rkable will. History contains
no more striking contrast perhaps than the spectacle of this tall
curly-haired boy with the Caesar-like face studying a Greek book while
he managed a diamond-washing machine with his foot.

Rhodes developed the mines known as the DeBeers group. His great rival
was Barney Barnato, who gave African finance the same erratic and
picturesque tradition that the Pittsburgh millionaires brought to
American finance. His real name was Barnett Isaacs. After kicking about
the streets of the East End of London he became a music hall performer
under the name by which he is known to business history. The diamond
rush lured him to Kimberley, where he displayed the resource and
ingenuity that led to his organization of the Central mine interests
which grouped around the Kimberley Mine.

A bitter competition developed between the Rhodes and Barnato groups.
Kimberley alternated between boom and bankruptcy. The genius of diamond
mining lies in tempering output to demand. Rhodes realized that
indiscriminate production would ruin the market, so he framed up the
deal that made him the diamond dictator. He made Barnato an offer which
was refused. With the aid of the Rothschilds in London Rhodes secretly
bought out the French interests in the Barnato holdings for $6,000,000,
which got his foot, so to speak, in the doorway of the opposition. But
even this did not give him a working wedge. He was angling with other
big stockholders and required some weeks time to consummate the deal.
Meanwhile Barnato accumulated an immense stock of diamonds which he
threatened to dump on the market and demoralize the price. The release
of these stones before the completion of Rhodes' negotiations would have
upset his whole scheme and neutralized his work and expense.

He arranged a meeting with Barnato who confronted him with the pile of
diamonds that he was about to throw on the market. Rhodes, so the story
goes, took him by the arm and said: "Barney, have you ever seen a
bucketful of diamonds? I never have. I'll make a proposition to you. If
these diamonds will fill a bucket, I'll take them all from you at your
own price."

Without giving his rival time to answer, Rhodes swept the glittering
fortune into a bucket which happened to be standing nearby. It also
happened that the stones did not fill it. This incident shows the extent
of the Rhodes resource, for a man at Kimberly told me that Rhodes knew
beforehand exactly how many