roofs that the soil responded very readily to civilised
treatment; but the most conclusive proof to me of the capacity of the
soil was furnished by a large market garden laid out in a depression
just outside of the town. From end to end the garden, supplied with
water by a windpump from a well, was a mass of robust European
vegetables, whence cabbages weighing 30 pounds each, and tomatoes of
extraordinary size, have been sent to market. At the Palace Hotel the
hundreds of guests made large demands for vegetables, and there was no
stint of them. Further on towards old Gubulawayo we were attracted by
native women hoeing in a field, and our attention was drawn to the
native fields, which showed by the old corn-stalks that the Matabele
must have found the black earth of the plains gracious to their toils.
Here and there in these villa gardens, market gardens, public
pleasaunces, and ornamental grounds we found sufficient evidences that,
given water, the soil of Rhodesia was equal to supplying anything that
civilised man with his fastidious taste and appetite could possibly
demand.

The Gold of Rhodesia--Something to Satisfy an Anxious Mind.

The next thing to do was to find out something relating to the precious
metal, whose presence in Rhodesia was the immediate cause of the
railway. I remember last session having heard in the Smoking Room of
the House of Commons the most disparaging views regarding the prospects
of Rhodesia and the quality of the reefs. The gold of Rhodesia was said
to be "pocket" gold, and that the ancients, whose presence long ago in
this land is proved by the multitude of old workings and disused shafts,
were too clever to have left any for us moderns. Not knowing how to
controvert such statements, I had left them unanswered, half believing
that they were true. Sir James Sivewright, in his speech on the first
festal night, said that Bulawayo was built upon faith, and the majority
of the guests I discovered held the most doubtful views, and I must
confess little was needed to confirm the scepticism which had been
planted in me in England. But when I heard that there was an exhibition
of ores to be seen in the Hall of the Stock Exchange, I felt that the
Reception Committee had provided for us something more valuable than
banquets--something which should satisfy an anxious mind. Within a
well-lighted, decent-sized hall, on an ample shelf ranged around it, a
few of the mining companies of Rhodesi