guese, 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.

It was not Cecil John Rhodes' will which was paramount in the South
African League. K