Cecil Rhodes | Page 8

impossible to judge of facts of
which one has had no occasion to watch the developments, or which
have taken place in lands where one has never been. Neither Fernando
Cortez in Mexico nor Pizzaro Gonzalo in Peru proved themselves
merciful toward the populations whose territory they conquered. The
tragedy which sealed the fate of Matabeleland was neither a darker nor
a more terrible one than those of which history speaks when relating to
us the circumstances attending the discovery of America. Such events
must be judged objectively and forgiven accordingly. When forming an
opinion on the doings and achievements of Cecil Rhodes one must
make allowance for all the temptations which were thrown in his way
and remember that he was a man who, if ambitious, was not so in a
personal sense, but in a large, lofty manner, and who, whilst
appropriating to himself the good things which he thought he could
grasp, was also eager to make others share the profit of his success.
Cecil Rhodes, in all save name, was monarch over a continent almost
as vast as his own fancy and imagination. He was always dreaming,
always lost in thoughts which were wandering far beyond his actual
surroundings, carrying him into regions where the common spirit of
mankind seldom travelled. He was born for far better things than those
which he ultimately attained, but he did not belong to the century in
which he lived; his ruthless passions of anger and arrogance were more

fitted for an earlier and cruder era. Had he possessed any disinterested
friends capable of rousing the better qualities that slumbered beneath
his apparent cynicism and unscrupulousness, most undoubtedly he
would have become the most remarkable individual in his generation.
Unfortunately, he found himself surrounded by creatures absolutely
inferior to himself, whose deficiencies he was the first to notice, whom
he despised either for their insignificance or for their mental and moral
failings, but to whose influence he nevertheless succumbed.
When Cecil Rhodes arrived at Kimberley he was a mere youth. He had
come to South Africa in quest of health and because he had a brother
already settled there, Herbert Rhodes, who was later on to meet with a
terrible fate. Cecil, if one is to believe what one hears from those who
knew him at the time, was a shy youth, of a retiring disposition, whom
no one could ever have suspected would develop into the hardy, strong
man he became in time. He was constantly sick, and more than once
was on the point of falling a victim of the dreaded fever which prevails
all over South Africa and then was far more virulent in its nature than it
is to-day. Kimberley at that time was still a vast solitude, with here and
there a few scattered huts of corrugated iron occupied by the handful of
colonists. Water was rare: it is related, indeed, that the only way to get
a wash was to use soda water.
The beginning of Rhodes' fortune, if we are to believe what we are told,
was an ice machine which he started in partnership with another settler.
The produce they sold to their companions at an exorbitant price, but
not for long; whereafter the enterprising young man proceeded to buy
some plots of ground, of whose prolificacy in diamonds he had good
reason to be aware. It must be here remarked that Rhodes was never a
poor man; he could indulge in experiments as to his manner of
investing his capital. And he was not slow to take advantage of this
circumstance. Kimberley was a wild place at that time, and its distance
from the civilised world, as well as the fact that nothing was controlled
by public opinion, helped some to amass vast fortunes and put the
weaker into the absolute power of the most unscrupulous. It is to the
honour of Rhodes that, however he might have been tempted, he never
listened to the advice which was given to him to do what the others did,

and to despoil the men whose property he might have desired to acquire.
He never gave way to the excesses of his daily companions, nor
accepted their methods of enriching themselves at top speed so as soon
to be able to return home with their gains.
From the first moment that he set foot on African soil Rhodes
succumbed to the strange charm the country offers for thinkers and
dreamers. His naturally languid temperament found a source of untold
satisfaction in watching the Southern Cross rise over the vast veldt
where scarcely man's foot had trod, where the immensity of its space
was equalled by its sublime, quiet grandeur. He liked to spend the night
in the open air, gazing at the innumerable stars and listening