trackless country (some of it unknown even to Selous, their guide), the British flag was hoisted on the site of the modern town of Salisbury. It is a chapter of history well worth reading in detail, but Rhodes himself could not be there: the heroes of the march were Jameson and Selous. The other half of Rhodesia, Matabeleland, was not added till a few years later; but British enterprise had now found the way and overcome the worst difficulties. 'Occupation Day' is still kept as the chief festival of the Colony.

Further extension was inevitable. The Matabele impis would not forgo their old habit of raiding amongst the Mashonas. Jameson's complaints received only partial satisfaction from Lobengula. He himself did not want war, but he failed to control his men, and in September 1893 the Chartered Company was driven to fight. They had on the spot about nine hundred men and some machine-guns. Against these the Matabele with all their bravery could effect little. In two engagements they threw away their lives with reckless gallantry, and then they broke and fled. Lobengula himself was never heard of again. His rearguard cut up a small party of British who were too impetuous in pursuit, but by the end of the year the country was at peace. In 1894 Matabeleland was added to the territory of the Chartered Company, in 1895 the term 'Rhodesia' came into use for postal purposes, and in 1897 it was officially adopted for administrative purposes.

The jealousy of the Portuguese, who claimed the 'Hinterland' behind their East African colony, though they had never occupied it, caused a good deal of ill feeling, and very nearly led to hostilities both in Africa and Europe. The Boers formed schemes for raiding the new lands before they could be effectively occupied, and had to be headed off. The Matabele impis continued for months in a state of excitement; and their forays made it far too dangerous for Rhodes or for others to go up there for some time. But Rhodes himself said that he had less trouble with natives, with Dutch, and with Portuguese, than he had with compatriots of his own, who claimed to have received concessions from native chiefs and intrigued against him in London. But here his peculiar gifts came out, his patience, his persuasive power, his readiness to pour out money like water for a worthy end. Some he beat, others he bought; and in all cases he maintained his position against his rivals. Robinson, Rudd, Jameson, Selous, had all done their parts well, and Rhodes gave them full credit and generous praise; but the mind and the will that planned and carried out the whole movement, and added a province to the British Empire, was unquestionably his own.

Rhodes was Prime Minister of Cape Colony from 1890 to 1895; and during this time he was obliged to be more often at Cape Town. It was in 1891 that he first leased the property lying on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain where he built 'Groote Schuur', the famous house which he bequeathed to the service of the State. Here he gradually acquired 1,500 acres of land, laying them out with a sure eye to the beauty of the surroundings, and to the pleasure of his fellow-citizens. Here he lived from time to time, and received all kinds of men with boundless hospitality. No one can fully understand him who does not read the varying impressions of the friends and guests who sat with him on the 'stoep', under the trees in his garden, or high up on the mountain side, where he had his favourite nooks. The visitors saw what they had eyes to see. One would note his foibles, his blunt manner, his slovenly dress, his want of skill at billiards, his fondness for special dishes or drinks. Another would be impressed by his library with its teak panelling, by the books which he read and the questions which he asked, by his love for Gibbon and Plutarch, by his interest in Marcus Aurelius and other writers on high themes. Others again tell us of his relations to his fellow-men, how recklessly generous he was to young and old, to British and Dutch, and how his generosity was abused: how his acquaintances preyed upon him; how, for all that, he kept his true friendships few in number and he held them sacred. In fact, loyalty to friends meant more to Rhodes than loyalty to principles. His temper was impatient, especially in the last years of physical pain; he often tried to take short cuts to his ends, believing that his ends were worthy and knowing that life was short. He made many mistakes, but he retrieved them nobly. He was in some ways rough-hewn and unpolished, but he was a great man.

It is impossible to put in a short compass the many important questions with which he dealt. His policy towards the natives was moderate and wise. He wished to educate them and then to trust them; to restrict the sale of liquor among them and to open to them the nobler lessons of civilization; to give them the vote when they were educated enough to use it well, but not before; to apply to them too his motto of 'Equal rights for every civilized man south of the Zambezi'. His policy towards the Dutch was to establish identity of interest between the two nations and so to secure friendly relations with them; to draw them into co-operation in agriculture, in railways, in colonization, in export trade, in imperial politics. He did his best to win over the Orange Free State by a policy of common railways, and even to break down the sullen opposition of the Transvaal. But the latter proved impossible. President Kruger leant more and more upon Dutch counsellors from Holland; he looked more and more to Delagoa Bay and turned his back upon Cape Town: and the antagonism became more acute. In 1895 Mr. Chamberlain initiated a new era at the Colonial Office. He was actively awake to British interests in all parts of the globe; and President Kruger, who had tried to check trade with Cape Town by stopping the Cape railway at his frontier, and then by closing the 'Drifts' or fords over the Vaal, was compelled to give way and to keep to the agreements made with the Suzerain State.

A still more serious question was the treatment of the 'Uitlanders' or alien European settlers in the Transvaal. Though the Boer rulers took an increasingly large share of their earnings, they restricted more and more the grant of the franchise. In taxation, in commerce, in education, there was no prospect between the Vaal and the Limpopo of 'Equal rights for all civilized men' or anything like it. In June 1894 the High Commissioner frankly told Kruger that the Uitlanders had 'very real and substantial grievances'; in 1895 they were no less substantial, and agitation was rife in Johannesburg. On December 28, Jameson at the head of an armed column left Pitsani on the borders and rode into the Transvaal to support a rising against the Boer Government. The Uitlanders were not expecting him; no rising took place, and Jameson's small column was surrounded some miles west of Johannesburg, outnumbered, and forced to surrender. The Jameson Raid, for which Rhodes was generally held responsible, attracted all eyes in Europe as in Africa. How President Kruger used his advantage against the Uitlanders, among whom Col. Frank Rhodes was a leader, can be read in many books: here we need only relate how the event affected the Premier of Cape Colony. He resigned office at once and put himself at the disposal of the Government. Despite his past record he was judged by the Dutch, alike in the Cape and in the Transvaal, to have been the author of the Raid, and all chance of his doing further service in reconciling the two races was at an end. The beginning of 1895 saw him at the height of his ambition. The end of it saw his power shattered beyond repair.

His behaviour in this crisis enables us to know the real man. For a few days he kept aloof, unapproachable, overcome by the ruin of his work. He made no attempt to conciliate opinion: in moments of bitterness he scoffed at the 'unctuous rectitude' of certain politicians who were improving the occasion. But he spoke frankly to those who had the right to question him. He went to London in February and saw Mr. Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, and his Directors. He admitted that he was at fault. Believing that Kruger would always yield to a show of force, he had been responsible for putting troops near the border to exercise moral pressure. But neither then nor at any time had he given Jameson orders to invade the Transvaal, or to precipitate an armed conflict, which he believed to be unnecessary. Such was his consistent statement, and he was ready to face, when the time should come, the Parliamentary committees appointed by the British and South African Houses to report on the Raid. Meanwhile he put all brooding away and looked round for some practical work. Fortunately he found it in the most congenial sphere. His colony of Rhodesia, to which he had gone straight from London, was threatened with disaster from a great native outbreak. The causes were various. Rinderpest had spoiled one of the chief native industries, and superstition had invented foolish reasons for it; also the rumours, which were spreading about the Raid, made the natives believe that the British power was shaken. The Mashonas, as well as the Matabele, took part in the revolt which began early in April 1896. To meet it the colonists mustered their full strength, while General Carrington was sent out from home with some regular troops. Several engagements in difficult country followed: the enemies' forces were quickly broken up, and by the end of July the time for negotiation was come.

But the chiefs of the Matabele had retired into their fortresses in the Matoppo hills and could not be reached. To send small columns to track them down might mean needless loss of life: to keep the forces in the field right through the winter was ruinous to the Company's finances. Rhodes offered his own services as negotiator, and they were accepted. The man who could carry his point with Jewish financiers and Dutch politicians might hope to achieve his ends with the simpler native chiefs. But it was a sore trial of patience. He moved his own tent two miles away from the British troops to the foot of the hills, sent native messengers to the chiefs, and waited. During this time he was not idle: he put in a lot of riding and of miscellaneous reading: his mind was actively employed in planning roads and dams for irrigation, in scheming for the future greatness of the country. It was six weeks before a chief responded. Gradually they began to drop in and to hold informal meetings round the tent, putting questions, replying to Rhodes's jokes, relapsing into fits of silence, oblivious as all savages are of the value of time. He would spend hours day after day in this apparently futile way; accustoming them to his presence, coaxing them into the right humour. At last he persuaded them to meet him in a formal 'indaba', which must have been a dramatic scene. Alone he stood facing them, boldly reproaching them with their bad faith and cruel acts. They stated their grievances: some were admitted: satisfaction was promised. In the end peace was proclaimed and the delighted natives greeted him uproariously with the title of Lamula 'm Kunzi (Separator of the Fighting Bulls). The discussions were not over till the end of October, and it was a month later ere Rhodes was able to leave the country and face the Committee in London--a very different gathering in very different surroundings. His work during these two months was perhaps the greatest of his life; and that he should have been able to concentrate all his powers upon it so soon after the shattering blow of the Raid is a great tribute to his essential manliness and patriotism.

The two Committees, sitting in London and Cape Town, agreed to censure, though in modified terms, Rhodes's conduct over the Raid; but he still retained the respect of the bulk of his countrymen, and on his return the citizens of Cape Town gave him an enthusiastic welcome. They and he were looking ahead as well as behind: they felt that his services were still needed for the establishing of a United South Africa under the British flag. But in this respect his work was done. The Cape Dutch were more and more influenced by their sentiment for the Transvaal, and racial feeling ran high. Rhodes severed himself from all his old Dutch colleagues and became more of a party leader. Meanwhile Kruger watched the breach, assured himself of Dutch support, made no concessions to the Uitlanders, repelled all overtures from Mr. Chamberlain, and steered straight for war. Rhodes, despite his knowledge of the Dutch, made the mistake of believing up to the last moment that Kruger would give way and not fight; but, when the war broke out in 1899, he went up to Kimberley to take his share of the work and the danger. The siege lasted about four months, and Rhodes, though he failed to work harmoniously with the military commandant, rendered many services to the town, thanks to his wealth, influence, and knowledge of the place. When the town was relieved in February 1900, he went to Rhodesia and spent many months there. Though he was urged by his followers to return to politics, Cape Town saw little of him; when he was not in the north, he was mostly at his seaside cottage at Muizenberg, half-way between the capital and the Cape of Good Hope. The heart complaint, from which he had suffered intermittently all his life, had rapidly grown worse; his last year was one of great suffering, and in March 1902 he breathed his last at Muizenberg with Jameson and a few of his dearest friends around him. He was buried in the place which he had himself chosen amid the Matoppo hills. On a bare hill-top seven gigantic boulders keep guard round the simple tombstone on which his name is engraved. After the English service was over, the natives celebrated in their own fashion the passing of the great chief who had already been enshrined in their imagination.

At Kimberley, at Cape Town, in the Matoppos, his work was done before the nineteenth century was finished, and he had earned his rest. The complete union of the European races for which he laboured in Parliament is yet to come. The vast wealth which he won in Kimberley is fulfilling a noble purpose. By his will he founded scholarships at Oxford for scholars from the Dominions and Colonies, from the United States and from Germany--his faith in the Anglo-Saxon race being extended to our Teutonic kinsmen. He regarded a common education and common ideals as the surest cement of Empire. But above all else his name will be preserved among his countrymen by the provinces which he added to the British dominions. Kimberley and Cape Town have their monuments, their memories of his many successes and his few failures: the Matoppos have his grave. To us the peace and solitude of the hills where he lies may seem to contrast strangely with the stirring activity of his life. But solitude will not reign there always, if Rhodes's ideal is fulfilled. It was here that he had stood with a friend, looking towards the vast horizon northwards, and, in an often-quoted sentence, expressed his dream for the future: 'Homes, more homes, that's what I work for!' So long as our race produces such bold dreamers, such strenuous workers, its future, in Africa and elsewhere, need occasion no doubts or fears.

INDEX

A

Aberdeen, 4th Earl of, 32, 51

Acton, Lord, 5, 272, 325

Adams, Professor J. C., 277

Addison, Joseph, 137, 326, 336

Afghanistan, 62, 103, 107

Afrikander Bond, 354

Agram, 251

Agricultural labourers, 79, 117

Aldworth, 171, 176, 345

Alexander III, Tsar, 266, 268, 271

Alexander, Prince of Bulgaria, 265-6

Alexandria, 127

Alfonso XII, King of Spain, 262-4

Alsace, 256, 345

Althorp, Lord (3rd Earl Spencer), 42, 43, 83

American Civil War, 121, 123-4

Ampthill, Lord, _v._ Odo Russell, 248, 264, 272, 273, 275

Angevin kings, 334, 337

Anglesey, Lord, 39

Annandale, 10-13, 16, 29

Appomattox, 124

Argyll, 8th Duke of, 86

Arnold, Matthew, 6, 8, 194, 321

Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 8, 24

Ashburton, 2nd Lord, 23

Atkin, Joseph, 235, 242-3

Auckland, N. Z., 226-7, 237-8, 242

B

Baden, 249, 256

Bagehot, Walter, 33

Baird-Smith, 104

Baluchs, 62-6

Bamford, Samuel, 175

Baring, Lady Harriet, 23

Barnack, 178

Barnato, Barney, 352

Barry, Sir Charles, 200

Basutoland, 355

Batum, 268

Bazaine, Marshal, 257

Bechuanaland, 357

de Beers Company, 352, 357

Behnes, Charles and Wm., 199

Beit, Alfred, 350, 358

Bentham, Jeremy, 2

Bergmann, Professor von, 298

Berlin, 248, 252-3, 263, 293; Treaty of, 268

Bermuda, 58

Besant, Sir Walter, 89

Biarritz, 191

Bideford, 183

Bird, Robert, 98

Birmingham, 6, 126, 304, 311

Bishop's Stortford, 348

Bismarck, 252-9, 264, 273

Blackburn, 32

Blackie, Professor, 294

Blomfield, Bishop, 190

Bloomsbury, 313

Boehm, Sir J. E., 21

Bolivar, Simon, 60

Borrow, George, 6

Bright, Jacob, 111-13

Bright, John: America, 123; Anti-Corn-Law League, 114-19; education, 111-12; family, 111-14, 126; foreign policy, 122, 127; Ireland, 121, 127; oratorical style, 117, 119-20; Parliament, 85, 117, 119, 121, 123, 125; public meetings, 116, 117, 125; Quakers, 111, 113, 115, 117, 122; Reform, 113, 124-5; other references, 25-6, 85, 278

Brindley, James, 120, 338

Brontë, Charlotte, 7

Brooke, Stopford, 162, 187, 310, 339, 342-5

Brookfield, Rev. W., 157

Brougham, Lord, 7, 40, 42

Brown, Ford Madox, 197, 307

Browning, E. B., 81

Browning, Robert, 5, 9, 140, 158, 165, 169, 170, 175, 250

Brunton, Sir Lauder, 345

Bryce, Viscount, 334, 343, 345

Bulgaria, 264-8

Burlington House (Royal Academy), 198, 200, 206, 217

Burne-Jones, Sir E., 197, 205, 209, 212, 217, 219, 304-8, 311, 319, 328

Burton, Richard, 4

Byron, Lord, 33, 60, 153

C

Cambridge, 153-4, 179, 190, 221

Cameron, Sir Hector, 288

Cameron, Julia, 172, 205

Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), 69, 70, 105

Canning, Charles, Lord, 105, 122

Canning, George, 32, 35, 37, 38

Capri, 343

Carlisle, 10, 290

Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 14-19, 22, 25, 27

Carlyle, John, 14

Carlyle, Thomas: appearance, 19, 212; books, chief, 11, 20, 22, 23, 25-7; character, 16, 17, 29; education, 12, 13; family, 11, 15, 29; friends, 4, 13, 18, 23, 30, 140, 163; German literature, 16, 17; homes, 6, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21; lectures, 22; literary style, 20, 29, 321, 324-5; quoted opinions, 71, 164, 189, 302

Carnot, President, 300

Carrington, General, 364

Cashel, 34

Castelar, Emilio, 261

Castlereagh, Lord, 38

Cauteretz, 173

Celbridge, 55, 56

Cephalonia, 59

Chamberlain, Joseph, 6, 53, 362, 364, 366

Chartered Company, 359, 360, 364-5

Chartists, 61, 187-9

Chatham, 130, 144

Chelsea, 21, 163, 179

Chester, 191

Cheyne, Sir Watson, 297

Chili[=a]nw[=a]la, 69, 101

Christison, Sir Robert, 294

Clare election, 39, 49

Clarendon, Edw. Hyde, Earl of, 324

Clarendon, Geo. Villiers, Earl of, 7, 250

Clark, Sir Andrew, 345

Clovelly, 178

Cobden, Richard, 2; and Bright, 114-19, 124, 127; and Peel, 48, 49, 51; and Shaftesbury, 84, 87

Coburg, Duchy of, 249, 253

Codrington, Rev. R., 235

Coleridge, Rev. Derwent, 178

Coleridge, Rev. Edward, 223

Coleridge, John, 222

Coleridge, S. T., 13, 29

Cook, Captain James, 220

Cook, John Douglas, 335

Cooper, Thomas, 189

Corn Laws, 47, 115-20

Coruña, 57

Craigenputtock, 18

Creighton, Bishop, 344

Crimean War, 121-3, 167, 251

Cromer, Earl of, 123, 272

Crotch, W. W., 136, 146

Crown Prince of Germany (Frederick III), 252, 258

Currency, Reform of, 36-7

D

Dabo, Battle of, 65

Dalhousie, Marquis of, 69, 70, 100, 101, 103

Dal[=i]p Singh, 271

Dalling, Lord, 45

Darmstadt, Court of, 255-7