ends of Rhodes, however, must surely have felt a keen regret
that he wasted his talents and his energy on those entangled and, after
all, despicable Cape politics. The man was created for something better
and healthier than that. He was an Empire Maker by nature, one who might
have won for himself everlasting renown had he remained "King of
Rhodesia," as he liked to call himself. There, in the vast solitudes which
by his enterprise and foresight had become a part of the British Empire,
he ought to have gone on uninterruptedly in the glorious task of bringing
civilisation to that hitherto unknown land. For such work his big nature
and strange character were well fitted, and his wide-ranging mind
appreciated the extent of the task. As he used to say himself sometimes,
he was never so happy and never felt so free and so much at peace with the
world and with mankind as among the Matoppo Hills.

The statesmanlike qualities which Cecil Rhodes undoubtedly possessed were
weakened by contact with inferior people. It is impossible to create real
politicians and sound ones at the same rapid pace as financial magnates
sprang up at the Cape as well as in the Transvaal. The class who entered
politics had as little real solidity about them as the houses and
dwellings which were built at a moment's notice from corrugated iron and a
few logs. They thought that they understood how to govern a nation because
they had thoroughly mastered the mysteries of bookkeeping in problematical
financial undertakings.

I remember one afternoon when, talking with Rhodes in the grounds of
Groote Schuur, he took me to the summer-house which he had built for
himself, whence one had a beautiful view over the country toward Table
Mountain. He leaned on the parapet of the little observatory which
surmounted the summer-house and lost himself in a day dream which, though
long, I felt I had better not interrupt. I can see his face and expression
still as, with his arms crossed over his chest, he gazed into space,
thinking, thinking, and forgetting all else but the vision which he was
creating in that extraordinary brain of his. I am sure that he remained so
for over twenty minutes. Then he slowly turned round to me and said, with
an accent indescribable in its intensity and poignancy:

"I have been looking at the North, at my own country--"

"Why do you not always remain there?" I exclaimed almost involuntarily, so
painfully did the words strike me.

"Becau