Our time was too short on this occasion to see any portion of Mr. Rhodes’s estate or the animals—­antelope of many kinds, wildebeestes, elands, and zebras—­which roamed through his woods.  We lunched with him two days later on Christmas Eve, and then the weather was so hot that we only lazily enjoyed the shade and breezes on the stoep.  Well do I remember on that occasion how preoccupied was our host, and how incessantly the talk turned to Johannesburg and the raging discontent there.  In truth, Mr. Rhodes’s position was then a very difficult one:  he was Prime Minister of Cape Colony, and therefore officially neutral; but in his heart he remained the keen champion of the oppressed Uitlanders, having nominated his brother, Frank Rhodes, to be one of the leaders of the Reform Committee at Johannesburg.  No wonder he was graver than was his wont, with many complications overshadowing him, as one afterwards so fully realized.  His kindness as a host, however, suffered no diminution, and I remember how warmly he pressed us to stay with him when we returned from the north, though he did add, “My plans are a little unsettled.”  This suggested visit, however, was never paid; Mr. Rhodes a few weeks afterwards was starting for England, to, as he termed it, “face the music.”  I shall have occasion to describe him in his home, and the life at Groot Schuurr, more fully later on, when I passed many happy and never-to-be-forgotten weeks beneath his hospitable roof.  As years went on, his kindness to both friends and political foes grew almost proverbial, but even in 1895 Groot Schuurr, barely finished, was already known to be one of the pleasantest places near Cape Town—­a meeting-place for all the men of the colony either on their way to and from England, or on the occasion of their flying visits to the capital.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Red neck, or Englishman.

[2] Now Sir A. Wools Sampson, K.C.B.

CHAPTER II

     Kimberley and the Jameson Raid

     “Ex Africa semper aliquid novi.”

In the last week of the old year we started on our journey to Kimberley, then a matter of thirty-six hours.  The whole of one day we dawdled over the Great Karroo in pelting rain and mist, which reminded one of Scotland.  This sandy desert was at that season covered with brown scrub, for it was yet too early for the rains to have made it green, and the only signs of life were a few ostriches, wild white goats, and, very rarely, a waggon piled with wood, drawn along the sandy road by ten or twelve donkeys.  As to vegetation, there were huge clumps of mimosa-bushes, just shedding their yellow blossoms, through which the branches showed up with their long white thorns, giving them a weird and withered appearance.  It must indeed have required great courage on behalf of the old Voor-trekker Boers, when they and their