es and organised De Beers for the benefit of
his native Britain, but in order to make himself the most powerful man in
South Africa, and yet at the same time shrewdly realised that he could not
be the king he wished to become unless England stood behind him to cover
with her flag his heroic actions as well as his misdeeds.

That Rhodes' death occurred at an opportune moment cannot be denied. It is
a sad thing to say, but for South Africa true enough. It removed from the
path of Sir Alfred Milner the principal obstacle that had stood in his way
ever since his arrival at Cape Town. The Rhodesian party, deprived of its
chief, was entirely harmless. Rhodesian politics, too, lost their strength
when he was no longer there to impose them upon South Africa.

One of the great secrets of the enormous influence which the Colossus had
acquired lay in the fact that he had never spared his money when it was a
question of thrusting his will in directions favourable to his interest.
None of those who aspired to take his place could follow him on that road,
because none were so superbly indifferent to wealth. Cecil Rhodes did not
care for riches for the personal enjoyments they can purchase. He was
frugal in his tastes, simple in his manners and belongings, and absolutely
careless as to the comforts of life. The waste in his household was
something fabulous, but it is a question whether he ever participated in
luxuries showered upon others. His one hobby had been the embellishment of
Groote Schuur, which he had really transformed into something absolutely
fairylike as regards its exterior beauties and the loveliness of its
grounds and gardens. Inside, too, the house, furnished after the old Dutch
style, struck one by its handsomeness, though it was neither homelike nor
comfortable. In its decoration he had followed the plans of a clever
architect, to whose artistic education he had generously contributed by
giving to him facilities to travel in Europe, but he had not lent anything
of his own personality to the interior arrangements of his home, which had
always kept the look of a show place, neither cared for nor properly
looked after.

Rhodes himself felt happier and more at his ease when rambling in his
splendid park and gazing on Table Mountain from his stoep than amidst the
luxury of his richly furnished rooms. Sometimes he would sit for hours
looking at the landscape before him, lost in a meditation which but few
cared to disturb