It is quite likely that on this occasion Rhodes put in a word suggesting that it would be an advantage to the Transvaal to become possessed of an outlet on the sea-board, but I hardly think that Kruger wrote the truth in his memoirs in stating that when mentioning Delagoa Bay Rhodes used the words, “We must simply take it,” thus associating himself with Kruger.  Cecil Rhodes was far too cute to do any such tiling, knowing that it would be interpreted in a sense inimical to his plans.  But I should not be surprised if, when the President remarked that Delagoa was Portuguese, he had replied, “It does not matter, and you must simply take it.”  This would have been far more to the point, as it would have hinted to those who knew how to read between the lines that England, which Rhodes was persuaded was incarnated in himself, would not mind if the Transvaal did lay hands on Delagoa Bay.  Such an act would furnish the British Government with a pretext for dabbling to some effect in the affairs of the Transvaal Republic.

Such a move as this would have been just one of these things which Rhodes was fond of doing.  He felt sometimes a kind of malicious pleasure in whispering to others the very things likely to get them into trouble should they be so foolish as to do them.  In the case of President Kruger, however, he had to deal with a mind which, though uncouth, yet possessed all the “slimness” of which so many examples are to be found in South Africa.

Kruger wrote, “Rhodes represented capital, no matter how base and contemptible, and whether by lying, bribery or treachery, all and every means were welcome to him if they led to the attainment of his ambitious desires.”  But Oom Paul was absolutely wrong in thinking that it was the personage he was thus describing who practised all these abominations.  He ought to have remembered that it was his name only which was associated with all these basenesses, and the man himself, if left to his better self, would never have condescended to the many acts of doubtful morality with which his memory will remain associated in history.

I am firmly convinced that on his own impulse he would never, for instance, have ventured on the Raid.  But, unhappily, his habit, when something “not quite” was mentioned to him, was to say nothing and to trust to his good luck to avoid unpleasant consequences arising out of his silence.  Had he ventured to oppose the plans of his confederates they would have immediately turned upon him, and ...  There were, perhaps, past facts which he did not wish the world to remember.  His frequent fits of raging temper arose from this irksome feeling, and was his way—­a futile way—­of revenging himself on his jailors for the durance in which they kept him.  The man who believed himself to be omnipotent in South Africa, and who was considered so powerful by the world at large, was in reality in the hands of the very organisations he had helped to build.